Culture Domination : Pericles the Cool (Noble)

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Sep 6, 2010
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Hey hey,

I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a culture-domination game. This is where you try to win via domination but without war, by out-culturing everyone. It's been done before but not that often. With the Oz-man having a great artist only game on at the moment, it made me think about doing it again. So, after seeking his permission as I didn't wish to steal his thunder, I've decided to go for it.

I'll be doing it in the style of Neal or the Oz-man, where I post up a round and people can comment on it/offer advice. Hopefully the story as well as the game will be entertaining.

Our leader will be Pericles the Cool. He has a cool helmet and does the best swimming impression of any leader in the game – behold…

periclespic.jpg


Y'know, looking at it again, I think that's a great DJ impression...

He is Creative which helps both in early culture/border popping (+2 a city), and in getting cultural buildings built quickly (Libraries, theatres and colosseums). He is also Philosophical (+100% great people, half-price universities) which will help a lot with generating great artists. That’s going to be something I will try and do a lot this game.

The UU is the Phalanx, but who cares as the game will be Always Peace. The UB is the Odeon, which replaces the colosseum. It gives +2 :) instead of +1 :) and also 3 culture. This combines very well with the cultural trait, meaning this building effectively costs only 40 hammers. So for 110 hammers, a city can build a library, theatre and Odeon, for a total of 8 culture a turn. Sweet!

Map = Pangea, this means 4 AI, huts/events off (considering having them on in the future), Always Peace. Difficulty = Noble, I think it should be possible on Prince and maybe Monarch too (depending on settings) but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Strategy...

From reading some other games done in this style, Stonehenge is valued highly. However as I'm a cultural leader, I don't think it's necessary. What is important, though, is early settling,

getting cities in the most far-flung places from where your culture can influence the other civs many years in the future. I'd rather an extra settler than Stonehenge.

Wonders are great source of culture of course, so I will try and build some of these in cities bordering the other civs. Another lynchpin of the strategy will be to generate lots of great artists, taking advantage of the Philosophical trait. Settling these early on will provide great culture through the years, and help to offset the terrible maintenance costs that I will incur as a result of far-flung settling.

Finally in terms of strategy, I will head for drama early for half-price theatres. If you didn't know, the cultural output of buildings doubles 1,000 years after they are built, hence theatres/libraries/other cultural buildings built in the BCs will return an awful lot of culture in the years to come.

Normally around here a starting screenshot will be inserted. However I have played the first 2 round of this game already and forgot to make a 4000 BC save... so you'll have to make do without :p

I will try and get rounds 1 and 2 up in the next week, if not quicker. I'll tell you that it did show 1 wet wheat and 2 crabs though :)

The plan for the first round will be...

  • Settle capital and explore
  • Explore the map
  • Settle aggressively close to the AI
  • Build the Oracle in one of these newly settled cities, grab CoL with it

The Oracle will give great base culture which will double before too long, and discovering CoL will let me found a religion (+5 culture in that city) and spread it for more cultural goodness. It also opens up CoL though I don't know when I will want to switch to that... it's a tough question.
 
Just popping in to mention that you could use the spread culture espionage mission very heavily as well. If you want to get an idea how insanely far you can get with culture going the espionage route I recommend you take a look at the RR13 succession game. The AP proved very useful in that game too by the way, probably even more so with always peace.

Anyway, good luck with this one.
 
Don't forget espionage. Its value in flipping opponent cities via cultur far outweights any wonder you may build.
 
Y'know, looking at it again, I think that's a great DJ impression...

Ain't no party like a Pericles party 'cuz a Pericles party don't stop. :p

I tried this offline with the Cathysaurus REX. It went not too well. It's probably because I'm not used to playing Epic speed (which is what I believe is the easiest way to do this since the game runs the culture revolt check every turn), but the minute I went into strike and lost my workers that were building the cottages that would pull me out of strike, I threw my hands up and went home.

So yeah, the best thing you'll get from CoL? Courthouses. I think if you can make it past the early game, this won't be too bad.

I would absolutely plan to run Caste System, both for Merchants to finance expansion and Artists to push those borders out. Of course, with the Sistine Caste System becomes even more valuable.

Looking forward to this one!
 
Well, it's noble difficulty so shouldn't be too hard to expand out dead fast and far out. However, I'm not sure if this game will be SIGNIFICANTLY special though except for the fact that you want your cities to be spaced out a lot and rather than 3 cities getting all the culture bombs, each border city would get one? Unless you mean no war at all!! In which case I think it may be tricky. :p


Seems interesting, should be a nice read :)

Edit: Is it possible to culture steal an AI's capital? I tried it out but it didn't seem to work when the AI only has one city. But I THINK it works if they have more than one city.
 
I've seen it happen on Earth maps with Paris (two tiles from London with the Channel between, and Paris is a monster production site, so Louis spends the whole game spamming wonders). It's doable.

Similar to that, I once got Isabella's culture-crushed capital (and only city) via AP vote on an Earth Always Peace game. It was my favorite Civ moment of all time because the Pope essentially called for the complete dissolution of the Spanish Empire.
 
Edit: Is it possible to culture steal an AI's capital? I tried it out but it didn't seem to work when the AI only has one city. But I THINK it works if they have more than one city.
Yup, perfectly possible :D I think the more recent example is the game nocho linked above [/shameless self-plug] where we got all the cities of the map in our hands. The issue about when they have only one city is that they put all their units in there and after +/- 10 military garrison units it is pratically impossible to make a city revolt via culture, and without revolts , there are no flips. You have to either kill all the units there ( and keep it clean of units, including foreign ones ,since the code does not check nationality of the units for garrison revolt supression proposes ) and wait for the RNG to do it's magic, or to AP grab it.

Anyway, good luck to the OP. Regardless of the level, this is a very patient draining variant, regardless of using espionage or not ( using espionage IMHO is far worse ... in the linked game above we had at times more than 110 spies.... and the espionage system was NOT designed to deal with that amount of spies in action in a ergonomic way :( )
 
@Revant - I'm not winning via cultural victory, but with a domination victory. The game settings are set to Always Peace so I cannot declare war on anyone.

Interesting about the spy missions, I'll bear that in mind for later, though I will be trying to mainly use great people.

Speed setting.... yeah I think Epic would be better, however I'm just more used to Normal. Maybe my next attempt will be Prince/Epic.

So, without further ado....
 
Part I - Introducing Pericles and the Council of Cool
4000BC - 1360BC​

A reminder before I start, I had to take the screenshots retrospectively, so they aren't perfect but still show the story.

Pericles knew he was cool. His people knew he was cool too. He looked out across the uncultured, savage land, and decided to do something about it. “The world must know of our people’s great culture” he declared, “and they shall be happy for it!” He dreamed of a day when everyone had a shiny helmet like his, and the people of the world would recognise him for the king of culture that he was.

The young leader Pericles has assembled his very own Council of Cool, a collection of entertaining, artistic and occasionally wise men and women who advised him on his mission of coolness. Chief among them was one Elvis Preslopolous, who said “Sire, our first city should be here!” However Pericles refused this advice – his gaze was drawn by a mysterious blue aura nearby. Although Mr. Preslopolous was all shook up at his advice being refused, he and the people followed Pericles to this blue aura and established a city there. After doing so, all the people had to agree that Pericles had made a wise choice, and they respected him for his wise leadership, as well as his inherent coolness. His place as leader was secure.

homemap.jpg


(The settler started 1NW of where he was but I settled on the blue circle instead. As I was losing none of the resources on show, I felt it was worth the gamble, and it paid off. This will be one great GP farm in the future!)

The secrets of agriculture were soon learnt, followed by mining and bronze working so that the forests could provide short-term boost to production, and so that more bronze helmets could be built. Scouting parties were sent out to find suitable sites from which to spread the great Greek culture. Before long, a grumpy woman with a thin mouth was encountered.

metisabella.jpg


“She seems a little up-tight” thought Pericles to himself, “those people could use a happier leader.” So he sent out some settlers to form a city on her borders as a base for his trusted advisor Elvis Preslopolus to operate from…

lasvegassettle.jpg


He was delighted at this honour Pericles had bestowed upon him, and composed a new song called “Viva Las Vegas” to celebrate. :) A warrior and a monument were built here.

(Before too long I took control of the elephants 1N of Last Vegas that Isabella had kindly built a camp for :))

Before long the rest of the cast had revealed themselves – Napoleon of the French, Burger King of the Holy Roman Empire, and Augustus Caesar of the Romans. Pericles looked down on this mob - none of them had his Creative streak and therefore were backwards savages - he was now even more sure of his life's calling. The Greeks scouted a lot of the map to the west, before finally getting round to scouting east of their starting location, and found this….

romanspotfound.jpg


Pericles jumped out of his seat. “People!” he said, “Go forth at once and claim that land in the name of the Greeks!” He knew the marble would aid in the construction of many wondrous buildings, and that the site would be a great forward base for spreading Greek culture to the Romans. With the aid of slavery a settler was sent at speed to claim it…

romanspotsettled.jpg


(Phew! Beat the Romans there by 1 turn! This was taken just before I settled it - it's Corinth)

Now the time was coming for the first great wonder to be built, a mysterious religious building called the Oracle. A couple of workers were ordered to hastily hook up the marble to the rest of the empire, and Las Vegas began construction of it. Mr. Preslopolus was quite happy with this turn of events, anything that would increase the fame of his favourite city had to be a good thing. He did get angry with some construction workers though, after they stepped on his blue suede shoes. Two chopped forests later and the Oracle was built in 1360BC :)

At the opening ceremony, Pericles had a moment of divine inspiration regarding the codification of laws, and at the same time a new religion called Confucianism was founded at the eastern edge of the empire, in Corinth, bordering the Roman empire.

Yay, my two capital-bordering cities both getting culture boosts :)

Pericles the Cool was pleased. The culture of his people was already spreading to others, and sales of bronze masks had increased 100%. But he knew there was still much more to be done, especially in Corinth as it is up against the Roman empire, home of Stonehenge.

Forthcoming plans…. (already played :p)
  • settle aggressively some more
  • Start getting cultural buildings up, especially half-price libraries
  • tech other useful worker techs
  • avoid financial oblivion
  • take more screenshots

The next game will go through 600BC, and I actually have a save for it, so there will be more screenies.
 
I know, but I meant using culture bombs in all of your border cities, no?

But that's actually a lot harder then if always peace :) At the same time, it means you can ignore diplo and probably get your own religion, spread it like there's no tomorrow to your cities. Get the AP for it for the hammer bonus and to help assign yourself cities, etc...

Interesting actually :)
 
If you can beat Jules there, I'd look to settle a city 1SW of those crabs in the last screenshot. Putting pressure on a city from several angles seems to be the key to this if the past games have been any indication.

I'd look to settle another city or two between Izzy and Nappy as well. Start claiming tiles in the west, then send in more settlers to claim more. :thumbsup:

Nice write-up, nice round, put some sunglasses on Pericles's helmet and have him say "DEAL WITH IT" a lot.
 
Normally around here a starting screenshot will be inserted. However I have played the first 2 round of this game already and forgot to make a 4000 BC save... so you'll have to make do without

Look in the autosave folder. You will find the save of the first screen, before making any moves, there.
 
Edit: Is it possible to culture steal an AI's capital? I tried it out but it didn't seem to work when the AI only has one city. But I THINK it works if they have more than one city.

Yes. The best example I've ever seen was done by Dhoomstriker in a always war and always peace GOTM. The game set up was that the player was sort of blocked by Tokugava who was on Permanent Peace with all Civs and all other civs were in an always war. So everyone assumed that there will be no fastest conquest award that month. Well we were all wrong since Dhoomstriker manage to flip all of Toku's cities and then proceeded to kill off the remaining civs. It was in Vanilla and so yes you can flip all of the AI cities. including the Capital (of the moment).
 
@Revant : Settling artists are better at pushing back established boundaries than culture bombs, I read an article on it once, it was quite confusing but that's what I took out of it. So you may see some culture bombs, but settling will the the order of the day.

@The Oz-Man : I'm not sure that'll be a good idea. If I'm going to take a capital I think it's more likely to be Izzy's, as Rome has Stonehenge, so it'll be earning 16 culture a turn, plus the 8 for being the capital and any extra for other cultural buildings on top of that. I'd expect the borders to pop again before too many and I don't think I'll be able to get enough culture in that city to save it from being flipped.... which would be rather embarrassing. For non-capital cities though, yes I will try and have more than 1 city pressuring it.

put some sunglasses on Pericles's helmet and have him say "DEAL WITH IT" a lot.
Is there some cultural reference I'm missing here? :confused:

@ s.bernbaum : Unfortunately I started another game since (to get a screenshot of Pericles in action) so it's not in the auto-save folder. I'll file that bit of knowledge away for future use though, thanks :)

@ Htadus : Yes that was a brilliant game. :)

I've half-written the next post, it'll be up Saturday at the latest, maybe before.
 
Part II – The not-so-Great Wall
1360 BC – 600 BC​

With influence being spread to two of the other civilizations in the world, Pericles turned his attention to the next one – the French. He saw a great place to build his next city, however as he got close he found that Napoleon had got there already with the city of Orleans:

orleans.jpg


“You win some, you lose some” said Pericles, Philosophically, remembering how Memphis was only just settled in time. The settlers were thus sent to a more compromise location, which wouldn’t exert great pressure over the French but did block them, and also would keep the Spanish in their northern wasteland.

thebessettle.jpg


The people researched the secrets of animal husbandry, pottery and writing, which led to cities being able to build granaries and libraries. Pericles approved of these things, especially culture-giving libraries.

To show off the incredible powers of Cool possessed by their leader, the Greek people constructed the largest man-made structure in the whole world right in the face of the Romans in the city of Corinth. However the Romans weren’t that impressed. Pericles was quite annoyed be this – even he was impressed by it; why weren’t the Romans?

greatwall.jpg


I didn’t realise the Great Wall gave a paltry 2 culture a turn, grrrr….

Next up, another settling party was prepared… but where to send it? Pericles wanted to spread more culture to the Romans and spied a spot off the south coast which would be good for this.

He consulted the Council of Cool about this idea, and eventually they sent him a response by letter which read “wise men say only fools rush in”. Pericles decided to ignore this advice as it was given in the 3rd person, which is a clear sign of mental unstableness, and instead decided that what was needed was a little less conversation, but a little more action. He ordered an intrepid band of Greek settlers to cross the jungle and create an outpost of coolness close to the Roman border. They duly did so, and before long a road was completed through the jungle to this settlement. Not only were the Greeks cool, but they were also capable of great feats of engineering.

argossettle.jpg


There was now but one civilization out there who did not know anything of Pericles the Cool… this had to be remedied. An advance scouting party was sent out to find a new western base. Not much land was free but a barely-suitable location was located, and a settling party despatched towards it.

madsettlespot.jpg


Finally, the presence of the Oracle in Las Vegas produced a Great Prophet. Perhaps not what Las Vegas is famous for, but there we go. Elvis was mildly confused, the poor fella.

gprophet1born.jpg


End of round screenshots….

Here are all my cities and the plans I currently have for them, roughly from west to east.

Spoiler :

thebes600bc.jpg

Building ToA since I have marble– if I get it, great, if I don’t then the failgold will be very useful.

lasvegas600bc.jpg

Once the monastery is done, either a confu monastery for culture and missionaries, and/or some missionaries. City is short on food, but with 500 culture being reached in 7 turns and the Oracle doubling to 16 culture a turn in 360BC, I should start to grab some of those floodplains from Spain (the nearest one is 44% Greek already). Will be able to sustainably work the gold in 4 turns too which will help the economy.
athens600bc.jpg

Settler/worker pump (growing on WB if whipped), until the Parthenon can be built.

corinth600bc.jpg

The library needs doing ASAP for the potential doubling of culture in a city that will really need it, after that I don't know. The gold tile is currently 47% Greek so if I can grab that it would be a good boost. However I think Rome will pop its borders again soon so that may not happen in the near future.

argos600bc.jpg

Grow to size 4, 2-pop whip the granary, overflow into library. Then run scientists and/or produce workers or hindu monastery.


Now here’s a rare full-resolution screenshot (I play at 1920 so I half the size of most of the screenshots for accessibility reasons)… the map of most of the world with potential settling locations… opinions welcome.

Spoiler :
worldmap600BC.jpg

Here's the east side of the world; no settling plans here but just so you can see what's going on.
eastworld600bc.jpg


A will get settled in 6 turns so long as it's still free.
B is probably my next favourite – it is nice and close to a Roman city, cuts off the French somewhat and also is very cottageable, which would help my poor economy. It's half-jungled but the non-jungle tiles are enough to do well on until IW comes around. Perhaps worth whipping a settler in my capital to get this ASAP?
C is only 3.5 tiles from Barcelona so will place good pressure on them. Furs will be a nice extra +1 :) and the fish will feed the city.
D will help pressure the French, however the city site is beyond awful, it’s all jungle… tempted at stopping at A/B/C for now.

There’s a lot of land south and east of my capital covered in jungle, so without IW it’s not worth settling, I wonder if the Romans will settle it though?

Alright, first question, what to do with my great prophet?
  • Settle for some welcome gold and useful hammers
  • Shrine for a bit of 3 gold/turn and more in the future, AND for the 4 culture in a city that needs lots of it
  • Research polytheism and monotheism, then bulb theology for a religion and the AP

I’m edging towards the second option at the moment. Poly and mono will take some time to research and my economy could use the gold. I could run a priest in Las Vegas to speed my way towards a second great prophet for the theo bulb. I’m open to suggestions, though.

Research-wise, I’ve got aesthetics & drama queued up. Plan is to chop out Parthenon in my capital, since it has the forests, and the great artist points will help in turning the capital into a GP farm. Alternatively I could research alphabet, but will the AI have useful things to trade? I’m thinking aesthetics is better, I can then trade it for alpha. The third option is to head for theology as per the above great prophet discussion.

Finally, religion and civics is a bit of a conundrum. I’m thinking revolt into caste/pacifism when I bulb philosophy, however to take advantage of pacifism I would need to adopt a religion AND have that religion in the appropriate cities (mainly my capital for now). Confu is my own religion & quite well spread, but I don’t want to annoy ALL the neighbours too early on – I’ll want to trade with them after all. Then there’s the whole AP thing to consider, and the reduction in culture that will come from adopting one religion (holy cities of other religions will stop producing 5 culture a turn, and the 1 culture a turn per religion will only apply to the adopted religion). Hmmm….

Oh, and I already have 21.6% of the 68% of land need for a domination victory! :cool:
 

Attachments

Bump - the missing screenshots are now in. I've never had my printScreen button simply stop working before, weird.
 
I just finished my first culture crush game ever offline. It was a lot of fun. I think once you get Stonehenge with Zara it's basically game over. :D
 
So... any comments or shall I just play on as planned?

Is this a Pangea map?
Yes (mentioned in the opening post) - it's a small map rather than standard though, so just the 4 AI. From reading up it seems to be the standard sort of map for this challenge.
 
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