Was fairly disappointed in how easy it was to achieve a cultural victory.
Played Gandhi on the Immortal diff. level, though I give a lot of credit to the map choice, a large ice age island map with low water levels and max city states and 18 ai opponents. The island map means you will most likely start in a very easily defended position, that is until the enemy start arriving in destroyers and other late game naval vessels, but you should have won by then anyway.
Anyway I found the main focus of my cities were not to produce wonders, I mean most of them don't even add anything useful and only 1 culture and 1 great person point. No what I did was focus on gold and food, you can keep a city state at allied for less than 10 gpt, if you pick them right, they will provide you with all the resources you will ever need, and any extra you had in your own lands can just be sold on to other civs to pay for more city states.
In this particular game I allied myself with 9 different city states located in my proximity either on my island or nearby islands, 4 maritime, 2 military and 3 cultural. Now I know the logical choice is to go mainly for the cultural states, but those 2 military states meant I had the largest military in the world without ever even building a single unit. The maritime provides an amazing 5 extra food for the capital and 3 extra food for any other city you own, which in my case was 1 extra. 20 extra food meant extremely fast growth rate, think Delphi ended up size 42 or something by the end, which in turn gives you a huge science advantage, meaning you get to those juicy later social polices earlier as well as gaining access to the few cultural important wonders and buildings.
My two cities produces about 300 culture in total each turn, the 20 extra culture per cultural city state is nothing compared to that number really.
As for which policies to pick. Starting out with tradition is pretty much a no brainer, the extra growth in your capital is really needed, the extra wonder production can be okay if your capital got some early production so you actually got a shot at getting stone henge and or the oracle, if you don't got any early production don't count on getting any of the early wonders.
Next up would be Piety and Patronage, I would recommend getting Patronage if you got the money to bribe city states, if you don't go for Piety first. The extra culture gained through Piety is nothing compared to the bonuses you get from even a single cultural city state, add in the extra science, great persons, and other bonuses (extra food and free units) really makes this the better choice, if that is you got some city states you can bribe.
Now I know Patronage unlocks later than piety, but the classic age is so ridiculous short you can easily just beeline up to it skipping some classical techs, for example why would we need mathematics or iron working? Not like we are going to conquer the world, so we don't need either catapults or swordsmen, and that is presuming we even got iron available. As for defense, we are playing India, we got elephants! Nothing those babies can't handle.
Another good tip is save your culture, once you have gotten the absolutely needed social polices, there is no reason buy the useless stuff till you have gotten the reduced pricing through Freedom policy and The Cristo Redentor.
Played Gandhi on the Immortal diff. level, though I give a lot of credit to the map choice, a large ice age island map with low water levels and max city states and 18 ai opponents. The island map means you will most likely start in a very easily defended position, that is until the enemy start arriving in destroyers and other late game naval vessels, but you should have won by then anyway.
Anyway I found the main focus of my cities were not to produce wonders, I mean most of them don't even add anything useful and only 1 culture and 1 great person point. No what I did was focus on gold and food, you can keep a city state at allied for less than 10 gpt, if you pick them right, they will provide you with all the resources you will ever need, and any extra you had in your own lands can just be sold on to other civs to pay for more city states.
In this particular game I allied myself with 9 different city states located in my proximity either on my island or nearby islands, 4 maritime, 2 military and 3 cultural. Now I know the logical choice is to go mainly for the cultural states, but those 2 military states meant I had the largest military in the world without ever even building a single unit. The maritime provides an amazing 5 extra food for the capital and 3 extra food for any other city you own, which in my case was 1 extra. 20 extra food meant extremely fast growth rate, think Delphi ended up size 42 or something by the end, which in turn gives you a huge science advantage, meaning you get to those juicy later social polices earlier as well as gaining access to the few cultural important wonders and buildings.
My two cities produces about 300 culture in total each turn, the 20 extra culture per cultural city state is nothing compared to that number really.
As for which policies to pick. Starting out with tradition is pretty much a no brainer, the extra growth in your capital is really needed, the extra wonder production can be okay if your capital got some early production so you actually got a shot at getting stone henge and or the oracle, if you don't got any early production don't count on getting any of the early wonders.
Next up would be Piety and Patronage, I would recommend getting Patronage if you got the money to bribe city states, if you don't go for Piety first. The extra culture gained through Piety is nothing compared to the bonuses you get from even a single cultural city state, add in the extra science, great persons, and other bonuses (extra food and free units) really makes this the better choice, if that is you got some city states you can bribe.
Now I know Patronage unlocks later than piety, but the classic age is so ridiculous short you can easily just beeline up to it skipping some classical techs, for example why would we need mathematics or iron working? Not like we are going to conquer the world, so we don't need either catapults or swordsmen, and that is presuming we even got iron available. As for defense, we are playing India, we got elephants! Nothing those babies can't handle.
Another good tip is save your culture, once you have gotten the absolutely needed social polices, there is no reason buy the useless stuff till you have gotten the reduced pricing through Freedom policy and The Cristo Redentor.
. The one puppet I had I got going to war vs persia on wu's behest - popped the city before she could - it blocked my border to her right between to city states so it was an ideal grab (even though I didn't want puppets). Ok UB for culture but costly (4 gold for walls + UB, = culture).
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