Cultural Victory - Help Needed

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Alright, I went back to save 11 and tried at it again.
I whipped several conquistadors (which cost 4 pop in some cases)
I switched to Theocracy, Police State, Slavery, and Nationhood as before.
I neglected making Muskets and instead just kept the hordes of Conquistadors coming.
My economy is taking huge hits though, I'm losing 50+ a turn. I'm hoping Printing Press in a few turns will alleviate that.
I don't quite know what to do with my workers at this point. My cities have grown as much as they can at this stage, and the whipping is taking the population down in some of them, meaning worked tiles too. I chopped forests for some of them but for others I just set them on auto road-building (connect resources(?))

With all of the whipping and beelining I have 15+ Conquistadors ready now at 1120 AD, about 8-9 turns earlier, I suspect. The Germans are 2 or 3 turns away from Engineering. In foresight of that, I promoted many of the conquistadors to Shock (25%+/Melee). I also have a few conquistadors with the healing promotion, it felt like the right choice to have for a few of them, so I don't have to wait so long for them to heal, I can see that the Germans have siege units and may use them against my stacks.

Looking better than before?

Edit: Also, happy holidays everyone. Hope you all enjoy yourselves.

 

[Lennier]

There's a penalty for whipping something with no put into it, so it's usually better to slow-build something for one turn before whipping it. I think if you did that, the conqs would cost at most three pop.

It's also usually best to not promote your units until just before battle so you can see which promotions you need, as opposed to promoting them well in advance an guessing which promotions you'll need.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah never whip from 0 hammers. Ideally you wanted 1-2 production cities. One for teh HE. Leave your capital alone. Then have a few farms in the other cities to regrow. Your probably losing 50 gold a turn as you have not switched to 100% tax. As you get gold upgrade chariots to your UU. Also once you get a general convert a chariot to a super medic.

You only learn this game by experimenting. You need a bit more experience on whipping and overflow. Some cities I will quite happily whip from size 6 to 3 and regrow on farms. Your food heavy cities are much better to whip. Assuming you are not using madrid for cottages?? Like all things the idea is to build up an army of 15 or so conquistadors as quick as possible. If the AI have longbows Muskets are less useful for attacking. Good for defenders but frustrating with the 3 unhappy faces for each draft.

If you don't micro your cities or think ahead when playing you will struggle whipping.

 

[Fippy]

Side note, Conqs rarely need shock..they already have 50% vs. melee.
Combat works best, usually does on high base strength units.

Bigger stacks ideally have 1 healer (only 1, bonuses don't stack ), often a super medic of some kind with 2 movement also.
1 with visible range can be useful, and 1 with a promo against mounted if AIs have Knights.
More than 1 of those specials (as needed) is often wasted, combat on all others for good odds against everything.
(Forget flanking exists for Cuirs )

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Okay, so I trampled over the Germans just past 1300. I focused on researching Astronomy (for Galleons), and have now decided to focus in on Rifling, as I don't know how much longer my Conquistadors will be superior for. I've just found the Ottomans and Indians on the other continent with a Caravel I sent out, and will soon get to mapping out the size of the other continent.
I'm still producing Conquistadors in my cities, and I'm after finishing war with Germany. I move against France now, right?
I also razed a couple of German cities which were in horrible locations with no infrastructure (farms, cottages, mines).
Do I proceed now to do the same to the French? They're researching Machinery right now, so they're behind on where the Germans were before I declared war on them.

 

[pigswill]

Yes. Kill France. Build galleons. Research rifling then after rifling 100% cash to upgrade conqs to cav and kill everyone (or reach domination first). I didn't check if you'd built Forbidden Palace, if not its worth considering.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

There's nothing wrong with having the option to draft units for emergency defense. The situation is unlikely to develop in this game where drafted units will save the day in this game, but the option is good to have in higher difficulty levels at least.

Drafting is also fine for generating huge numbers of foot soldiers, but in this game, I agree that drafting should not be done at all, except as a last recourse.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Alright, so it's 1535 and I have the French annihilated. I have galleons all around the continent, and have them all converging to meet at the north-most point, where the last French city was (and thus where most of my units were headed for). I razed a number of the French cities as they were not in good locations, and I believed they'd burden me later on.
My economy is sinking, but I researched Rifling several turns ago. I have my cities making Riflemen now, although Cavalry are available, I wasn't sure which I should be making. I figured Riflemen as they're cheaper, and get a bonus against mounted units (more specifically, War Elephants, which are about the biggest threat to me right now I think)
I plan on bringing my research down to 0% now that I have all the techs I need. I may also put some of my money into converting Conquistadors into Cavalry.

The continent is mine now. Although I have a feeling that one of the other civs will be all too happy to fill the gaps left by me razing cities.

The Ottomans and Holy Romans are annoyed with me, and the Indians are cautious. Invade the Holy Romans first? They've the smallest land mass. (?)

Is everything looking good so far? Normally with military games I get stopped by this point due to strikes or the growth of a stronger opposition.

 

[pigswill]

Change every city to wealth building immediately, don't build any more units, spend gold on upgrading to cavalry, load cavalry on galleons, kill everyone.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Thought it was time to update this.

I've upgraded many of my Conquistadors to Cavalry. I stacked my galleons, and have begun bringing them over. I decided on declaring on the Holy Romans first, as the nearest land on the other continent was 6 turns away by galleon, in Holy Roman territory. I shouldn't have trouble, I don't think. However I don't think the Cavalry I have right now will be enough to take out all 3 Civilizations. Should I be building more?

On a side-note, I've been playing a couple of other games, attempting a culture victory. I've found Elizabeth to be one of my favourite civs.
I've been having a little trouble with my Diplomacy though. I spawned next to the Zulus in a game. I know Shaka is one of the most aggresive civs, and will declare at 'pleased', but how am I meant to get the guy to be 'Friendly' with me? I gifted him several strategic techs, and I was the same religion as him. The only negative diplo-points wedged between us were border issues and first impressions (I was friendly with him from the start?)
I knew he was preparing for war, I could see a stack of catapults, Macemen, and knights. But I couldn't respond, I needed to get my culture buildings up, hence why I decided to keep bolstering him up with gifts and fancy techs (Civil Serice, Gunpowder, Rifling). He still stayed at pleased.
Also present is the issue of expansive civs. For a Cultural Victory it's ideal to have between 8-12 cities, correct? How am I supposed to get so many cities with AIs expanding everywhere around me? Warring isn't ideal either, as it takes me away from crucial research - religons and culture techs (Drama etc.)
Early-game it's not ideal (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism) aswell as late-game (lack of military techs, focusing on culture).
Am I supposed to try find middle-ground? Let the AIs spread their religions to me? Is there no way I can keep any of the AIs from declaring on me? I know it's very difficult to keep everyone happy, but keeping a few 'friends' around you to bribe into retaliation is only possible if they're 'Friendly' with you, which I find it hard to achieve, or did with Shaka.

Thanks for the help everyone, and I hope you've enjoyed New Year's.

 

[Gumbolt]

Hard to comment on your other game as I know nothing about difficulty or the game. Focus on this game for now.

You need 64% for domination. You need to settles about 10-12+ more cities on your continent. That with the barb island you should easily be able to get 59% of the land. Then you just need 5% more land. So settle the cities 2-3 turns before end of game then run culture at 100%.

You need to learn about galleon chains. Loading a galleon. moving 4-5 tiles and dumping units in next galleon. The net effect is the 3 units arrive on next continent in 1 turn.

Your place to pick up troops is poor. Why pick a place 30 ocean tiles away when you can pick up from land about 20 tiles away. Munich would of been ideal. Land units should head south asap. Capture the barb island city first.

With stacks you have you should be able to vassel Indians and HRE very quickly. Just get whipping settlers asap so you reach domination requirement quickly.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Just won the game guys.
Domination victory, just before 1700 AD. I whipped those settlers quickly and settled them in the empty spots, including the barbarian island.
I accept Capitulation from the Holy Romans and Indians as soon as they offered it (which didn't take much, in all actuallity)
I got the Galleon chains working from Munich to the peninsula on the other continent. I've been reading that Chaining is a bit controversial. XD

I've been thinking of the main points to take away from the game, and came up with a few;
1. A fast, sustainable, and early expansion.
This took out Alexander fairly quick, before he could grab his bearings.
2. Effective use of whipping before war.
It took only several turns to have an army ready to invade the Germans with a little effective whipping. I'll think twice before waiting out a unit build anymore.
3. War with a strategic advantage. (Conquistadors)
A bit obvious, really. But I've found myself running off to war pitting equally-matched units against eachother, or not having the better infrastructure to pump out units. In this case I had many cities to do so with.
4. Running wealth/science/culture as a build.
This may seem stupid not to do for many of you, but I refrained from doing this in the past.
5. Micro-management
Early on when I started playing Civ I disregarded micro-management much. I didn't realize the results that could come out from simply switching an unimproved plains tile to a mine.
6. Making use of other civs
I got hold of a few useful techs from the Germans and French early-on.

Is all of that correct?

What did I do wrong here, that I should have done to make the victory faster?

Also thanks for the help everyone, from all of you. It really makes things more enjoyable when you've extra eyes on your game.

 

[lymond]

Congrats ..nice win..looks like you are picking up things well

Chain transport to your hearts content

 

[Gumbolt]

Well done on the win. I didn't think it would take long with such a large army and a huge network of cities. Winning by war is always a good thing. You still have a lot of tweaking here for your game play. The great thing about Civ 4 is the depth it offers to the game.

I would not worry too much about galleon chaining. Many people on higher levels use this. Some say it is a bug as the AI don't use it.
Oh you probably don't need to like every post on here.

I think your game with Shaka would of been easier if you added more warfare to your culture games to grab enough land. On Noble that is not normally an issue as the Ai expand much slower than you. On higher levels such as immortal they start with archers and a worker. This means they don't spend 15 turns on a worker early on. They can also improve food tiles on T1. This is why on Noble you are left waiting till 200bc or later for them to settle a second city.