Cultural Deity before 1000AD is possible

[jesusin]

I don't think you need 6 cities. At the speeds involved, by the time you build a second cathedral you should be approaching the necessary amount anyway, so with 3 religions and 4 cities you can get 2 per culture city.

You are talking about small maps, where only 2 temples per cathedral are needed. My game was standard map, 3. So basically we agree.

IMHO there is a foundamental mistake in the quote. You should distribute your cathedrals 3-3-0, not 2-2-2. The whole point of making your GPfarm a Legendary city is to concentrate culture points and multipliers in the 2 cottage cities, the GPfarm will reach Legendary by bombing artist, bombed culture is not affected by cathedrals.

 

[Lexad]

But culture from artists working there is affected. Whether the cathedrals would pay for themself on artists and trade routes is another matter though - likely not, unless you also have some cottages and Sistine.

Was health a pressing issue for GP farm?

 

[Xerol]

Yeah, I was never able to get above 16-17 health at best in my GP farm, and that was with Grocer, Granary, Aqueduct, and Hanging Gardens (the 17th point).

The GP farm gets a lot of its culture from wonders and artists - with Sistine's, Nat'l Epic, and Parthenon, and running 6 artists, it's pulling 48 base CPT just from that, which is as much as 7 fully mature riverside cottages after printing press. Throw in whatever else generates culture (palace, library, Notre Dame if I can wrangle it, and Temples) and the city's generating just as much as the other cities, plus since it's usually the capital there's at least the 5 from Buddhism and a few more from other religions; in the end, at least one cathedral there helps. The point of making so many artists wasn't to bomb them in the GP farm, but just to bomb them whereever necessary to reach 25k fastest. It's the third city that usually needs them most, since it's behind on population and cottage growth most of the game.

 

[jesusin]

13 GA were bombed (3-3-7).

But culture from artists working there is affected. Whether the cathedrals would pay for themself on artists and trade routes is another matter though - likely not, unless you also have some cottages and Sistine.

The point of making so many artists wasn't to bomb them in the GP farm, but just to bomb them whereever necessary to reach 25k fastest. It's the third city that usually needs them most, since it's behind on population and cottage growth most of the game.

Let’s go step by step. First of all, nomenclature. In my book, the “first” city is the capital, cottaged. The “second” one is cottaged too. The “third” one is the GPfarm. So I added more bombs in the GPfarm, where I didn’t build any cathedral.

If you were to distribute your cathedrals+hermitage evenly across your 3 cities, and it happened that the best way for your GA was the same number of bombs per city, then you would have been inefficient, unless the base culture in the 3 cities is just the same. If there are differences in base culture, then you are better off concentrating your cathedrals+hermitage in only 2 cities and bombing the other one all the way up. So no, I won’t build cathedrals in my least-base-culture city.

In addition, if you start building cathedrals in your GPfarm you will have to work mines or whip people, so you will hurt your GPP generation capacity. So no, I won’t build cathedrals (or wonders or just about anything but granary, library, NE and aqueduct).

Of course if I had 9 cities then I would reconsider and probably build cathedrals in the third city.

In my games the GPfarm has always much less culture than the two cottage cities. 500-500-200 final culture, 184-174-90 before multipliers. In fact, that’s the reason why I call it the “third” city.

My best start so far could support 13 artists before biology, assuming I had the happiness and health in check for 33 citizens, but by 1000AD I was only at population 16, of which 7 were artists. I'm debating whether to hold off on assigning artists until after the city grows to a large level so the citizens can be used to grow the city faster.

Was health a pressing issue for GP farm?

I would say that you should assign citizens to 4 food tiles until there are no more (and maybe to mines until you have built the NE). Then, when unworked tiles are 3 food or less, you should use new citizens as artists (with exceptions, when assigning the last citizen to a 3 food tile would make the city grow in 1 turn instead of 2, you should do so, as a result you won’t lose GPPoints and you will win 1 food). I generally keep growing without artists until the NE is built, but I think I may be making a big mistake here. In general you want to work 3 food tiles as long as you stay under the health limit.

In this game health was not too big a problem, if I remember correctly I had 2 3food tiles unworked, please look at my 1000AD save for confirmation, not at the final one, after the starving phase. When it is published, I mean.

 

[jesusin]

Ok, my next game has been Deity-Quick-Small and I have also taken the #1position with a 1355AD finish. It can be done much better.

Vanilla, Eliz, 4 cities, 3 religions, 5 cathedrals, 2cottage cities+GPfarm. At the end, 600-500-200cpt with 3,5-4-2 multipliers. No WW built, no religions founded, no Marble, no Stone, Liberalism race won in 50AD.

The first turn I climbed to a PH with corn, sheep, gold and 6FP. Quickly settled 4 cities, but not quickly enough, the desired site for the 4th was already taken.

Civics: HR+CS, Bu+Sl+OR, FrRe+CS+paci+Me in 140AD when NE was built, FM in 1000AD although I had it from 500AD (difficult decision here).

15GP, Philo, Educ, 13bombs distributed 0-6-7.

Around 1000AD a city witha new religion flipped and another religion spread. I razed the city because of costs concerns and ignored the 4rth religion.Apollo was built in 1055AD.

My problem was the second cottage city, it was the last founded, was short of food (plains-cow and cottaged FP that should have been farmed) and had to produce its own worker, so it was very slow. It couldn't work its gold till the very end and was unable to produce more than 2 cathedrals. It took ages to build the Hermitage there. The NE was somewhat slow too.

The main difference between this games and my previous ones is 2 food resources start and focused thinking.

 

[jesusin]

So, I think I now know some of the ingredients that are in the recipe for the Perfect Cultural Peaceful Deity Vanilla Game.

- Philo leader.
- PH start, with at least 2 food resources. Cottaged.
- Second city is a GPfarm, in maximum food site, it won't ever produce a worker or settler or cathedral, it will only produce granary-library-NE. When the NE is built, it can produce aqueduct or temples or whatever, but not if that means unassigning artists.
- Optionally second city can be an auxiliary city, very hammer rich short term that will be all game long producing settlers and workers.
- Third city is a cottage city full of FP. It won't be severely whipped, as its mission is to grow cottages and build cathedrals and Hermitage.
- More cities are founded until you can build 2 cathedrals per religion. 1 more can be built if judged necessary for temples/artists.
- Two or three GS will be popped first, for Academy or lightbulbing Philo or lightbulbing Education. All the rest will be GA, as much as possible. They will bomb the GPfarm all the way up and the rest will settle or bomb the other two cities in order to make them even.
- Marble will be connected in the BC years.
- Liberalism and NE will be reached in the BC years.
- There will be two phases, building research and building culture. No rushbuying.
- Techpath will be Writing-Alpha-CoL-CS and Philo-Liberalism-Trade for Music and Drama-Trade for PP and Economy. There are 3 possible exceptions to this path, early religion, CoL before Alphabet and Drama sooner for two very early artists.

Now, if a very good player took this ingredients of mine, mixed them with his own and played the prefect game I am sure we would see a sub 1000AD finish. I don't think I am such a player. Is anyone up for the task out there?


Disclaimer: You can believe my conclusions or not, I could be wrong, but I am convinced of what I am saying. I couldn't have reached this conclusions if godotnut, WastinTime, Lexad and many others wouldn't have opened their minds and shared their secrets with me. Thank you all, this is a great community where you can advance towards your goals with the help of everybody.

 

[Harbourboy]

Questions:
- what is a "PH" and "FP"?
- how would this be different under Warlords (I hate playing Vanilla)?
- how on earth can you get Liberalism in the BC years?
- how can you get cathedrals up in time without rushbuying?
- does this work if your opponent is Tokugawa

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Presumably PH = plains hill and FP = flood plains.

What I want to know is how to get liberalism in 50AD (or 55BC previous game). Wow.

 

[Thrallia]

I was able to do that in the Minor 23 game, but that's the only game I've ever played where I managed to do so.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Heh, I delayed liberalism in GMinor 23 until I could get Fusion from it. Don't know when I could have got it though. 55BC on deity sounds a whole different ball game.

 

[jesusin]

Questions:
- what is a "PH" and "FP"?
- how would this be different under Warlords (I hate playing Vanilla)?
- how on earth can you get Liberalism in the BC years?
- how can you get cathedrals up in time without rushbuying?
- does this work if your opponent is Tokugawa

ParadigmShifter got it right.

I have no Warlords, I am sorry I can't answer your question.

By trading with Deity AI. That's why I beeline to Alpha first. I trade/gift it to them asap. The problem is not getting Liberalism in the BC, the problem is getting it first. That's why I lighbulb 2 GS. By the way, trading with Musa in the game is very very different from trading without Musa in the game.

I don't build many cathedrals, do I? In this last game I am quite satisfied with my CS-slavery civic changes. The answer is, I whipped them.

Toku? No! My quest is for the perfect game, the surrounding conditions have to be perfect (aka cheesy). In this last game Asoka, Musa, Wash and Roo were my opponents.

 

[Lexad]

I'm recently rather confidently getting Liber on deity (Marathon though) without lightbulbing GS. 2 gold mines help, bunch of conquered cities drag down though.

 

[WastinTime]

Sub 1000 means finishing on turn 113. That is probably impossible, even with a worldbuilder edited map, but I like your optimism. Even sub-1100 is 119 turns. Let's see if anyone can get under 130 turns first... It's important to have a goal so you can plan GA's. Shoot for 126 turns, that would be sub-1200. Try reloading/replaying your 1280 AD game. I'm not sure you'll be able to shave off enough turns to get down to 126.

I've always gotten Liber without lightbulbing. I need to hold back trading tech a bit though. I believe what we've learned from jesusin is that lightbulbing saves precious turns and should be used. I'd say if you lightbulb, there is no reason to waste one on an academy.

 

[WastinTime]

We are way overdue for a comparison game. Someone generates a juicy start and uploads it for everyone to try different strategies on. Won't be valid for HoF, but we'll learn something.

 

[superslug]

We are way overdue for a comparison game.

Would a Gauntlet do?

 

[jesusin]

I've always gotten Liber without lightbulbing. I need to hold back trading tech a bit though. I believe what we've learned from jesusin is that lightbulbing saves precious turns and should be used. I'd say if you lightbulb, there is no reason to waste one on an academy.

We have already had a good chat about Academy/lighbulb, haven’t we?

My current reasoning is:
- The last GA only saves 2-3 turns (I am not talking about the city in particular but the civilization in general).
- A lightbulbed GS saves 6-8 turns.
- 1 single turn a GS saves is less valuable than a single turn that a GA saves, because you don’t want to stop researching too soon, when you have no multipliers. However, this factor is not enough to compensate for the 2 / 6 difference.
- So I prefer as much GS as possible. But how many of them are useful? Alphabet would be overdoing things, 1 for Philo and 1 or 2 for Educ (the second one is less useful). PP is not worth it, since generally you can trade for it (or get it from Liberalism and trade for Natio). So maximum 3. If you are going to lighbulb so much, then the Academy has not enough turns of research to pay off, so no Academy.
- Now, Philo and Educ are very early techs when you are getting Liberalism in the BC. So your GPFarm is not in full shape yet. To pop those GS, you need to sacrifice growth in your cities. Weighting everything together, I decide that 2 GS is the optimum number (not quite sure I am right, though). And they have to be the first 2 ones, since you don’t want to suffer too much lack of growth.

As a result, I go for 2GS and as many GA as possible. And I don’t build an Academy.

Would a Gauntlet do?

Oh, yes, please, I am never tired of cultural games. Just keep the competition open a whole year, my learning curve is slow.

Only, I think it was already done in Major2. And WastinTime is talking about comparing the same map, not different ones, which is a competition we can already have on the HOF tables.

We are way overdue for a comparison game.

Would next GOTM (presumably Hatty and Deity) fit?

 

[jesusin]

Ok, my next game has been Deity-Quick-Small and I have also taken the #1position with a 1355AD finish. It can be done much better.

Oooops, this sentence is not true now, Lexad has taken the #1 position away from me. Well done!

Marathon would not provide the best results because on Quick the efect of 1 GA bomb is greater.

On the other hand, the effect of Quechuas on Marathon is not negligible, is it?


If you are willing to disclose your secrets, I would be glad to know how you researched CS with a damaged economy after eating so many cities, what did you do with each one of your cities, and so on.

 

[Thrallia]

Would next GOTM (presumably Hatty and Deity) fit?

Next GOTM is Hatty and a crowded Monarch, so looks like the Gauntlet will be the testbed you guys are looking for

I'll attempt it, but I can't imagine I'll succeed. I think my Immortal Cultural victory was a fluke.

 

[The-Hawk]

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.

jesusin, thanks for sharing your wisdom, this is a great thread.

Can you expand on this focus on PH? I always look for PH where possible, but have never seen it as this critical. After all, in the long run, the capital is a commerce center.

I assume you build a worker first, and a settler shortly afterwards (maybe a warrior or two in between). Obviously, PH speeds these first builds considerably, but it seems over the course of the game the impact is lessened. Are these first builds that critical to a fast finish?

 

[jesusin]

I assume you build a worker first, and a settler shortly afterwards (maybe a warrior or two in between). Obviously, PH speeds these first builds considerably, but it seems over the course of the game the impact is lessened. Are these first builds that critical to a fast finish?

You are right, I build 1 warrior in between 80% of the time, 2 warriors 20%.

If you want a fast finish, it is not critical (depending on your definition of "fast", of course). But it is very important, anyway. First worker 2 turns sooner, first settler 5 turns sooner... 5 turns in Quick speed is as much as 22 turns in Marathon, it is a lot. And it keeps adding. When the whole game is only 130 turns, it is a lot. Your capital is not only a simple cottage city, it is the origin of all your empire.

If you want the fastest finish or the "Perfect Game", then I think it is mandatory.

I think I should try GreatPlains map, looking for corn on a FP, mmmm.