Hi, I have been thinking hard about best possible cultural game for more than a year and I have been always beaten by WastinTime and Lexad. I have tried lots of different strategies and I have been reporting my progress here, in different threads. Today I have taken the #1 position in the std quick cultural deity table with a 1280AD far-from-optimal game.
I was playing aimlessly, since it was a failed trial for a hammer-rich game that had become a not-so-hammer-rich, Taoism-failed-by-1-turn, 1-single-religion game. I have got used to finish all my cultural games, maybe it is a waste of time, but I have learned new things that way. I was thinking that would be my last game with Eliz, since she couldn’t get any religion for me. I was shocked when I absent-mindedly made my estimation for victory date for the first time in 1085AD (shame on me, had I made that sooner I could have shaved a good 5 turns). I had only put 6 hours into the game (usually they take me 12 hours) and I spent 1 more hour just optimizing the final 10 turns (are you one of those who just press enter once and again in the end game? you are not really playing the game then, you don’t know what you are missing!).
I feel embarrassed when I think of someone opening the save and looking into my game. You will find lots of wasted hammers into half-produced useless-short-term buildings.
Anyway, let's tell about the game a let's ask ourselves why this is the best game in its category.
*Vanilla, Quick, Deity, inner lake, 6 rivals (no Gandhi), no barbs. Wheat+pigs+gems riverside start.
*Cities: Only 6 (4 by 1000BC, 6 by 1AD).
*Copper, marble or stone: none of them
*Wonders: none at all
*Missionaries built: 2
*Religions founded: none at all
*Religions spread: one in the BC, one in 1000AD, one in the last turn, total three, only 1 really useful.
*Cathedrals: only 3 (by now you must be thinking I am kidding. I am not).
*GP: 15. 2GS lighbulbed Philo and Educ. 13 GA were bombed (3-3-7). All of them were born with a 100% probability, I knew what I wanted.
*Civics: slavery and OR first, for the missionary-temples-cathedrals explosion that never happened. Then Bureau+HeRu. Then FreeSp+CS+Pacifism. Near the end, FreeMarket too.
*TechPath: Agri+AH for development, then Pottery and Alphabet, then Col and Philo, then CS and Liberalism, taking Nationalism and stopping research in 55BC.
*Tech trading: As you already know, in a Deity game you trade 3 times. The first time is Alphabet. I wasn’t very successful in my game, only got Maths+IW+Priest and their pre-requisites. In other games I have got Monarchy or Currency or Calendar too. The second time is when you are sure you will win the Liberalism race and you trade away CoL+CS+Philo. I did fine this game, getting the three post Maths, Machinery, Lite… The third time is when you give away every single tech. I was nice too, I got Print, Economy and a lot of money.
*Stats 1000AD: multipliers 3-3,5-2. Cpt 500-500-200. Total GPPpt 300.
*Capital: wheat+pigs+gems+2dyes+plenty of green tiles. Heavily cottaged, but started using cottages quite late (500BC or 1AD). At the end it had 20 pop, with 3 10commerce traderoutes. 2 cathedrals.
*Second city: It was not legendary. I put it next to a horses tile and it was worked for the whole game. It was pop=3 90% of the game. It was very useful, it was producing settlers and workers all BC years. At the end I tried to pop a GA there without success, 1000GPPpt wasted!
*Second Legendary city: Floodplains, lots of them. Heavily cottaged. Hammer poor, only 2 hills. It took ages to build the Hermitage there. 1 cathedral too. It worked its cottages non-stop, as I didn’t hardly whip here. It had –5 health at the end.
*Third Legendary city: My GPfarm. Fish, cow, 2FP. Doesn’t sound impressive? With some farmed grasslands it was able to sustain 8 specialists.
*The other two: they just built 1 temple! They helped popping a few GA, though.
Other interesting facts:
- Only opened borders to religion-founding AIs. I had been dowed in my last two games and I didn’t want to show my weakness more than necessary.
- Having only 1 commerce resource in the capital and having to get AH myself to make use of the pig meant that I got a late Alphabet (I usually get it before 2000BC).However, quick settlers and quick workers made me get to Liberalism sooner than usual (I usually get it 200AD-400AD).
- Around 500BC I got bored of waiting for religions to spread, so I used my missionaries and declared a state religion. No artist had been hired at that point.
Why is this the best game so far?
I really don’t know. I wish I had been more serious about this game, and I had taken notes as I used to do. There are some factors that I think have helped:
- The immediate-hammer-rich second city. It was a pathetic city long-term, no doubt. But it freed my legendary cities from producing settlers and workers (and missionaries later, if I had had a religion to spread).
- 2 cottage cities, 1 GPfarm. No culture wasted from the specialists, no need for 9 cities.
- 2 food resources in the capital. I used to play only 1corn+2gold or 2gems+1rice starts. Food is power. The early years fly, you have to make the most of them.
- Plains-hill start. If you are going for the fastest finish, you shouldn’t accept a 20gems start if your settler is not in a Plains-hill.
What would have happened if…
*…I had had five religions spread to my cities? I suppose I would have overconcentrated on hammers, overwhipped, and thus damaged my culture output.
*…I had founded Taoism? I missed it for 1 turn. Being so early in the game, I could have easily built 1 or 2 early cathedrals, it would have shaved a lot of turns.
*…I had farmed everything, instead of cottaging 2 cities? I would have got 20GP, instead of 15, but I am not sure it would have been better.
*…I had decided from the beginning that I only would have 1 religion? I would have spread it immediately to the no-religion cities, I would have declared the religion sooner, I wouldn’t have paid OR maintenance for nothing, and most importantly, I would have started hiring specialists much sooner.
*…I would have had Marble and I had tried to build the Parthenon? I would have run the risk of losing the best city sites. Now, if I had been able to have Parthenon and 4 cities 1000BC in my sites of choice, it would have been huge.
Any comments will be appreciated.
I was playing aimlessly, since it was a failed trial for a hammer-rich game that had become a not-so-hammer-rich, Taoism-failed-by-1-turn, 1-single-religion game. I have got used to finish all my cultural games, maybe it is a waste of time, but I have learned new things that way. I was thinking that would be my last game with Eliz, since she couldn’t get any religion for me. I was shocked when I absent-mindedly made my estimation for victory date for the first time in 1085AD (shame on me, had I made that sooner I could have shaved a good 5 turns). I had only put 6 hours into the game (usually they take me 12 hours) and I spent 1 more hour just optimizing the final 10 turns (are you one of those who just press enter once and again in the end game? you are not really playing the game then, you don’t know what you are missing!).
I feel embarrassed when I think of someone opening the save and looking into my game. You will find lots of wasted hammers into half-produced useless-short-term buildings.
Anyway, let's tell about the game a let's ask ourselves why this is the best game in its category.
*Vanilla, Quick, Deity, inner lake, 6 rivals (no Gandhi), no barbs. Wheat+pigs+gems riverside start.
*Cities: Only 6 (4 by 1000BC, 6 by 1AD).
*Copper, marble or stone: none of them
*Wonders: none at all
*Missionaries built: 2
*Religions founded: none at all
*Religions spread: one in the BC, one in 1000AD, one in the last turn, total three, only 1 really useful.
*Cathedrals: only 3 (by now you must be thinking I am kidding. I am not).
*GP: 15. 2GS lighbulbed Philo and Educ. 13 GA were bombed (3-3-7). All of them were born with a 100% probability, I knew what I wanted.
*Civics: slavery and OR first, for the missionary-temples-cathedrals explosion that never happened. Then Bureau+HeRu. Then FreeSp+CS+Pacifism. Near the end, FreeMarket too.
*TechPath: Agri+AH for development, then Pottery and Alphabet, then Col and Philo, then CS and Liberalism, taking Nationalism and stopping research in 55BC.
*Tech trading: As you already know, in a Deity game you trade 3 times. The first time is Alphabet. I wasn’t very successful in my game, only got Maths+IW+Priest and their pre-requisites. In other games I have got Monarchy or Currency or Calendar too. The second time is when you are sure you will win the Liberalism race and you trade away CoL+CS+Philo. I did fine this game, getting the three post Maths, Machinery, Lite… The third time is when you give away every single tech. I was nice too, I got Print, Economy and a lot of money.
*Stats 1000AD: multipliers 3-3,5-2. Cpt 500-500-200. Total GPPpt 300.
*Capital: wheat+pigs+gems+2dyes+plenty of green tiles. Heavily cottaged, but started using cottages quite late (500BC or 1AD). At the end it had 20 pop, with 3 10commerce traderoutes. 2 cathedrals.
*Second city: It was not legendary. I put it next to a horses tile and it was worked for the whole game. It was pop=3 90% of the game. It was very useful, it was producing settlers and workers all BC years. At the end I tried to pop a GA there without success, 1000GPPpt wasted!
*Second Legendary city: Floodplains, lots of them. Heavily cottaged. Hammer poor, only 2 hills. It took ages to build the Hermitage there. 1 cathedral too. It worked its cottages non-stop, as I didn’t hardly whip here. It had –5 health at the end.
*Third Legendary city: My GPfarm. Fish, cow, 2FP. Doesn’t sound impressive? With some farmed grasslands it was able to sustain 8 specialists.
*The other two: they just built 1 temple! They helped popping a few GA, though.
Other interesting facts:
- Only opened borders to religion-founding AIs. I had been dowed in my last two games and I didn’t want to show my weakness more than necessary.
- Having only 1 commerce resource in the capital and having to get AH myself to make use of the pig meant that I got a late Alphabet (I usually get it before 2000BC).However, quick settlers and quick workers made me get to Liberalism sooner than usual (I usually get it 200AD-400AD).
- Around 500BC I got bored of waiting for religions to spread, so I used my missionaries and declared a state religion. No artist had been hired at that point.
Why is this the best game so far?
I really don’t know. I wish I had been more serious about this game, and I had taken notes as I used to do. There are some factors that I think have helped:
- The immediate-hammer-rich second city. It was a pathetic city long-term, no doubt. But it freed my legendary cities from producing settlers and workers (and missionaries later, if I had had a religion to spread).
- 2 cottage cities, 1 GPfarm. No culture wasted from the specialists, no need for 9 cities.
- 2 food resources in the capital. I used to play only 1corn+2gold or 2gems+1rice starts. Food is power. The early years fly, you have to make the most of them.
- Plains-hill start. If you are going for the fastest finish, you shouldn’t accept a 20gems start if your settler is not in a Plains-hill.
What would have happened if…
*…I had had five religions spread to my cities? I suppose I would have overconcentrated on hammers, overwhipped, and thus damaged my culture output.
*…I had founded Taoism? I missed it for 1 turn. Being so early in the game, I could have easily built 1 or 2 early cathedrals, it would have shaved a lot of turns.
*…I had farmed everything, instead of cottaging 2 cities? I would have got 20GP, instead of 15, but I am not sure it would have been better.
*…I had decided from the beginning that I only would have 1 religion? I would have spread it immediately to the no-religion cities, I would have declared the religion sooner, I wouldn’t have paid OR maintenance for nothing, and most importantly, I would have started hiring specialists much sooner.
*…I would have had Marble and I had tried to build the Parthenon? I would have run the risk of losing the best city sites. Now, if I had been able to have Parthenon and 4 cities 1000BC in my sites of choice, it would have been huge.
Any comments will be appreciated.
Then it's trying to put some ends together with gold mines and cottages until I get BW from Alpha and see there's no Copper 
per state religious building in addition to its previous +2
