Well done on the great date, with the challenger save too!
My 3 cities were in the same places, but I never went to war and had to settle for 6 cities. I also missed a few key wonders, namely Taj & Sistines.
BOTM67 (Sumeria) - Final Spoiler
- Thread starter Deckhand
- Start date
Well done on the great date, with the challenger save too!
My 3 cities were in the same places, but I never went to war and had to settle for 6 cities. I also missed a few key wonders, namely Taj & Sistines.
Minou
King
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- Apr 19, 2013
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jesusin, I am impressed with your Cultural prowess. May I ask whether you generate all of your Great Artists from a single GP farm or have multiple cities working on GPP? I often get Parthenon and run Philosophy once all the religions are spread, but I don't think I have ever had more than 10 Great Artists from my farm (assuming a quick win with no Biology and no Sushi).
The short answer is all my cities contributed to popping at least one GA each.
This sentence might not be claear enough. I am working on GPP on all of my cities. If I do nothing, the weaker ones will never get a GA, since they are over-run by other cities.
But you can put your strong cities to accumulate food, thus delaying their GPP generation while you starve one of the weak cities. This way, the city gets to pop a GA. Then the strong cities hire artists on food deficit. Once they've burnt the additional food accumulated while they gave way o the weak city, they happen to be in exactly the same state they would have been if I would have done nothing. So not a single GPP is lost.
People who say the late phases of a cultural game consist on pressing enter once and again don't know what they are doing. That's like saying that in a conquest game you should auto-send your units to enemy cities and press enter once and again.
I wrote somewhere about this. I put together several ways to accelerate your GPP generation. Might that be inside my guide?
As for your number of GP, I generally get 20+ GPs on a fast cultural victory.
This game I was slow (more time to get more GPs) but the map was food poor.
Generally you want to move from slavery+OR to Castes+Pacifism as soon as posible. Delaying a single cathedral 10 turns is nothing compared to getting an extra GA.
Goal: Culture Victory, sub 1100 AD (Turn 170).
Using almost entirely espionage of course.
I went for my Constitution/Jail plan. I got Jails around turn 130.
My Seventh Great Spy was due to be born around turn 165 (if I even need that many). The odds are 100% on each spy. I even failed to build the Parthenon! So those spies could come much earlier in the 'Jail' strategy. (don't forget this is also not a PHI leader.)
I missed the deadline, so no submission for me, but I think it was pretty much a no-brainer once I had my birth rate set up.
The map made it very easy to give a city to the AI on the other side of the mountains and then not have any military protect it when I re-capture.
I wrote 'culture victory' in the headline to get attention, but I hope this eventually becomes the new 'Espionage Victory' category.
Congrats to jesusin (probably) on the fastest real Culture victory.
Using almost entirely espionage of course.
I went for my Constitution/Jail plan. I got Jails around turn 130.
My Seventh Great Spy was due to be born around turn 165 (if I even need that many). The odds are 100% on each spy. I even failed to build the Parthenon! So those spies could come much earlier in the 'Jail' strategy. (don't forget this is also not a PHI leader.)
I missed the deadline, so no submission for me, but I think it was pretty much a no-brainer once I had my birth rate set up.
The map made it very easy to give a city to the AI on the other side of the mountains and then not have any military protect it when I re-capture.
I wrote 'culture victory' in the headline to get attention, but I hope this eventually becomes the new 'Espionage Victory' category.
Congrats to jesusin (probably) on the fastest real Culture victory.
Sweet, I was hoping someone would try it with jails.
What was your finish date? I can't seem to pick it out of your post.
I was able to accurately project my spy births and rough possible win date, but I didn't finish. My finish date is only theoretical. You definitely get the fastest finish award. Who knows what might have gone wrong at the end of my game. I really wanted to present my Jail strategy, but I didn't want to try and claim some sort of unofficial award. Congrats!
So, I assume you didn't use jails. Lots of war then with cottaged cities? (I was peaceful).
Please give us a play-by-play (or did I miss it earlier in the thread?) (or is your strategy still top secret?)
So, I assume you didn't use jails. Lots of war then with cottaged cities? (I was peaceful).
Please give us a play-by-play (or did I miss it earlier in the thread?) (or is your strategy still top secret?)
Didn't intend to give you an unofficial award. Wanted to show CtE times. I've edited the congratulations announcement, now it reads:"Kaitzilla demonstrated the date advantage of the Espionage approach with an 1130 AD culture victory (and WastinTime didn't finish a game which he thinks would have beaten 1100 AD). "
That's what I was hoping for. Just to bring some light on the CtE technique. I didn't want my effort to be a complete waste. Thanks for the honorable mention!
Yup, war and then cottaged cities
First war was to get a religious capital (from Darius) since I decided to Oracle Aesthetics instead of Code of Laws. Courthouses are unlocked by Priesthood for Sumeria and I would rather get earlier access to certain wonders than get a religious capital I could just take.
I built The Great Wall in my 2nd city to be my main Great Spy city. Added National Epic to it later for 100% GPP birth rate. The 2nd city got access to stone very fast thanks to Cultural Trait. Had a lot of food too.
Tried to build Stonehenge in my 3rd city but missed it by 1 turn. Then built Oracle there instead.
Shwedagon Paya went in a 4th city and Parthenon in a 5th city.
I tried to spread the wonders around so that nothing but Great Spies and Great Artists would be born.
Tried to get Stonehenge too because I wanted 2 cities to build around 1500
so I could skip generating 2 Great Artists. Since that failed, I used the Oracle city as a gift for 1 of my 3 Legendary cities. It barely had more than 1000 when I gave it away, so it required nearly 30 extra spy missions to get it to Legendary. 82 instead of 52.It actually turned out to be a good thing I missed Stonehenge. The way the math turns out when you are making Great Spies, you are almost guaranteed to birth 1 Great Artist. I now think only 1 out of 3 Legendary cities should be generating their own seed culture. Giving away 1 core city hurt my espionage generation, but giving away 2 would have really hurt.
I now recommend only planning on giving away the Oracle city to be a Legendary city, so be sure it is close to your capital
Don't need Stonehenge. Make sure to build 1 or both wonders very early so their Culture rate can double after 1000 years if you decide you can swing making pure Great Spies.
4 Great Spies and 2 Great Artists were made. Got a 3rd Great Artist from Music.
Didn't want that 3rd Great Artist around T160 because I had already gifted my 3 Legendary cities. Was 55% to get a 5th Great Spy that I really wanted and instead got a Golden Age volunteer 3rd Great Artist.
Cost me a few turns I think. +3000
instantly is way better at that point than +1200 that you get from a Golden age.Teched Literature and Music. Chose Darius to be my Legendary City partner because he teched Civil Service for me on T142 and his low city count meant he couldn't use espionage slider against me.
Also set up and used a Trojan city against Hatshepsut to steal Engineering so I could build castles everywhere which are cheap for Sumeria
Scotland Yard in my capital T140 because I couldn't decide if I wanted 100% more espionage there or just the instant +3000
It ended up generating about 3500
, but could have made a bit more if I had done Scotland Yard when I was first able.So ya, Oracled Aesthetics after getting Bronze Working for an army, got Literature and Music and then saved up 3000-4000 gold waiting for Civil Service so I could run espionage slider, stole the rest of the techs while crying over no tech brokering, switched to Pacifism quite early thanks to Shwedagon Paya, and then chopped forests like crazy and gave Darius the 3 Legendary cities rather early. I got the first doublings of culture done right away with huge spy losses in 2 cities at the same time, but I was making them so fast I keep a steady 50 up until the end when they started dying off. Burned through all but 500 of the saved gold because I couldn't trade stolen techs for gold or build wealth in cities until I got the spies out.
Built 91 spies and had 18 left at the end. Spammed cheap Courthouses early obviously.
I think I hadn't yet discovered that the initial doublings/first dozen or two spy missions should be done at -0% wait bonus. I used -10% wait bonus thinking that gave 84% success. But it should be done at -0% wait bonus as that also gives 84% success.
Have to do 2 Great Spy infiltrations before starting the 1st Legendary City spy missions to get the espionage spending bonus high enough. 2 Legendary cities got Great Artist bombed before being gifted. 1 built its own culture with Oracle.
Math error cost me 1 turn at the end too because I was too lazy to use a calculator and see that I could do a few -40% wait bonus spread culture missions and still have a tiny bit left.
Won the game T173/1130AD and started using 100% espionage slider about 30 turns earlier when I finally got Civil Service/Scotland/decent amount of cottages in my 1 pig capita.
Teching to Jails might be superior with a different/philosophical leader. Especially if you don't get The Great Wall near the start of the game hmm
Thanks for so much detail,Kaitzilla.
I am eager to know more:
- You gifted all 3 cities to the same AI, didn't you?
- How many spy points did you generate in all game long?
- When did you gift your cities? How many turns moving spys around?
- I was surprised to read you stole techs with spys, wasn't that a waste considering the victory date depens on your speed of spy points accumulation?
I am eager to know more:
- You gifted all 3 cities to the same AI, didn't you?
- How many spy points did you generate in all game long?
- When did you gift your cities? How many turns moving spys around?
- I was surprised to read you stole techs with spys, wasn't that a waste considering the victory date depens on your speed of spy points accumulation?
Thanks for so much detail,Kaitzilla.
I am eager to know more:
- You gifted all 3 cities to the same AI, didn't you?
- How many spy points did you generate in all game long?
- When did you gift your cities? How many turns moving spys around?
- I was surprised to read you stole techs with spys, wasn't that a waste considering the victory date depens on your speed of spy points accumulation?
Ya, gave all 3 cities to Darius since he was weak. No way he could get any army there to occupy his new cities or use his espionage slider against me.
I guess I could have spread the 3 gift around so I could steal more techs, but then I'd carefully have to divide my espionage slider up between 3 AI and do way more math.
Generated about 30,000
I'd estimate with 9000 of that coming from Great Spy infiltrations.Na, stealing Engineering and Civil Service are definitely worth it. It costs a few hundred espionage points, but gets you Bureau and castles. I made thousands of extra espionage because of that.
Here is my Log for the last 53 turns. Just use Control+F to search for Legendary City1, Legendary City2, and Legendary City3. That's what I named them hehe.
Looks like I gave the 1st city away on T125.
Part 1: T120 to T132
Spoiler :
Part 3: T148 to T173
That's kind of weird. I'm sure I didn't whip or draft in Legendary City1 on T172. I coveted Nationalism once another AI had it for the last 15 turns of the game, but couldn't aquire it.
Oh ya, Machinery also gives access to windmills, which are also much better than mines for this strategy
Forgot about them until near the end.
Looking at WastinTime's projected results, it appears Jails is certainly very competitive with this variation.
Spoiler :
That's kind of weird. I'm sure I didn't whip or draft in Legendary City1 on T172. I coveted Nationalism once another AI had it for the last 15 turns of the game, but couldn't aquire it.
Oh ya, Machinery also gives access to windmills, which are also much better than mines for this strategy
Forgot about them until near the end.
Looking at WastinTime's projected results, it appears Jails is certainly very competitive with this variation.
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