Delayed bronze working #2: Deity isolated

[Revent]

Culture game is pretty much like any other game until 1AD. Then you focus your empire on GP production and multipliers. You usually bulb all the way to Lib and take Nationalism. All the diplo has to be done to that point and it is pretty possible. You can't always bribe people in wars but you can make them stop trading and other sneaky stuff. Culture is beyond sword in full sense of those words.

Isolation game calls for early as possible Astro. Letting AIs do something somewhere is dangerous and completely luck dependant. If you win culture without means of razing other people's culture cities or capital for spaceship, you should do that before 1800AD. Everything else is pure luck.

Dunno about that..I think the AI will probably find you faster than you can research Astro on deity

 

[vranasm]

Dunno about that..I think the AI will probably find you faster than you can research Astro on deity

in the map posted here you should expect Hanni meeting you around 100 AD. And raze you around 600 AD :-D

 

[shakabrade]

Dunno about that..I think the AI will probably find you faster than you can research Astro on deity

Not all of them will and more importantly, you get trade routes and resource trades to blossom. I research Astro faster than AI, even in isolation (bulbs).

 

[UnforcedError]

I think so too. Astro bulbs seem to be more effective even from a cultural victory perspective, even if you lose lib. Early trade routes and trades matter a lot.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I think so too. Astro bulbs seem to be more effective even from a cultural victory perspective, even if you lose lib. Early trade routes and trades matter a lot.

I've never seen GS bulbs of Astronomy in a game where Cultural Victory was the goal from the start as it is in this thread. Let the AIs do the work of researching Astronomy making contact and trade the two Great Scientists needed to bulb Astronomy completely for two Great Artists that can each add 4000C to the Cultural City or Cities furthest from Legendary Culture (50000C). That will beat the meager additional Commerce trade routes will provide in the small time window between one finding the AIs via early Astronomy and one waiting for the AI to do the same. Two GS for Astronomy for probably no more than an equialent amout of early Astronomy Commerce doesn't even sound like a very good trade off. I'd prefer the two Great Artists any day for a Cultural Victory, which is also the target Victory Condition for this thread.

However, I'm more interested in strategies players have actually used in winning Cultural Victory on the start provided in this thread or even a similar start of the player's own choosing, although comparability will suffer.

OP has two Cultural wins now favoring the Delayed BW strategy. Surely, proponents of an early BW strategy can post their own Cultural win, if the two strategies are of comparable optimaility for the given start. My intention is to simply motivate players that are so sure of their preferred strategy to show that it actually works. My interest in this thread is purely strategic knowledge; not whether player A is better than player B; there are far better venues for that as I've mentioned before.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[UnforcedError]

^^So you think wasting scientist on Lib bulbs are justifiable for a culture victory while using them to bulb Astro are not?

 

[Brennus.Quigley]

^^So you think wasting scientist on Lib bulbs are justifiable for a culture victory while using them to bulb Astro are not?

I like how it's phrased as "wasting scientists on Lib bulbs" versus "using them to bulb Astro". No bias in the question, right?

Not sure how extra commerce from trade routes in coastal cities (and everything else that comes with Astronomy) could be a greater priority than Free Speech (+2 commerce per town and +100% culture per city) and a free tech of your choosing (likely Nationalism unlocking the Hermitage) for cultural victories.

 

[UnforcedError]

Well, ever since I started playing this game about six years ago I never felt the urge to go culture (conquest / dom / space being the goals I enjoyed testing out countless strategies for) before I found this forum about a year ago. The reason I'm telling you this is that it means ~99,9% of what I could tell you about culture can be found on this forum. (In fact the HOF VIII challenge game with Justinian was probably my second cultural victory ever. And even though I was able to read and reproduce say Jesusin's recommendations, it's never going to become my favourite VC. I'm a bit more action oriented, but that is really up to personal taste.)

So back to the topic: yes, Liberalism is important for Free Speech and winning the Lib race may be important for Nationalism (not in your case though as everybody had it already). However, collecting as many religions as you can for the earlier multiplier buildings and farming as many GAs as you can are an even more important part of the strategy, apart from establishing the usual commerce cities you'd use for teching purposes up until Lib. So even though you denied the fact I'd say getting Buddhism on this map was a vital (and tremendously lucky) part of the strategy to work at all. An early Astro might be a good way to get more religions in isolation -- you don't necessarily want to wait for the AI to establish trade routes with you as by then you'd want to be done with (most of your) temples and cathedrals (you can only start on the Hermitage after Nat is in, after all). This of course being only second best to actually founding at least 3 religions yourself, but that can be tough on Deity, especially if you don't want to cripple your economy too much in the process.

And back to my still unanswered question: what are the characteristics of non-BW starts?

 

[Brennus.Quigley]

So even though you denied the fact I'd say getting Buddhism on this map was a vital (and tremendously lucky) part of the strategy to work at all.

It appears as if you missed post #188 where I beat the map again, this time taking a very non-controversial The Wheel to Pottery to Writing path.

An early Astro might be a good way to get more religions in isolation

Well, the idea of getting foreign religions and utilizing them is interesting, but I don't think that even compares with +100% culture in every city from Free Speech, not to mention increased commerce and the free tech. But still interesting.

And back to my still unanswered question: what are the characteristics of non-BW starts?

Um, I've repeatedly answered that question. For example, see post #83 for the basics. If you're asking me to add greater detail to the article, that will take time.

 

[UnforcedError]

Well, the idea of getting foreign religions and utilizing them is interesting, but I don't think that even compares with +100% culture in every city from Free Speech, not to mention increased commerce and the free tech. But still interesting.

Yeah. Maybe you should check out what cathedrals do which are available at Music, meaning earlier than the Hermitage so you have time to set them up while getting to Lib and Nat one way or the other. Yes, FS adds another 100% on top of the cathedral modifiers but noone questioned that.

EDIT: Looks like we'll never get a specification on defining non-BW starts.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

^^So you think wasting scientist on Lib bulbs are justifiable for a culture victory while using them to bulb Astro are not?

Absolutely. Getting to Liberalism ASAP is essential for the eariliest possible Cultural Victory. Liberalism unlocks Free Speech which is one of the most important components of an early Cultural Victory. Astronomy does very little to help a Cultural Victory aside from some extra trade route Commerce.

Ideally, one does try to complete Liberalism with as few Great Scientist bulbs as possible, even to the point of not bulbing Liberalism, but that is almost certainly not possible on the start provided by OP for this thread.

Without playing this start, I'd say that Great Scientists might efficiently be used to bulb Philosophy (one), Education (one, complete via research), and Liberalism (one, set up by the Delayed BW strategy, complete via research).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[UnforcedError]

^^Even if an early Astro can secure you more religions? (Provided you have / can settle 1-2 cities to get them?) Let's say you went for Buddhi as Brennus, succeeded but failed to found any others. Maybe bulbed Tao.

 

[Mylene]

Without playing this start, I'd say that Great Scientists might efficiently be used to bulb Philosophy (one), Education (one, complete via research), and Liberalism (one, set up by the Delayed BW strategy, complete via research).

Edu has enuf beakers for 2x bulbing being good on Deity.
Even Paper could be used, loss compared with Lib: ~600 beakers.
Shows how weak this whole thingy really is, thank you (thou you probably did not want to make this example, still funny).

 

[vranasm]

So even though you denied the fact I'd say getting Buddhism on this map was a vital (and tremendously lucky) part of the strategy to work at all. An early Astro might be a good way to get more religions in isolation -- you don't necessarily want to wait for the AI to establish trade routes with you as by then you'd want to be done with (most of your) temples and cathedrals (you can only start on the Hermitage after Nat is in, after all).

this actually feels wrong. The problems I see here with the way you provided info

1) You can get lucky religion spread from AI into city without religion even without knowing optics/astronomy based on the game checking potential trade routes and not factual trade routes (happened to me at least twice... always "funny" to get christianity this way and lose in couple turns AP), not sure now with probability (and all conditions) since it actually is pretty rare, but possible.

2) the fact you have optics/astronomy has absolutely 0 influence over AI sending his missionary towards your city and spreading his religion except you will give away your techs immediately to motivate AI sending this missionaries, but I guess not many players would deliberately give AI ways of doing invasion of his own continent.

Astronomy influences "only" your commerce and your ability to get your hands dirty in main continent

The decision for going Budhism while growing to size 2 working 2x spice tiles is for sure something you won't normally do and was 100% based on the OP knowing he can do it based on failed first game.

I am really surprised that Sun Tzu Wu didn't catched this aspect of the gameplay while in other places describes players who test strategies with reload as less of value.

Here we have an prime example of adjusting strategy based on knowledge of the map which you would not know beforehand (aka HOF format).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

1) You can get lucky religion spread from AI into city without religion even without knowing optics/astronomy based on the game checking potential trade routes and not factual trade routes (happened to me at least twice... always "funny" to get christianity this way and lose in couple turns AP), not sure now with probability (and all conditions) since it actually is pretty rare, but possible

Assuming the mechanics haven't changed since I last looked at them - the key is that your city and the holy see are both part of the same tile (plot) group, which essentially means that one side or the other has discovered the technologies necessary to link the two tiles together.

From memory, the two cities need to be part of one plot group - either your plot group for your city, or the plot group of the guy with the holy city. If there's no direct connection from A to B, then the religion can't spread between them, even if they are both connected to C.

Open/Closed borders don't affect spontaneous conversion at all, but wars do.

The strangest example of these mechanics that I've seen (in the report of another's game) was religious spread to the isolated human player in an always war game. Gandhi discovered Astronomy before meeting the human player, which connected all of the ocean plots, and one of the religions jumped the gap. This was back when the holy see would give visibility into all converted cities - but Gandhi had converted to a different religion, so the lights stayed dark. It was some number of turns after the religion arrived that Gandhi finally appeared and declared war.

 

[Brennus.Quigley]

So even though you denied the fact I'd say getting Buddhism on this map was a vital (and tremendously lucky) part of the strategy to work at all.

The decision for going Budhism while growing to size 2 working 2x spice tiles is for sure something you won't normally do and was 100% based on the OP knowing he can do it based on failed first game.

Why are both of you ignoring 1) the fact that I successfully completed the Oracle and could have taken Confucianism instead in the first victory; and 2) the fact that I went ahead and re-beat the map using a non-controversial The Wheel to Pottery (then you know you're isolated) to Writing opening sequence evidence in post #188? Discussing strategy with some of you folks feels tiring and unproductive. It's just an endless series of exaggerations, rank-pulling, and gotcha-type comments.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

^^Even if an early Astro can secure you more religions? (Provided you have / can settle 1-2 cities to get them?) Let's say you went for Buddhi as Brennus, succeeded but failed to found any others. Maybe bulbed Tao.

I did include a GS bulb of Philosphy which founds Taoism.

Other religions that can be self founded efficiently for a Cultural Victory include Judaism (Monotheism) and Confucianism (Code of Laws). Three religions is sufficient for a Cultural Victory. No need to get more via Astronomy.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[UnforcedError]

I don't know how often you guys play isolated or semi-isolated starts. There were a few years when I solely played fractal or random continent hemispheres so isolation wasn't exactly a rarity there. Needless to say my general tactics in these situations did not include founding religions rather double-bulbing Astro. As soon as you hit Astro and OB with some founders their religions will spread like wildfire through your cities. Always. (I realize though as I stated earlier that this is very much a fall back tactic only useful if you missed out on your three religions. And you need to foud at least one to have one set of buildings already in place otherwise you're not going to be done with them as you reach Lib and want to up you culture slider. Sun Tzu Wu: on Deity you can beeline confu, especially with the Oracle, I agree. With China, Judaism can be considered lucky even if you beeline it. Tao is a given, true. But what if you miss out on Judaism and the Oracle?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I don't know how often you guys play isolated or semi-isolated starts. There were a few years when I solely played fractal or random continent hemispheres so isolation wasn't exactly a rarity there. Needless to say my general tactics in these situations did not include founding religions rather double-bulbing Astro. As soon as you hit Astro and OB with some founders their religions will spread like wildfire through your cities. Always. (I realize though as I stated earlier that this is very much a fall back tactic only useful if you missed out on your three religions. And you need to foud at least one to have one set of buildings already in place otherwise you're not going to be done with them as you reach Lib and want to up you culture slider. Sun Tzu Wu: on Deity you can beeline confu, especially with the Oracle, I agree. With China, Judaism can be considered lucky even if you beeline it. Tao is a given, true. But what if you miss out on Judaism and the Oracle?

Losing both the race to Monotheism and The Oracle is worse case scenario. I'd probably give up on a Cultural Victory.

Losing just one of these two, generating a Great Prophet, acquiring Meditation and Writing would make Great Prophet bulbing Theology possible. This is definitely getting chancy and less efficient (costs another Great Person that can't be a Great Artist).

Natural religion spread is even more chancy (RNG dependent). The probably of religion spread rapidly approaches zero as the distance from the Holy City increases. A Shrine doubles this probability, but doubling a probability close to zero will still result in a probability that is still close to zero. However it is above zero, so that explains occasional religion spread at great distances, but it can hardly spread like wild fire, because only distance from the Holy City and the existence of the associated Shrine ever affect natural religion spread. One can increase the chance of at least one natural religion spread by founding more cities with no religion, since natural religion spread is computed for each city without a religion and all Holy Cities connected by a theoretical (real one is not required, but at least one Civ must having the enabling Technology) trade route. There are events that can rapidly spread religion, but they don't spread reliably (RNG depedent) either and may work only for Holy Cities/Shrines one owns.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[UnforcedError]

^^You actually have to found 1-2 new cities with no religions, otherwise it will be almost impossible for you to get theirs. If you drop the cities at the right time it is fairly safe. Plus, you have Astro so you can very well give up on the whole idea of going culture if it doesn't work out the way you want it.