Culture Victories - Under 200 Turns - Deity (Any tips? Faves?)

[Pengwin7]

Finished another game myself yesterday.

CV 209 Maori

Good / Lucky - incredible, incredible start. Got onto an island on t3 settle with double Turtles for future +4 harbor and Mauseleum. Production with those turtles was so high (and think I settled on faith luxury) that I got the religious settlements pantheon and got two settlers out. 4 settled cities by turn 29 is bonkers (for me). Huge, huge start. No scouts with Maori. 1-charge builders sent off to circle the world. I played this really well using Oberin-Moksha... which was just beautiful with getting a Marae down fast in new city (+600g to buy the Marae specialty on the TS). Overall got 13 cities (should've gone more). Super duper lucky was that ALL TWELVE CityStates stuck around through whole game. Two Cultures, Two Science - and I got Kilwa. I wasted charged on clearing charges for Rapa Nui in one-city. Dumb. Trees are huge. No chops. That was mistake. And I used a gov title on Magnus to chop out Kilwa... which maybe I didn't need to do... but that felt like a dumb move. Simply going Marae and hard-building with the tree production was probably smarter. Every time I chopped a tree, turn would go from like 62 to 60 (meaning the lost tree had huge impact on general build production). This was my HIGHEST culture ever at t200: 1400!!!

But...

Bad / Unlucky. The Cree. And Arabia sucking. With my warrior in water, I came up on Arabia's island and immediately declared war and stole a builder. Their settler went into hiding in the capital... not sure he ever came out. They never settled another city. By t100, they were gone. Two straight games where an AI is lost - to Simon Bolivar. Fortunately, Bolivar came too far and lost the city by loyalty pressure... to me... and my Golden Age and massive 10pop (by t100) capital. But the Cree... the Cree had SO MANY books. And Maori doesn't do books. And maybe I should have used my capital slot to buy them, sell them elsewhere, 1 at a time. Looking back, I would've liked to have tried the game like that. Cree had 12+ GWW by end game and that surely helped his whole path. TBH - I was very confident I had this when I popped off Flight at t160 (or so). Unlocked Rock Bands at 173... but had to go 3 (Ent.District) to 5 (Wonder) *turns* to play concerts. And my Rock Bands... Hot. Garbage. So mad. So mad at Firaxis for games like this. Released a total of 11 rock bands: 8 successful concerts, 11 failures. To end the game, I had 6 straight first-concert fails. Now - granted, the promotions sucked SO badly that I don't choose one - and go straight to a wonder and play. I mean when your choices are Harbors, Natural Wonders, Loyalty, 50% Gold... awful. My first three rock bands had decent promotions (Wonder, TS, Spaceport/Campus)... but after that they were all garbage. IDK why. I checked the three options every time.


Progression from first Rock Band concert (t177) to close (t209).
This tracks my tourists vs Cree. (Direct Cree Tourists in brackets). y = successful rock concert... x = unsuccesful, rock band done.

t177: 53/193 (9), y (Ent.District w/Ent.District promotion)
t178: 59/195 (10)
t179: 60/197 (10)
t180: 64/197 (10), x (ED on wonder), y (Wonder w/Wonder promotion)
t181: 74/197 (15), y (W wW), y (TS wTS promo).............. 3/4 on rock band concerts at this point... feeling good
t182: 76/196 (18), x, x (uh oh)
t183: 84/192 (23), y
t184: 89/199 (25), y
t185: 93/199 (28), y, y (Really feeling good here... 4 straight rock band concerts, gaining steam... 7-3 split... feels good... but...
t186: 98/198 (31), x, x [7-5... and all five original rock bands are done... waiting on more to slowly come as faith allows... but there's now a 2-turn wait to make the faith]
t187: 106/197 (31)
t188: 110/199 (31)
t189: 114/200 (31)... [I track numbers here... so at 4 per and 1 for them... I'm not going to make it in 11 turns... unless Rock Bands have a bit better success or I pop off key moment)
t190:120/216 (31) - very defeating moment. Cree finished Broadway AND a key tech (maybe Flight, not sure... but this is HUGE jump for their tourists here)
t191: 126/216 (32)
t192: 132/217 (32), y (yeah - a success rock concert on wonder) ONLINE COMMUNITIES - I broke the loan bank and bought everybody's GWM and Broadcast centers to hold them, slotted in 200% card
t193: 139/213 (35*). Successful concerts are adding 1-3 tourists direct from Cree... this is helpful.
t194: 149/219 (35). x
t195: 158/218 (38). x
t196: 166/221 (41). x
t197: 176/222 (44)
t198: 184/223 (45). x [To try to hail-mary on my sub 200 goal, I'm just throwing everything on Wonders... and failing. But at least a rock band is helping move 2 tourists even when failing on wonder)
t199: 194/224 (49)
t200: 200/224 (50)
-----
t201: 207/236 (- stopped tracking)... Cree obv popped off another key tech/civic here... maybe Computers.
t202: 215/250 Another 'WTH' Cree moment, maybe he is spamming Rock Bands somewhere!?! *But this is good lesson in "AI will spike too... at certain points"
t203: 225/252
t204: 233/260. x
t205: 242/260.
t206: 249/263. x [Cree finally finished a specialty campus district, so I played one here after a 1-turn trip from nearest city, another fail... That's SIX-STRAIGHT-FIRST-CONCERT-FAILS to close the game. Sigh.]
t207: 259/266
t208: 266/268
t209(VICTORY): 275/271 [Ironically, this was last turn of Industrial Era... and I'm headed into a Dark Age on next turn... so... phew]


Rock Bands:
8 Successful
11 Fails

Like... just... c'mon. Come. On.


The one thing my number-tracking exposes though...
You can't control the other AI... much... if somebody runs away... better pray on those rock bands.

And... good to track your own tourists/tourism.
In the sub200 games I do win... the highest AI is at like 140-180 range of tourists... if they approach 200 tourists at t200... it's gonna be a doozy to close... likely their Science/Culture is also starting to tick off key items.

Spoiler :

 

[Pengwin7]

Just reading on "Force End Turn" - I've read people do that.
No - don't think you've covered it before.
I wonder if that's an option on a PlayStation...

 

[Pengwin7]

re: 20-30 tiles, I'm counting by path.
7 Seas has a lot of strange water, land strips, mountains.
There's very few straight-lines paths from one AI to next.
Very few.

Map type may be (likely/IS) a big difference in why I can't fathom your early-war.
I did, once-upon-a-time play continents... got invaded a LOT... got tired of it. Yes 10-15 was more typical there.
(***So... I can now see our disconnect in discussion.***)


I've been playing 7 Seas for a while... probably because the space to next AI works for me.
There's actually a LOT of land (you probably know) on these maps - very misleading from it being called 'Seas'. And where there is water creates non-linear pathways btw capitals, often.

(20-30 is estimate of 'capital to capital', path on start. And I often quit the games where I'm too close. Had one yesterday where Ambiorix's 3rd city was within 5 tiles of my capital, so yes, it can happen, it was close - and I wasn't playing that. Yes, it's often this big, on path, the games I play out. If you just count 'as crow flies' - which may have mountains or lakes - then it's probably 15-20 on average 'capital-to-capital'... and probably more like '10' if they advance settle their 2nd/3rd city towards me.)

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Just reading on "Force End Turn" - I've read people do that.
No - don't think you've covered it before.
I wonder if that's an option on a PlayStation...

I just checked it, apparently it doesnt work on playstation at all, and the same goes for civ 7.
Thats really unfortunate, as you're missing out on a proper strong way to boost your early game immensely, especially when rushing a religion.

That being said, I have done this religious rush for years without force ending a turn, so it definitely works on standard speed deity even then.
The timing obviously comes a bit later though, since you're not getting fast holy sites and prayers up unless you really luck out on high production (and perhaps a few free builders from goodie huts).

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

re: 20-30 tiles, I'm counting by path.
7 Seas has a lot of strange water, land strips, mountains.
There's very few straight-lines paths from one AI to next.
Very few.

Map type maybe a big difference in why I can't fathom your early-war.
I did, once-upon-a-time play continents... got invaded a LOT... got tired of it. Yes 10-15 was more typical there.
(***So... I can now see our disconnect in discussion.***)


I've been playing 7 Seas for a while... probably because the space to next AI works for me.
(20-30 is 'capital to capital' on start. Yes, it's often this big. If you just count 'as crow flies' - which may have mountains or lakes - then it's probably 15-20 on average 'capital-to-capital'.)

That makes sense yeah.
You might get away with less units if the pathing is that long, as the AI might not even be interested in you that much, to the point where my "rule of thirds" (in regards to army score) might not apply.
Invading is also less attractive when the distance is long, since any gains are much harder to hold when I dont have cities settled nearby, due to loyalty issues.

 

[Pengwin7]

Still... absolutely love all your advice and tips!
Someday... maybe my job will allow me to use my PC space for CIV.

Keep posting any photos - if you don't mind.
I love seeing the progression of other people play.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Still... absolutely love all your advice and tips!
Someday... maybe my job will allow me to use my PC space for CIV.

Keep posting any photos - if you don't mind.
I love seeing the progression of other people play.

What I guess you can do though when rushing a religion like I did in my game above, even if force ending turns doesnt work on the PS, is to rush astrology and plonk down the holy site immediately to lock the cost of it.
Then deliberately swap between mining/animal husbandry/pottery and avoid teching either of them, so that you get to benefit off of cheaper prayers.
That is, unless you get free builders and work out that its more efficient to chop.

I'll post some the next time I play, though I mostly play multiplayer atm (against the AI), and mostly on epic.
I can play the next one on standard though and go from there.

 

[Pengwin7]

re: "plunk down"... I find it amazing that 2/3 times when I do that... the pantheon isn't there. Then I feel dumb, LOL.
Holy site, surrounded by desert... then no desert folklore.
Holy site, out in the tundra... no DoA.
Well... I mean... I re-start these games anyways!!! Ha

But yes, I do try to minimize district cost by not finishing techs/civics.
Though... if I plan to chop... I want to finish techs/civics.
So - yes - I manage these in ancient/classical best I can depending on whether I'm focused on cheap-districts vs productive-chops.
And I do usually try to rattle off 3-4 holy sites before even completing/unlocking the techs for Campus/CommHub - I wait as long as possible on this (and Encampment too).

PC gameplay would be great...
Pretty sure every elite player posting speed-content has access to "Quick Deals".
The amount of time I have to churn by going through AI-by-AI, every turn or every other turn, to maximize returns on trading... ooooooo boy.... it's... awful... (but essential)...

 

[Pengwin7]

Had to share this (quit) game I had last night w/Nzinga.

Starting Warrior... get this... went 45+ tile path West, NW, West, SW, West - before finally seeing another AI city. City on map, Pisac, was actually settled post me-wrapping world (t47 or later).
Scout1... sent East... discovered first AI city, Novodorum (Ambiorix), 19 tiles from my capital. (Meaning their capital was at least 23 tile path).
Scout2... Sent Southwest... went 23 tiles path, past barb cap, to farthest peninsula tile in tundra.
[7 Seas, Standard map, my usual]

This map though.
I'm presented with Nzinga directly on a continent split. Wonderful. Red pill, blue pill - you must choose.
I choose the East on turn2... looks like more choppable rainforest. Wrong - that side had Ambiorix, the other side had the 45-tile and 23-tile no AI paths!!!
I did wrap the world for +5 era score, got a golden age. Ready to rock?

Did it matter?
No.

Everybody went for a religion.
By turn 57 all five slots were gone.
I didn't even have a governor in place by turn 57!
Just... no culture available in this game - all start.
Didn't get around to chopping a tree.
Three cities, three holy sites in progress... quit game on last religion going.
The CityStates were absolutely gorgeous... but my first meets were MexicoCity, then Samarkind, then Antananarivo (LATE)... all first-meets on the 45+ tile WesternWarriorPath, and I got a Venice boost somehow.
I mean... I'm not playing out Nzinga on a continent split!!!

Thought I'd share...

[Better game in progress - will share tomorrow. Relic game w/Nzinga. One relic from huts, Apadana & Mont St.Michel are in place, just took score/culture lead at t120 last night... and in THIS game... I was the first religion... at turn55... and besides Gorgo w/Stonehenge, the other 3 just got their religion from standard yields - didn't even have a holy site in place. So two of them - I walked two missionaries over and converted their religious capital as soon as they did form the religion. Two religions out, two remain - where I'll need to send my apostles to die soon. Ha, fun.]

Spoiler :

 

[Pengwin7]

CV 197 - Nzinga (Kongo)

Nice, big way to start my Saturday!
Didn't think this game was going to play out for me... but Rock Bands... as bad as they went previous run (Maori)... this game they broke really, really well. Amazing finish.

Good / Lucky - Around t35, I had scout passing by Australia and they had a settler available... I tracked it, snagged it, ran 8-9 tiles north where no loyalty issues and started MBAMBA. This city became a huge factor - as it was my Rock Band distribution-center in key turns 187-197 when I made my push on Mr.Curtin. General spawn was excellent. Religion - OMG. Nobody wanted a religion. I had the second at turn 55... turn 55! Gorgo got a religion from Stonehenge. The other three got theirs just by faith yields and didn't even have a holy site. So I pushed out missionaries and took out the religion in neighboring Inca & Ottoman empires. This proved huge as my religion flooded these empires and at the 4-science per follower... keyed my science. Found a hut-relic! That's just a 'GO' on relics for me. Plus my capital had a spot for Mont St.Michel, so I just had to hold one for St.Basil's and give it a go. I think I had MAX CAPACITY for relics in capital as I had Apadana, MSM, StB, and the Bank w/2 slots from Demici. I made a risk and spent time building Bolshoi in my capital - what a risk - as it full finished the Civic before Cold War (Rock Bands) - and got me there about 5 turns faster... and I needed it.

Bad / Unlucky - Australia ended up running away with wonders and took off as culture leader. Three CS got eaten, including the only Science CS in Nalanda. Sigh. I had all 9 remaining suz'd end-game and having two cultural CS + Kilwa was nice, so I can't really complain. Didn't get Oracle, lived without. I only had 13 cities and only got 7 on my 'home continent', 3 in the Australia area, and 3 pushes far East to get trade routes. Colosseum reached 5-6 of those home-continent cities and they were strong.

The Tourist-rally in this game was incredible, largest tourist-# rally I've ever had against one CIV, thanks to Rock Band LUCK.

Progression from Flight (~t170) to close (t197).
This tracks my tourists vs Australia. (Direct Australia Tourists in brackets). y = successful rock concert... x = unsuccesful, rock band done.

174: 58/153
- (forgot to write these down)
- (forgot to write these down)
177: 66/157
178: 69/176 (*Must've been Flight here for Australia.. I was like *damn*)
179: 71/176
180: 75/177
181: 78/178 (down 100 with <20 turns left... really worried)
- (forgot to write these down)
183: 87/181
184: 91/184 (*I finished Cristo somewhere around here with 3-charges from Bruno... and I'm sitting with 12-13 relics in my capital)
- (forgot to write these down)
186: 96/187
187: 103/189
188: 109/191
189: 113/191 y (First rock band played here... and a nice one, EntDistrict ON ED)
190: 117/193 y, x (The ED band played succesfully on a Wonder... but another failed on first)
191: 125/202 y, y, y, x (Key mark here is the ED band got a promo for Theatre Squares - and they ran. Big thanks to "Religious Sushi" for staying alive and playing 7-8 successful BIG concerts!!!)
192: 133/200 y, y, y, x, x
193: 147/195 y, x, x, x
194: 157/191 y, y
195: 166/191 y, y
196: 175/188 x, x [COMPUTERS completed here... yeah, I was behind in science]
197: 185/189 y (Religious Sushi knocked out a 4500 concert here.... six star... such a good feeling), [ENVIROMENTALISM COMPLETED HERE, didn't get the 'screen' though - went straight to victory screen.]
----- VICTORY ------

Photos below.

Spoiler :

As comparison, I watched an Ursa Ryan relic run with Nzinga.
He builds so many more cities - I need to do this - though I didn't spot his 'settings' and all his land with only 6 civs seems like he may have cheesed a smaller AI-set with a bigger map.
He worked the 'same continent' better than I *could*. But interesting to see.

Ursa Ryan going with 5 scouts and Hanging Gardens... IDK there... very suggestive there were a lot of land / huts to his advantage.
At 18:10mark of this video, he gets "first meets" with long-out scout on Rapa Nui, Jerusalem, Kumasi... that's some fine, fine luck there. (eyebrow raise)

 

[Pengwin7]

[back from vacation/work-grind]

New Leader Attempt: Tamar/Georgia
CV-forfeit at t200

The Good/Lucky - After about 50 starts, finally got one where I was able to get enough early faith/culture to take a run. City2 was settled near Wonder Mount Kiliminjaro. FIVE of TWELVE city-states in this game were Cultural. Got a hut relic to start, another AI owned one - so I went Reliquaries. Didn't have a good pantheon - everything was taken - so I went with culture for plantations because I had several in the Banana/Chocolate/Oranges plentiful to this contintent. I was able to build Apadana and Kilwa and suze all five by t150. Great culture boost there. At t200, I was at 200s/800c per turn, which is about on par with where I've been for stronger culture Civs at turn 200. 20 cities in total - which is VERY high for my own game, but I wanted to push out the Tsikhe in about 10/20 cities. It doesn't feel like it's THAT strong for the tourism boost, can't recall but I think it's maybe 8 faith/8 tourism in a Golden Age - which I kept all game long. Got all 7 trade routes out without any kind of distant settler-travel.

The Bad/Unlucky - The Khmer. Good.Mercy. He was my neighbor on the opposite edge of a large inland sea/lake. If I had the skill to go to war... I think that was the only path to winning this game in under 200 turns. Khmer went with Sacred Path & Choral Music and just blitzed his way up the culture tree. In my 8 months now of trying AIs for sub200 culture victories, this was FIRST time another AI beat my to Rock Bands - and pushed them into my land - quite successfully for turns 186-190. I didn't get my own Rock Bands out until turn 188. Probably pushed a total of 15 Rock Bands into his land btw t188-198 and I'd say I had about 30-40 successful concerts. Not nearly enough. At turn200, I was under 10 turns and headed towards dark age. sub200 Culture win is the goal, so I wasn't close. His end game pop wasnt even that high, maybe 8 cities, six at 10+, two lost final 20 turns on dark-age loyalty flip, one to me. But his in-game culture must've just rolled very, very high. He was at 300c around t190... pretty high for AI. No luck with Great Engineers. Got Imhotep and used for Colosseum and Colossus in low-prod capital. Good for envoys. But, surprisingly, both Petra and Jebel were sniped by other AI and a desert city that I thought would be valuable ended up being a wasteland of nothing up near Mali. Didn't get another Wonder-supplement GreatEngineer until t199 - with Eiffel. At t200, I had still not finished Cristo, sigh. One more use of Eiffel would have done it - but no matter... Khmer just too strong.


Normally - I like to have a score-lead in the turn 100-130 range and a tourist lead in the 130-150 range.
I didn't catch Khmer for tourists until turn 189... when we were both at about 277 tourists. This is EASILY the most tourists I've seen from another AI at t190.
And I felt his boom all game. It felt unstoppable.

Numbers on the tourist chase path:

t188: 97/273 (Purchased 3 rock bands in 3 closest cities... one of which didn't have great path. Purchased 2 per turn for next 8-9 turns)
t189: 101/277 [*PIC in spoiler of my 275 vs his 276]
t190: 110/280 [had 4-5 successful rock concerts in previous turn, nice spike here]
t191: 113/279
t192: 120/280
t193: 126/281
t194: 134/278 (this bump of 8 included 4 successful and 2 unsuccessful rock concerts in Khmer land on previous turn)
t195: 143/286 (*spike for him on building Broadway? -which completed)
t196: 148/284
t197: 156/281
t198: 170/276 (I think I hit environmentalism here... but Khmer also locked down his Rock Band borders on me here. Another thing no AI has ever done in 200 turns on me!)
t199: 174/278 (I only completed St.Basil's here... way, way too late. Not that I think it mattered much.)
t200: 177/280
*quit*

80 Tourist rally in 10 turns is pretty nice.
But Khmer was just powerhouse.
I'll probably set up another thread to see if anybody has ideas on how to keep another AI from a massive cultural/tourism snowball of their own.
Beyond buying up all their great works - which I did... not sure what else I can do besides the Rock Band push.

[To be posted in another thread - one reddit thread mentions, seemingly smartly/correctly, that the AI that goes Choral Music may likely be the runaway for culture. That - if one can - try to wipe out that Religion. I considered it, but that would've meant spending maybe 1000-1500 faith to move Missionaries to Khmer cities that were already in the 7-9 range with holy sites and a huge amount of Missionaries, maybe 6-8, already moving about of their own. From experience, I think I would've wasted any faith sent on trying to push over there and not been able to expand my land the way I did. Extra faith was used to convert smaller, valuable CS, then Envoys sent count for two - Tamar leader perk.]

Spoiler :

 

[Pengwin7]

@Oberin - gave your WorkEthic/Crusade a go last night with Theodora.

Notes:
*Not good settle on City1, got a luxury - not generally good land. Didn't know what to do with pantheon but the tundra was 4-5 tiles away... and lots of trees, so I went with that. (But it will be revealed that in the first 100 turns... I made no actual 'use' of this pantheon. FWIW - I'm very honest in what I could've done better. I will list everything I know I did wrong. This is Could'veBeenBetter #1, call it CBB-1).

*Started scout/scout - which isn't your more military opener... but I did wrap the world in the Classical age. A couple mountain ranges tripped me from getting all the way around. I was able to meet 5/7 AI... and FRIEND all of them. I friended Mapuche, my nearest (target) neighbor on turn33... knowing that would expire around turn 63 and that I'd immediately try out war on him.

*City2, Thessalonica, I did near some mountains to get a +4 HolySite and two luxuries. I also got a Zanzibar quest boost and identified I could suze them for nearby military help on Mapuche. In order to make unit movement as good as possible, I set-up trade route to Mapuche. (Something I've seen in videos)

*Got the last religion at turn 65, which timed out with Political Philosophy and Archery. Went Oligarchy for the +4 - assumed that was right move.

*Turn 68 was the 'go' point on Mapuche. I took all his gold in trading techniques for luxuries, loans to try to cripple him. Notably, I was still 'friend' with all 4 other AI I had met. I got Maori to join my war... but the Cree quickly turned south on me and the grievances.

*Four archers, four warriors - unfortunately hadn't thought to tech the battering ram - but I think I only 'need' that for/IF walls... so maybe/maybe not CBB-2.
PHOTO in spoiler on this.

*Extremely fortunate, the war timed out with Mapuche moving a settler (with two swordsman) right through my friendly-zone of archers/warriors... so I was prepped to take this on war.

*As amazing supplement to war, my two scouts had hustled back to the far-edge of his borders and pillaged a theatre square and double-pillaged campus/library. Fantastic. I think Mapuche had some unique tile too that gave me faith. But the scouts got badly damaged by a city-center warrior in Puel Mapu and I had to race them back out of there. It did, I think, help distract their military units from joining my main 4archer/4warrior front.
[PHOTO of this in spoiler]

*Turn 69, moved missionary in on his nearest city (CHADI MAPU), one-charge got job done (no religion for Mapuche), so then I moved towards settler, declared war, took settler.

*69/70 CBB-2... he moved his warrior immediately out of city center and eliminated my missionary, which killed the full religion there (major CBB-3).

*That said, the religion was pushed back in that city very fast... as all four of my archers took shots and took down one swordsman. Nice for a swordsman to not get a single swing.

*At this point - I was feeling VERY confident.

*The archers took down the 2nd swordsman after I left the claimed settler unattended, swordsman wanted it back and used a move there, which was nice bc Swordsan two goes down and I reclaim settler. (moved that settler up to become a city called (Ancyra). Note: IF I knew how well I was going to clear first two cities, I probably would've pushed it into the soon-to-be-RAZE area to apply loyalty pressure to Lafken Mapu.

*Probably around turn 76, I took Chadi Mapu. But... loyalty problems... and from videos I've seen - if you don't feel you can hold city, better to RAZE. So I did. Moved onwards with all four healthy archers and four healthy warriors (due to pillaging farms) to city#2.

*Around turn 80, I took Pikun Mapu. The strength of the +4 Oligarchy and +10 Crusade was amazing. Amazing. Loved it. Pillaged campus & farms. I debated whether I could move Moksha in and hold this city... but after one turn it was at 80... so I didn't think the 5-turn wait was going to be worth it... and I RAZEd this city too.

*Around turn 84, I had taken Lafken Mapu... and I tried to hold that... as a trial, thinking my suze on Zanzibar and my own Thessalonica would hold it... but within 5 turns it had gone 'black'. I even tried to plug in the +2 loyalty card with Moksha... but I couldn't hold it.

***Golden Age flips in here (turn88, say), which is nice... and I should've/could've really started to push out settlers with faith here (CBB-4).... but I was so laser-focused on the military push that I forgot... but I did probably have 100-150 faith... and probably could've moved a settler towards tree/chop-heavy tundra area where I could've really exploited a massive HolySite!***

---Out of nowhere, maybe my CBB-5, my coastal settler-steal city started getting attacked by friend Maori! They had turned from friend-to-foe QUICKLY. I guess they don't like grievances of surprise war either. Had to turn-head on my intended Harbor-Maus build order there and CHOP out walls to hold the city. Bah.

*I set my sights on capital, Ngulu Mapu and bought a horse out of Lafken Mapu before I lost it. But as I headed to surround the mountain/river/marsh city... Mapuche popped out THREE Crossbowman.

[whatever sound people do for when things turn really, really, really bad... you can insert it here]

*I continued my push on Ngulu Mapu but the Crossbowman went after my archers and just crushed them, two shots done. All four archers defeated fast. For whatever reason, I don't know how/where it happened, but all my unit-defeating did NOT carry the religion over to Puel Mapu and I have no idea how that wouldn't have happened.

*Turn 89 I took the capital - NGULU MAPU. Yeah! Amazing... but it didn't feel rewarding - enough. Immediately on claiming Ngulu Mapu, I moved Moksha (and had the +2 loyalty card)... can't lose this city - and did NOT... Mostly - helpfully, because I was GOLDEN and Mapuche was DARK age at this point.

*But... Moksha couldn't arrive fast enough... like... he couldn't... and didn't. 5 turns, standard speed - is a long wait. The crossbowman moved in, took out two warriors. I tried to hide one below a mountain, but he was found and shot. I held ONE warrior and ONE horse when Moksha finally 'arrived' with his awesome 'full healing'. I used every piece of gold I had to buy two more horses and try to go after their final city - Puel Mapu.

*Major, major fail from this point. Every turn, the crossbowman would each take a shot - and the horseman was done. Didn't help that somehow... the religion didn't carry to Puel Mapu. You can see in one photo that I realized this (CBB-5) and had to pump missionairies out of Thessalonica... just too far away. It took them five turns to arrive (Moksha needed his time too) - and the damage by the Mapuche Crossbowman had been done. I was committed to the horseman because I thought "They move fast, fairly strong, if I can just take out ONE unit, Crossbowman, maybe that'll push the religion to Puel Mapu and I'll get the +10 Crusade boost." Nope, couldn't kill one of those guys.

*I bought one more quick-moving horseman just to try to use their speed to get around Puel Mapu... but when I arrived - found out he had yet another crossbowman in city center.

*Turn 98... and I was down to nothing but a battering ram. Four archers lost, four warriors lost, four horseman lost.

*At turn 100... I check the scoreboard... and... am wondering what the benefit would've been EVEN if I had take Puel Mapu. Everybody except one AI hates me... and I'm nowhere near where I want to be in the standings/culture-board. Cree is just running away with this one.


Honestly... here... I feel like if I had dedicated a peaceful game to cities and holy-sites in the Tundra... I would've been better off.
Might have built infrastructure or a couple wonders to snipe in front of the Cree.
If this were a standard peaceful gameplay for me... I would've said "The Cree. The Cree was a huge issue."
And... I don't think taking down Mapuche... the only relatively close AI... would've/could've stopped the Cree.


Welcome to hear your thoughts - and I know (surely) - the war-effort could've been smoother.
I see you often list "space to settle" as an issue in your games. In 7-Seas, I almost never have a 'don't have space' issue.
I had a lot of land available to expand North & East.
I could've peacefully religion-converted the Mapuche, let them be... had them in friend zone.

I... just don't see it... here... how this was a better play than staying Peaceful.
[Tight continents map... I can see it. 7-Seas... not sure I need it. Time and place for every strategy, perhaps]

(but welcome the discussion)

Spoiler :

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Glad you did a test, since trying new things is what teaches you new tricks that you can use.
And you just found out a very important lesson, which is the importance (especially on deity) of hitting a rush as early as possible.
Because the order of events you describe here is typical of your average rush experience:

1. Your initial success is great, because you hit early. The AI does not have adequate tech units (and usually not walls) at this stage, and you steamroll them.
2. As the turns progress, you start slowing down your push as the AI techs up, typically classical era tech (swordsmen etc.) vs your warriors and archers. Due to crusade you can still move on, albeit slower than your first push.
3. As you keep warring (you are now describing T90+) the AI techs medieval era tech and/or has an ability or similar that gives them a huge defencive advantage. Your forces collapse unless you manage to upgrade your warriors to swordsmen and play very carefully at this stage.

Honestly it sounds to me like you did just fine here, but that you just need a bit more practice in executing your push faster.
Ideally you wanna hit as fast as possible, because timing is crucial in a crusade rush (well, any rush really), and T90 is typically too late to still be at war.
The idea of crusade is that it acts like a "stopgap", allowing you to temporarily catch up to/surpass the AI through the +10 combat strength that it offers.
+10 combat strength is typically the difference between an era's worth of military tech (think swordsman at 35 base CS, vs man at arms base 45 CS), thus crusade lets you "perform one era better than your current units tech level imply".
And since the AI might not even have classical era units by the time you push them (T60 or thereabout), you get to utterly abuse them as you are fielding warriors and archers vs warriors and archers, something you win easily with crusade added in.
And when they do get classical era tech (swordsmen first, usually), you can still trade relatively decent as long as you abuse defencive combat modifiers (terrain, fortifying etc.) to keep up the pressure.
The war still being on by T90 tells me that you are in a "quagmire" (to lend a term from international relations), and you want to avoid that because there is no way in hell you can field warriors and archers vs medieval era tech, even with crusade in the mix (unless you are very good at tactical gameplay, but its not something I recommend on a general basis, and only to be done under exceptional circumstances).

But you seem to do all right here, so I would just try to execute the push faster.
There is also no shame in peacing them out once you have a secure foothold loyalty wise (and especially when you have their capital).

To use my Mansa Musa game as an example:
If you look carefully, my rush was nearly complete on T75.
At that stage I had taken 3 of Hungary's cities (including his capital), and he was left with just 2 freshly settled trash cities that were about to be lost on loyalty anyway.
At that stage I can take those cities or just let them flip naturally, either way Hungary is completely and utterly crippled at this stage (note how his science is lower than mine), so I'm not worried about surprise high tech units arriving anymore.
And even if he by some miracle had gotten men at arms at this stage (he hadn't, in fact the combat strength of 21 on his cities show that the best unit he had teched and fielded was a spearman/heavy chariot, which I beat easily with crusade), the game is over for him.
He will lose his cities on loyalty any time now, and I can either just peace him out or play defencively until he gives up.
Either way my work is done, and it cost me about 15 turns to achieve my main goals, which was to cripple/obliterate him, and gain access to all the settling spots in the world.
Also to note is that I had no losses of units, and the units you see on the screenshot is what I bothered to build.
Since I had work ethic and agoge slotted, this essentially meant that I spent like 10 turns building units (warriors built in 2-3 turns or so, archers maybe 3-4).
That is hardly an investment that set me back much, compared to what I gained (map control, 3 - potentially 5 - developed cities with districts, big pillage rewards, and a big standing army that will keep other AI friendly towards me because they deem me "strong").
A successful rush like that essentially mean I won the game right there and then, because there is nothing keeping me back from just mass settling from now on (next golden age is all but assured already) and buying districts in those settled cities.
In fact I'd actually say that this rush was a bit unlucky in that he hadn't built any wonders for me.
Usually I get a couple of free wonders out of my neighbour for my troubles, which can be quite lovely depending on the wonder built (pyramids, etemenanki or oracle are top notch war loot).



That being said, you actually faced a really tough opponent in this case (Mapuche):
Mapuche gets +10 combat strength if you are in a golden age and they aren't, which essentially nullifies your crusade advantage.
Mapuche and Vietnam (who also get +10 from fighting in rough home terrain) are thus targets I would generally avoid.
If he is in a golden age or you aren't, then by all means, invade him since the bonus won't trigger for him anyway.
But what does trigger is his ability to give -loyalty to nearby cities if he beats one of your units, so you absolutely need to avoid taking losses, because cities flipping neutral/back to him is not what you're looking for.
You're looking to take and hold more and more cities, since that solves any negative loyalty issues you might have.
Also do chop any wheat, cattle or marshes if you need loyalty, as well as get Limitanei cards, a governor and luxuries running.
Even if it doesnt fix your issue (you still lose loyalty despite all that), it usually buys you time to take more cities, thus solving your loyalty issue that way.
But again, that requires fast execution, as you're on a timer anyway regarding their ability to tech up to stronger units than even crusade can handle.

Generally I'd advise to try to finish your wars by T80-85, and even if you can't finish them off then just peace them out with your conquered cities now under your control.
You can keep warring further than that, but generally the timing for "nope, I'm peacing this out" is when they field medieval era tech and you are still on ancient era tech.

 

[Pengwin7]

Amazing - thank you!
I could see it all as quite powerful when mastered - and in right situation.
This all tracks with how it felt - which is that walls/crossbowman are about to come out eventually.
As a benchmark, yes turn 85 (or so)... feels a bit right... me pushing to turn 100 felt off... and if I could've been 5-7 turns faster, I would've had the last Mapuche city and enough to re-convert the loyalty city.
Might've tracked like a different game - still wouldn't have had ANY impact on the Cree runaway... but at least my own empire's numbers would be better.


So - everything sort of rolls together as a system - if possible. (And... I assume... if/when it does... that's your really effective-system... but all together.)
*Early faith/culture, hopefully
*Hopefully adjacency pantheon that is useful
*Hopefully fast-up, pantheon boosted holy sites
*Hopefully fast religion: Then WorkEthic/Crusade - knowing the WorkEthic plays off the holy-site adjacency-value and knowing you are going to take some cities to help your empire
*Hopefully fast to Pol.Phis and Oligarchy
*Enough army to work-over nearby AI with whatever they have for land/military. [Ideally - I think starting the war in Ancient Era has no penalties... so that would be ideal... if ONE can be *fast*... I could see that as being super-key]
*And the faith coming up keeps expansion.
*Try to shut the war down near end of Classical Age... and re-work on any damaged relationships with AI.

....When it hits... I'd bet it's amazing.
[the runaway culture CIV - still an issue I'm trying to solve...]


One nice thing that came out of all this... I've never tried out Mali as a culture-CIV - bc their 'bio' doesn't mention a bit of culture.
But I started a game with them yesterday and wow... the early faith is a lock to get you the desert pantheon...
And assuming one is good at those placements... the faith and gold just ROLLS in...
I think I made it to turn 135 and I'd say the game is 50/50 (on my first TRY with them) of going sub200.
[There's no run-away culture AI right now... very balanced with four AI equally at top... so pushing out high-end National Parks is my target. I've also got some appeal-Granada tiles really helping my culture.]
I try to move/boost a new city so Moksha can do the 1pop district AND the 4pop district... bc moving Moksha is just wasted downtime in standard (/500 turn) speed.
Got lots of 'useful' wonders in my Mali game - a beautifully centric Colosseum + both desert wonders (Jebel & Petra - in the hills city).... it's going well...
[SUPER LUCKY land-spawn though... one city as a HolySite tucked in the elbow of desert land-based Pamukkale... +12 HolySite... and this is BEFORE the 100% HolySite card applies!]

Will probably have some posts on that late tonight/early-tomorrow.

The Moskha first-four-promotions is AMAZING in use with a great adjacency-pantheon in low-food/low-prod zones like desert.
(This iS sort of Mali, they seem to hit a pop-wall around 5-7... some, on grass edges are getting me to 10. But their 'desert food' getting them popped up fast works GREAT with Moksha to hit off two quick faith-bought districts... for Mali - HolySite and Suguba/comm are an amazing 1-2 city punch. Where no desert, I'm doing CommHub/TS.)


There's only a couple YouTubers that really have a good series of sub200 culture videos to watch... but 'Soger' (w/Comrade Kaine) do nice videos showing some.
Mali - he says - is the empire that got him into sub200 culture efforts...

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

This all tracks with how it felt - which is that walls/crossbowman are about to come out eventually.
As a benchmark, yes turn 85 (or so)... feels a bit right... me pushing to turn 100 felt off... and if I could've been 5-7 turns faster, I would've had the last Mapuche city and enough to re-convert the loyalty city.

Yes, the part of your quote here that I bolded is by far the most important element in a rush, and a good description of what you should always look for in the early game (all aspects really, but war especially.
Having played a ton of civ 5 and civ 6 over the years, and especially back when I save scummed a lot, I noticed a very clear pattern of how I could barely lose the fight over a key city (city walls went up, a key high tech unit popped up to boost city combat strength through the roof, or they took out one of my key sieging units), and my whole war effort collapsed.

Any further push was dead in the water, and I had to retreat, losing more units and eventually having to fight a defencive war (unless they were willing to peace out).
Meanwhile save scumming back over that city, I noticed how going back just a turns I could try to shave off one turn on the assault, and the city fell.
With the city falling to me, it was now the AI that was collapsing, not me.
I could heal back up in a taken city, he had less cities in total to produce units from, and the rest of their cities fell soon after because I kept up the momentum.

Save scumming aside, the key lesson learned here is that you need to be fast about what you're trying to achieve, always looking to try to cut corners, andnever try to "take your time" because you're the one that is on the clock here, not the AI (since they will soon outtech you, so you need to crush them before that happens).
The same goes for a lot of other things as well as you may know, like getting a religion.
Couple turn too late and you now lost the race for a prophet and your potentially god like start is utterly ruined.
This is unfortunately how it is on deity, thus just getting practice in to cut corners is a key element in the early deity gameplay.
Cutting corners leads to snowballing, and faster snowballing lead to faster win times.

So - everything sort of rolls together as a system - if possible. (And... I assume... if/when it does... that's your really effective-system... but all together.)
*Early faith/culture, hopefully
*Hopefully adjacency pantheon that is useful
*Hopefully fast-up, pantheon boosted holy sites
*Hopefully fast religion: Then WorkEthic/Crusade - knowing the WorkEthic plays off the holy-site adjacency-value and knowing you are going to take some cities to help your empire
*Hopefully fast to Pol.Phis and Oligarchy
*Enough army to work-over nearby AI with whatever they have for land/military. [Ideally - I think starting the war in Ancient Era has no penalties... so that would be ideal... if ONE can be *fast*... I could see that as being super-key]
*And the faith coming up keeps expansion.
*Try to shut the war down near end of Classical Age... and re-work on any damaged relationships with AI.

Yes that's the gist of the religious opener with crusade.
You essentially play the early game (before choosing your beliefs) exactly the same - settle 1-2 more cities and getting holy sites up fast, possibly running prayers if needed.
The difference comes from what you do when you pick your beliefs, but even then the gameplay is overall pretty similar.
When I choose crusade (for example, over holy order), I just spend an additional 5-10 turns pumping out cheap units and seed a nearby city with crusade, before essentially playing peaceful "behind" it.
A quick investment of units that now go on the offensive, but otherwise I keep playing peaceful behind it, getting settlers, government plaza, more districts etc.
Not much more unit building after that - maybe a catapult to really crush them, or a horseman because horseman pillaging is godlike with their 2nd promotion, but mostly just peaceful play.

One nice thing that came out of all this... I've never tried out Mali as a culture-CIV - bc their 'bio' doesn't mention a bit of culture.
But I started a game with them yesterday and wow... the early faith is a lock to get you the desert pantheon...

Oh yeah Mali is fantastic at culture (well any civ that has a desert/tundra/jungle bias and guaranteed early faith for the pantheon is great for that).
And Sundiata Keita is personally my favourite, because he gets those nifty boosts to great works of writing that lets you be flexible later in the game production wise (both leaders are good though).

A thing that is really nice about Mali as well is that with huge gold and faith income (which you can use to purchase settlers, military units with GMC, comm hub buildings, districts etc.), there really isn't much else to hard build for Mali apart from wonders - and those do not suffer from the -30% production malus that Mali get.
So even while Mali is supposed to struggle for production, I often find that I produce more wonders on average playing as them, simply because desert folklore (= work ethic) is guaranteed and I can buy the rest of the stuff I need pretty easily.
Really good civ apart from the very early game where you're slightly behind producing units and your first buildings.

Other great culture civs are Brazil and China under Yongle, I would definitely try those out if you haven't already.
Yongle especially is pretty OP when played correctly.

 

[Pengwin7]

Amazing - thank you!
I can't wait to try Brazil and China(Yongle).
I've tried Yongle once before during my sub200 run... but growing a city to pop10 didn't seem to be strong point for me.
I've seen others do it in videos and am always trying to really absorb things like where to settle, when to chop, when to clear wheat/rice/etc
And whether I have to do it with Magnus.
But... I do get to try one TODAY... because...

 

[Pengwin7]

CV 191 Mali
Strong run with Mansa Musa last two nights!
Victory on my first play-through with Mali (probably my 5th-6th start... but damn - it was a BIG gift of land!)

The good & lucky - amazing land start. Nice patch of desert for my capital (Niani). Early discovery of Pamukkale - which I've almost always never been able to take advantage of (usually in grasslands) - but it was SURROUNDED BY DESERT, OMG! I set up cities2,3,4 as fast as I could and plunked holy sites around them. These HS... by end-game were showing on the religion screen as +31, +31, +37. With Mali the faith pantheon comes quick... wise choice to forego Religious Settlements for the Desert pantheon. I didn't get my religion until turn 55, which used some tree chops - completely find since Work Ethic was coming. (And... Holy Order for me). And away I went. Pretty great. Imhotep was first Great Engineer - which is one of my favourite things to hope & target. And I had the faith to do it fairly quick, just had to pump Harbor & Maus out of Segu on the coast. Imhotep scored me Colosseum, Petra, and Colossus (I had actually hard-built Jebel Barkal in a lone desert-hills tile btw Niani-Timbuktu-Kangaba. I got Isidore too... and used all three of hers to complete Kilwa fast. I didn't do a check but I think I had 7 or 8 (a lot!) cities within the 6-tiles for both Jebel AND my Colosseum placements (LOTS of tack planning this game). The north - OMG - such beautiful spots for National Parks. And I saved faith and banged out 6-7 very high-appeal NPs as soon as that was available (turn 160 maybe). Rock Bands were good-to-great, which was important because I was getting low on fait late game and they had to move 3-4 turns just to reach Theodora/Byz. But I got one run on a Campus RockBand that survived the entire game, probably 6-7 shows. The last one had only a 16% fail rate... for playing on a Wonder. It was amazing. And the CityStates were very good. I had Bologna - for a science boost. Auckland - oh my dear Auckland! And I suzed the two cultural CS (thank you Kilwa) for big boost. I put about 7-8 Rapa Nui heads btw Kumbi & Segu - together - good culture boost. And I used Liang to alternate CityParks and Granada-tiles on the coast. Huge culture. End game culture on turn 191 was 1180.6... and I think that's an all-time high for me at that point... as is 21 trade routes (Golden Ages... all.game)!!! Gold also allowed me to really push luxuries around and buy extensions on my Ent.Districts (to Stadium) as well as an Aquarium in a small lake of Tedmekka. Somehow - every city (16 in total) was Ecstatic at end-game. I'm never sure exactly how much that helps, but I try to put a big effort into Happiness/Luxury balances. Oh - forgot that I had met all AI early enough to soak a lot of 20:1 diplo favor trades... and Japan paid me 7:1 all game for my diplo. Always nice extra-gold. [props to Oberin-always, for Moksha strat. My first gov and all four first promotions - I'm always so thankful when new cities can get districts IMMEDIATELY... wow - just amazing, especially if they are Desert HolySite-to-Temple, where no prod, like Walata. Also thanks on the recommendation to have SOME Arch.Museums - did three, lucked into 7/9 finds being different Ancient/Classical items, so themed two buildins, sold off my off-era items before Arch't was used... and on my last one... scored a match so that all 3/3 themed Arch.Museums. In combo with 8 themed Arts... I had all 11 TS, all themed!]

Bad & unlucky - not much. Theodora went running a bit... (not Khmer-level run)... and I had to spend a lot of cash to buy here great works... but I had the cash (thank you Mali). The land wasn't great for trade routes. I have two island settles off-screen that I had to travel 10-15 turns on (WITH monumentality) just to get to so I could push routes to Aztec (cyan on mini-map) and Spain (red). Japan was sending massive wave of religion at me all-game. Fortunately, I had two bosses (20%) of apostles to defend and holy sites every where - so health replenish was not an issue. In btw waves, and at start of Japan Dark Age, I was actually able to push in, convert, one of his edge cities (Takamatsu) and I got the loyalty flip within that age... so stole a city. This was probably quite key - because as I brought Theodora down with Rock Bands, Japan was rising up. I had suz'd Brussels as my first city-state early game... and before I could even get one wonder finish, Japan had conquered them - that was probably worst part of early-game.

Not posting the full numbers on tourist chase for this one... I felt I had it - and did.

I release Rock Bands around turn 176 and had them in Byz territory around 180... estimate 12-13 successful concerts and probably 6 fails - with two still alive at end game. So maybe 8 purchased/used.
I just tech'd Computers at turn 190 end (you can see it still on my map screen) and had just finished a partial Bruno build on Cristo (had 4 relics, probably didn't need Cristo - I never know there).
Basically ran projects in all cities because no city had anything useful to make in final 10 turns - and I'd just buy the extra culture of Broadcast centers as that cash was available. [*I do always wonder what the best-thing-to-do-with-gold is... late-game, when you are pushing for CV... but I assume it's buying Broadcast Centers.]

Spoiler :

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

The good & lucky - amazing land start.

That's an amazing start indeed - getting a strong desert start but also Imhotep to snag a ton of early wonders helps the snowball a lot.
You pretty much cant get any better in terms of start, because it all synergizes so well.
Happy to see that the Moksha strat is working out for you (as it should, he's strong and imo quite slept on in the civ community that tends to "always" prioritize Magnus first!).

As for improvements to your gameplay:
In the other thread you have going I mentioned that I would comment on things that I could tell from your screenshot.
I noticed that your lands were somewhat undeveloped (especially your western and southern cities).
Improving lands is an important part of "micro" that I would try to manage a bit more closely, because it actually pays off way more than you'd initially think.

Case in point: I often play multiplayer with a friend (against the rest of the deity AI), and while we generally have the same progress in the early game, he always starts falling behind me in the mid game, and is way behind me in the late game.
The reason, and I've tried to point this out a lot, is that not only should he settle/conquer more cities, but he should also develop them more.
Its quite telling when we play - his lands are underdeveloped in terms of builder improvements, while mine are sprawling with them.
This really starts to snowball for me, while his cities just suffer from low growth (production and food especially), making them less developed not only in tile yields but also in districts (because you need population to build them, and enough production to actually get them out in time).

The rough rule is that you should aim to have improved (roughly) the amount of tiles per city, that your city has in population.
That way your citizens are not working unimproved tiles for prolonged periods of time, which means you are actually getting a lot of value of out those tiles over the course of a game.

An example in your case:
Tawdenni (self settled city) has a population of 9, but seems to only have 3-4 tiles improved by turn 191 (your win time).
In this case it would have been wise to have had at least 7 or more tiles for improved for Tawdenni at this point (you dont need to immediately improve when a city jumps in population of course, but its important to keep improving over time just as a baseline routine).

Now as for when you should improve your lands:
This might be a pretty big thing overall for improving gameplay, as it regards the commonly understood "meta" on how to play civ in general these days (on a high level).
What a lot of strong players tend to do, is that they hardly build any builders early (in order to keep builder costs down), only using the earliest builders to improve key tiles early for eurekas, and important luxuries/strategic resources or only chop out absolutely vital things that must be completed fast.
Then rushing Feudalism in every game, regardless of victory type (hence why its "meta" to play like that, since its something you do every game).
The reason for rushing Feudalism is for the Serfdom card (+2 builder charges on builders), and if you kept builder costs relatively low (by having built few of them up until that stage), you slot that card and get a big wave of builders to mass improve your lands.
This is an extremely strong boost to your cities, that go from decent/good (if work ethic), to absolute power houses, for a relatively low cost (since you kept builder costs low, and only started paying for them when you had +2 charges slotted for maximum value).
It's a bit of a tricky pacing to get down at first, as having a few builders early is good for the production usually (helping get holy sites up faster etc.), but also knowing when to go easy on more builders in order to milk Serfdom good.

The reason this also works well with religion/Moksha is that work ethic holy sites cover a lot of your early production needs (a +12 production holy site equals many, many mines worth of production, that you dont have to build for the time being), and that you can faith purchase settlers, districts and obviously builders (assuming monumentality GA).
Then when you hit Feudalism, you can mass purchase those builders (with Serfdom slotted) and really get a jump start on your cities output.
After having done a wave of builder improvements, you can then resume whatever you did (probably settling and buying districts for faith, if playing with a religion and Moksha) - but keep paying attention to cities like every 10 turns or so, if you see that cities start getting population numbers way higher than their number of improved tiles, its well worth it to improve those lands.
Especially if you settled some rainforest/floodplains (which are terrible for appeal anyway), you can easily spam down mines/lumber mills because your appeal is already ruined, but benefit from the high production in these cities.
This really starts to pay dividends, in that it puts less strain on Moksha to buy districts (cities now get enough production to be able to build stuff rather quick without him), and allows him to focus on the most crucial cities (cities with low production where getting a district takes ages, most often freshly settled cities).

[*I do always wonder what the best-thing-to-do-with-gold is... late-game, when you are pushing for CV... but I assume it's buying Broadcast Centers.]

This might be an improvement as well that you can do (hard to tell from your screenshots), but I usually don't blow my gold on broadcast centers.
The reason is probably that I tend to have more cities in general (12 is low'ish, I often get closer to 15+, even 20 in some cases, partly because I also tend to rush my first and occasionally also second neighbour, giving me more cities), and gold is best used on museums/archaeologists (in case you dont have a monumentality GA).
Broadcast centers are essentially "just" a source of culture in the late game, and culture is no longer that important at this stage in the game - tourism is.
Thus if you can spend that gold on things that increase tourism (museums and archaeologists are the biggest sources), you definitely wanna do that.
The reason I mentioned the number of cities is that with more cities there also comes a bigger strain on your economy (there is just more cities to buy stuff for), which means that you are more likely to be in a position where you "still" have to buy museums (big payoff), rather than "just" broadcast centers (low payoff).
After that, builders with +2 charges are a good investment for the remaining gold, assuming you have areas that are good for mass wood planting, seaside resorts, CS culture improvements or even ski resorts (careful with those though, you dont wanna ruin a mountain natural park).

 

[Pengwin7]

Thanks.
So - Tawdenni was actually a fairly late settle, maybe turn 140-160.
In your games (Continents...+), land is tight and that land probably would never be open that late.
In 7 Seas, it somehow always is... there's usually settle-able land right through turn180 or so. I just find it that way.

Anyways, Tawdenni is actually a RESULT of Moksha.
So as soon as I got that city, I put Moksha in (as soon as he's available, I might be waiting on him in another city to hit pop4 or pop7)...
I'll use builders to start clearing out EVERYTHING that gives me food, hopefully timing well for when Moksha "arrives".
In Tawdenni, it was either pop4 or pop7, but I got at least two districts, but I did have to clear a lot out.
There are some trees to the right, yes, and that always means that I didn't have builders (or gold) to clear them out for the production to make districts.

The Japanese city - you can maybe see it, that also came fairly mid 4th age (due to loyalty flip of me golden vs him dark)... so that was also turn 140-150 or so.
That's 'end game' for my style.
At that point, I'm really using all my gold to buy every competitive AI's great works... and I don't typically have any for builder chops.
I got Magnus over there and chopped out TS and cleared rainforest for one high end NP.
But then I ran out of chops.

re: Broadcast Centers - I should've clarified that I buy those if I see a corresponding run for a Great Musician timing out.
I want to place GWM - and I need a spot for those... and they seem to snowball in fairly well IF I have lots of Broadcast Centers.

Tip I did learn from you (& experience) was to do those Arch't museums - I usually do three now - and I have to keep track of buying the diggers before RenAge finishes... bc after Monumentality, you can't faith buy them - and the gold price (or production wait) is just too big. I think that age usually ends turn 160-170, so I'm often pushing quite a bit of faith/gold to buy NPs (faith) and TS/Museums (gold for the 2nd/3rd districts, then faith for the digger).

Yeah - appreciate the tips. I'd say I'm a 95-98 level on working towards Feudalism and really trying to max out what I get for a 'builder'.
I always push culture to get to Feudalism - and if I have a wonder like Paititi... I will even work the cities 'culture' tiles exclusively just to get to Feudalism, buy 5-charge (maybe 6 if Liang) builders, until every penny is gone... and develop.
As soon as I hit Feudalism, I'll take cities off 'culture' and push back to normal production. So - yes - I think I get that snowball.

But, short version - my maps will (now, start to) show some cleared out / empty cities now...
And those are late game settles where I had to clear them for Moksha districts and don't have money left for builders (because I need faith for Rock Bands and gold for other peoples great works).

[*And I might be wrong - but I prefer to use gold to take ANYTHING from the culture leader... or build anything that leads to Tourism - I think I mentioned above how I bought an Entertainment District or Water Park districts with them... but when that runs out, I do the Broadcast Centers - bc usually I have GWM I need to place - and I believe those are big Tourism - especially with the 200% tourism card. I mean... I could have developed those lands... but is that helping much in final 30 turns to commit to what would be a VERY expensive builder. I also typically don't like to take out any policy card that is helping my TOURISM at the end game. If there is a 1-2 turn Civic, yes, I might slot it in and buy a few builders... but the faith/gold is usually too precious end game. I'd rather use it for GW(gold), NP(faith), RockBands(faith)... than late-game builders)


Separate Question I've been meaning to ask:
END-GAME Culture... (and maybe I'm doing this wrong)... but I tend to keep Theocracy right though all game...
I hope I read this right... but I believe I read there is fairly massive penalty for stepping up to next gov't...
So... end game, my policy cards are a 2:2:1:1... and I'm never fully sure what to slot in for all 6.
If a game goes incredible well, like Mali, I may have built Forbidden City - and have an extra card (wildcard slot?)

Anyways, I think my economic cards end up being (and forgive me, I don't know 'names'):
*100% Art & Artwork for Tourism
*100% Theatre Square Adjacency
*100% Holy Sites / though I do tend to flip this OFF when I've purchased what I deem "my last rock band" - and replace with one of the options below.
*200% Great Works of Music for Tourism (I generally do this when I have maybe 5+ GWM... OR, if I got the Medici CommHub and can have 3+ GWM in my Pingala capital)
[There's a Every-Civ-Trade-Route tourism card too... farther down the Civic tree... but I never make it there in first 200 turns... so I'm not mentioning that.]

I'm a math person - but I've never done the math on when each of these three 'scores' out for Tourism.
For you PC folk... I'm sure you have a mod that shows all this for you...
I'm winging it for 'what is right' for policy cards & Tourism end-game (on the ol' trusty PS4...)


[Note to self: Since I save all t200 or win-turn for these... I'll be able to load and check what policy cards I have. Never sure why military(red) cards to have in... or which green card....]

 

[Pengwin7]

Weekend Play:

CV 192 Brazil

Good/Unlucky - Three enormous pieces of luck this game. #1. I wanted Oracle with the amount of GP I planned to be winning - got it. Huge. #2... If you are going to have GP... which CityState do you want. Antananarivo!! Oh man. Not just Antananarivo... but a full FOUR total Culture CityStates of the 12. Just Incredible. #3. No (true) runaway Culture civ. Jiao (Portugal)... meh. I didn't even really look into how he was churning his tourists because he didn't have that much land or Great Works. Might've been the choral music. My favourite thing about this game was my soccer-style city build. [I played some years of soccer growing up - the Brazilians are pretty proud of their 'football'] I had exactly 11 cities... and the layout (that can be seen) is a (1 goalie at bottom) and then 4-2-2 (but it's really a bit of a 4-4-2 bc two island settles are off-screen to left, used for trade routes to Macedonia & Persia). It's rare that I can do sub200 without an early wonder to help me snowball. But this land was all set up for great HolySites from Sacred Path + Work Ethic + great National Parks. Just after my all-time high Culture w/Mali... I break it on my FIRST playthrough with Brazil. (I mean... let's give luck it's credit here... I feel like getting 4 Culture CS w/Antananarivo is a 1/100 roll on CityStates - plus no runaway AI). Little things I feel like I did well: I stole a settler from explore into Sweden early game - with just a scout, but I did it... and I brought it up and it became my 2nd best city: Fortaleza. It doesn't look like much but it had a massive HS. Manaus was actually my City2... and it sucked, but it did what I wanted - which was to give me early GovTitles (for Moksha's full4) AND to give me two +4 CommHubs. I used a single scout on a hill btw two mountains as a pinch-point on Inca expansion. I don't know if that was huge, but I think it was. Instead of coming South, towards me - he was forced to expand West (towards Russia) and East (towards Gitarja). I managed this victory with just the 11 cities. Pretty lean development. Oh - and most proud moment... Kilwa. It was like turn 98 or so... and I'm just reviewing the map I've explored, admiring my full religion in Sweden - and I notice they have Kilwa almost built. Oh... no. I had to 1. Buy James St. George (gross).... which got me 2. Imhotep. And... I had to pretty much "waste" Imhotep by commiting all three charges to Kilwa (not an A or C wonder)... but it got the job done and I think I sniped it maybe 1-3 turns from Sweden. Not sure how that bonus trips out between the four cultural CS that I suz'd... but every once in a while I'd watch myself lose Suze on Antana... and my culture would drop from 1000 to 820 or so.

Bad/Unlucky - C'mon, not much. Sweden, who was in the Tundra, opened up ONE desert tile and built Petra. This game rolls faster and harder if I get Petra in Manaus (which was the plan from the start). Oh well. Portugal sent absolutely waves of religious units at me all game - but I set up my 20% apostle between our lands and that kept that tidy all game. Oh... Rock Bands. Rock Bands were AWFUL. 9wins, 9losses. I even had three 'fit promotions' die early. My "2 levels on TS" unit went down on its 2nd play on a TS, my "1 level on wonders" went down on its first play on a wonder. And my "On ED" went down on its first play on ED. bc Portugal was the target, I think I would've/should've put this game away in the 180s with better luck on RockBands. (but... again... I mean, these CityStates... c'mon).

On final check, 22or23 or so Great People.

Huge & fun game.
First time I've done two sub200 CVs... in succession (without a re-roll in btw). Mali, Brazil... chef's kiss. Fun weekend.

[I started a Yongle game... playing it all wrong... learning curve there... streak over at 2. LOL. Ah well.]

Spoiler :