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

[Pengwin7]

Update on my weekend play w/Khmer.
CV 228*.

Summary of the Good/Bad/Unlucky:
GOOD - Pyramids at turn60 was extra build charge all game. That's just 'map lucky' - must've not been any other AI with early desert - bc Pyramids is ALWAYS gone 30-40 range. Even though I wasn't planning on doing wonders - I thought snapping up Pyramids at the time when I got the gov/card for Wonder bonuses, two chops, done. The extra build charges was great for farm improvements. (though - for as many as I did - I should've done EVERY TILE to get that food pumping). Generally - very 'relaxing' map. The chokepoints allowed me to guard against incoming missionairies/apostles with my city btw Mountains. Kept my religion in 14/16 cities all game with only 4 missionaries made. (I did get 2 apostles from a Mahabodhi Temple through an Imotep usage. Those went straight to supplemental Culture, 1 per 4 followers, and to Gurdwara for extra food) Amenities - wasn't really a problem - despite skipping RIVER GODDESS (which still would've been better pick than my BuilderPantheon, yuck). It might've been nice to grow faster with an 'Ecstatic' cities... but I kept them mostly at 'Happy' just through luxury trading and strategically placed Ent.Districts, Colosseum, later Water Parks.

BAD - I need to use my faith currency faster, pump out settlers and builders faster. (Snowball cities, improved tiles). I held too much back. By end of last monumentality (turn 180), I had about 6k faith. Lost track of "last turn" to faith-buy settler. Didn't realize that until too late, but could've set up 2-3 more multi-NP sites in the tundra. My southern scout got surprised & killed by Barbs early game. I found out very LATE game that Auckland was a CS about 10 tiles from where scout got killed - and it was in middle of Canada's territory. Canada ended up being highest competitive AI - so much land. When I found Auckland, like turn 190 (!!!), it only required 4 envoys to suze. The production on coastal water tiles... my lord - that would've been nice. And... re:Faith, by Turn 210, I was swimming in faith... 18,000+ faith... and NOTHING to spend it on. So I bought Shah Jahan when he popped up around turn 220 and belted out Eiffel Tower and Sydney OH... just for kicks. Trade routes were a bit of a problem. I only got one settler off the "continent" and probably needed to work on that earlier. Rock Bands to Canada was just too far at end game. I sent one, took 10 turns to get there, played 3 successful on Campuses - then died. That probably helped a bit.

As for "POP" in cities. 16 total cities
3 hit 20+ pop (for that Khmer bonus) by turn 200, only one had it at "Flight" (turn 185 perhaps, can't recall).
8 hit 10+ pop around Flight.
5 in the Tundra... never got to 10. Not enough food, especially with me not having the proper (thanks OID) pantheon.

UNLUCKY: Only one cultural CS - Kumasi. 3-4 CS got eaten up by AI - that didn't help. Fez, Buenos Aires - gone very early.
*It... could've been worse though - for general Science. I had Geneva in game and kept that suz'd all game. But I definitely need more Science as getting to Flight faster - seems key if I want to pull off sub CV200. I think the Apostle Evangelize should've got to +1 science for 4pop following - that would've helped in a sprawling empire with lots of pop.

ALSO UNLUCKY: Strategic Resources. I had almost none. Horses in 3 spots - but EVERYBODY had horses. Everybody. Iron - I must've settled on top of it somewhere - but I actually don't think I had a single Iron tile. I pretty much couldn't make a dollar all game from resources. Best I did was to buy somebody's 40 horses early at 14per and sell it to somebody else for like 18per. (Babylon - man... that was one of his best attributes - I was absolutely loaded ALL GAME from trading resources for gold. I haven't read people mention that - but it's one of Babylon's best features - one can almost forego a lot of Comms with him just bc resources result in so.much.trading.gold)

**Asteriked... I don't really *count* this game - bc I had to play it three times from turn50. I missed religion twice. First time, gone by 60. I had to go back to 50, put both cities in full production mode, use all my banked faith/gold to buy good prod tiles to get City2s Holy Site and Shrine done faster. City1 had to commit to TWO Holy projects and chop one forest tile I didn't want to chop. That was on try#3, where I knew I'd have to have it by turn59. So... major cheat there - hence I can't really log this one. [In fairness - I have just come off 1+ month of being religion-spoiled by playing Babylon - who gets Holy/Shrine on build and zips to enough GPP to get Prophet. I had forgotten how tough it can be to get religion in a 8-civ Deity game - sometimes... everybody is going after it.]

STRATEGY TO WORK ON:
*It's gonna take a while to learn to "Move Moksha" better than I did. I'd lose track and it wasn't until turn150 or so where I realized (stupidly)... I could be building more than just Holy Sites with my faith. So I really need to think about moving him to a pop1 city: Holy Site, but to also try to time some moves to pop4 cities and go: Holy Site, Commercial Hub. Obv - try to also have enough Gold to go Market/TradeRoute immediately on the Comm. With a settler spam, some of them got to pop4 fairly quick by taking improved tiles from nearby cities. Given Moksha is useful towards the "Faith Buying Districts" from about turn50-on... I have to consider I really only have about 20moves (5move wait) btw 50-150 - assuming I'm paying attention enough to move, wait5, use, move. That wasn't something I was marking. But maybe moving him "On the 5s, 0s" would help my brain remember to do it.


Overall - very fun play style with Moksha.
I love, finally, having a 2nd (no wonder) option to consider if my early fave wonders (Oracle mainly) are snapped up turns 40-55, as they usually go.


2nd play on Khmer starting after work today!


[ps. What is general timeline wait on posts needing 'moderator approval'? I see this one every one of my posts:
This message is awaiting moderator approval, and is invisible to normal visitors.
Three months in to joining, 26 posts... I love the forums/site... but I'm curious on why this shows up at top of every posts I make.
We have something like this on the fantasy hockey site where I mod... but we usually flip it off after first 1-2 posts - if they seem like user is relevant/engaged to the site's topics]

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I think the Apostle Evangelize should've got to +1 science for 4pop following - that would've helped in a sprawling empire with lots of pop.

Thats definitely the best pick.
You get so much free culture from playing Khmer that science is the only thing you naturally lack, and with that belief you can really start to skip on a lot of campuses because of the free science you get on top.
I generally pick (when I play with a religion) the yield that I'm naturally lacking, because generally the civic and tech tree depend on each other (inspirations only possible to unlock via a tech or the reverse), or because some tech or civic boost the yields of the other tree.
Getting the faith and gold pantheons are generally bad though, as those are yields that you can easily get otherwise with some planning (pillaging in war especially).

I missed religion twice. First time, gone by 60. I had to go back to 50, put both cities in full production mode, use all my banked faith/gold to buy good prod tiles to get City2s Holy Site and Shrine done faster. City1 had to commit to TWO Holy projects and chop one forest tile I didn't want to chop.

This is a sign that you're becoming a strong deity player.
The way that I approach this is that I look at great prophet point generation almost every turn, and decide my build order based on that.
If the game for instance has 5 total religion, and 2 of them have popped and I see 4 people massing propet points, that to me is an indicator that I must go for holy site prayers only and skip the shrine entirely until the prophet is secured.
Meanwhile if there is no competition, getting a shrine is safe before going prayers.
Yes it is a production sink, but that production is recouped almost immediately when you get work ethic up.
Also dont be shy of faith buying the prophet if you are about to lose the race for the last one, you want to do everything in your power to get it, because your game is essentially screwed if you miss it.
Playing it correctly should give you at least a 90% success rate of getting a religion in any game, barring extreme circumstances.

*It's gonna take a while to learn to "Move Moksha" better than I did. I'd lose track and it wasn't until turn150 or so where I realized (stupidly)... I could be building more than just Holy Sites with my faith. So I really need to think about moving him to a pop1 city: Holy Site, but to also try to time some moves to pop4 cities and go: Holy Site, Commercial Hub. Obv - try to also have enough Gold to go Market/TradeRoute immediately on the Comm. With a settler spam, some of them got to pop4 fairly quick by taking improved tiles from nearby cities. Given Moksha is useful towards the "Faith Buying Districts" from about turn50-on... I have to consider I really only have about 20moves (5move wait) btw 50-150 - assuming I'm paying attention enough to move, wait5, use, move. That wasn't something I was marking. But maybe moving him "On the 5s, 0s" would help my brain remember to do it.

Yeah getting used to it can take a while.
These days I just automatically check Moksha every second turn or so, its pretty much second nature at this point just to make sure he's doing something productive rather than sitting around, while some poor pop 1-2 city is without any useful district.
And with Moksha around, even if you eventually run out of holy site spots that are worth investing into, you can still go for a commercial hub or theatre square first just go have that city do something useful.
Heck I've settled cities that go straight for a faith bought TS and then I just buy the amphitheatre and museum outright, just to get access to an archaeologist (even better if I can faith buy him).

 

[Pengwin7]

Well, took about 2 weeks, but I got my sub200 CV with Khmer.

CV 195/196 (never sure how to mark this, it's on the screen update btw these two turns - so the 'screen shot' shows the latter. I tend to consider the former since the mark is probably being crossed during that turn).
The GOOD/LUCKY... BAD/UNLUCKY

Lucky - Of the 12 CS, had two VERY good cultural ones that hung around all game: Nan Madol (in my territory, early Suz) and Kumasi (mid-game Suz). This was huge for the 15% with Kilwa.
Zanzibar was in game, that was 2nd or 3rd CS that I got Suz on.
The map is always critical. This was probably my 50th-60th map loading and my 3rd full (150+ turns) play. One tile movement to get a massive Tundra-surround on city1 HolySite.
Early planning was critical - used Oberin's advice from my first Khmer game - went Aurora/WorkEthic - even got GovPlaza with 5/6 tiles around it having Tundra-HolySites. Amazing. The faith-gen from these: AMAZING.
Angkor Thom and Yaso had great regular grassland food to get to 20+, PreahV had Maus - had to stick Liang in there late to get the Fishing Food.
NJ had the early food from great wonder and Indrapura had sheep tiles to help food. (Fun Note: See Spoiler Photos, I didn't even get the UU-Domrey out in this game, 2 turns out in Indrapura... LOL)
The other AI... they weren't too cultural heavy - this was major luck. All Australia had was three GWW... and Korea had four GWW and a relic.
I got my fave wonder, Oracle - VERY VERY late, like turn 65 - which means all other AI clogged their hills early game. That was major gift.
Apadana... after Oracle - so the AI had clogged their first ring. Those envoys from wonder building in my capital came in fast & helpful after that.
I also got Hanging Gardens and Temple of Artemis late (65-75). So the other AI were not wonder-centric. Though I was surprised when I went into Australia how many he had.

Good - I went with what-I-know and actually took Magnus as first Gov, to chop-in my religion (tight again, mid-55s to get the 5th/last)... faster religion = work ethic = get things moving. (Snowball?)
Shifted Magnus into other tundra cities to get their Holy Sites (Work Ethic!) up and chugging. Second gov was sent to CS-Nan Madol to get Suz and barely get Classical Golden for monumentality.
I pushed hard and got 6/7 AI friendly very early. Really worked diplo favor and luxury trading well.
My expansion was mostly through the faith shown on my "base 6" cities in the Tundra. Bought those settlers even without having an Ancestral Hall - and ended up just picking the other option with Housing/Luxury bc it came on so late.
I set up 8 cities within range of Colosseum - which is pushing the food-capacity for Khmer a bit to get to the 10/20 marks... but I got to the key 10s/20s with everything near - so I played that right.
Moksha helped the other 10 cities - but I used GovTitles 3-6 on him... so he came online a bit later. [I had 16 total cities, thanks there to Oberin - I usually only do 9-10... but I'm trying to push more out if/where good locations.]
I played a really 'tight' end-game, sending 10-12 Rock Bands from turn 180-194 to JCurtin (this can be seen in the tourists I pulled from Australia: 48!).
And fortunately I pushed one settler way, way, WAY over to faraway Korea (29 tourists) and sent 4 Rock Bands (all did great!). Those took 7-8 turns to travel just 14 tiles... so I'm glad I at least had that city that close.
Lots of Science from Religion Evangelize choice... Gurdwara with other Evangelize. Had used those in previous games - they both feel like right choice w/Khmer (thanks Oberin).

Bad/Unlucky - The "full map" was brutal for access to other AI. I never got trade routes to 2-3 AI - one key. Ethiopia I got VERY late (turn 180+) and never got Genghis & Korea - just couldn't get a settler close enough due to mountains/water and both Genghis & Korea were inland settlers - bah.
Four CS/12 got eaten early - but none too critical (Chinguetti-Korea, Hunza-France, Samarkind-France, Nalanda-can't recall). I could've used a 2nd late-game Suz on a Science CS... would've helped.
_Unknown: Playing land for Food vs National Parks is tough call with Khmer. I think I ended up making only four NPs in the Tundra near mountains/trees. Prob could've done 2-3 more, but was holding faith for Rock Bands.

Based on memory:
*Took score lead around turn 110
*Took culture domestic tourist lead around turn 130
*Believe my end-of-game numbers were about 240s/850c

Best feeling... no save scums... a start-to-finish GO-game!!!... which feels great.


Time to line up a next CIV to try for culture... thinking to consider Pericles (heavy settle, heavy Acropolis), Rome (mass-settle for the free monuments), or another faith-heavy CIV (but I feel like I've now done them all).

Pics in spoiler.

Spoiler :

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I actually quite like Kublai Khan (Mongolian) for CV, especially on Pangea.
As long as you scout the map early enough, you can set up trade routes almost instantly towards any civilization out there (which gives you even more reach for cities further away than that) and let the early great works start racking up tourists harder and sooner than usual.
Plus the Mongolian ability lends itself greatly to dominate your first neighbour pretty hard, with +6 combat strength for pretty much no investment other than a trader.
It's not the best CV civ, but its rather different.

 

[Pengwin7]

Big win w/Pericles last night.
CV 185/186

Good/lucky & Bad/unlucky

GOOD/LUCKY - Most of it. Had Piopiotahi for my 2nd city - which was great early culture to get to PolPhis and get era score for ocean-settle and wonder-settle. Absolutely gift-of-a-game for CityStates (Kandy! Yerevan! Vatican City! AntanaN! Bologna!). I believe this was the BEST set of 12 I've ever gotten in my standard-sized map games. Kandy - again - and early. I actually was stumbling upon a wonder with 2 relics maxed - had to pause, sell one, just to clear a spot. (Bought that relic back later in game). I named my religion Raylix just to be quirky with how this game was going to go - went with Relic 3x... then worked hard to fill Pingala-capital w/St.Basil's and the DeMedici GreatMerchant bank. Only 1/12 CS got eaten up - which was Cardiff (to Tomyris). The other 11/12 were beauties. Would've liked a 2nd science, but having no military CS when you are playing for a culture game, amazing. By turn 170, 10/11 were suz'd (Canada was dominating Mohenjo-Daro, the 2nd Cultural... I could've got that it would've been a run) - and with Pericles 5% per Suz - amazing. I was at around 1000c at that point, lost three suz in the final 6-7 turns. No biggies. There were three Diplo-want AIs: Canada, Sweden, Georgia. I had no shortage of incoming cash from those trades. Bleeding their gold dry every time I needed to. Trade routes were pretty good. I got them out to 6/7 civs just in my own 'zone'. Had to move one settler 20+ turns to an island to get to Georgia (Delphi - see photos) - but that worked well bc it was my jump-off spot for Rock Bands to Canada (the culture leader at the time). All 3 of my rock bands to Canada had great promotions and were very successful. Had more trouble to the Culture2 Norway, prob sent 7-8 Rock Bands there, needing to move 4+ turns to get past their lake/mountains and into their main area. Spawn was great - if you are going to have Netherlands in game, have 'em close - quick trade route: Friends. Two settles and they were pinched off to the West. Sweden was very distant to East - we actually met at same time with my 2 settlers (Corinth + Rhodes) to their one (Karlstad). I chopped in quick food, golden age, and Karlstad flipped to me in 20 turns. Very nice & easy. Got all my fave key wonders, except Oracle. It was fine - this game was more about spreading out those Acropolis in all 15 cities. Another gift: Imhotep was first GE up... saved faith for him: Colosseum/Petra/Colossus... boom, boom, boom (after Maus obv). Isidore was 2nd up, bought him and used 2/3 charges to finish Kilwa fast - which is great for Suz bonus of Pericles. Had 7-8 elite (full dark green) National Parks around turn 155-160. This game exploded LATE w/Acropolis-push (envoy for each). Typing this part out as my own 'numerical benchmarking': I only took score lead at 110 (a bit later than I'd like to see) and culture lead (over Canada) at turn 135 (also late for what usually works) - but w/Pericles Suz-bonuses towards culture... it took off from there.

BAD/UNLUCKY - not much. It was a nice game. As things "breaking right" along the way go - it was amazing. I always like to get Oracle for my capital & discount on GreatPeople - but I just lived without it this game. Couldn't get Apadana (for more capital relics) and didn't have a Mont St.Michel spot in range of capital (for Relics). Usually, if I'm going after Relic tourism, I'm hoping to have one or both of those in my capital.

(@Oberin - this was first game where I went Archeological-heavy. Thank you!!!!!. I only did Art in Athens - bc always enough Religious Art available to theme that... but that's all there was - so going Arch Museum was great. This broke incredibly well for me too... with 7 Archs, I had 5 themed - that's incredible. I expected to era-theme maybe 2 or 3 of the 7 I had before last monumentality-expired. Great way to spend faith when there wasn't enough art available and I would've bled my own gold for end-game to use it. I did not use Moksha at all this game... desert pantheon was GONE when I got there - should've checked who took it bc I didn't see a desert-heavy AI... or I would've played it out that way w/Moksha.)


So - just like that, I'm already done with Pericles.
Scratch another one off.


As I'm not really a military-hunt/kill style player yet, I'll pass on Kublai Khan... for now.
But did put him on a sticky note with Byzantium for when I'm ready to brush up there.

Debating btw Nzinga(Kongo w/Relic-run), Ludwig(w/the placeWonder for +2c)... maybe Teddy - my pre-placement NP game is getting better - and that seems key for Teddy.
I also like 'early culture' - so... maybe Ambiorix... maybe...
Ambiorix actually feels like the pathway to considering upping my military-skills...
[*I use the Zigzagzigal guide's as my 'prepper'... and Gaul only lists with a Victory Skew score for Culture of 7/10... and I'm not sure I'm a good enough player yet to do sub200 w/Gaul...]


As usual - some photos in spoiler area.

Spoiler :