Cultural/Balseraph strategy broken with v40

[Fragment]

Hi,

playing this sunday as we usually do, I found that the civics tree was changed in version 0.40 so that the sacrifice the weak and liberty civics are now mutually exclusive. This breaks the "evil cultural" strategy I was trying to devise, which works as follows.

The outline of the strategy is off the top of my head, as I have neither the save-game nor my notes on me at the moment. Forgive any omissions

We usually play as noble.

1. After setting up basic defenses and settling your part of the land, set up a cottage based fast-research economy, neglecting offense and defense as far as possible. For example, in the current game I had 1 city producing settlers and workers exclusively and 5 commerce-generating cities of which 2 could act as half-assed production cities to get a minimum of warriors for defense.

2. Research to ashen vale, taxation, mercantilism. After this you should be able to switch to republic, liberty, caste system, and formerly sacrifice the weak, going via god kind and slavery, of course. This gives you smilies, + %culture, culture per specialist, unlimited bards, and LOTS of food.

3. Reseach feudalism and drama for the threatres and wonders. Build or whip/buy these as appropriate, and theatres, monuments, freak shows and temples in each of your designated culture cities if you don't have them already.

4. This is "The Switch": Move the culture slider up as far as possible. Raze all cottages around your designated culture cities, and replace them with farms, completely switching to a specialist economy to produce +10 culture per bard specialist. Some of the other cities should be switched to production cities as gold income allows, to produce troops for defense. Your culture cities should finally arrive at sizes of 27-30, producing ~700 culture/turn.

The problem with the current strategy is gold income, as you cant have unlimited merchants with this civics setup. At least some gold must be produced with cottages, and a cultural slider below 100%, which might drop as low as 70%. That has an impact on the happines production of the theatres, which in turn impacts the happines in the culture cities.

The eventual goal is a cultural win at 350, actually possible was 390 with v034, 370 would have been a goal for this game.

Now that I can't use the sacrifice the weak civic any more, that strategy is broken as I have much lower food resources available, and city growth will be eventually limited by health, not by happiness as it used to be. I expect a final city size in the lower 20, and a cultural production of ~500, which is too low for a cultural victory.

I'm looking for advice, since I would like to salvage the basic strategy, since my only other option for a quick cultural victory seems to be the "good cultural" strategy, which is cottage-based with Kuriotates.

I'm suspecting I'm overlooking something, since the Balseraph civ "feels right" to attempt a cultural victory.

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, on Emperor and Immortal I can get the Kuriotates to win via culture in ~300 turns. I think my best was something like turn 280. That was .34 though.

The belseraphs really do play second fiddle to the taters, due to the need for a large empire to get the tech they need. I would very much NOT suggest wasting time on Ashen Veil, but would go with either Octopus Overlords for a tower of complacency or Fellowship of Leaves for Guardian of Nature. Happiness and Smilies are huge to a cultural victory, because you need a large pop to support bards.

Once you get:
Mercantilism
Hall of Kings
Theatre of Dreams
Caste system

You want to switch three high pop cities to have as many bards specialists as possible (Each producing base 10 culture). Build perhaps a national epic in one city to produce as many great bards as possible.

Wasting time on other techs is likely not worth it. A religion for happiness, and maybe a few other happy techs (Sanitation, Crafting, etc).

 

[Fragment]

So, on Emperor and Immortal I can get the Kuriotates to win via culture in ~300 turns. I think my best was something like turn 280. That was .34 though.

I did a test run with Kuriotates, ~300 sounds about right. Completely "imba". Cultural victory is practically unstoppable in a multiplayer-scenario except if you come up right beside them and constantly war them. And stopping that won't neccessarily net you a win (the winner will probably be the laughing third).

Fellowship of Leaves for Guardian of Nature

I did not know what FoL actually does until I tested it today with the elves (turn 365) and the Kuriotates (turn 319). It has a very nice synergy with cultural victory as GoN allows you to build up to very large city sizes before even touching the cultural slider. The smilies and healthies from forest allow large cities early on, and provide the neccessary healthies for later.

Forget OO, FoL is the way to go. The hardest part will be to leave some forest standing.

So, back to the Balseraph, bloody theatre up in the trees!

 

[KingOfLands]

Myself, I prefer the Kuriotates, and to have BOTH OO and FoL. Though you'll see less benefit from their respective temples the multiplier really starts to add up as the wonders collect in your various cities. Plus, it's nice to know you can have ancient forests OR settlements on any individual tile.

 

[Grey Fox]

I got every religion except CoE last time I played for a cultural win. I had spiritual while I built the temples thanks to Perp's insanity so it worked out nice. 6 x 20% = +120% culture is nice.

 

[phoulishwan]

Now that I can't use the sacrifice the weak civic any more, that strategy is broken as I have much lower food resources available, and city growth will be eventually limited by health, not by happiness as it used to be. I expect a final city size in the lower 20, and a cultural production of ~500, which is too low for a cultural victory.

I'm looking for advice, since I would like to salvage the basic strategy, since my only other option for a quick cultural victory seems to be the "good cultural" strategy, which is cottage-based with Kuriotates.

I'm suspecting I'm overlooking something, since the Balseraph civ "feels right" to attempt a cultural victory.

2 key techs to aim for early as Balseraph for a culture game should be to aim for Animal Hubandry to farm animals. Then Way of the Wicked to open up the slavery civic and get your slave pens going. Filling up all your cage slots as early as possible should be able to sustain excellent cultural growth in your 3 culture cities prior to even starting the wonders. Also don't forget life mana gives +1 health, so make all your mana life nodes to give yourself an extra health boost.

 

[avalonnn]

interesting ideas. I'm interested in the new Kurios. I assume that they're best on an Erebus map?

Also, why FoL and not RoK? Yes, FoL gives you more forests and bigger cities and more health, but RoK gives you more production and gold. On noble, you might be able to build a siginificant portion of the wonders.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Consider it this way Avalonn. The most culture any single wonder gives you, is 10 (Temple of Tolerence or Bone Palace, for instance).

A single Bard Specialist, with hall of kings, theatre of dreams, and the caste system, gives 10 culture.

FoL can give you an extra 15 to 20 (yowza!) happiness, which could, in theory, allow for that many more bards. RoK gives... +1 hammer per mine (If you are in Arete) and a pittance of gold (3 per city for your 3 or so cities is a total of likely 12 to 15 at most. Considering you could have a GNP of ~300 in 200 turns with the tates, this isn't horribly impressive).

Heck, RoK priests also let you get tiger cages in all your cities for a bit more culture there too.

In the end, the city size though is what does it. More plots worked = more enclaves = more Culture when you finally set your culture slider to 80 or 90%. (Faster rate of growth also means you work more cottage squares in a shorter amount of time, which is also pretty important).

Also, I never use the Erebus map script, so I wouldn't know. Pangaea works fine too.

 

[Fragment]

FoL can give you an extra 15 to 20 (yowza!) happiness, which could, in theory, allow for that many more bards.

The happiness is important earlier in the game, not in the final phase when you set your culture slider to 70% or higher. You will have theatres in all relevant cities, and threaters give smilies per culture slider. This is usually enough to cover the final happiness requirements.

Where FoL comes into play in the final phase is healthiness, which severely limits the strategy as outlined in my original request, where I intended to offset healthiness by having so much extra food that healthiness does not matter. This works only with elves or Kuriotates, as only these can afford to let all/some forest standing. All other civs will use agrarianism and have the maximum possible amount of farms.

For the other civs, the key benefit of FoL is happiness and healthiness early in the game, which allows you to grow your cities to considerable size *before* touching the cultural slider, speeding up the all important research-to-mercantilism race a lot, and considerably shortening the growth phase where you set your culture cities to grow for more bard specialists, as the cities are already quite huge in comparision with civs that follow other religions.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, it isn't too unlikely to get 20 happiness from cultural slider at the end, and unless you have a truly obnoxiously large city, that's going to put you where you need to be.

I think Fragment, that the ancient forest boost fairly early after adopting FoL is important too, as it gives your cities a fair bit of extra food, without you having to do much. 3 food 1 production tiles, or 2 food 2 production tiles help grow AND produce at the same time.