Expansive the BEST trait for the BEST cultural strategy. opinions?

Nazrack

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Peter (Exp/Phil). 9 cities. no war. mass farm your 3. representation. a few archers. grow these cities HUGE, all artists specialists. ONLY great artists. The theater and collesieum will take care of happiness (15 happiness when you set the slider to 100), get your cathedrials built, stop research at biology.

alternate: potentially Up to 750% cultural bonuses (7 cathederals, free speech, broadcast tower, hollywood/rockroll/broadway, hermitage). Even a baseline 150 culture per tern brings in an acctual: 1125 culture per turn!!!

Health is harder to keep moving then happiness is. Thus I submit - for this particular game expansive is critical. Not to mention the UB (lab) brings 2 superscientist citizens.

Opinions?
 
Is there expansive and Financial in Warlords? Victoria was EXP/FIN in vanilla...
 
The more important trait with Peter (and, for that matter, for every cultural victory-oriented leader) is Philosophical. And, yes, I think financial rules above all others. Therefore, Elizabeth is the best culture victory leader in the game.

Try her, if you haven't already!
 
Hey Joni said:
The more important trait with Peter (and, for that matter, for every cultural victory-oriented leader) is Philosophical. And, yes, I think financial rules above all others. Therefore, Elizabeth is the best culture victory leader in the game.

Try her, if you haven't already!
Financial is great if you aim at a cultural victory through CE (with a slider running 100% culture once you hit Liberalism/Printing Press).

However, the more I think about it, the more the SE cultural victory option appears better. Consider this:

A fully developed town tile with a Financial leader, and Printing Press and Free Speech running, will give you 8 commerce. If you set your slider to 100% culture, this gives 8 culture.

An artist specialist, with Representation (from Pyramids) and Sistine Chapel (from Theology) gives you 6 culture and 3 beakers.

On top of this:

- SE allows you to run scientist (or any other) specialists in your non-culture cities. Consequently, you can keep up with research, production and budget income while you aim for cultural victory - something you are not able to do in a CE cultural victory gambit (essentially the commerce generated by your cities that are not among the 3 culture cities under a CE cultural victory gambit is wasted). Essentially, this means you are much less vulnerable.

- Theology/Masonry are available much earlier than Liberalism/Printing Press so you can start working on the cultural victory much earlier.

- Running great artists rather than working cottages in your culture cities will yield you about 3-4 more great artists which will further speed up your cultural victory goal.

The only combo where Financial is better for cultural victory than Philosophical, imo, is Incas' Financial/Industrious (but only because there is no Philosophical/Industrious combo, as it would be too powerful for an easy cultural victory).
 
Very well argumented, Martinus! I have yet to try specialist economy so I can't argue with you on that.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that the strategy you offer is heavily dependant on wonders. On higher diff levels, Pyramids I can get, but I'm not so sure about the Sistine Chapel(Great prophet will be harder to get with pyramids for the theology). You might as well need Industrial better than Expansive...

EDIT: but there isn't any leader with both IND and PHILO
 
Hey Joni said:
Very well argumented, Martinus! I have yet to try specialist economy so I can't argue with you on that.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that the strategy you offer is heavily dependant on wonders. On higher diff levels, Pyramids I can get, but I'm not so sure about the Sistine Chapel(Great prophet will be harder to get with pyramids for the theology). You might as well need Industrial better than Expansive...

EDIT: but there isn't any leader with both IND and PHILO
You are right, however if you are Philosophical, perhaps this could work:

You build Pyramids with the GE-from-Great-Wall gambit (available in Warlords). This means you get two GE-generating wonders in your capital. Also build forge there asap to set up an engineer specialist. This should hopefully generate you at least 2 further GEs. The first one you use on Great Library in your science city. The second you keep to use the moment you research Theology, to build the Sistine Chapel?
 
Martinus said:
You are right, however if you are Philosophical, perhaps this could work:

You build Pyramids with the GE-from-Great-Wall gambit (available in Warlords). This means you get two GE-generating wonders in your capital. Also build forge there asap to set up an engineer specialist. This should hopefully generate you at least 2 further GEs. The first one you use on Great Library in your science city. The second you keep to use the moment you research Theology, to build the Sistine Chapel?

This might work.

However, the way I see it, you will slow your research immensely by going for Theology without a great prophet at such an early stage AND, for Metal Casting (if you really need that forge so soon). Even the GL won't help a lot and you have to research Alphabet/Literature for it. Only for Metal Casting, you need Pottery (and the Wheel for pottery) Let's not forget that you also need an entirely different set of techs like Mining, Masonry, Mysticism, Polytheism and Monoteism for Theology - the list just gets far too long. Eventually, researching the expensive technologies might cost way too much. You can, instead of doing all that, concentrate on the Poly wonders, which are artistic by nature.(please, excuse any mistakes about techs and requirements, I don't have the game with me at the office)

Nevertheless, I like cultural victories a lot, so I will certainly try your suggestion out!

Also, this Great Wall gambit sounds great for PHI leaders and is useful for many different occasions, not just for that type of victory.

Notice how we discuss PHI trait strategies and leave EXP trait out of the picture? Yes, I can see how specialist economy is favoured by this trait, but wouldn't it be better to have something else for a bonus? Happiness is hard to get on Monarch and above so I was thinking of CHA? (once again, I don't know if there is a PHI/CHA leader...) CRE trait is not so bad too, IMHO.

EDIT: another remark: you will want a 100% engineer pop-up at the city with Pyramids and GW. Therefore, you must build GL in another city. This means that, in mid game, one of your cities will have high chance of GE and another - of GS. And for cultural you need those GA's for the bombs or to join your potential legendary cities. With all of those wonders chances are you will end up with more GE's and GS's than you wish, instead of artists. This will slow your victory, giving other civs more chance to either crush you, or launch the ship
 
Martinus said:
However, the more I think about it, the more the SE cultural victory option appears better. Consider this:

A fully developed town tile with a Financial leader, and Printing Press and Free Speech running, will give you 8 commerce. If you set your slider to 100% culture, this gives 8 culture.

An artist specialist, with Representation (from Pyramids) and Sistine Chapel (from Theology) gives you 6 culture and 3 beakers.

I agree that it appears better, but in practice it doesn't work out. 8:6 looks like a minor margin but with 3 Cathedrals it's 20:15. Add free speech and an Academy and it's 32:24. This difference adds up when you're trying to stock up 50,000 culture. The extra GAs you pop do not come fast enough to have the specialist method surpass cottages in speed. You won't have trouble winning, but if you're looking for sheer speed specialists are not the way to go. You also need to run a lot of specialists- 10+ at least. Finding three cities that can run this many is challenging, especially finding them fast enough to give you a speedy win. And you need far more food to run 10 specialists than to work 10 cottages. You also pretty much have to get Sistine Chapel while cottages don't require a single Wonder.
 
Hey Joni said:
Notice how we discuss PHI trait strategies and leave EXP trait out of the picture? Yes, I can see how specialist economy is favoured by this trait, but wouldn't it be better to have something else for a bonus? Happiness is hard to get on Monarch and above so I was thinking of CHA? (once again, I don't know if there is a PHI/CHA leader...) CRE trait is not so bad too, IMHO.

I would take Phil/Exp (so Peter in vanilla) as the combo of choice for doing specialists. Early happiness is a problem, true, but late game happiness is basically free. The culture slider and/or hereditary rule can get you up to +20 happiness easy with a few luxuries and Theaters + Colisseums. Getting the health to support huge specialist cities is far more challenging at higher levels.
 
One benefit of running artists is that you can begin running them much earlier. By running 100% culture, you don't really begin accumulating culture until you've learned liberalism/printing press. I doubt that this makes up for the points Eggman raised, but they're worth noting.

One method that I want to try at some point is to run a specialist economy with two cities going all cottages, and a great person farm running all artists. The culture rate can be set to 100% with a smaller affect on the beakers/gold from the rest of the empire. Make a focus on wonders in those three cities, perhaps emphasize Angkor and Sistine, so the GP farm can run priests for decent production when needed. The two cottage cities can also emphasize gold production buildings until the culture slider is raised.

It might not be the best/fastest/easiest way to get a cultural victory, but it would be fun to try.
 
Phrederick said:
One benefit of running artists is that you can begin running them much earlier. By running 100% culture, you don't really begin accumulating culture until you've learned liberalism/printing press.

True, but one thing you discover is that cottage culture is so superior that once you are set to run 100% culture you make so much that any 'slow and steady' efforts were a waste of time. Especially without Sistine Chapel starting early with a handful of artists does more harm than good unless you're doing it to pop GAs in the early days when the cost is still low.
 
Yeah, I know. Especially because you cannot get cathedrals that early, which really change the amount of culture that's possible. I just find cottage-->100% culture games really boring, because after you flip the switch, there's not much to do but press enter over and over.
 
For either strategy don't forget to trade your happiness resources for health resources once you bump up the culture slider.
 
Maybe that's why Isabella is the best for religous cultural victory she can have massive cities if she has multiple religions (more temples with spirtual and starts with mysticism) and she isn't restrainted by health (expansive and cheap granieries and harbors).
 
bah IMO there aren't best traits for a best strategy... and there isn't a best strategy. It all depends. The basics are to have as many religions as possible and at least 9 cities. Then you need population, culture, wonders, strong diplomacy with your neighbors that won't sit looking at you "eating" them, especially if you stopped researching, etc...This can be achieved with any trait and it strongly depends on pretty much everything else: starting location, opponents, resources, etc.
Btw I think I won culturally mostly with Hatshepsut (Spi/Cre).
 
Eqqman said:
True, but one thing you discover is that cottage culture is so superior that once you are set to run 100% culture you make so much that any 'slow and steady' efforts were a waste of time. Especially without Sistine Chapel starting early with a handful of artists does more harm than good unless you're doing it to pop GAs in the early days when the cost is still low.

just don't do it in multiplayer. Cottage spamming can only mean little production and happy pillaging for your opponents...
 
Martinus said:
However, the more I think about it, the more the SE cultural victory option appears better. Consider this:

A fully developed town tile with a Financial leader, and Printing Press and Free Speech running, will give you 8 commerce. If you set your slider to 100% culture, this gives 8 culture.

An artist specialist, with Representation (from Pyramids) and Sistine Chapel (from Theology) gives you 6 culture and 3 beakers.

Actually, many of your cottage tiles will be giving you nine commerce (+1 for river). And you will have many more cottage tiles at 8 or 9 culture per tile than specialists at 6 culture per specialist.

In my 1556 AD Deity culture win, my three culture towns were working 14, 15, and 16 tiles respectively... most of these tiles were 9 commerce, some were 8, a few were 7. Total culture/turn per city from commerce alone (no other multipliers) was 144, 158 and 164. At 6 culture per specialist, I would have needed 24, 26, and 27 specialists in each city to match that culture. How can you build the gigantic population needed to provide enough bread to support 24+ specialists?

A single specialist will not provide as much culture as a single cottage. To make it worse, I can never have as many specialists as cottages.

Martinus said:
SE allows you to run scientist (or any other) specialists in your non-culture cities.

But if I run sci specialists too long, I will pollute my GPP totals with GS points. Other than an early GS or two to build Academies, I want all GA's. Yes, I see you are suggesting running sci specs in non-culture cities... but what's to prevent me from doing that in my cottage spam strategy?

Martinus said:
Consequently, you can keep up with research, production and budget income while you aim for cultural victory - something you are not able to do in a CE cultural victory gambit (essentially the commerce generated by your cities that are not among the 3 culture cities under a CE cultural victory gambit is wasted). Essentially, this means you are much less vulnerable.

I don't understand this comment at all. Commerce = Research. My three cottage filled culture cities get libraries very early. They also may get Academies. Basically, they are my research engines. Other than my GP farm, my other cities get lots of cottages too. Yes, once I am running my culture slider at 90-100%, their commerce is wasted, but until that point I need tons of commerce to cash rush religious buildings. By the time I am "wasting" commerce in my non-culture cities, I've turned off research anyhow. In a specialist strategy, without loads of commerce from cottages everywhere, how do you go about spamming religions and building religious buildings?

Martinus said:
Theology/Masonry are available much earlier than Liberalism/Printing Press so you can start working on the cultural victory much earlier.

I agree, but as one of the other posters noted, these early culture points are not multiplied by cathedrals. Your early specialists will put you ahead of my cottages in the early years, but since my cottages are becoming towns just about the time I am cash rushing cathedrals, I will absolutely zoom by you in the middle years.

Martinus said:
Running great artists rather than working cottages in your culture cities will yield you about 3-4 more great artists which will further speed up your cultural victory goal.

Yes, you will definitely get more GA's in the specialist gambit. Not sure you will get 3-4 since each succeeding GA costs more.

One other problem... at the end of my Deity culture wins, do you know how much culture my GA farm was running per turn from artist specialists? Exactly 8! Why? Because at higher levels, the AI will build UN and will force you to emancipation and free religion. All of a sudden, you GA-farms get very weak. If you are playing a specialist strategy and don't finish before UN is built, you will lose.

Martinus said:
The only combo where Financial is better for cultural victory than Philosophical, imo, is Incas' Financial/Industrious (but only because there is no Philosophical/Industrious combo, as it would be too powerful for an easy cultural victory).

I must admit, I am so convinced cottage spamming is faster, I've never tried specialist spamming. I can't imagine trying for a fast culture win without a financial leader. If you want to prove this wrong, I'd suggest you take a crack at beating some of the fast culture times in the HOF. In the HOF, the vast majority of the culture wins posted (above Noble) are Financial leaders. I'll bet most of these used cottage spam.
 
The-Hawk said:
I must admit, I am so convinced cottage spamming is faster, I've never tried specialist spamming. I can't imagine trying for a fast culture win without a financial leader. If you want to prove this wrong, I'd suggest you take a crack at beating some of the fast culture times in the HOF. In the HOF, the vast majority of the culture wins posted (above Noble) are Financial leaders. I'll bet most of these used cottage spam.

Most cultural victories posted are with financial leaders ? Well I hope you don't take it as a statistics. The reason is not necessarily that the financial trait is better. Here is my interpretation: the people who post their victories are "civfanatics", and as such they read strategy guides and posts like this, that tell them that "as a matter of fact" Financial is the best trait for cultural victory and therefore they play Financial, their victories will be posted with financial trait and will contribute to this fantastically accurate statistic, forming a funny loop.
Truth is that people are too lazy to try different tactics, once they like one and win with that one. Read your own words at the beginning of the quote...
 
onedreamer said:
Most cultural victories posted are with financial leaders ? Well I hope you don't take it as a statistics. The reason is not necessarily that the financial trait is better. Here is my interpretation: the people who post their victories are "civfanatics", and as such they read strategy guides and posts like this, that tell them that "as a matter of fact" Financial is the best trait for cultural victory and therefore they play Financial, their victories will be posted with financial trait and will contribute to this fantastically accurate statistic, forming a funny loop.
Truth is that people are too lazy to try different tactics, once they like one and win with that one. Read your own words at the beginning of the quote...

no, financial is the best. ur welcome to try and prove them wrong though. see thats whats great about it. u can just go out and claim glory all by ur lonesome.
 
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