Does anyone make successful Tall Empires on King or above?

[budweiser]

In my personal experience on Deity...I have no f'ing clue.

Every time I go for cultural on Deity I either get sandwich DoWed, flip a table because people steal all the good wonders(get beat to the Oracle and HS, okay I'll use the Liberty GE on PT...WTH turn 94 PT?) or end up shifting into another VC because I archer counter-rushed my stupid warrior rushing neighbor *cough*Bismarck*cough*. I remember both of MD's cultural victories, his Korea OCC and the Aztec one, were at almost turn 300.

I believe people here have talked about 270 before, and there's a few HoF games finishing then, but that's still really slow considering you can get basically any other victory condition and the difficulties inherent in the strategy.

Hmm, I think somewhere beween 250 and 300 is about the mathematical limit for any cultural. You need a pretty smooth game for that. But I cant seem to get a vibe on that wavelength.

 

[Tiber4321]

From my experience, standard 3-4 city culture games (non-Aztec) at Immortal are not that difficult. Aggressive AI neighbors can be subdued after you puppet one or two cities. Victory times vary based on the quality of your city locations, but beating the spaceships isn't that hard. 325-350 is about average. I always build HG in my capital. Egypt, Siam and Arabia are great for this type of win.

At Deity, standard 3-4 city culture games are brutal. HG is pretty much out of the question, and SOH will be built before you research mass media. Aggressive AI neighbors will come at you with armies that will wipe you off the map, so a somewhat secluded start location is your only hope. Even under the best conditions, AIs build their spaceships before turn 300. BTW, I've also lost close games at Deity to AI diplo wins, which come before turn 300. The standard tricks to prevent this are too risky at Deity. The only games I've won were both when two ultra powerful AIs destroyed all the smaller AIs, then got into a huge war. I was able to squeek by with two late cultural wins, while the warring AIs forgot about putting their spaceships together, in other words, cheesy wins.

The difference between Immortal and Deity in these types of games is enormous.

 

[budweiser]

It sounds like the biggest difference between Immortal and Diety is that you can play a passive culture game at Immortal, but you need to be more proactive at Diety to prevent the others from winning. You cant just sit there and win. I beat Immortal one time doing a OCC cultural and I basically just sat there and built stuff all game.

 

[Tiber4321]

Well said Bud, that's about right. Unfortunatly, being proactive with other AIs at Deity involves building a large, technologically advanced army from the start. By doing this, you culture will go nowhere.

In these types of games, it seems like science would be the logical victory path though.

 

[ifinnem]

Going tall without large amount of puppeting is very different (and much more "pure")
Imo the key challenging when doing this route is so you need to focus specifically on that aspect as well as the obvious city growth, national wonders etc...

Its definitely doable on high levels... e.g. using Korea and 3-4 cities for mid 200s science victory on Immortal (and that was without RAs at all)

 

[Zenstrive]

Use Korea

 

[jeespoks]

From my experience, standard 3-4 city culture games (non-Aztec) at Immortal are not that difficult. Aggressive AI neighbors can be subdued after you puppet one or two cities. Victory times vary based on the quality of your city locations, but beating the spaceships isn't that hard. 325-350 is about average. I always build HG in my capital. Egypt, Siam and Arabia are great for this type of win.

At Deity, standard 3-4 city culture games are brutal. HG is pretty much out of the question, and SOH will be built before you research mass media. Aggressive AI neighbors will come at you with armies that will wipe you off the map, so a somewhat secluded start location is your only hope. Even under the best conditions, AIs build their spaceships before turn 300. BTW, I've also lost close games at Deity to AI diplo wins, which come before turn 300. The standard tricks to prevent this are too risky at Deity. The only games I've won were both when two ultra powerful AIs destroyed all the smaller AIs, then got into a huge war. I was able to squeek by with two late cultural wins, while the warring AIs forgot about putting their spaceships together, in other words, cheesy wins.

The difference between Immortal and Deity in these types of games is enormous.

I agree that cultural victory on Deity seems way harder than on Immortal because you must build a decent defense to beat early rushes. On the other hand, you might get a nice peace treaty if you wipe out the rusher's army. Also the AI will have more gold to give you for resource trades. Haven't really tried cultural on Deity yet though.

Turn 240-250 cultural victory on Immortal is doable but I think you'll need a good starting point. Last cultural victory on Immortal I finished was at turn 260 and there was definitely a lot left to optimize.
I wouldn't worry about HG though. I rather get Maritime CS allies to feed the cities. SOH is very possible if you'll sign enough RAs and manage to get PT.

 

[pspboy7]

If I worried about my score, I would have quit a long time ago hehe. I still cannot beat my marathon diplomatic game with ottomans yet hehe. That aside, tall empires have always been my most successful games.

 

[Fluxx]

In my opinion cultural victories still need some reworking.
A good while back I advocated GA's to grant a free social policy instead of the current useless 'landgrabbing' it gives now, but then alot of people scoffed at that suggestion saying it would make cultural victories to easy.
I personally still think it isnt true, because at the higher difficulties focusing on generating GA's is a very big investment because it puts you properly back in the other aspects of the game.

At the moment Cultural victory requires you have good production, a good science rate, enough financial backup to support your cultural buildings, luck with the essential cultural wonders and enough military to not get steamrolled by the other civs who view you as a tasty snack to incorporate into their army.

 

[The Pilgrim]

At the moment Cultural victory requires you have good production, a good science rate, enough financial backup to support your cultural buildings, luck with the essential cultural wonders and enough military to not get steamrolled by the other civs who view you as a tasty snack to incorporate into their army.

And still people manage to plop ~10 landmarks. It's the same as science victory with only 30 techs in the tech tree.