G-Minor IV

[Denniz]

[img=right]http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/170/hofgauntlet.jpg[/img]While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Small Continents
• Speed: Standard
• Leader: Japan (Oda Nobunaga)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV6 (1.0.1.275 or greater)
• Date: 1st to 15th May 2011

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[ras9929]

Started last night trying a "test game" just so I could figure what not to do. I don't play a lot of small continents, so I had a strategy in mind that I didn't yet know the whole.

No map rerolling since it was a throw away game, but dang if I didn't get 4 cows, 2 clams, dyes, and Skilldorado.

Dang you good map roll!

 

[vexing]

skilldorado isn't so important for culture. i guess it guarantees you can rush buy a library. also you're going to want wine or incense and marble for your luxuries.

 

[Aiwen]

Is having more then one city optimal?

I know you can technically generate more culture as long as the 2nd city produces 20-30% more then your capital... If you include city states, it'd probably need to be more then that.

 

[mlund]

I'm pretty new at this, and Cultural Victory is not something I'm especially experienced at. What kind of turn-count are we looking at to be competitive here, do you think? I did a play-through as Nobunaga the other day and cultured out around turn 300, which seems excessive. However, I only had one policy to go after I built Christo Redemptor and I got the Utopia Project done very fast. I ran a two-city strategy, and each city had 3 sources of wine and an early Monestary and I had Stonehenge and the Hermitage at my capital. Heck my second city settled Mt. Fuji (cool for Japanese) and basically had a free Monument from the outset.

I understand basic strategies to push particular tech for a rush, RA blocking and NC starts and whatnot. I'm not as certain how to leverage that into a culture rush, though.

I'm wondering if playing the pacifist was holding back my time. I have a couple of specific questions:

1.) Do puppets increase your city-count for policy cost increases?
2.) Do puppets increase your culture production?
3.) Will puppets use Monuments or will their default gold-focus cause them to be ignored in favor of random hexes with Trade Posts?

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

I understand basic strategies to push particular tech for a rush, RA blocking and NC starts and whatnot. I'm not as certain how to leverage that into a culture rush, though.

I'm wondering if playing the pacifist was holding back my time. I have a couple of specific questions:

1.) Do puppets increase your city-count for policy cost increases?
2.) Do puppets increase your culture production?
3.) Will puppets use Monuments or will their default gold-focus cause them to be ignored in favor of random hexes with Trade Posts?

first, gmajor 1 was a culture victory, reading that thread will give you plenty of insight. the turns for wins were early 200s, they will be higher here given the map type.

there are four techs that let you leverage tech into culture:
any renaissance tech (you want to be in freedom branch)
archaelogy (you want early hermitage, louvre)
radio (broadcast tower)
telegraph (cristo redentor)

1) no
2) yes
3) puppets generally build culture buildings when they need to expand their borders, if you happen to be puppeting russia for example, they may never build any culture building. generally if a puppet only has it's original 6 or 7 tiles, they'll immediately build a monument and if you puppet something near wine/incense they'll build a monastery. any buildings beyond temple end really low in the queue order.

 

[Crafty1]

I'm wondering if playing the pacifist was holding back my time. I have a couple of specific questions:

1.) Do puppets increase your city-count for policy cost increases?
2.) Do puppets increase your culture production?
3.) Will puppets use Monuments or will their default gold-focus cause them to be ignored in favor of random hexes with Trade Posts?

- Marty Lund

Hi Marty.

In answer to your questions:

1) No.
2) Yes.
3) I find puppets seems to gold focus and will also build monuments.

I too am looking for better culture play and the G-Major I game was exactly that. I am reading the discussion about it which can be found here and you can read some tips on play and possible times. You can also review the HoF to see what sort of times have been submitted.

If you require more suggestions etc, I suggest posting in the current G-Minor IV thread (which I think is what you are trying to do) or possibly the thread linked to above as they relate more specifically to your questions.

Have fun

 

[vexing]

generally, no. one city is optimal.

 

[Crafty1]

Oh, Hi Vexing. Do puppets give culture to your overall culture total?

I thought it was just so they would expand their borders!

I will correct (errm delete it I can seeing as you got their first) my post above if I am wrong.

 

[vexing]

they do

 

[mlund]

Thanks, folks. Assuming Puppets do produce Culture for my Civ, will they use a Landmark improvement if I park it in their territory for some reason - or will they avoid it for tiles that make more Gold? I'm not sure there's ever a good reason to build a Landmark anywhere but your capital rings, but that information might be help targeting priorities for puppets. Obviously Wonders make for high priority puppet targets since they make culture - likewise wine / incense cities.

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

Thanks, folks. Assuming Puppets do produce Culture for my Civ, will they use a Landmark improvement if I park it in their territory for some reason - or will they avoid it for tiles that make more Gold? I'm not sure there's ever a good reason to build a Landmark anywhere but your capital rings, but that information might be help targeting priorities for puppets. Obviously Wonders make for high priority puppet targets since they make culture - likewise wine / incense cities.

- Marty Lund

nope, gold focus will skip a landmark unless you plop it on something like a riverside luxury. even if you did this, it has the side effect of eliminating any chance of the puppet constructing another culture building.
regardless all landmarks should go in capital with hermitage for max multipliers.

 

[mlund]

generally, no. one city is optimal.

I understand the generally part, but getting into specific exceptions for a minute - if you feel like you can get some major Monastery action working in your middle ages could it ever be cost-effective to have a secondary city enable wartime footing to go grab puppets with incense, wine, landmarks, or the Culture Natural Wonders? Also, is there some value to be had if you're getting extra happiness out of the deal via additional luxuries to have and/or trade? Or does the extra unhappiness of the city and its population cut into that so much that Mandate of Heaven won't produce adequate yields? I guess if you have a viable RA-blocking technique the extra Science from a second city isn't getting you to the Ren. Period and the Freedom Tree any faster. It can't carry its own weight (30%) very well on its own since it'll never have the Hermitage, so you'd basically must pick up extra wonders and culture/gold puppets by means of your second city to have it pay off.

While Japan is really good and making puppets quickly with good military tech, it seems like you're going to spend most of your effort on the top of the tech-tree to hit Theology, and that the quickest path to Ren. Era from there is Compass + Education = Astronomy. Am I right in thinking that Freedom -> Constitution -> Free Speech ASAP is your top policy + tech priority?

- Marty Lund

 

[KingMorgan]

I think 2 cities are as good as an OCC with a Monk house(dependant on your strategy).

 

[mlund]

Oh, one other quick question I thought of: are the costs per city additive or compounding? In other words, is the cost formula:

Total Cost = Base Cost * (1.3^N)

OR

Total Cost = Base Cost + Base Cost * .3N

Where N = number of cities beyond the first?

Obviously it doesn't make any difference for your second city, but I'm curious as to weather the 3rd city leaves you at 1.6*Base Cost or 1.69*Base Cost.

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

additive (so 2 extra cities is 1.6x).

whether multiple cities are beneficial or not has been discussed in many past threads,
and while the numbers can theoretically support a second (monastery) city, it has yet to be demonstrated as faster.
i can tell you all the top places in the first culture competition were one city. my personal preference is one city + 3ish puppets. i took second place with this strategy (and could easily have taken first with more attempts).

 

[mlund]

additive (so 2 extra cities is 1.6x).

whether multiple cities are beneficial or not has been discussed in many past threads,
and while the numbers can theoretically support a second (monastery) city, it has yet to be demonstrated as faster.
i can tell you all the top places in the first culture competition were one city. my personal preference is one city + 3ish puppets. i took second place with this strategy (and could easily have taken first with more attempts).

Thanks for the answers. If you'd indulge me, where do you come up with the troops to take those puppet cities anyway? It seems like the build queue is flat out most of the time with a single city. Is it a matter of running up large sums of cash via luxury sales and then using it to buy units and/or a militaristic city-state ally? Or do you just have to accumulate a deterrent force in whatever windows you can find and eventually you take a city or two?

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

with a tech advantage it only takes a few units. for gmajor 1 i used something like initial warrior turned longsword, 2 horseman upgraded to war elephants (siam), and maybe a trebuchet for good measure.

i imagine 3 samurai will be more than enough this game, given it's only prince.

 

[stupiduk]

I just did a quick run through, finished 286 but a lot of things went wrong...

Spoiler :

-no wine/incense (rolled around 10 maps looking for them and then got bored)
-no culture runes
-lost my first Artist to a barbarian
-failed a late-ish attempt at making puppets by going straight for capital when I could have easily taken it slow
-popped my free culture building policy on hermitage instead of museum (got nothing obv)
-a ton of little stuff

It seems like the biggest factor for success in this is how well the AI are doing and how close they are too you. They really make you pay for those RAs since you are almost always going to be one or two ages ahead of them combined with often having to top them up so they have the cash. I had completed 18 RAs at turn 220 and I think I had to pay an average of a bit under 450 each, which took almost my whole budget.

In a slightly related note, it seems like rushing exploration early in this is a must, with teching for early embarking and/or a bought trireme.

I'm curious about whether it's worth it to puppet. It seems standard to save steel till after archeology which makes Samurai too late to be very effective. And like someone else mentioned, my que is always full of useful buildings. Any tips on how to make this work without slowing down other parts too much?

 

[Dynamic]

Representation decreases culture cost of additional cities from 30% to 20% for each city.

I've written a simple xls-calculator for culture: