Challange #3-Lets get cultural

[idiot_savant]

Going to do one more try... I'm trying to balance between buildings & wonders versus GPP. The highest I got so far is 55k. Cathedrals are nice, but very hard to produce early even with a beeline to Music. As a multiplier, they can be huge. The problem is devoting early resources to missionaries, temples, and possibly monasteries. If you wait, you have to build monasteries; if you try early, you fall behind in other aspects.

Couple of things I've tried thus far to varied impact:
1) Switching to US and buying things can speed up production a lot as Patagonia said. I've been playing around with Great Merchants (via Great Lighthouse) to generate cash and looking for ways to exploit Toku's traits (1/2 Lighthouse build). Generated 2 in one game, got 2k in gold as I didn't have optics yet... In that game, I bought Hermitage and 2 cathedrals (after a little production). However, late on cathedrals impacted the score.

2) If you go for Pyramids and specialist, you can get some wonders relatively easily. The first one I usually get Notre Dame with. Again, this costs some as cities have a hard time producing and generating GPPs. I'm new tho, so probably not doing the SE properly.

3) I agree with everyone else that Great Artists and Liberalism/Nationalism are the key. My fastest time to Liberalism so far is 1290.

Another bonus is using Education to get Civil Service and Machinery. I've did this on my last run on the turn before learning Liberalism and it shortened my time by about 80 years. Major drawback is lack of Bureaucracy at key point in the game.

Hope that helps anyone still trying.

 

[Raiser]

After all my pessimism about going for cathedrals and great artists it worked like a dream in the end.

80863 is the new target to beat.

A couple of false starts. Then I took on board a lot of what was said here, especially by parachute4u. Plus I threw in 3 religions to get the +350%. A bit of starving to get the final GA and I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

Details in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

My main objectives were:

- 100% peace,
- chop/whip rush 3 early settlers,
- and get the copper in the northeast to give me the option to speed cathedrals for either Buddhism, Confucianism or Taoism, as additional religions to the core ‘marble cathedral’ religions,
- Then focus on Great Artists and a rush to Liberalism and The Hermitage.


The beginning was a comprise:
1. The pursuit of religion slowed my growth a bit. Got the 3 strong locations north of the capital by 1500BC for a solid base. 2 on the rivers for cottages and GA’s. One on the coast for copper and 3 extra health resources.

2. The whipping of settlers slowed my goal of 3 religions. I ended up with Buddhism in the capital, Hinduism from spread and I had to snatch Christianity for a third. Which I’m glad I did because I didn’t get any more by spread as most were on the other continent.

3. My focus on settlers and teching religion meant I missed the early wonders, The Parthenon and The Oracle, by a long way. But I managed to keep at 80% or more Research until I stopped in 1260AD, so the Oracle wasn't missed too much. The eventual religions +50% buildings and solid locations snatched for GA farms made sacrificing the early Wonders worthwhile.



- Managed to keep the peace for the entire game by generous trading and swapping between my 3 religions.

- That gave me the option of zero military build except for a few archers for hereditary happiness.

- Once I felt confident about the peace I traded some luxuries for health and built a few more archers to balance the happiness. (The 6 longbowmen I got all came from the 3 cities that I culture flipped as I built close to the Arab/Malinese boarders.)

- I chose to disband those three cities, which where poor locations, but had built one more late southern cottage city back in 300AD to ramp up the tech.

- Religion was the kicker. A bit of trade spread, missionaries from Org Rel and 1 or 2 from a missionary building. I kept it to 3 cities for the 3 religions, knocked out the 9 temples and 3 cathedrals in the capital by 1300AD. Decided to send missionaries the Malinese to keep them off my back, as they were matching me for tech's and resources.

- At 1260AD after Liberalism I abandoned all research. I had already got Nationalism to start the Hermitage early. So with Lib I had taken the solid Printing Press for my free tech.

- A combination of the Printing Press Cottage cities, swapping to wealth in all my secondary cities and selling all my remaining techs to the 6 rivals (I had traded for Optics and sent 1 caravel) allowed me to stay at 100% culture slider from 1260 to 1600AD.

- My capital city Wonders were The Hermitage, National Epic, Taj and The Sistine (which as well as the +2’s for the specialists also jumped from +10 to +20 by the end. Not sure why.) All this and 8 artists in a 24 pop capital and +350% gave me about 620/turn at it’s peak.

- As parachute4u suggested I starved my GA cities in the end to bring my final Great Artists total to about 15.


Giving me a figure of 80863 at 1600AD.

It was a real struggle. I am now even more impressed by those peaceniks that manage the 3x50000 culture victories.

I’m sure somebody will beat it by Sunday, but it is a real uphill battle. If by some miracle the 80863 stays in the top slot I’d like to take the winners privilege of nominating the next challenge. Cheeky to mention it now but I might not be able to post again until the weekend.

We’ve had Land, Religion and Culture so my vote for next up is Wealth .

Perhaps a variant of Switzerland as suggested by cabert. Link

How about Greedy Ghandi.

Highest total treasury by 1600AD. The Indian leader on Prince difficulty. A spacious Pangaea. Arid in climate. Large in size. But with only 4 AI nations.

Plenty of space for those fast workers to shine, but an arid desert land to make city location critical. Plus the irony that the other four leaders all have the financial trait. Cruel, but fun.


Anyhow the privilege of nominating a challenge goes to the eventual winner, not the would-be winner.




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[cabert]

80863 is the new target to beat.


Perhaps a variant of Switzerland as suggested by cabert. Link

How about Greedy Ghandi.
Highest total treasury by 1600AD.

seems we are touching the soft spot now. I have the feeling this will be hard to be beat. And I didn't have time yet for even one try

and about next challenge, we had a gold/turn challenge already, but i think total gold is something new

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Raiser, regarding one of the comments in your spoiler, culture from any building doubles when it's 1000 years old. So in this challenge, any cultural building you can complete before around 300 to 400 AD (early enough for the culture to double and give you some turns where it matters) is worth rushing.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

and about next challenge, we had a gold/turn challenge already, but i think total gold is something new

I think it would be quite different. Total accumulated gold has a lot of implicit effects on your strategy. For example,

• you probably don't want to do any unit upgrades
• you probably don't want to buy any technologies, but you definitely want to sell all of your own technologies, even at a loss
• you probably want to sell your resources for gold, maybe even if it costs you some happiness or health
• you might be willing to research at an extremely slow pace, becoming rather backward, in order to save cash
• ... probably lots more

I suggest that if you do a total gold challenge, you should forbid the technique where you gift the AI some gold per turn, trade a resource to get that same gold per turn back, then later revoke the gold per turn gift while keeping the resource trade in place. Even if it's not forbidden, you at least need to make sure you have a firm policy on it.

 

[Raiser]

Raiser, regarding one of the comments in your spoiler, culture from any building doubles when it's 1000 years old.

Thanks, Dr E.

Having never gone for the cultural side of things before I was blissfull unware of this. But I had a couple of Wonders built before the 600AD deadline ... that I didn't even know was there ... so ever little helped.

 

[cabert]

well, even without the 1000 years thing, for every cultural building, earlier is better (more turns to cash in)

 

[idiot_savant]

80863 is the new target to beat.

Gratz, nice work! That is going to be hard to beat.

 

[Lynxx]

Welcome to the forum williamh2 and congrats to a nice finish.

Lets all bow to the mighty cultural (maniac) Raiser!
That is a fine score indeed. Will be very hard to beat.
I am feeling a bit bad about the fact that I havent even given the game a try yet, as the founder of the thread is expected to do, but there has been plenty for me to do lately.

 

[parachute4u]

well, cathedrals are the kicker if you have them early enough

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I gave it another try

84381 is probably still not the maximum you can get in this scenario

Spoiler :

After 3 attempts to set up another city as a G-Artist farm (and developing the capital into a cottage place), I made one more try with the plan in mind to build the pyramids for a change...

I founded hinduism and judaism in the capital while building work boat (grow to 2), worker, settler there.

After that I founded my 2nd city next to the wheat, starting on the pyramids there. My worker built some roads on the forests in the meantime to chop the pyramids AND the oracle for this 2nd city. My capital started on the Parthenon until it hit the happiness cap, then I build 2 more workers and a settler. The third city got founded south next to the sheep and the iron.

I completed the pyramids, hooked up marble and completed the oracle in no time, picking theology as my free tech.

Actually nothing went according to the plan in this game.
I was planning to pop a GP from the oracle (for CoL) and build a temple in the oracle city to run a priest specialist there. My GP turned out to be dressed like a great engineer and behaved like one, wanting to research metal casting for me, not Code of laws. So I parked that guy in the capital to rush a stone wonder later.

I build a library in the 3rd city, but it took forever and did not give me philosophy via the great scientist, cause there was no great scientist, when Mansa founded Daoism.

My 2nd great person from the pyramids/oracle city was a great prophet however, so I used him to research 99% of civil service (guess I was lacking monarchy and lucked out on that one)

So research was mysticism->polytheism->masonry->judaism->agriculture->animal husbandry->mining->bronze working->writing->alphabet
traded for pottery(!), archery, iron working, sailing and the like ->literature->paper (cause no-one wanted to trade mathematics to me) -> music (got interrupted by Great prophet popping most of CS -> nationalism -> education -> liberalism -> printing press
I traded for everything else (philosophy and CoL being the most important techs, that I did not manage to get myself via GP)

On the religious front, all looked perfect, when Saladin adopted Judaism. Seeing that Mansa lacked any religion whatsoever I delayed my 4th settler to build a missionary for him. The turn he arrived at his borders, Mansa converted to Judaism. Nice! (I was thinking....) The missionary went to Mansa's capital and spread the faith there. I build another one later for Saladin, cause I knew he had only one jewish city, and I did not want to take any risks to see him change religion... When he was finally on his way to Arabia, Saladin converted to hinduism. Oh-oh.... The turn my missionary saw Saladin's capital then, I got kicked out, Saladin canceled all deals and adopted theocracy, which I had foolishly traded to him... I sort of panicked and converted to hinduism myself. It was no bid deal, cause my capital was the founding city of hinduism of course, but Judaism had spread by itself, while hinduism required some more missionaries to be useful as a state religion. Later on, I convinced Mansa in a tech trade to convert to hinduism too. But he changed to taoism later, so we were not on good terms most of the game.

Luckily Mansa attacked Hatshepsut around ( I have no idea, 1000AD ??) and kept fighting with her until the end.

Because I had been busy founding religions and building (well, chopping!) wonders early game, I had not been building any military whatsoever. The rice and cow spot top-left of the marble had been settled by barbs, the gem-spot was occupied by saladin, when I completed the oracle. So I founded a city to the west for fish, one city in the hills to the east for military/just to found one more city, so I had 1 culture city, 1 production city (for missionaries), 1 claim- the-iron-and-build-some-cottages city to the south and 2 junk towns. I managed to spread my three religions as fast as possible and build temples like a desperate civ-player trying to beat 80K culture in not so many turns. In spite of my religious / city placement troubles, I got to Music in 375AD and completed the Hermitage ridiculously early (I discovered nationalism 840AD and it took 10 turns to build) It took roughly the same time (until 840) to build the required temples for my first cathedral (the hindu one).
I adopted pacifism in 680 AD, because there were no missionaries(organized religion) necessary at that time.

After the Hermitage I completed my Hindu Mandir and started on the Taj Mahal.

3 turns from completion of the Taj Mahal I finally discovered liberalism in 1190 AD. I revolted to free speech and universal suffrage (finally!), had to trade for luxuries, because the representation bonus was gone and turned off research to accumulate some gold. I rushed a market with some of the gold, completed the Taj Mahal, rushed a Jewish Synagogue, rushed some Daoist temples, popped a GE from the pyramids and burned it on a christian cathedral, i rushed my 4th cathedral, rushed a harbor and later a grocer and put my cities on wealth (and one on military, cause Saladin had converted to Islam)

In the end, Kyoto was generating 1170 culture/turn and about 100 GP-points.

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Puh...

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I am sure someone can score more, but I doubt it is possible using a radically different approach. I think patagonia deserves a special trophy for being the first one to use that strategy.

Thanks to everyone else, sharing their thoughts and strategies too. -- Using the Great Prophet for CS helped a lot for example, cause the capital rocked in this game...

the save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/39198/Challange_3-culture_AD-1600-3.Civ4SavedGame

 

[patagonia]

The bar's really being raised now.

I'm glad parachute4u and Raiser have proved my initial prediction of topping 80K correct

 

[Raiser]

Well done Parachute!



All the key wonders, very fast on Liberalism, while getting enough religion to reach +400%. A great build.

I was surprised to see the 2 super artists instead of 2 more culture bombs.

I'd done some thumbnail calculations based on a +14 super artist and a generous +200% for the 1st half of their life and +400% for the remainder. That means that if they were born in 960AD they would generate 4032 by 1600AD. Ok, you do get the +3/turn, but I still went for culture bombs with my first GA to be on the safe side. But it obviously worked for you. Grats.



Hmm, you've motivated me to have one more go. But I'm going to try a different strategy and keep pushing it whether it competes with the 80Kers or not.

Look out Saladin here I come. Ready or not.




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[Killroyan]

84K, holy crap, that is a lot. Nice work Parachute4u.

About greedy Ghandi. I agree with DrE about the money exploit. That should be strictly forbidden or totally allowed if it is too difficult to stop. BTW a specialist economy comes to mind for this variant with lots of merchant/scientist and a 0% research rate.

 

[parachute4u]

I'd done some thumbnail calculations based on a +14 super artist and a generous +200% for the 1st half of their life and +400% for the remainder. That means that if they were born in 960AD they would generate 4032 by 1600AD. Ok, you do get the +3/turn, but I still went for culture bombs with my first GA to be on the safe side. But it obviously worked for you. Grats.

I did some reconstruction through the turn log of civ: Turns out you are right in adding them right away:

375AD : Homer is born
375-700 = 15 turns
680 thespis is born

700 - 800 5
800 - 1000 10
1000-1030 3
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33 turns without bonus: 33*14 = 460

1030 hermitage -1060 (Hindu mandir) : 3turns*14*2=84
1060 hindu mandir-1200(est. completion of 2nd cathedral)=14turns*14*2,5=14*35=490
1200-1350 15 turns with 2 cathedrals= 15turns*14*3 = 15*42 = 630
1350-1600=35 turns with 4 cathedrals = 35turns*14*4=35*56=1960
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1960+630+490+84+460=3624 for the first born GA Homer
3428 for the 2nd born Thespis

Glad I only added my first two. They helped to run science at 90% though (and they were researching themselves under representation )

edit Oh, I forgot about liberalism!!
Adopted free speech in 1200AD, so it should be
1200-1600 50 turns with a bonus of +100% = +700
for both of them: 4324 for Homer and still 196 less for Thepsis.

Puh, glad I saved their honor

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

edit Oh, I forgot about liberalism!!
Adopted free speech in 1200AD, so it should be
1200-1600 50 turns with a bonus of +100% = +700
for both of them: 4324 for Homer and still 196 less for Thepsis.

Puh, glad I saved their honor

But as you pointed out, they were both contributing cash that allowed you to research more quickly. How much more quickly is hard to say, but if they allowed you to get a few critical technologies (particularly Liberalism and Nationalism or maybe Theology) earlier, then it's conceivable that they indirectly made up that additional 196 culture somehow. For example, if you got Liberalism just 1 turn earlier, you could make the case that the merged artists earned you an extra 100% of all your culture for that turn, not just an extra 100% of their own contributed culture.

If I"m calculating this correctly (I should just look at the save), by the final turn of the game you were making about 167 base culture per turn (1070 / (100% + 400% cathedrals + 100% Hermitage + 100% Free Speech)). So I think that backs up the theory. If you got Liberalism 1 turn earlier, the artist was very close to paying for himself just from that. If you got it 2 turns early or if you got any other cultural benefit 1 turn earlier, he was easily worth it.

One more example ... what if you got Theology one turn earlier and thus got Sistine Chapel one turn earlier. That's one extra turn of 10 culture from the wonder plus one extra turn of 3 culture from each specialist plus whatever bonuses you had in place at the time. That's a big contribution that the artist really deserves credit for, if his cash was a factor in your research speed.

 

[Raiser]

Sounds like you were absolutely right to put Theps & Homer to work. D'Oh!

Although I don't agree 100% with your calculations - x12 until Sistine. But you did get The Oracle to Theology early, so Sistine can't have been far behind.

I'd still go with 2 or 3 super specialist now that you've expanded on my thumbnail calcs. I'm all about the thumbnails.


My new and radically different strategy is proving a hard sell. I might let it die in its infancy.



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[carl corey]

Wow, you guys have way too much time on your hands. I hope to try it tomorrow for a first time without looking at your strategies and see where I land. And then I might have time for another run during the weekend. Oh, and I saw a ~84000 in this thread. I guess all pressure is off since there's no way I'll reach that.

 

[Betafor]

I've tried twice without sucess-Actually i did really good until knights showed up - was running around 78000 in 15 something - then I got spamashed by saladin.

So, i'll sit this one out and wait for the next one.

 

[Raiser]

Good try with the 78K Betafor. Saladin's a bugger if you settle toward him. Trying a different tact at the moment and keeping the peace is a lot harder without the 3 religions that I used in my previous try. I hope this one is a contender for the top half of the field.

Not quite sure what the field of play is at the moment. The personal bests that have been posted so far breakdown like this:

1st.......84381.......Parachute4u
2nd.......80863.......Raiser

3rd.......68646.......Patagonia

4th.......63808.......Scherbchen

5th.......57235.......Idiot Savant

6th.......46368.......Voice of Reason

(Scores Edited 8th Sept)


Idiot Savant has got a 57k and Williamh2 has got a 53k so far, but haven't posted a save yet.

If I've missed anybody let me know.

If you've got a score but haven't posted it yet because it didn't beat Parachute's 84K, post it below and I'll edit a proper Top 10 Personal Bests So Far. It would be nice to give people a 'players average' as a secondary target.

The more the merrier. So if you've been lurking and not posting. Come on in a say hello.





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[mice]

The more the merrier. So if you've been lurking and not posting. Come on in a say hello.




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Hello ! I cant beat these scores !! but hello