Cultural Deity Huge 1485AD writeup

[jesusin]

jesusin, cultural victory 1485AD, 929basic->28531points, 9,5 hours.
Quick, Deity. Continents, temperate, low, Huge, No barbs, Nocheating. 11 other: Gan, Ces, Hat, Cyr, Fred, Peter, Roo, Monte, Aso, Wash.

Born in a peninsula next to the North pole, I was able to manage only 5 cities (out of the 12 desired!). 3 religions, 3 cathedrals, 13 GP. Too few cottages, only 17 in 1000AD.

The first two GP were Scientist, used to get Education in order to win the Liberalism race. I lost Music by 4 turns and Liberalism by 1 turn (how can they research Liberalism in 3 turns???), so those two should have been artist like the rest. What a waste.

Alphabet in 1900BC, Liberalism in 560AD, shut off research in 710AD with Print and Nationalism.
Multipliers 3.5-3-2, Great Works 2-3-6.

This date should be very easy to beat. I won't play Huge maps again, turns took too long since 1AD.

 

[Lexad]

Impressive result, congrats!

Btw, last month both me and WastinTime (as it turned out from submissin log) were trying (and succeeding) beating you time on Standard Quick, me being a tad faster - maybe cuz I was pissed off at my GMajor result which was there before being replaced . I haven't read any of you guys discussions (only saw it was Quick - great finding, btw!) so was pretty amazed at the difference in our approaches: I was researching towards Democracy (USuff - money purchase of cathedral, need no strategic resources) and then exchanging to get Economics and Corporation to max out commerce while you stopped at Nationalism-Press-Liberalism. And still the results are very close!

 

[jesusin]

Hi. The Standard map game both WastinTime and you beat was an "all food strategy" without any cottage. Back then I wrote:

<< I find very amusing that 3 very different strategies (Liz-peaceful-all cottages, Huaya-kill 1 civ-all cottages, Saladin-peaceful-all farms) lead to the very same result (5 turns more or less). Civ4 is a very well balanced game, indeed! >>

After some in depth research I don't think that all food is the way to go. I am now trying to recover that record, you are warned! My current try is a REX strategy where I forget about research and plant as many cities as possible. Since it is the first time I try that strategy for a cultural game, I will report my findings no matter if my result is good or bad.

I have been trying quite a number of strategies for a cultural Deity game. I would really appreciate it if you could give your comments on any of these threads:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=198399

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193460

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187986

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4821616#post4821616

 

[WastinTime]

jesusin, I figured you'd try to re-claim that standard Diety spot, so I left it alone. However, I think I have 4 of the other Cultural Diety map sizes. We'll see after the update. My attempts were also quite flawed. In my Huge game, I missed Confucianism, missed Music for the free GA, and missed Liberalism. I also only built 5 cites, that was probably too few. I also got stuck with only 1 religion. I think I edged you out though..finishing in 1465 AD ;-) Without the religions, I obviously needed an insane amount of GA's I think I got 20.

 

[jesusin]

Well done!
In all of my records I have missed Confucianism and Music. In almost all of them, I have missed Liberalism too.
20 is a good number of GP for only 5 cities. In my all-farms games I got around 20 or 22 GPs. Did you build any cottages?
With so few culture multipliers… If you had transformed a cottage into a farm, would it have given you another GP? Would it have been worth it?

 

[WastinTime]

I always cottage the capitol and put all the multipliers there. That way I can spread my GA's out 8-8-0. The capitol can finish without any bombs normally, but in my huge game, I had to do 9-8-2 I think. IIRC I used the first GP for an academy and only had 19 GA's. After the 20th GP, there's a big jump in birth rate needed, so I wouldn't recommend ever going for a 21st. I plan the birth order carefully near the end of the game. My best farm always pops out that last GP, so there is no way I could get another GP by converting cottages to farms.

 

[Lexad]

Outstanding results, Wastin! Also thanx for leaving my spot unoccupado Wish I had more time for play, but now when I'm in-between 2 jobs, I might even try good ole Marathon quechuarush.

 

[jesusin]

I plan the birth order carefully near the end of the game.

I have recently found that it is of paramount importance to plan the order. Sometimes you should starve a city to pop a GP right now, sometimes you should eliminate specialists temporarily to allow other city to overpass this one…
It is a very interesting mathematical problem. I am planning about writing a strategy article about it, but I haven’t really solved the general problem. What I have got to do is to say ‘ I want 11GP by 1435AD’ (because that’s the record to beat). Then I play simulations till I get the correct order to achieve that result. I don’t know how to answer the question ‘get 11GP asap’ or the question ‘get as many GP as possible by 1435AD’. The thing is, what would have happened if I had asked myself to get those 11GP by 1000AD? I would probably have achieved it.
Have you solved the generalized problem? Or do you do like I do, just follow a couple of rules of thumb?

Lexad, what happens when two games get the same victory year, which one gets to the main table?
I will be posting my writeup soon.

 

[Lexad]

Lexad, what happens when two games get the same victory year, which one gets to the main table?
I will be posting my writeup soon.

Score is a tiebreaker AFAIK Good luck!

 

[WastinTime]

Maximizing GP.

In my games, only the National Epic city has a prayer of contributing more than one GP after turn 120. So I make sure that any city doing 50 or so GPP pops one out by turn 115, so they will have time to go again. I use the same type of tricks you mentioned to rush or stall a city. Around turn 115, you just have to make sure that each city makes one last GP (except the National Epic city which should make 3 more.) There's really no way to squeeze out any more in a reasonable amount of time. It would probably take 15+ turns for the next one assuming you've already popped 15-18 of them.

 

[superslug]

Score is a tiebreaker AFAIK Good luck!

True. Firaxis score is the primary tiebreaker. If need be, submission date is the next one...

 

[Lexad]

ROFL, what are the odds Though it seems there's a tie in top WOTM4... No need here, though, jesusin has ~1,5K higher score

 

[Lexad]

The general trend in quick deity culture is evident - exploiting disproportionate gain from GA, therefore Philosophical leaders, especially with Parthenon, should rule, other aspects secondary. Perhaps will try to find out whether disproportionate military advantage of Marathon quechuas is any good

 

[jesusin]

The general trend in quick deity culture is evident - exploiting disproportionate gain from GA, therefore Philosophical leaders, especially with Parthenon, should rule, other aspects secondary.

I would say that the general trend is to beeline to Alphabet. GPs are very important too, of course. I have tried an all out GA strategy, all farms, no cottages. I am not satisfied with the results. I think a more balanced mix of cottages and farms is needed.

Have you tried a Parthenon game? I would be glad to hear about your experience.
For me it was very difficult to build, even with marble starts. And if I built it, then I was very short of land. I think I reported about it in the 1070AD thread.

Maximizing GP.

In my games, only the National Epic city has a prayer of contributing more than one GP after turn 120. So I make sure that any city doing 50 or so GPP pops one out by turn 115, so they will have time to go again. I use the same type of tricks you mentioned to rush or stall a city. Around turn 115, you just have to make sure that each city makes one last GP (except the National Epic city which should make 3 more.) There's really no way to squeeze out any more in a reasonable amount of time. It would probably take 15+ turns for the next one assuming you've already popped 15-18 of them.

Well, there is a way. Yesterday, around turn 135, I got to a point where 12 turns were left (or it would be another tie ), 3 GP were expected in that period, one of them coming from the GPfarm. I made some calculations and discovered that I would finish 3 turns late. All three cities would reach legendary at the same time, so one additional GA would do nothing. I needed 3 additional GA, 6 in the period of 11 turns (one turn needed to reach destination, bomb and press enter). Starvation it was. I had a tough time with my calculator. I would starve my cities to pop 1, but 6 GA must be born in 11 turns. I got the correct order, I started starvation at different times in every city for the order to be correct. I got my 6 GA. You know what? My GPfarm didn’t pop any of the 6. Are you interested in the final result? My capital was starved to a third of its population and when a GA was popped and people went back to work their towns, the capital was producing half the culture it was producing before. I won 1 turn late. I should have started thinking 2 turns sooner, and I should have wished 7 GA, not 6.

Now that I know that this final rush is possible, I wonder if all the stalling I have been using has been wrong. It was right for maximizing GA in a continuous, non starving situation. But it was maybe wrong for a correct ordering of the final starvation push.



Aside note: GOTM15 will be Deity, Incans. I will play for culture. I hope I will see you both playing there too!

 

[WastinTime]

I built the parthenon in all of my games except for the Duel size.

Starving:
Some starving is very important, but it doesn't make sense to starve your capitol unless it's already legendary. If you're doing 600+ culture/turn, you're better off holding on to that.

If your city is size 12 and running 7 artists, for example, then starving it for 11 turns has a net zero effect. The turns that you run 12, 11, etc are offset by the turns you run only 1 or 2 artists. The average is still 7, so you didn't produce any more birth rate points than you would have with no starvation.

 

[Lexad]

@jesusin

I'm all excited about GOTM15, although I don't think I'll go for culture as already have the "notes" for GOTM6 - maybe diplo. I'm not that big culture fan as you guys .

I haven't tried Parthenon yet, I just supposed it is a natural development of using the most long leverage on quick. Supposedly in Warlords, when AI has 2 more early wonders to build, the chances of getting Parthenon are greater.

The bbeline to Alphabet is a natural thing, I started with it even without reading you guys' posts, my other tactics is to continue then to Code and Philo by GS (if you also get Buddhism from somewhere, you get all techs that require copper for Cathedrals - rather abundant resource). Then CS-Paper-Edu (1GS)-Liber - even have time to learn Nationalism myself then to use Liber for Constitution - as I'm rather into financial aspect I prefer to buy cathedrals, temples and missionaries, and this requires USuffrage.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't consider the Parthenon that big of a risk. I don't like to waste good map starts, so I go for it ASAP. Worker, Warrior (to grow your city a bit), Settler, Parth. I think I've only been beaten to it once.

 

[jesusin]

I built the parthenon in all of my games except for the Duel size.

I don't consider the Parthenon that big of a risk. I don't like to waste good map starts, so I go for it ASAP. Worker, Warrior (to grow your city a bit), Settler, Parth. I think I've only been beaten to it once.

Guau . Quick speed, no chopping yet??? I only got it once in 5 tries.
Maybe I was so reluctant to research Masonry myself that I started too late, can’t remember.

If your city is size 12 and running 7 artists, for example, then starving it for 11 turns has a net zero effect. The turns that you run 12, 11, etc are offset by the turns you run only 1 or 2 artists. The average is still 7, so you didn't produce any more birth rate points than you would have with no starvation.

Agreed. My example is a size 16 capital running 3 artists, though. Anyway, you are right, it is a one-time thing, a single final rush.
In your example I would starve 5 pop, not 11, for a 2 turns saving in the GP generation. In my example I starved 11 pop, for a (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11)/3=18 turns saving. I could have starved 13 for an additional gain in GPP, but I didn’t need it, the GP would pop just at the right time this way.

The bbeline to Alphabet is a natural thing, I started with it even without reading you guys' posts, my other tactics is to continue then to Code and Philo by GS (if you also get Buddhism from somewhere, you get all techs that require copper for Cathedrals - rather abundant resource). Then CS-Paper-Edu (1GS)-Liber - even have time to learn Nationalism myself then to use Liber for Constitution - as I'm rather into financial aspect I prefer to buy cathedrals, temples and missionaries, and this requires USuffrage.

Thank you for sharing this info. I really appreciate it.

Some small details aren’t clear for me.
- The turn you get Alphabet you can’t start on CoL right away. You may trade for Myst that turn, for Medi or Poly next turn and for Priesthood the following turn. Only then you can start on CoL. What do you research those turns? 0% research? Do you research Meditation yourself, maybe?
- What do you offer in trade for Currency?