Cultural Domination

[FoolontheHill]

Finding myself with some time on my hands this afternoon, I ran some test games through the first couple of turns to check something. What I found was somewhat counterintuitive.

I ran 8 tests on small pangea. Each test adding one AI opponent. I then used the victory screen to calculate the total number of land squares on the map. The average was 530 tiles with a maximum of 580 and a minimum of 492. (That wasn't the counterintuitive part).

Here are the various limits needed for dominations on these settings with different numbers of AIs:

AI ---POP LandArea TilesNeeded TilesforAI
1 --- 75%--- 74%--- 393-------- 137
2 --- 58%--- 72%--- 382-------- 148
3 --- 50%--- 70%--- 371-------- 159
4 --- 45%--- 68%--- 361-------- 169
5 --- 41% ---66%--- 350-------- 180
6 --- 39%--- 64%--- 340-------- 190
7 --- 37%--- 62%--- 329-------- 201
8 --- 36%--- 60%--- 318-------- 212

The tiles needed and left for the AI assume a 530 land tile map.

Now for the counterintuitive part. If we assume that the tiles around the AI capitals will be very hard to flip from culture, then a worst case is that each AI capital will control 37 land tiles (worst case assumes no coastal or lake tiles in the AI borders, unlikely but makes the math easier). So with 5 AIs, those 37 tiles multiplied by the five AIs equals 185 tiles. That is more than we can allow the AIs and still win. I get the 37 tiles from what is in the cultural borders after the first two border pops, assuming the capital will have strong control over those tiles.

I have flipped cities in the 1.61 patch, one in the last GOTM and 3 or 4 in my last prince level cultural win, so I know that we can flippem'. What I don't know if whether we can flip older established cities if we don't have pressure on them from almost the beginning. So to be safe, I would assume that we can't take many tiles from the capitals and as a result, I wouldn't have more than 2 or 3 AI opponents.

 

[jeffelammar]

lurker's comment: Not a signup, but I do have to say that I think that this is possible

Certainly not easy, but I did something like this a little while back on noble level. (With the always peace on)

I wasn't going for a domination victory. My goal was to flip as many cities as I could. When I decided that I'd had enough, I had flipped about 8 roman and 4 Arabian cities. I had about 40% of a "normal" size pangea world.

I discovered the following to be effective at flipping the AI
1. Use a bit of ICS. If you get 3 cities providing culture to a square for which the AI has only one city, you will take it, apply this pressure to their city square and it is just a matter of time.
2. Save your cathedrals/mandirs/etc for border towns (preferrably the strech towns.)
3. Artists help more with flipping as specialists than bombs. (In my experience) The +14 cpt seems to help more with causing a flip than the bomb.
4. Found new cities almost any time your culture steals a tile that is eligible for a town.
5. I found it useful to save my national wonders for building in places where I needed to put especially large culture pressure. (like stealing tiles from capitols)

As I said, in my game I was just playing to flip AI cities, and finally just fired off a space win. I'd bet that with the right conditions and a more concentrated early game effort, it should be possible to pull this one off.

I hope you guys do pull this off. It would be a great lurk, even if you don't make it.

 

[FoolontheHill]

Wow. Just found out something interesting by setting up a test in Worldbuilder. You can flip a capital.

I put three Russian cities around Bejing. I loaded up the Russian cities with all of the culture buildings and the hit enter a lot. Bejing went into revolt around 800BC and then joined the Russian empire in about 600BC.

Obviously this could never be replicated in a real game, but there is nothing magical about a capital in the game mechanics. They can flip.

 

[ChrTh]

Wow. Just found out something interesting by setting up a test in Worldbuilder. You can flip a capital.

I put three Russian cities around Bejing. I loaded up the Russian cities with all of the culture buildings and the hit enter a lot. Bejing went into revolt around 800BC and then joined the Russian empire in about 600BC.

Obviously this could never be replicated in a real game, but there is nothing magical about a capital in the game mechanics. They can flip.

Yeah, I could've told you that. See my post above where I flipped the entire Chinese Empire except for one small city on the other side of the world (granted it was Chieftain level, but still doable).

The only city that can't flip is the Civ's last city, if I understand the mechanics correctly.

 

[pigswill]

There's also the bit about cottage spam and culture slider which may suit financial. The key as already noted is land not cities.

 

[Xerol]

The only city that can't flip is the Civ's last city, if I understand the mechanics correctly.

Not in Civ4. You can flip any city. Try playing a Duel Pangaea on Settler with a spiritual civ and 17 opponents, research a few religions early, and then build culture buildings everywhere you can. Most AIs won't have room to build a second city, but you'll eventually see that it is possible to flip a civ's only city.

Anyway...

I want in on this. There's a few important things:

1) Land Grab. Settling in closer to the AIs and having more land to begin with makes it easier to grab more by culture. Settle as close to an AI city as possible whenever possible.
2) Religion. IMO a spiritual civ is a must, for several reasons:
-Early religion means we start spreading culture sooner, and the culture buildings double sooner as well.
-Every turn of anarchy is a turn not producing culture.
-Need I say Early Stonehenge?
3) Techs: Very important are Music (free artist), Drama (culture slider), and Liberalism (Free Speech). Literature is also important as getting the Nat. Epic in our GP city sooner means we start popping artists sooner. Defensive military techs are also important, because with tight borders some of the AIs aren't gonna be happy.

Creative isn't as powerful as it seems here; 2cpt/city doesn't really add up to much when you're running 40% slider and rushing culture buildings in new cities from turn 1. (Even if it IS from the beginning of the game, the capital isn't going to be close enough to the AIs to do any flipping early.)

'Pelago sounds like a good idea at first, but keep in mind your culture can only extend 2 tiles offshore. This can be a problem because it means less cities can "gang up" on an enemy city and also we may reach a point where we can't island-hop via culture. I say we go with Pangaea because it'll let us get up next to the AI capitals from the beginning of the game (our second city should probably be up next to an AI capital).

If we go for stonehenge, it should be in this second city. If we can settle within 3 tiles and then pop stonehenge there, we'd be outculturing them 4:1 from the beginning (2:1 if it's a creative AI, but maybe we should select the AIs to not be too competitive culture-wise).

As far as a second trait goes, perhaps we should go with Industrious (faster wonder construction) or Organised (less money to spend on expenses means higher culture slider).

 

[FoolontheHill]

The only city that can't flip is the Civ's last city, if I understand the mechanics correctly.

Yep. Forgot to mention that the Chinese snuck past me and founded another city. I assume that is why the capital wouldn't flip even at 30% Chinese. After the little city was built, the capital flipped right over.

 

[FoolontheHill]

2) Religion. IMO a spiritual civ is a must, for several reasons:
-Early religion means we start spreading culture sooner, and the culture buildings double sooner as well.
-Every turn of anarchy is a turn not producing culture.
-Need I say Early Stonehenge?

Creative isn't as powerful as it seems here; 2cpt/city doesn't really add up to much when you're running 40% slider and rushing culture buildings in new cities from turn 1. (Even if it IS from the beginning of the game, the capital isn't going to be close enough to the AIs to do any flipping early.)

Okay, I'm convinced now. Spiritual would be better than Creative.

'Pelago sounds like a good idea at first, but keep in mind your culture can only extend 2 tiles offshore. This can be a problem because it means less cities can "gang up" on an enemy city and also we may reach a point where we can't island-hop via culture. I say we go with Pangaea because it'll let us get up next to the AI capitals from the beginning of the game (our second city should probably be up next to an AI capital).

Agree. I think Pangea offers the best options as we need to snuggle up closely to the AI cities. If we are separated by water, it is that much harder to get two or three cities close.

As far as a second trait goes, perhaps we should go with Industrious (faster wonder construction) or Organised (less money to spend on expenses means higher culture slider).

I'm not sure about this one. Even in my worldbuilder test, I was losing a ton of money quickly by having cities so far away from the capitol. Financial seems to make sense. However, I assume that with "Always Peace", we will not need to build any significant number of units (particularly if barbs are off). That will save some expenses.

 

[GreyFox]

2) Religion. IMO a spiritual civ is a must, for several reasons:
-Early religion means we start spreading culture sooner, and the culture buildings double sooner as well.
-Every turn of anarchy is a turn not producing culture.
-Need I say Early Stonehenge?

Lurker:
Of all the three points listed, only one is actually related to spiritual trait. And the benefit quoted is ... let me just say superficial: "Every turn of anarchy is a turn not producing culture" ... If you need to relay on that, something is wrong.

Spiritual got nothing to do with religion, got nothing to do with stonehedge. Period. What you want is a Civ leader that has the relevant starting tech. Its just so happen that some spiritual leader starts with the tech you want (Msyticism).

-

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I agree with Fox. Probably a spiritual leader is good, but only because starting with Mysticism is good. Though, I just test-drove this using Frederick (creative/philosophical) and researched Mysticism first, Polytheism second and still founded Hinduism. But it turned out the creative wasn't so necessary. 2 CPT * 500 turns is only 1000 culture at best.

Philosophical, however, is a must. The artists are essential. So that probably puts Saladin at the top of the list for me.

 

[mihau]

As sb. said: cottages + cultureslider are essential.



As U said. U will need tons of cities and early --> MAINTENANCE --> Organized trait!! this leaves only few leaders...

Forget about Creative it is useful only in the new cities.
Forget about Expansive and Aggresive

Washington:
Financial - helpful with the $$, but after cottages get mature - useless

Asoka:
Spiritual - in my opinion useless, U CAN cope with some anarchy, U dont expect attacks to optimize for "nationalizm-draft-ready"

Roosevelt:
Industious... hmmm. this can be useful if U intend to race with the AIs for wonders (higher diff. lev.)

Mao:
Phylosophical - GA will sure help, especially while running artist specialists.

I would take Mao or Roosevelt depenting on the difficulty level and desired strategy.

 

[LuvToBuild]

lurker's comment:
If you're not going to be able to flip the cities, you're going to have to focus on your own population growth to reach the Dom limit. Might I suggest an Expansive Civ?

Yeah but if a rival city is totally surrounded, it will eventually starve into a pop 1 city right? The more cities like this that your rivals have, the higher your percentage of the world's population will be.

 

[Xerol]

Population is almost NEVER a problem in domination games; the population % requirement is a joke in Civ4.

Which Civs start with Mysticism that AREN'T spiritual? Are any of them Philisophical?

I didn't notice the "Always Peace" looking through the first time. That makes things a lot easier - we'll be building settlers, workers, and buildings (plus one warrior/city). I don't think barbs will be a problem, especially considering 1) we'll be spreading out more than in a typical game, and 2) we'll also be expanding borders quicker than in a normal game. This generally means more tiles revealed sooner.

Obviously, something more specific would have to wait until we get a starting map, but how's this for a plan:

1) Settle capital. Build Worker, Worker, Settler, while researching a religion and then to bronze working.
2) Settle as close as possible to an AI capital.
3) Chop 'henge there.
4) Settle close to other AI capitals.

We can backfill our own territory later, and we might even be able to get an extremely early flip.

As far as which religion to go for, I say we should go after Buddhism because we can then immediately build monestaries. The capital, after the first settler is out (possibly with escort) should build a monestary and then a missionary to go out to the second city. All subsequent settlements should be escorted with a missionary so they can immediately begin with 2cpt, and immediately begin constructing a monestary for another 2cpt.

Anyway, that's just a general plan. I'll play some test games tonight/tomorrow and report on results.

 

[Atlas]

I put three Russian cities around Bejing. I loaded up the Russian cities with all of the culture buildings and the hit enter a lot. Bejing went into revolt around 800BC and then joined the Russian empire in about 600BC.

Obviously this could never be replicated in a real game, but there is nothing magical about a capital in the game mechanics. They can flip.

Oh it can happen, I have put Hatty's capital into revolt(she is no culture slouch either) with my second city providing the only "push" at Thebes on Prince. Oh by the way I used Louis.

*I can't remember if this was 1.61 or not.

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

the idea of using a little bit of ICS to put every tile under cultural pressure from more than one city sounds good, this is something I hadn't done on my first try. I'm confident that you will be able to flip the cities immediately on your border (I had managed to do so, too), but beyond that I still say it's impossible. First, the borders behind are mature and stable. And second, you won't be able to found more cities ICS-style on your own to pressure those cities behind, as you cannot aggressively found cities in an opponent's territory.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong though, so this game will be interesting to lurk and comment on.

-Kylearan

 

[mihau]

Which Civs start with Mysticism that AREN'T spiritual? Are any of them Philisophical?

no such civ
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/civilizations/

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

1) Settle capital. Build Worker, Worker, Settler, while researching a religion and then to bronze working.
2) Settle as close as possible to an AI capital.
3) Chop 'henge there.
4) Settle close to other AI capitals.

Two workers and a settler before ever growing to size two? I used to do that before chopping was rebalanced, so I could chop in the second worker, but never now. Do we really need workers so early? This is going to be about getting settlers out as rapidly as possible, I think.

 

[Munterpipe]

Agree. We need to get those settlers out fast. Depending on the start, a worker first may be nice, but it's to soon to tell.

Could everybody who wants to join confirm that and vote for leaders?
I think my favorite is Ghandi. Those wonders will be important, not only for culture, GP, and their individual effects, but also for denial reasons. We don't want a culture battle with the city with the Oracle or the Stonhenge. That counts for religion as well. Have you ever seen a holy city flip? Starting with mysticism gives us a shot at getting all the early religions. If we close our borders so that religion doesn't spread, the AI will be culturally hampered

Ghandi: (Spi/Ind) and the only leader with a useful UU (1 vote)

And finally, It's okay to do test games, but don't overdo it. The fun in this SG will be figuring out the way to win while we play, not knowing everything beforehand. If someone posts all the answers on how to do this, even before we start playing, it will kind of ruin the fun for everyone else.

 

[Atlas]

Ghandi: (Spi/Ind) and the only leader with a useful UU (1 vote)

Gandhi would also be my first choice, followed by Fredrick or Saladin. Is it too much to ask match us againist Toku, JC, Mao, Genghis etc.?

 

[sooooo]

Lurker's comment: If you actually manage to do this, I will buy you all a pint of beer from my local pub and ship it over to you. You're all mad !