Civ V Beta 1

[DrakenKin]

Has been great reading all the experiences to get to a fast cultural victory. It's quite unsettling to discover, though, that the most efficient way to win culturally is to stomp your way through the civs making puppet states.

Did the designers intend this or is it an exploit of the new game mechanics they didn't foresee? It just seems thematically broken that this would be the fastest way to culture victory. After all, if you're militarily dominant enough to make all those puppet states, you would probably win quicker just going for Domination. The fastest way to one victory condition shouldn't ever be via intentionally ignoring another easier one on the way...

Don't forget we are playing on prince

On higher difficulties without the happiness bonus I suspect we will have to make do with less cities and less conquest, and from my experience you can still finish at a decent time with only 3 puppets.

 

[Rockin_T]

Finally! Late but its a win.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, I have updated the standings. 81 entries currently. Top three times are 1555, 1560 and 1600 belonging to Neuro, pagh80 and Sarassin respectively. Top 10 is 1725 currently and top 50 1961. There are some entries that don't have a finish date in the submission so will have to wait until I load up the saves to check until the times are revealed.

Going to abandon my current attempt, all was going well but got declared on by Napolean, the only AI left on my continent. Can start with a fresh approach!!

 

[DaviddesJ]

Has been great reading all the experiences to get to a fast cultural victory. It's quite unsettling to discover, though, that the most efficient way to win culturally is to stomp your way through the civs making puppet states. Did the designers intend this or is it an exploit of the new game mechanics they didn't foresee?

In most versions of Civilization and for most victory conditions, the fastest route to victory has generally been to first conquer everyone else and then achieve victory. So it wouldn't be too surprising if that were true here as well.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Has been great reading all the experiences to get to a fast cultural victory. It's quite unsettling to discover, though, that the most efficient way to win culturally is to stomp your way through the civs making puppet states.

Did the designers intend this or is it an exploit of the new game mechanics they didn't foresee?

In most versions of Civilization and for most victory conditions, the fastest route to victory has generally been to first conquer everyone else and then achieve victory. So it wouldn't be too surprising if that were true here as well.

I'm pleased you the used the qualification "most victory conditions". For example, I see no way that a BtS 3.19 Deity Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory win could be done quicker via Warfare than via Peaceful means.

However, your statement perhaps went too far by saying "conquer everyone". If you literally did mean "conquer everyone", you would have a Conquest Victory which may not be the Victory Condition you planned to win by. Also, in Civ IV and some Victory Conditions at least, it may be better to not attack and crush (nearly) all Opponents, so one has some good trading partners. Again, this effect is most noticeable at Deity level where the AI Opponents are researching at a much more favorable Noble level handicap.

If you had said "conquer nearly everyone" rather than "conquer everyone", I would not have commented on your post at all.

Although, I would hardly consider a Prince level Cultural Gauntlet sufficient data to extend such a statement to Civilization V, I must agree that Civilization V looks like it will be a great boon to the warmongering players, not despite the single military unit per tile rule, but because of it and true ranged units. Human players have a strong upper hand in Civilization V Warfare, not just simply due to their superior tactical capabilities, but mainly because the AI has proven to have very poor tactical capabilities. It remains to be seen whether the AI tactical module will improve in subsequent patches of Civilization V and become a challenge to a competent Player.

I predict that Civilization V Warfare will be so overwhelmingly unbalanced that it will completely ruin the game for players that prefer a peaceful approach. Civ IV will prove to have a far better balance between purely Warmongering approaches and purely Peace mongering approaches than Civ V for a long time to come (at least 1-2 years).

Thank you for your slightly brash statement. Sometimes a small mistake helps to draw others into the conversation as it did with me.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Lexad]

CivV so far looks fairly primitive, forcing everyone into puppeting AI and abusing CS, whatever the victory condition. Then it boils down to who has the most lucky start, etc. Still, must commend pagh and Neuro on developing the strategy and implementing it - I see little to add there so far. Or maybe we will find something breakthrough, like it was several times in CivIV cultural games. Yet I do not see the variability of CivIV, allowing several playstyles to achieve fastest victories in various conditions, from purely peaceful to military sushi-based.

Hopefully I will manage to generate a good location one day, takes ~5min per one so far ). The last one was with 4 AI, captured 2 early, with over 10 CS - and no maritime.

 

[Willburn]

3 cities and some puppets. Went for "tripple AAA" with acustics, Astronomy then Archelogy.

Settled on marble to build wonders quicker. Bought warriors then upgraded them instead of buying swordsmen (290 gold vs 400+)

Landmarked x 4 times in capitol.

Traded gold to my opponents to give them enough to make research treaties.

Still ended in 327 turns

 

[Xicivilian]

Btw i read in another post that to calculate if a road is economically feasable, you just need to do a simple calculation
city size * 1.25 - the road tiles needed.
Example: For a size 4 city this means it will bring 4*1.25 = 5 gold if connected to the capital.
That also means if its more than 5 tiles(6 with arabia) away wait to make the road.

And thanks for the tips about the roads! I was wondering how to build these damn roads. Now I know.

Is that calculation true? Where did you read it? Because in the manual it says the amount is determined by the population of the connected city. In addition you receive +2 gold for each trade route due to unique trait. So a size 4 provides 6 gold, so when it's 6 hexes away you have to build 5 roads and it's still profitable.

 

[iggymnrr]

Brutal Game:

Well I just finished a very brutal 1675 game. Map setting: low sea level. Ouch! Barbs galore. Unlocked Patronage then 20 minimum, unlock Freedom then 100%, Unlock Rationalism for GA, Unlock Order then to 50% and save up. Only one nearby AI an no military CS nearby. Prepared for war early but barbs slowed things down greatly. Had no qualms about research agreements, signed 4 and 2 would run their course. Can't count on AI to lay off my CSs so I had no qualms breaking the agreements. Never stopped fighting the whole game.

Tactic: scout upgrade overseas and found a couple CSs workers held hostage, returned them only to see them recaptured ... great way to save money.

This thing may be doable without using Tradition at all. I didn't use it this game. Finished Rationalism for the hydro power. Also don't worry about puppets building barracks/armories.

 

[Joel E]

OCC. Had a tonne of fun selling all those Magical Horseys. Allied every city state, bought every science and cultural building and built most of the decent wonders. Saved up some CP for freedom. I still don't win as fast as some of you guys?

Culture gets a bit dull by the end. Once Utopia was built I finished off with a 10 turn Mech Infanty campaign just for kicks. I was taking out cities in one turn with one unit! No fun in that.

Look forward to the next one. I will try not to cheat this time

 

[pagh80]

CivV so far looks fairly primitive, forcing everyone into puppeting AI and abusing CS, whatever the victory condition. Then it boils down to who has the most lucky start, etc. Still, must commend pagh and Neuro on developing the strategy and implementing it - I see little to add there so far. Or maybe we will find something breakthrough, like it was several times in CivIV cultural games. Yet I do not see the variability of CivIV, allowing several playstyles to achieve fastest victories in various conditions, from purely peaceful to military sushi-based.

Hopefully I will manage to generate a good location one day, takes ~5min per one so far ). The last one was with 4 AI, captured 2 early, with over 10 CS - and no maritime.

I agree that it seems too luckbased atm.
First of all its a shame that just having 1 city with a bunch of puppets is(seems) like the approach. I hope they will make the culture penalty for getting more than 1 city, smaller.

Second of all: Cultured CS simply have too much of an impact atm. If you are doing a game with only 2-3 cultured CS there is no way you will be able to break the 1600 barrier. On the other hand if you have all 8 cultured CSs in your game, you are well on the way to get a good finish date.

Id say, for a cultured victory it should actually be allowed to play with the max amount of CSs. This way each game will have 8 cultured CSs, and therefore be much less luckbased.

Is that calculation true? Where did you read it?

Tried to find the thread but could'nt.

Because in the manual it says the amount is determined by the population of the connected city.

Thats also what i meant with my example. The size of your capital doesnt matter i believe.

 

[Xicivilian]

That's true, it only depends on the other city. The bigger or the closer, the better. I'm going to check it in the game, to find out what formula is used.

 

[erajah]

I agree that it seems too luckbased atm.
First of all its a shame that just having 1 city with a bunch of puppets is(seems) like the approach. I hope they will make the culture penalty for getting more than 1 city, smaller.

Second of all: Cultured CS simply have too much of an impact atm. If you are doing a game with only 2-3 cultured CS there is no way you will be able to break the 1600 barrier. On the other hand if you have all 8 cultured CSs in your game, you are well on the way to get a good finish date.

Id say, for a cultured victory it should actually be allowed to play with the max amount of CSs. This way each game will have 8 cultured CSs, and therefore be much less luckbased.

I totally agree with this actually. Just for the record, I have a game slated for a turn 219 finish (1545 AD), but I technically haven't finished it yet. I'm only stating this right now because I might not finish it for a while, and I'd feel dirty if I won but didn't submit until near the end of the challenge. Turn 206, I have Utopia Project unlocked and it'll take me 13 turns to finish it. Saved it there, and will finish later if it's my best. I thought my start wasn't the greatest, but I decided to keep playing because it was an interesting game. Used Horseman to conquer a nearby Civ and then started getting ridiculously lucky. First GP from a CS was a Great Engineer, used to rush Sistine Chapel. Finished Astronomy a little after turn 100, and when I sent out all my Horseman to find CS, I ended up finding EIGHT cultural City States. Not only that, but the other CIVS I found had tonnes of gold too, which is something that I don't normally find. On Prince, they're usually starved on gold I find, so by around turn ~135, I was allied with all 8 cities states, and had 3 research agreements to boost my science up. Had biology as well, so I was getting 160 CpT from just the city states, compared to the piddly 60 I was getting from my cities.

Needless to say, I had a weak start -- I remember getting very few ruins, which is why I felt slow, but I got lucky that Germany built to 3 cities quickly, and Washington built a city between Germany and I, so I managed to get 5 cities real quickly once I had horsemen. I use the 2-5-2 in policies that most people here are using before I save up for Cristo. I'm surprised so many people talk about not getting the 2 in Tradition. I'm not sure how people can play without the +33% Wonder Construction, or not having Marble to start. My opening build for the first 100 turns is something like Scout/Worker/Warrior/StoneHenge/Library(bought)/National College/Great Library/Oracle/Horsemanx3/ That's 4 wonders in there probably taking about 50 turns, so not only does it save you turns, it also makes sure you don't throw away a monster start where you pop 6 ruins because you got beat to the GL or Oracle.

Edit -- I also discovered a neat Research Agreement trick, which may or may not be known, or I could even be wrong, for that matter. Not an exploit, like where you declare war (getting fixed in next patch), to get the Research Agreement immediately, but it looks like Research Agreements tend to favour techs that you haven't put beakers into. Which kinda makes sense, because if you're one turn away from researching X, and the RA gives it to you, you'd be pretty pissed. On the other hand, this allows for some creative ways to shave off turns on your research. Let's say the only things you can research are Chivalry (cheap), Printing Press (medium), Chemistry (good) and Metallurgy (useless), and your RA finishes after 3 turns. You can put one turn each into Chivalry, Printing Press, and Metallurgy, and then the RA will give you Chemistry. In this example, you only save a few turns, but if this trick indeed works, you might be able to get an early RA to give you a tech you're intending to beeline.

 

[Temo]

turn 308/1876 AD-- My third and last try (first two were without reading the thread, and I finished in 499/450 turns respectively).

I think I did most of what people here recommended, though I got beat to GL, made contact with only 3 cultural CS, and only got the Wonder policy and the first two in Patronage before I started saving.

If I implemented a better research strategy, chose more policies before saving up, and found more cultural states, I know I could get down to the 1500's, but 3 tries is enough for me

 

[DonChipotle]

Edit -- I also discovered a neat Research Agreement trick, which may or may not be known, or I could even be wrong, for that matter. Not an exploit, like where you declare war (getting fixed in next patch), to get the Research Agreement immediately, but it looks like Research Agreements tend to favour techs that you haven't put beakers into. Which kinda makes sense, because if you're one turn away from researching X, and the RA gives it to you, you'd be pretty pissed. On the other hand, this allows for some creative ways to shave off turns on your research. Let's say the only things you can research are Chivalry (cheap), Printing Press (medium), Chemistry (good) and Metallurgy (useless), and your RA finishes after 3 turns. You can put one turn each into Chivalry, Printing Press, and Metallurgy, and then the RA will give you Chemistry. In this example, you only save a few turns, but if this trick indeed works, you might be able to get an early RA to give you a tech you're intending to beeline.

Very interesting. I noticed RA's never give you the tech you are currently researching (unless you only have one tech available). You're right that it would suck and I'm sure the developers implemented this logic for that reason.

It seemed like there was a penalty for ignoring the bottom of the tech tree because you couldn't use RA's to as much benefit...but knowing this....

 

[pagh80]

Edit -- I also discovered a neat Research Agreement trick, which may or may not be known, or I could even be wrong, for that matter. Not an exploit, like where you declare war (getting fixed in next patch), to get the Research Agreement immediately, but it looks like Research Agreements tend to favour techs that you haven't put beakers into. Which kinda makes sense, because if you're one turn away from researching X, and the RA gives it to you, you'd be pretty pissed. On the other hand, this allows for some creative ways to shave off turns on your research. Let's say the only things you can research are Chivalry (cheap), Printing Press (medium), Chemistry (good) and Metallurgy (useless), and your RA finishes after 3 turns. You can put one turn each into Chivalry, Printing Press, and Metallurgy, and then the RA will give you Chemistry. In this example, you only save a few turns, but if this trick indeed works, you might be able to get an early RA to give you a tech you're intending to beeline.

This is great if it works. Thank you for the tip.
The only complain i have about RA is that it feels very luckbased. Will you get a useful tech or a useless? I hate anything which involve luck in a Civ game, so this will be really nice if it works.

 

[iggymnrr]

^
I've gotten printing press 1 turn away from completion when gunpowder was wide open.

 

[Denniz]

Better date but too many screwup towards the end. I got Freedom and Cristo in the late 1700s but didn't have enough culture to win until 1952. At least I made it a little harder for Ozbenno to beat my date.

 

[iggymnrr]

Comment regarding no tradition. I guess I don't plan on building a lot of wonders, but buy culture. Of course cows are a 3-f city center which I have yet to see to settle on.

Edit: With huts on even monster starts get scotched. GL or Oracle by turn 50-55. 33% wonder construction is no safety net.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Id say, for a cultured victory it should actually be allowed to play with the max amount of CSs. This way each game will have 8 cultured CSs, and therefore be much less luckbased.

Agreed, one must be able to play with the maximum number of City States, so every game could have all eight Cultural City States. The Total Limit of 16 City States is far too limiting and makes this Gauntlet more a Lottery than a Game of Skill with regard to final Rankings.

Sun Tzu Wu