Do I suck at Brazil, or does Brazil just suck?

[Aaron90495]

After breezing to numerous culture wins on Emperor (and winning a close one on Immortal, IIRC), I've decided to try my hand at an Immortal culture game as Brazil. Culture victories are definitely harder than the other victories (disregarding Domination), but I've beaten Deity numerous times, so I figured winning culturally on Immortal shouldn't be too challenging.

After five or more games as Brazil without coming relatively close to a culture win, I've started to have second thoughts about that. I think part of the problem is the civ itself - Brazil's starting bias makes the early game an absolute train-wreck, as you usually have very little production and often very little food (due to the low food output of jungle tiles). On top of that, religion is almost necessary for good culture games. Faith-buying Artists and Musicians - especially during Carnival as Brazil - is incredibly helpful. However, the jungle starting bias means Brazil tends to get luxuries/resources that don't have faith pantheons (citrus, spices, dyes, bananas, etc.), which makes Stonehenge almost a necessity for founding a religion. But with the low production (and sometimes food), Stonehenge is a HUGE gamble that usually won't pay off. The Brazilwood camps are quite good and the jungle provides science post-Universities, but working any reasonable number of jungle tiles means you won't have decent food and/or production. And to compound that, you need to build more buildings and run more specialists in culture games, but Brazil struggles to do that due to the lack of food/production. To get a long Carnival going, you need a decent amount of Artists, but you can't burn many for Carnivals or you'll lack the base Tourism from Great Works of Art. Faith-buying them would help, but as I said, there's already so much to build in culture games and you can't get as much Faith without religion (no Grand Temple, you're not guaranteed a Faith building since you didn't make your own religion, etc.).

But maybe I'm doing something wrong. Would anyone care to take a look at my most recent save (attached below)? I think I played the game quite well - I won an early war with Persia for control of central Africa and have gotten the jungle "under control" fairly well. That early war did put me behind in science - I neglected the NC for too long since it took ages to get a library up in Sau Paulo - and I didn't hit Education until around T145 (OUCH OUCH OUCH). I definitely should've explored more - now that I've uncovered Hidden Sites I don't have many to dig up since only 30% of the map is revealed. Nevertheless, Siam is a monster in Asia and there's not really anything I've been able to do to stop it, and Brazil's measly start has put me in a hole I'm only now starting to dig myself out of (I've missed every single culture wonder besides Oracle due to the awful start). I'm pretty sure I could still win a Science victory, but all hope for a Culture victory is out the window, right?

So am I doing anything really wrong or is Brazil, despite being THE culture civ, actually not as good at culture as it seems?

TL;DR Everything SEEMS to mesh well on paper, but in reality I'm not sure Brazil is much better than a blank civ at culture. Also, I didn't wanna hijack the other Brazil thread with my save...

 

[Moriarte]

Maybe you are doing something wrong. I agree, though, jungle is a mess. However, if you manage to chop your way outside of misery, Brazil becomes stronger than any other civ, especially, if you know hot to go wider. Think of 10 cities filled with unique improvements, works of art and landmarks, during a golden age, right after international games have started. Try liberty, maybe. 5-6 cities, maybe couple more gained through conquest and you're bound to win. If you manage to have some decent terrain, tradition will obviously prevail.

About your game. I can't look at the save right now, but it sounds like you should have done it the other way around. First - caravans, universities, then - couple of cities gained through conquest. Back on track for CV. That way you would get cities filled with useful stuff (universities) and happiness buildings (maybe some tourism), not ancient villages.

Read Deau's cultural guide in the neighboring thread. It's high tech.

Oh, and you don't need religion. One faithful CS alliance and some temples will easily gather enough faith for two musicians. 2-4 more you can produce naturally during 40 last turns of the game.

If you need more than 4-6 musicians to win, look at your science rates - this is the problem.

 

[Aaron90495]

Maybe you are doing something wrong. I agree, though, jungle is a mess. However, if you manage to chop your way outside of misery, Brazil becomes stronger than any other civ, especially, if you know hot to go wider. Think of 10 cities filled with unique improvements, works of art and landmarks, during a golden age, right after international games have started. Try liberty, maybe. 5-6 cities, maybe couple more gained through conquest and you're bound to win. If you manage to have some decent terrain, tradition will obviously prevail.

About your game. I can't look at the save right now, but it sounds like you should have done it the other way around. First - caravans, universities, then - couple of cities gained through conquest. Back on track for CV. That way you would get cities filled with useful stuff (universities) and happiness buildings (maybe some tourism), not ancient villages.

Read Deau's cultural guide in the neighboring thread. It's high tech.

Oh, and you don't need religion. One faithful CS alliance and some temples will easily gather enough faith for two musicians. 2-4 more you can produce naturally during 40 last turns of the game.

If you need more than 4-6 musicians to win, look at your science rates - this is the problem.

Huh, that's an interesting way to look at it. I never even considered going wide as Brazil, although now that I think about it, doing so could definitely work better than going Tradition. I see your point in that I probably should've gotten more infrastructure up before I went conquering, but Persia had plopped a city right where I wanted one, and with it there it completely split my empire (and meant I only had three viable cities, one of which was completely separated from the capital).

Another problem is I've been really struggling to stay afloat in happiness, as it seems no other AI's have ANY duplicates at all and I only have a total of four.

If you or any others get a chance to take a look at my save, I would be incredibly grateful I'm very curious see if anyone could pull off a culture victory in the current situation...Siam's been running away with it and I wonder if a culture win is still salvageable.

 

[Calouste]

You have a lot of gold as Brazil from the Brazilwood camps, so you can use internal trade routes to make up for the food and hammer deficits. Besides of course buying buildings.

You definitely don't need many works of art as Brazil, Brazilwood camps will provide Tourism with Hotels and Airports.

I would also not go for a Faith pantheon as Brazil, Sacred Path is going to provide you with far more benefits over the turn of the game. The extra culture from Sacred Path can also help you to get through Piety.

You can get two Golden Ages from policies, and two Great Artists from policies as well. Use them at the right time.

 

[Aaron90495]

You have a lot of gold as Brazil from the Brazilwood camps, so you can use internal trade routes to make up for the food and hammer deficits. Besides of course buying buildings.

You definitely don't need many works of art as Brazil, Brazilwood camps will provide Tourism with Hotels and Airports.

I would also not go for a Faith pantheon as Brazil, Sacred Path is going to provide you with far more benefits over the turn of the game. The extra culture from Sacred Path can also help you to get through Piety.

You can get two Golden Ages from policies, and two Great Artists from policies as well. Use them at the right time.

I was definitely doing the first two things you mentioned. I actually went for the Sun God pantheon (Sacred Path went on Turn 10 or 11), but the point is that there was absolutely no way I could've founded a religion given the hand I was played (particularly with the terrain around me). I'm not one to bash Piety - I think it gets an unfair amount of hate on the forums - but in this scenario why would I go for it instead of Tradition and Liberty?

 

[Calouste]

I was definitely doing the first two things you mentioned. I actually went for the Sun God pantheon (Sacred Path went on Turn 10 or 11), but the point is that there was absolutely no way I could've founded a religion given the hand I was played (particularly with the terrain around me). I'm not one to bash Piety - I think it gets an unfair amount of hate on the forums - but in this scenario why would I go for it instead of Tradition and Liberty?

If you can't get Sacred Path (which usually happens when the Aztecs are in the game, but not that often otherwise), Piety doesn't make much sense. But if you do get Sacred Path, you will have a fair amount of extra culture and you need to do something with that. It is attractive for Brazil to postpone Representation until late in the game (when your Carnival will actually have some effect), and Aesthetics isn't that particularly useful either at that point (again, you can get 2 Golden Ages from Aesthetics that you would want to leave until after Hotels at least). Oral Tradition can sometimes work if you can't get Sacred Path.

Piety has a number of synergies for Brazil, you're going for a Cultural Victory based off terrain culture, so getting holy sites with 3 culture fits in with that. Temples that give +25% gold on all your Brazilwood camps and holy sites are also helpful, and Religious Tolerance ensures that Sacred Path keeps working even when you adopt another civs religion because they snagged Pagodas and Sacred Sites.

 

[joncnunn]

Scanning the thread,
You can win culturally playing Tall as everybody including Brazil, and in many ways its easier since you don't have to worry about happiness if you have Monarchy. Especially because Brazil gets extra tourism during Golden Ages.

The standard 4 city Tradition way for Cultural victory is:

1. Full Tradition
2. Start Aesthetics opener and then left side while waiting for Rationalism to open.
3. Start and complete Rationalism (science is actually more important for a cultural victory than culture since it unlocks the tourism buildings & wonders)
4. Complete Aesthetics
5. Open Exploration (for the Louve only; if AI beat you out to the wonder, skip this policy)
6. The Tourism benefiting tenets. (As Brazil, this is your choice of Freedom that offers a 15 turn long Carnaval at a time and Order that instead has more tentets boosting happiness with the hope of getting one more carnaval than you would under Freedom.)

The main impact to Brazil is that other than in tiles with resources and some fresh water tiles near your capital, you want your UI everywhere possible. Sacred Path would be a great pantheon for you if you also have enough faith to found a religion so you can keep it when you get the tourism buildings that turn culture from tiles into additional tourism.

An end game impact to Brazil is that playing anybody else you faith buy Great Musicans in end game for Tourism tours (at the proper time).
As Brazil, you also want to faith buy a Great Artist to trigger an extra Carnaval.

 

[kb27787]

I hate their jungle bias as well; it might be worth it to walk out of the jungle with your starting settler if you see a quick way out. For satellites, jungles don't bother them as much but your starting capitol needs to have decent terrain.

Looked at your save... I see the immediate problem: capitol size 15 at t230. This is very bad. You just reached ST where you should already be at plastics...

I'm guessing lack of RAs? WLTKDs? The capitol needs to grow more. I can't for the life of me figure out how you had a cargo ship to capitol (did you have that running all game?) and still it did not grow.

 

[Aaron90495]

Scanning the thread,
You can win culturally playing Tall as everybody including Brazil, and in many ways its easier since you don't have to worry about happiness if you have Monarchy. Especially because Brazil gets extra tourism during Golden Ages.

The standard 4 city Tradition way for Cultural victory is:

1. Full Tradition
2. Start Aesthetics opener and then left side while waiting for Rationalism to open.
3. Start and complete Rationalism (science is actually more important for a cultural victory than culture since it unlocks the tourism buildings & wonders)
4. Complete Aesthetics
5. Open Exploration (for the Louve only; if AI beat you out to the wonder, skip this policy)
6. The Tourism benefiting tenets. (As Brazil, this is your choice of Freedom that offers a 15 turn long Carnaval at a time and Order that instead has more tentets boosting happiness with the hope of getting one more carnaval than you would under Freedom.)

The main impact to Brazil is that other than in tiles with resources and some fresh water tiles near your capital, you want your UI everywhere possible. Sacred Path would be a great pantheon for you if you also have enough faith to found a religion so you can keep it when you get the tourism buildings that turn culture from tiles into additional tourism.

An end game impact to Brazil is that playing anybody else you faith buy Great Musicans in end game for Tourism tours (at the proper time).
As Brazil, you also want to faith buy a Great Artist to trigger an extra Carnaval.

I think I did this for the most part. I haven't gotten my Faith production up to what I want it, so Faith-buying probably wont' happen for the most part. For #2, I did the top 2 policies in Aesthetics pre-Rationalism as I didn't want to increase the cost for a Carnival (left side) or Great Artist (right side). The only possible sticking point is that Siam is an absolute monster and went Autocracy, so trying to go Freedom will be a challenge, to say the last.

I hate their jungle bias as well; it might be worth it to walk out of the jungle with your starting settler if you see a quick way out. For satellites, jungles don't bother them as much but your starting capitol needs to have decent terrain.

Looked at your save... I see the immediate problem: capitol size 15 at t230. This is very bad. You just reached ST where you should already be at plastics...

I'm guessing lack of RAs? WLTKDs? The capitol needs to grow more. I can't for the life of me figure out how you had a cargo ship to capitol (did you have that running all game?) and still it did not grow.

Yeah, I fully realize that I'm teching HORRIBLY in this game. The cargo ship has only been running quite recently (maybe 30 turns, as due to happiness issues I couldn't settle Salvador until about 40 turns ago). There were almost zero duplicate luxes to trade for most of the game, and I didn't have enough excess luxuries to do the 3-for-1 swap the AI wants for its last copy. I built coliseums and circuses everywhere (along with the Circus Maximus when possible), so what else could I have done, really? I know I could definitely improve my play, but I think I got a pretty bad roll this game, too.

 

[Acken]

Jungle is hard.
For Brazil I consider moving the capital out of or on the periphery of the jungle.
If you'll have to still go in the jungle, seriously consider adding an extra scout to your usual number and make sure to spend the first turns very attentively, ready to spot worker steal opportunities and spots to farm workers. You'll need more than your usual number. Or make an earlier worker yourself, or build the mids.

 

[Calouste]

Jungle is hard.
For Brazil I consider moving the capital out of or on the periphery of the jungle.
If you'll have to still go in the jungle, seriously consider adding an extra scout to your usual number and make sure to spend the first turns very attentively, ready to spot worker steal opportunities and spots to farm workers. You'll need more than your usual number. Or make an earlier worker yourself, or build the mids.

You don't really need that many workers with Brazil in the jungle. Brazilwood camps only take 6 turns to build (5 with Representation, 4 with Representation and Pyramids). One of the critical things for Brazil IMO is to get Sacred Path. 21 tiles aren't too bad to work in the time before Brazilwood camps, and resources in jungle are quite good even if you haven't improved them yet.

 

[Acken]

I'd still get the extra workers for the whole phase before camps. At least to get fresh water farms and hills out quickly to catch up. Especially if sacred path isn't guaranteed. Anyway, can't have too many workers but I'd paid extra attention to it on jungle starts, brazil or not.

 

[Redaxe]

The fastest way to grow a city especially the Capital is to run 1 preferably 2 food cargo ships to the capital, and make sure you sync it with the "we love the king day" that is a 25% growth modifier right there.
I've only recently realized just how important these are, so don't neglect them.

For a heavy jungle start I would go liberty as it lets you expand quickly to get the best city sites. If you want a religion, use the liberty free Great Prophet or use an Engineer to rush Hagia Sophia.
Jungles won't give you the means to rush early wonders so its best to focus on growth, trade routes, cities, workers & infrastructure.

 

[Aaron90495]

OK, so with all the advice I've gotten here, I decided to roll a new game as Brazil and (partially due to a much better start) it seems to be going much better. I gambled but snagged Stonehenge and also, going Piety, managed to get Jesuit Education. The fact that I have two Salt in my capital doesn't hurt, surely, but it's going much better overall.

Anyone care to take a look? I attached the initial save and my current situation in case anyone is curious and wants to try to play through it themselves.

Thanks for all the help

 

[BlackWizard]

Yeah, I fully realize that I'm teching HORRIBLY in this game. The cargo ship has only been running quite recently (maybe 30 turns, as due to happiness issues I couldn't settle Salvador until about 40 turns ago). There were almost zero duplicate luxes to trade for most of the game, and I didn't have enough excess luxuries to do the 3-for-1 swap the AI wants for its last copy. I built coliseums and circuses everywhere (along with the Circus Maximus when possible), so what else could I have done, really? I know I could definitely improve my play, but I think I got a pretty bad roll this game, too.

You can sometimes bribe AI's to war each other super cheap like 5gpt. After making them war exit diplomacy screen and check if they have any duplicate luxuries. Sometimes AI will also do lux-lux trade even if they have only one copy because they are getting it from CS ally.
If you have spare gold friendly AI will sell their last copy for 27gpt. If you buy it with that price it might be normal next time when their trades with other AI's expire. One should always prioritize buying luxes that trigger we love the king day in capitol.

 

[Acken]

OK, so with all the advice I've gotten here, I decided to roll a new game as Brazil and (partially due to a much better start) it seems to be going much better. I gambled but snagged Stonehenge and also, going Piety, managed to get Jesuit Education. The fact that I have two Salt in my capital doesn't hurt, surely, but it's going much better overall.

Anyone care to take a look? I attached the initial save and my current situation in case anyone is curious and wants to try to play through it themselves.

Thanks for all the help

I'm going to ask you a couple questions and some comments to make you understand
the problems I see in your save:

1. What benefit do you get for having Jesuit Education right now when you are still 20 to 30 turns away from Education ? Or even religious tolerance ?

2. You're at turn 107 and you have gotten 5 policies so far (opener + 4 in piety), don't you think there is a problem ? You should compare your results with liberty or tradition. It's a fact that Piety lacks culture... so if for whatever reason you'd like to try it, you at least want to get some culture from elsewhere:
-Either by mixing it with another tree (or taking it after said tree).
-Allying cultural city states
-Getting the Oracle in a reasonable amount of time (before T110)
-You need more cities, for their monuments.

3. Speaking of culture, your capital is too low for you to be able to run the first guild, this is a problem, especially when taking into account your culture problems. Sao Polo, your only expansion is at size 3. I assume you made it only a few turns ago. May I ask why ? I guess you tried to go 1city NC, but then on what turn did you get the NC ? A 1city NC strategy needs a very powerful capital to make the NC somewhere between turns 50 and 70. I advise to try a 2 cities NC next time instead, making a very early settler and still trying to get NC around turn 70-75.

4. You take Piety, then a religious building AND jesuit Education. But you can only pump 10 faith per turn. This means an university will take you 20turns of faith... jesuit education doesn't look so hot now :/ A normal city at that stage should be able to make a university by itself in 10 to 15turns. So why in these conditions with no interesting faith generator (natural wonder or good pantheon), would you base your strategy around so many faith buying ? I fail to see the logic.

5. A lot of these remarks simply means you don't have enough cities. Piety is mainly useful for wide empires. Bonus to production, per shrine bonuses and cheaper science buildings through reformation. While Piety isn't a good tree, it still should be evident that this tree is even worse for a small empire.

6. You have almost no scouting done. This is a continents map yes but you should have made at least a trirem. You only know one AI, limiting you for trade and you missed a lot of gold from discovering city states. Instead you have 2 archers. Why an archer and not a trireme ?

I would advise replaying without trying Piety. Try a traditional Tradition, 1 quick settler (at pop 2-3 or 4-5). 2 granaries in both then 2 libraries then NC. Add cargos between the 2. After NC try to add 1 or 2 more cities. Then post your turn 110results here.

 

[MarauderCH]

It is Brazil's starting bias that makes them difficult to play. A strong start is the key to a Culture victory. If you fall behind, you are going to have trouble catching back up. I played several games where I gave up after a certain time each game because I couldn't accomplish much with it. Then one game I got lucky and had a patch of terrain that was not covered in jungle. It had a marble and some hills on it so I had some good early production. There was also a good amount of river hexes going through the jungle. By the time I got the jungle fully upgraded, I was unstoppable!

 

[tetley]

I'd try an Industrial start. Completely different game. And Brazil would rock.

 

[GoStu]

Brazil starts = hell. After that, you're all right.

You've got a Jungle bias with no advantages in Jungle. You need to go top side of tree for science, but you need an early investment in Bronze Working just to clear some space for farms/mines, otherwise your growth and production falls way behind. Your early worker takes forever and a half to build, and then takes ages to get much done in the jungle.

You essentially have no UU. Your UI shows up only in the Renaissance. Your UA is quite powerful, but really only matters post-renaissance once you've met everyone.

 

[Aibeit]

I find when playing brazil, it helps to sell everything at the start you don't absolutely need - including horses and other strategic resources as well as any single copy luxes you don't need the happiness from to stay positive. This also has the side effect of delaying your first carnival until later in the game when your tourism output is notable and you have met all civs in the game. I also tend to settle on a luxury when possible to save the worker time needed to hook it up. All of this lets you buy things you would otherwise need production for, speeding up your start. Getting the culture from jungle tiles pantheon is also a pretty big plus as this translates to a LOT of extra culture throughout the game even if your religion (if you get one) is otherwise worthless.