Culture strategy questions

[Brutus2]

I'm playing Ramesses (Spirit / Ind) going for a culture win. My question is how to best use my three cities which are going for Legendary status.

My thought is these cities should only build culture buildings and in between build Culture. This means they should be working tiles for highest production to convert to Culture and to build cathedrals, etc.

The thing is I also need a GP Farm to pump out GA. I selected the city which has the most food aside from my three culture cities but since I have built several wonders in one of my three main cities and that city has lots of food resources my GP farm is having a hard time competing with the GP points from the wonders even with the National Epic.

So, is it a good idea to use one of my three culture cities as my GP farm? On the one hand, having all those GA specialists would increase culture but I wouln't be working as many tiles so building culture would be lessened.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I love Cultural Victories. Aside from the 'normal' Cultural strategies, a couple things I've found to work for me at Prince/Monarch ...

• Found 2 of your Legendary Cities in high food, decent production areas [like a GP farm].
  
  
• Found 1 of your Legendary Cities in a high food, high production area [like an IW city].
  
  
• Prioritize early Pyramids.
  
  
• Use your high production Legendary city as a wonderhog, building nothing but wonders the whole game.
  
  
  This ensures your Wonders also go towards the common goal of a Cultural Victory as well as creating a secondary "polluted" farm for the production of more random Great People (for Golden Ages, etc).
  
  This city is usually where I build the National Epic and Hermitage, simply because it won't be able to compete on the same level as your other 2 high food Legendary cities.​
  
  
• Run a Specialist Economy under Representation / Free Speech / Caste System / whatever / Pacifism.
  
  
• Run Scientists just long enough to get 2 GS's. Use them to build Academies in your 2 farm Legendary cities.
  
  
• Run max Artists the whole game and settle your resulting GArtists in the 3 Legendary cities as necessary.
  
  
  The Pyramids allow your Artists to pump out at the same rate as a non-Representation SE (actually 33% higher), so the game pace doesn't slow when compared to a "normal" early game SE.
  
  This also gives you the ability to independently control your Legendary cities [via specialist manipulation] and "other cities" [via the sliders].
  ​
• Prioritize Monasteries in your farm Legendary cities.

 

[Chrispy]

For culture, I usually end up running as many artists as possible rather than trying to max out hammers and build culture. That may mean Globe in one city, or it could mean Caste System. If you are pushing up the culture slider, Emancipation unhappiness is a non-issue because you'll have theatres.

Definitely stay in Representation with artists. In fact, I find I'm doing better in terms of tech rate with the culture slider maxed than I did under Warlords.

If you do not have another good candidate for the 3rd city, there's nothing wrong with using your GP farm for a cultural city. In fact, if that's the plan I'd put the Globe there and just keep pumping artists out.

Were you able to get Sistine Chapel? It's even more vital to cultural victories now (+5 per state religion building and it kept the +2 per specialist.) In addition, that +5 can become "ancient" culture and be doubled! That's a huge boost to the cultural push and one that would encourage you to stay in Pacifism with a state religion, even if you have multiple religions. I'd only go FR in BtS when aiming cultural if I missed on the Sistine Chapel.

 

[Alsn]

Im curious as to why noone uses cottaged cities for generating culture? Using the culture slider i usually get a nice 60-80 base culture(not counting culture generating buildings) using just cottage spam and then building a bunch of cathedrals for a nice 50-350% bonus is just icing on the cake, pulling in 1k culture per turn isnt unheard of.

Although i guess you wont get much culture done while teching i find you get *tons* of culture once you have researched mass media(for the nice cultural wonders you get on that line) and run science at 0%.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Im curious as to why noone uses cottaged cities for generating culture? Using the culture slider i usually get a nice 60-80 base culture(not counting culture generating buildings) using just cottage spam and then building a bunch of cathedrals for a nice 50-350% bonus is just icing on the cake, pulling in 1k culture per turn isnt unheard of.

Although i guess you wont get much culture done while teching i find you get *tons* of culture once you have researched mass media(for the nice cultural wonders you get on that line) and run science at 0%.

Because the Culture Slider doesn't just affect the 3 cities you want to go Legendary.

Using the Culture Slider forces your entire empire to become a culture whore, which isn't the goal at all.

 

[Harbourboy]

This all depends strongly on what level you are playing. Clearly, the problem of the wonder-fuelled GP points is not relevant on Deity level, whereas on Settler level, you could have every wonder.

But there is nothing wrong with running your slider on 100% culture on some circumstances, especially as you get close to your goal and are running Free Speech and have mature cottages and Printing Press.

 

[Brutus2]

Hey this is great advice. I actually got off to a really great start playing on Noble. I founded ALL of the religions and have nine cities so I can eventually build enough temples to have lots of cathedrals. One of my Legendary cities had great production and was building lots of Wonders for awhile. I did not get Pyramids but I did get Sistine Chapel, Spiral Mineret, Statue of Liberty and lots of other good ones. I got several Great Prophets early and built several shrines in my Legendary cities so that now I can have the slider on 100% and still make like 150 per turn in gold.

I think where I went wrong was thinking that my three Legendary cities had to be working tiles and building culture so I tried to make a fourth city into my GP farm but it just can not compete with the GP points being produced in my Wonder building city so the GA have been very few and far between.

I also have been sticking with Universal Sufferage since I have so much gold I can buy cathedrals and other buildings plus the extra hammer in towns really helped a few of my cottage cities to become productive. I guess with Spiritual I could switch back and forth with Representation easy enough, just have to wait five turns in between. I guess Representation did not seem all that important since I only have specialists in my one GP farm city.

I'm sure I can still win but it's around 1680 AD (I think) and my Legendary cities are only around 20,000 culture. I think I could have done better with more GA.

Some more questions:

What trait combo do you think is best for culture win?
- I see many good possibilities and can't really settle on which two are best.

What leader / civ is best?
- With all the new leaders in Warlords and BTS I thought I would find one I like better but I keep going back to Ramesses II for Spiritual & Industrious. I get lots of wonders that way and I need to build lots of temples in all my cities to be able to build cathedrals.

If one Legendary city is a Wonder builder what are the other two doing (aside from culture buildings and cathedrals)?

Should I be trying to get Science Specialists in all my cities or just the two "non-wonder building" Legendary cities?

How important is it to found as many religions as possible?
- I know I don't need to be the founder of a religion to build temples/cathedrals but I find religions don't spread all that fast and founding them assures I can get started on building temples without having to wait for a religion to spread to one of my cities from another civ.

 

[DaveMcW]

Im curious as to why noone uses cottaged cities for generating culture? Using the culture slider i usually get a nice 60-80 base culture(not counting culture generating buildings) using just cottage spam and then building a bunch of cathedrals for a nice 50-350% bonus is just icing on the cake, pulling in 1k culture per turn isnt unheard of.

Some people in S&T are allergic to cottages. You're right, this is the best strategy.

 

[Harbourboy]

it just can not compete with the GP points being produced in my Wonder building city

That is why many people think that the most optimum culture strategy is actually to avoid all the non-artist wonders.

What trait combo do you think is best for culture win?

I like Elizabeth's Financial / Philosophical

If one Legendary city is a Wonder builder what are the other two doing

See previous comments. Probably working as many cottages and commerce tiles as possible.

How important is it to found as many religions as possible?

Not very, unless you have an isolated island start. If you are on Pangaea, then enough will spread to you. You don't really need more than 3 anyway.

 

[ButSam]

How about Huayna? Meditation, Ind, Fin seems like a great combo...

Sam

 

[Brutus2]

How about Huayna? Meditation, Ind, Fin seems like a great combo...

Sam

Huayna was my first choice and I did ok with him. Next was Ramsses II and he did better. Perclies of the Greek was my latest and I did really well with him. Philosophical was great, I was getting GP like crazy but not all artists since I was able to build lots of wonders even without being Industrious.

I think I may try Expansive and Philosopical next. Happiness is never a problem with all the temples and theater/culture slider happiness but health was always a problem. I should be able to grow some really big productive cities and maybe a really great GP Farm.

 

[Harbourboy]

Expansive and Philosopical next

Good choice. This may well be the most optimum trait combination for a fast cultural win, especially one based on a Great Artist spam-a-thon.