Cultural Strategy

[Provolution]

The Culture Consul has now enough map to begin the early craftings of the culture strategy for Term One.

We have several constants:

Philosophy gambit adding Map Making
Indian, Dutch and Chinese neighbors, Indians and Dutch relatively close.

Philosophy gives Mausoleum and Map Making gives Lighthouse.

I recommend to build the Mausoleum on the Indian border in an industrial city, which will secure our interior culturally and allows city 3 more content citizens. This city will be capable of expanding in size quickly, as well as building a good number of troops and long term more wonders.

I recommend to build the Lighthouse on a coastal city, assuring us one more move per turn, adding one to the seafaring trait of galleys up to a total of 5 moves. This will enable faster settlement and military deployment strategies to the North throughout Terms 2 and 3. This is indeed long term and we need it.

Temples
Generally, we should only build temples on border cities and where we need to maintain public content, as well as getting attractive tiles.

 

[blackheart]

I propose we build something that least generates culture in all of our cities, so they will expand and get the maximum number of tiles for useage.

 

[Provolution]

I agree, to the point we need more tiles or at least more attractive tiles.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Cities facing India should have strong culture, as they will be facing the same in all likely hood.

 

[DaveShack]

How far into each new city's lifetime should we start considering culture builds? Should we start with workers and units first?

If we have both CB and Lit, which culture building should we start with?

Earlier comments in the thread indicate a desire to start more than one wonder at the same time? Is that a reasonable strategy on Emperor level, or just wishful thinking?

 

[Xerol]

This is a discussion that really crosses multiple departments, but I think each non-settler building city should produce: Unit, Unit, Worker, Culture Building, at least for the ones near India, and of course depending on the available tiles. Building 2 units before the worker means that the pop reduction isn't that big of a hit to the city, and of course a worker per city sounds about right. Also, building them spread out instead of a central location means that they get connected faster and that they start getting improved sooner.

 

[Provolution]

How far into each new city's lifetime should we start considering culture builds? Should we start with workers and units first?

If we have both CB and Lit, which culture building should we start with?

Earlier comments in the thread indicate a desire to start more than one wonder at the same time? Is that a reasonable strategy on Emperor level, or just wishful thinking?

Again, the timing is not as important as the location. We should possibly get our maximum of 2 MPs prior to temples, as we will be in Despotism for some time.
Culture builds should come following the production of 2 MPS and 1-3 workers depending on city. Following this, a temple is more suited to be build, following the improvement of tiles. Libraries should come last, due to the cost-benefit ratio relevant to city size to science output.

Finally, about the 2 wonders. The Mausoleum costs 200 and Lighthouse 300 shields. Since we got a very long coastline Northeast and a complex situation between India and Netherlands, we should reinforce the cities in that triangle with the Mausoleum, and make that city productive enough to handle both security and culture in that high risk region. 3 Content citizens and the maximum of police units until we are Republic would make sense here.
Long term, this city can produce yet more wonders.

The Lighthouse is needed to increase our naval capabilities for the next 2 terms. 5 movement galleys and seafaring may allow overseas trade and so on if we find some isolated resource and want to get there quickly. Increased moves means more cities, quicker produciton times, winning military battles and so on.

 

[blackheart]

Again, the timing is not as important as the location. We should possibly get our maximum of 2 MPs prior to temples, as we will be in Despotism for some time.

Are you kidding me? Timing is KEY. Culture takes many turns to develop, so the sooner we build something, the more culture it will generate over its lifetime. Rushing a cathderal ion the turn that the city is going to flip isn't going to help much, rushing 10 or 20 turns earlier would deter the situation.

 

[DaveShack]

Libraries should come last, due to the cost-benefit ratio relevant to city size to science output.

Actually there are two motivations for building libraries -- they produce culture and also boost science output. I was really asking about the culture aspect, since libraries produce more cpt than temples do.

 

[Provolution]

I am talking early Term One strategy, first things first.

 

[Brain]

I don't have Conquests, so I just checked to see what Mausoleum does and I must say that I'm not impressed. Is it really worth spending 200 shields to get 3 content citizens? I'd rather just increase the slider.

Lighthouse should be the top priority IMHO. I like the Great Library too, and combined with an ability to contact more civs, it could get us some nice free techs. But as DaveShack pointed out, two wonders in ancient age at Emperor level is probably wishful thinking, unless we have a leader.

Do we know what kind of victory we are aiming for? If cultural, then I agree that we need to start soon, but otherwise I don't think culture buildings should be high priority.

 

[YNCS]

Brain,

The 3 content citizens are not as important as the 2 culture per turn (cpt) and no maintenance cost.

 

[Bertie]

With 11 rival civs I don’t think we have a prayer of building a Great Wonder during the Ancient Age. We’ve got two civs right on our doorsteps and we’re going to have our hands full producing settlers and racing to grab as much land as we can. I don’t think we can spare production for any culture during this term, and for little during the Ancient Age. The only exception would be if we’re targeting a cultural win. We still shouldn’t build Great Wonders, but in that case we may want to build a temple or library in our capital. (As a general rule I prefer to build libraries before temples because of their research benefit.)

 

[blackheart]

With 11 rival civs I don’t think we have a prayer of building a Great Wonder during the Ancient Age. We’ve got two civs right on our doorsteps and we’re going to have our hands full producing settlers and racing to grab as much land as we can. I don’t think we can spare production for any culture during this term, and for little during the Ancient Age. The only exception would be if we’re targeting a cultural win. We still shouldn’t build Great Wonders, but in that case we may want to build a temple or library in our capital. (As a general rule I prefer to build libraries before temples because of their research benefit.)

If we don't get the wonder we're aiming for we can always switch it to another wonder.

 

[Brain]

The 3 content citizens are not as important as the 2 culture per turn (cpt) and no maintenance cost.

So? I still don't get it. Are we so in need of culture that we're going to use 200 shields in the early growth phase to get 2 culture per turn? If we really need to I'd rather just build a temple for one fifth of the cost and pay 1 gold maintenance (that's half a unit under Republic). And that's just if we really need to.

I'm new to the Demogame and I'm surprised at such discussions. Do people actually build any great wonders at all during the ancient age in their own games? At Emperor level? Maybe I'm missing some overpowering strategic manover that I have never heared of so please tell me how in the world you plan to do this.

 

[mad-bax]

With 11 rival civs I don’t think we have a prayer of building a Great Wonder during the Ancient Age. ...

Pearls before swine...

Seriously though... this is my view. Trying to build large capital projects before we have the infrastructure to actually do it is a bad idea IMO. I won't prescribe build queues because it depends on many things. However I would say that getting at least 1 worker out of each new town is a priority. Just as an example... for your average 2 shield +2 food town you can build a warrior and then a worker, getting the worker on growth. Then you set the town up to be what you want it to be.

My preference is to give each town a job; settler factory, worker pump, unit pump whatever. This helps to focus on what buildings the town NEEDS. City planning is better like this.

We need the wheel and iron working to see whether we need to build warriors or chariots whilst we are "waiting" for cities to grow and therefore build a worker. Workers, and what we do with them will win the game for us.

I talk to much - I know that, and I'm sorry. What I am trying to say is that IMO we don't need culture right now, but we need the infrastructure with which to build it when we do. We shouldn't invest large numbers of shields into projects we have no realistic prospect of completing.

We could have a discussion about the Lighthouse. Because it is one of the triggers for our GA then I imagine a case could be made for it if you try really hard.

 

[classical_hero]

It does seem that it would be imposible to build a wonder because we need to have our priorities on expansion first, then we can start to think of other things. If we some how get a SGL, then we will be able to build a Great wonder. So our priority culture wise should be to build temples and libraries.

 

[mad-bax]

But which first, when and where?

Q. What does a temple do and cost?
A. It makes one unhappy citizen content and gives 2cpt. It costs 60shields to build and costs 1gpt to maintain.

Q. What does a Library do and cost?
A. It increases the proportion of gold converted into beakers (as set by the slider Czar) by 50%. It give 3cpt. It costs 80 shields to build and 1gpt to maintain.

Q. What does it cost to increase the slider by 10%?
A. Dunno. Haven't got the save open...but probably 1 or two gpt.

So for one or two gpt we can increase the happiness in every city - or we can invest 60 shields and 1gpt into a single city to raise happiness in the single city by one content citizen - if we build a temple. So it is an expensive method to control happiness long term. It is expensive also initially in shields. It gives us 2cpt per gold piece per turn.

OTOH If we build a library what do we get? Well... It depends on the slider and the despotism penalty. If the science slider is at zero then a library gives nothing except culture. If the slider is set at 100% the city will produce 50% more beakers than it would gold with the slider at 0%. The amount of gold a city can produce is capped by the despotism penalty which means that 93.4738% of workable tiles will give 2 or fewer gpt. The library will contribute 3 cuture points per gold piece per turn.

Conclusion: Temples are a waste of shields and income. Libraries are a waste of shields and income until we BOTH change government AND start researching.

Let's just keep our powder dry for a few millenia and build some useful stuff like barracks and markets and dare I say it - units.

 

[classical_hero]

Would it cost us more by not having any culture in our cities? If we do not have some sort of culture we will be facing some cities that will be at risk of culture flip, and that is something we do not want happen. What we really need is a balance between the two. We need to be expanding our Civilization both ways. Expansion by culture and settler production. If we set the right platform now, we are setting ourselves for a good game.

 

[mad-bax]

Agreed. Flipping can be combatted in several ways. Using a large enough garrison, reducing the number of foreigners and expanding the cultural boundary. Flip risk can be calculated and there are tools to do it if you need them. Later in the game when we are sharing cultural borders with other civs and when we are at war then the cultural policy/strategy will need to change. There may also be exceptional circumstances where say temples will be required, if a certain city gets bigger than our other cities. ATM all I am talking about is cultural strategy over the next 40 turns or so.

Culture is very important and can be used in many imaginative ways. I am just asking that people think about the "when" and "where" aspects of culture, rather than just the "what".