Cultural Victory on the Higher Levels

[Sun Tzu Wu]

OK, but what about temples? In a 6 city game, every city will have to build a temple for each religion in order to get 2 cathedrals. In most of my games, I wind up with 3 religions: Confucianism and Taoism, which I found myself and another one that spreads naturally (preferably Buddhism so that I only need Copper for all 6 cathedrals). If the GPfarm is one of the Legendary cities, this means that the GPfarm will have to build a total of 3 temples in addition to the Granary, Library and NE that you mention. That totals about 640 hammers, plus 100 for a late-game Aqueduct which I almost always need. So, 740 hammers in a city that is focused on food.

If you need three Temples per Cathedral, you must be playing a Standard or Large Map. Huge needs four Temples and Small only two Temples. So most people play Culture on Small Maps, unless they have some special reason to play a different sized map.

With respect to building Temples, do not use the Great Person Farm. Add another City to build Temples it would have built.

A possible exception is when playing a Spiritual Leader who gets half price Temples. It may be reasonable to build Temples in the Great Person Farm before the switch to Caste System, etc., doing so via Slavery no doubt.

For needed Hammers try to Chop Forests, but save enough for National Epic.

In most of my recent games I have gone with a 7th city. That takes a little pressure of the GPfarm and allows buiding extra units for defense once the temples are all built. (Actually, I typically keep this city pumping units most of the game and sneak the temples in whenever I need them.) This extra city can be expensive, but I usually find it pays for itself in convenience (and literally pays for itself when it switches in the end game to producing wealth). I notice in you "best 2 strategies" section that you say your prefered strategy is building 6 (or 7) cities, but the rest of the guide doesn't really mention the 7th city. Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of, or is there another use for the 7th city that I haven't hit on yet?

The seventh City is the extra one I've mentioned above. All the non-Cultural Cities will be building primarily Workers, Settlers, Missionaries and Temples. Do a few Granaries, Monasteries and Libraries when there's nothing better to build.

jesusin, please confirm that my answers are reasonable.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[jesusin]

In most of my recent games I have gone with a 7th city. That takes a little pressure of the GPfarm and allows buiding extra units for defense once the temples are all built. (Actually, I typically keep this city pumping units most of the game and sneak the temples in whenever I need them.) This extra city can be expensive, but I usually find it pays for itself in convenience (and literally pays for itself when it switches in the end game to producing wealth). I notice in you "best 2 strategies" section that you say your prefered strategy is building 6 (or 7) cities, but the rest of the guide doesn't really mention the 7th city. Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of, or is there another use for the 7th city that I haven't hit on yet?

Spot on!

The optional 7th city isn't explicitly mentioned in the article, but it is covered under "auxiliary cities".

The idea I want to get through is this: building temples in the GPFarm is nice, having an Aqueduct is nice... but don't delay GP generation in the GPFarm because of any of these reasons.

jesusin, please confirm that my answers are reasonable.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sure they are.

 

[JackOfClubs]

If you need three Temples per Cathedral, you must be playing a Standard or Large Map. Huge needs four Temples and Small only two Temples. So most people play Culture on Small Maps, unless they have some special reason to play a different sized map.

Yes, I always play Normal Speed and Standard Map unless I'm working with someone else's game. Just call me Joe Average. Sorry, I thought I mentioned that in the post. (Actually, I think I did mention it, but then I edited the post for brevity and it wound up on the cutting room floor.)

Glad to see I am on the same page about the 7th city. I have been driving myself crazy trying to hold myself to the "orthodox" number of cities and it just doesn't fit my play style.

A couple of observations about religion and temples:

1. Three seems to be about the optimal number. Any less than that and you don't have enough cathedral multipliers. Any more and you spend far too much time making monasteries and missionaries when you should be making temples. I know monasteries can be avoided with OR, but I usually want Pacifism if I have a state religion at all. And the missionaries are still time-consuming, even under OR. And, of course, after 3 the odds that a mission will fail become much higher, requiring even more missionaries.

2. In cases when I randomly get more than 3, I am looking at adopting the policy of only spreading the extra religions to 3 cities rather than all 6. This lets me build a single extra cathedral in whatever city needs it, but doesn't require an inordinate expense of hammers and time. I haven't exactly implemented this policy yet, but in my current game, I managed to snag 6 religions (everything but Islam) and it has become a major burden.

3. After I get Liberalism, I tend to try to trade it around as quickly as possible so that other civs will hopefully adopt FR while I convert to a state religion and switch to Pacifism (along with Free Speech and Caste System). If there are no trades available, I will sell it to for cash to finance deficit culture spending in Phase 2. Anyone else use this technique?

4. Not religion-related, but keying off of jesusin's comment about Aqueducts: I am finding that health is a major problem in my Legendary cities, especially the GPfarm. Almost as big a problem as cash. I have more to say about this, but I think I'll save it for another time.

 

[jesusin]

I have written 2 new sections. One "On maximizing the number of GAs" and other "On BTS games on lower levels of difficulty". They are both on post #3 of this thread.

I hope you enjoy.

 

[Habitus]

"On maximizing the number of GAs"

Just got round to making my Spreadsheet to try and do this in my culture games A SS makes it much easier to spot when you can do the things mentioned in your guide.