Gardening with Cyrus

[NegativeZero]

1st post, but long time lurker here.

The past couple of days, I've been rolling with Cyrus and loving the early war bonuses (especially the +2 movement).
I'll usually war out my neighbors into the medieval era with archers/warriors(+immortals)/horsemen taking out 1-3 other civs. I'll find myself with quite a bit of free land and bad/lackluster AI cities.

I feel Persia's Pairidaeza (Persian garden) transforms lackluster locations into fields of gold/culture.

• Built on grassland, plains, or desert (including hills)
• +1 Culture (+1 with Diplomatic Service, +1 for each adjacent Holy Site and Theater Square)
• +1 Gold (+1 adjacent to City Center and Commercial Hub)
• +2 Appeal to surrounding Hexes
• All culture on improvement yields Tourism (1:1 with Flight)

It's flexible as well as consistent which sets it apart from other unique improvements as it benefits from districts instead of lucky resources/wonders.
The +2 appeal stacks with each other and can make adjacent seaside resorts and national parks yield much more tourism in later eras.

Gardening out these sub-par cities involves stagnating their growth by forcing the population to work the Pairidaeza and should only be used on poor terrain, small, and/or conquered AI cities that would/could otherwise be razed.
Cities with good hexes/locations etc. need not apply for pruning.

Alternatively, a player in later eras (industrial-future) could produce some settlers to take advantage of Pairidaeza's appeal bonuses toward seaside resorts.
The city doesn't even need to complete a holy site/theater/commerce hub for the Pairidaeza's adjacent bonus to kick in. Just place and increase yields.

Overall the Pairidaeza feels like gold/culture puppets from Civ 5.
Persia's domination victory is readily apparent, but I'm sure it may have a good shot with culture.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I am also impressed with the Pairidaeza. It seems that between these and the internal Trade Routes, Persia can operate just fine on gold and culture without as much dependence on production tiles as other civs. Don't build when you can buy.

And other civs' culture unique improvements were always a bit lackluster in the Tourism at Flight department. For each one, I was hopeful that the civ could aim for a CV with just map Tourism, but each one failed. China did the best with the Great Wall. But Persia's gardens are both spammable and potent in Tourism. I hope the old UIs can be brought up to snuff.

 

[bbbt]

And other civs' culture unique improvements were always a bit lackluster in the Tourism at Flight department. For each one, I was hopeful that the civ could aim for a CV with just map Tourism, but each one failed. China did the best with the Great Wall. But Persia's gardens are both spammable and potent in Tourism. I hope the old UIs can be brought up to snuff.

That is exacerbated by the seaside resort being relatively strong for tourism. Here are some mediocre UI or this strong improvement everyone gets.

Not to resurrect the civ 4 cultural victory, but I think it might be cool if the UIs got a tourism boost based on age. I.e. your ancient era Sphinx provides 3x it's cultural output to tourism, mideival 2x, industrial+ just the cultural output. Give more reason to have them up early.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

That is exacerbated by the seaside resort being relatively strong for tourism. Here are some mediocre UI or this strong improvement everyone gets.

Not to resurrect the civ 4 cultural victory, but I think it might be cool if the UIs got a tourism boost based on age. I.e. your ancient era Sphinx provides 3x it's cultural output to tourism, mideival 2x, industrial+ just the cultural output. Give more reason to have them up early.

Yes. With the Sphinx, Great Wall, Chateau, and Ziggurat, I didn't feel like they were worth having up until just before Flight. Because it just makes more sense to work a farm or mine, these UIs just take up premium space. Give me a reason to build them when they first become available. The big gold output on a Pairidaeza makes it worth working though, so it's worth spamming when it becomes available.

By the way, does anyone know what the standard rate of culture:tourism is for improvements at Flight? Is it 2:1?

 

[agonistes]

Shhhhh.... we don't want people knowing what a monster Persia is. Let them flop around with Alex.

Yes. With the Sphinx, Great Wall, Chateau, and Ziggurat, I didn't feel like they were worth having up until just before Flight. Because it just makes more sense to work a farm or mine, these UIs just take up premium space. Give me a reason to build them when they first become available. The big gold output on a Pairidaeza makes it worth working though, so it's worth spamming when it becomes available.

By the way, does anyone know what the standard rate of culture:tourism is for improvements at Flight? Is it 2:1?

Alternatively, the ziggurat can be an insane boost to tech if spammed early, preferably on a high food natural yield city that is low on production. Bonus science is more potent early on per beaker.

Haven't you ever gotten to a point later in a game where you said: 'why the hell did I build a campus?'

Comparatively, though, for me, culture is harder to come by then science, so Cyrus got the much better deal. Caveat - Russia. Currently 1300 culture to 800 science, but that's Russia for you.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Shhhhh.... we don't want people knowing what a monster Persia is. Let them flop around with Alex.



Alternatively, the ziggurat can be an insane boost to tech if spammed early, preferably on a high food natural yield city that is low on production. Bonus science is more potent early on per beaker.

Haven't you ever gotten to a point later in a game where you said: 'why the hell did I build a campus?'

Comparatively, though, for me, culture is harder to come by then science, so Cyrus got the much better deal. Caveat - Russia. Currently 1300 culture to 800 science, but that's Russia for you.

With the Ziggurat, I may work them early for a while, but I inevitably need to switch to a tile with a higher food or production yield. And since population is low early, you only need a few, therefore spamming it isn't viable.

 

[isau]

While the improvement is nice IMO it points to an issue with how Culture and Tech are too easy to get. This is mainly due to the existence of free culture and tech from Population.

When you remove free culture and tech from Population, the game radically changes. It's what the Hardcore version of my mod does. In that situation, all the various unique improvements are suddenly great. I just think Firaxis needs to rethink the Population = science and culture.

 

[agonistes]

With the Ziggurat, I may work them early for a while, but I inevitably need to switch to a tile with a higher food or production yield. And since population is low early, you only need a few, therefore spamming it isn't viable.

Ah, well, 3 around your 2nd or 3rd city is kind of what I meant by spamming. A quick, focused, dropping of them around one city. We are on same page. Can't spam a hundred of these in first 40 turns.

While the improvement is nice IMO it points to an issue with how Culture and Tech are too easy to get. This is mainly due to the existence of free culture and tech from Population.

When you remove free culture and tech from Population, the game radically changes. It's what the Hardcore version of my mod does. In that situation, all the various unique improvements are suddenly great. I just think Firaxis needs to rethink the Population = science and culture.

That crossed my mind the other day. Tech is way too easy to get. Not much need for a campus. Culture I need those monuments, but the districts are mostly to get rid of dig sites.

 

[bbbt]

While the improvement is nice IMO it points to an issue with how Culture and Tech are too easy to get. This is mainly due to the existence of free culture and tech from Population.

When you remove free culture and tech from Population, the game radically changes. It's what the Hardcore version of my mod does. In that situation, all the various unique improvements are suddenly great. I just think Firaxis needs to rethink the Population = science and culture.

Yeah, I think pulling the science and culture out of population would be ideal imho. Maybe they are afraid doing so would make the game too unbalanced in terms of a 'must get lots of campuses' approach? Or perhaps they are afraid it would be challenging for more casual players (who can continue to progress just by building cities).

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yeah, I think pulling the science and culture out of population would be ideal imho. Maybe they are afraid doing so would make the game too unbalanced in terms of a 'must get lots of campuses' approach? Or perhaps they are afraid it would be challenging for more casual players (who can continue to progress just by building cities).

I think that they added population science so that mountain starts wouldn't be overpowered.

 

[bbbt]

I think that they added population science so that mountain starts wouldn't be overpowered.

That's true, that would be crazy skewed if campuses were the only source of science.

 

[NegativeZero]

@ Isau Science/culture from Pop. makes the early archer rush a bit too rewarding. I'll have to give your mod a try.

Ziggurats are nice in moderation but can fall off hard.

Gold/culture from the Pairidaeza is low to be spammed early game, but vastly improves in later eras. Make those production poor cities generate something of value.

 

[isau]

@ Isau Science/culture from Pop. makes the early archer rush a bit too rewarding. I'll have to give your mod a try.

Ziggurats are nice in moderation but can fall off hard.

Gold/culture from the Pairidaeza is low to be spammed early game, but vastly improves in later eras. Make those production poor cities generate something of value.

I don't want to talk too much about my mod, altho the reason it's relevant is because most of the changes I made reflect where I think what would make the base game better.

Basically in Hardcore I reconfigured the whole start strategy:

• No free culture/science from Population, and no free envoys just for meeting a City State (instead, fulfill a quest or earn envoys)
• Encampments unlock prior to anything else (recently moved from having no reqs to the first Civic, but only to prevent a screamer in CQUI, which expects all districts to have a pre-req).
• Moved Holy Sites to the Mysticism civic, which creates a much more natural and deliberate unlock than Astrology does. (Prereq for Mysticism is "Found a Pantheon." )
  
• The capital automatically has walls
• Other cities can't get walls at all unless they have an Encampment with a Barracks or Stable

In turn, the AI is much more likely to open with an early Encampment district and not chase the Holy Site right away. The capital has walls from the beginning, so Archer rushes by the player on the capital are tougher to pull off,especially since the AI is very likely to reinforce with a Encampment there. Any additional cities, tho are more vulnerable than before. In my experience it better forces what Firaxis was going for with Encampments. Cities on the edges of your empire can fall super fast if you don't build an Encampment. At the same time, you better find a way to pull off Campus and Theater districts, because you just don't get those yields free anymore. The except civs are the ones with unique improvements, who can skirt the rules just a little.

That said, I did recently do some tuning to the AI because it was outpacing the player too much. I gave AI +2 science per district, and it was just a little too good with it. In the next mod patch, it's reduced to +1. This bonus exists instead of just handing the AI a huge buff in order to give the player a concrete way to fight back against a fast teching AI--go pillage them.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

The Pairidaiza is cool. Seems to be quite effective to put them in a diamond with 2 districts. Try to get one of the Pairadiaza next to the city center.

Only small issue (I guess it's an issue), I don't tend to build as many farms on flat lands, so have to hard-tech Feudalism

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The Pairidaiza is cool. Seems to be quite effective to put them in a diamond with 2 districts. Try to get one of the Pairadiaza next to the city center.

Only small issue (I guess it's an issue), I don't tend to build as many farms on flat lands, so have to hard-tech Feudalism

I ran into that as well.

 

[Stringer1313]

Not to resurrect the civ 4 cultural victory, but I think it might be cool if the UIs got a tourism boost based on age. I.e. your ancient era Sphinx provides 3x it's cultural output to tourism, mideival 2x, industrial+ just the cultural output. Give more reason to have them up early.

Yes x1000 I've been pushing for this as well

 

[Morningcalm]

Agreed, it would make sense, and also allow culture to have a slightly higher chance of threatening a Domination victory player. The problem with Domination is that it allows you to pivot into almost any other victory type (except perhaps religion). The more cities you have, the more science and production, for example (all those trade routes will boost at least one city enough to build spaceports). Culture needs a slight boost in the late game to avoid the tedium of the endless "End Turn" pressing that characterized Civ V's original Cultural Victory.

I would like to see some screenshots of Cyrus gardens--who has the best gardens producing the most culture and gold?

 

[NegativeZero]

I'm back to share my experience with a Culture Persia Victory.
I've made an Imgur album to show all the goods. I'll post the pictures here if requested, but I don't want to clutter the thread.
Album is HERE or http://imgur.com/a/aXzrC

FYI: I intentionally played avoiding these Wonders, Policy cards, Tech, Great People, and/or Religion:
Cristo Redntor: Doubles Tourism output of Seaside Resorts.
Eiffel Tower: All tiles in your civilization gain +2 Appeal. (additional Tourism from Seaside resort and National Park tiles)
Heritage Tourism (policy):+100% Tourism from Great Works and Artifacts.
Satellite Broadcasts (Policy): +100% Tourism from Great Works of Music.
Online Communities (Policy): +50% Tourism output to civilizations to which you have a Trade Route.
Computers: All Tourism yields are doubled.
Printing: Double Tourism on Great Works of Writing
Sarah Breedlove, Modern Era Great Merchant, provides +25% Tourism from Trade Routes to other civilizations.
Melitta Bentz, Atomic Era Great Merchant, provides +25% Tourism from Trade Routes to other civilizations.
Mary Leakey, Atomic Era Great Scientist, provides +200% Tourism from Artifacts.
Jamsetji Tata, Information Era Great Merchant, provides +10 Tourism for each Campus

I really wanted to win through shear improvement Tourism as much as possible.

Persia, Cyrus: King,Standard,Pangaea,Small.
I only took out 1 civ (Germany) and left the rest alone. I could have knocked off another during medieval era, but I wanted to focus on Culture this run.
Till turn 177, it was a standard of Commerce and Theaters in every city trying to get the most out of Pairidaeza adjacently bonuses.
That hurt me in the end as I only built 1 campus which delayed Flight and Radio for quite some time.
I always tried to get the Tourism Bonuses from trades routes and Open boarders on other civs.

Turn 177: I had 104 tourism before flight from Great Works.
Turn 178: 211 Tourism with Pairidaeza's culture now being counted 1:1 into Tourism

Turn 191: 289 Tourism.
This was an interesting period as I took population from my near housing cap. cities and settled them to make more Gardens and prepared Seaside Resort cities.
I settled them up&down making many of the coastal 4-6 Appeal each from Pairidaeza's +2 Appeal adjacency (which stack).
I also took some rather bad land in the middle of my empire and made a National park with Pairidaeza. The project alone netted me 30 Tourism (19 from Park +11 from surrounding gardens)
The Album shows the process and how bad the location was before it was pruned.

Turn 195: 326 Tourism. Radio finished and I started Spamming Resorts!
Turn 196: 373 Tourism. More Resorts!
Turn 197: 394 Tourism. Resorts!

Turn 208: 472 Tourism. This was the last played turn as I won. Greece had the 2nd highest Culture (67)
For everyone wondering how much Tourism I'd have with Cristo and Computers, I played 3 more turns.

Turn 210: 606 Tourism. This was when I stopped delaying the wonder. I could have gotten it much earlier.
Turn 211: 1282 Tourism. Computer Tech finished.

I really enjoyed this game as I challenged myself to make the Pairidaeza shine.
I'm absolutely sure there are ways to cut down the # of turns to win with Pairidaeza's culture and appeal bonuses.

 

[gunnerxtr]

Cool - what UI mods are you using? I enjoyed reading through the imgur album.

 

[NegativeZero]

I use the CQUI (weekly) from the Steam workshop. It really helps with the extra lenses, trade window, and city screen.
Especially when locking down Pop.

I'm going to take the King difficulty game as "proof of concept" toward Perisa's Pairidaesa ability to generate culture/ tourism culminating into National Parks and Seaside Resorts.
My choices in that game could be improved. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

I took God of the Open Sky Pantheon (+1 culture on pastures) which helped getting Civics rolling.
However, Satrapies (+1culture +2 gold on domestic trade routes) does the same, but is more consistent and reliable then praying to the pasture gods.

I'd consider taking faith generating Pantheons like Desert Folklore, Sacred Path, Goddess of the Harvest, or Stone Circles for more/faster National Parks.
When settling small cities along the coast to maximize resorts, I ended up chopping/removing quite a bit of stuff which could make Goddess of the Harvest generate more National Parks.

Looking at the pictures close enough and you'll notice I neglected industrial districts. It was quite a mistake as wonders/districts where painful.
I lost the Pyramids and Terracotta Army by 2 turns which resulted in skipping most wonders except for Colosseum and Cristo Rendentor.
I only succeed with those by massing traders out that city as it ended the game about 46-50 industry total.

The Archaeological Museums found my lack of industry disturbing as I could only purchase the Archaeologists.
Art Museums ended as a better investment as GPPs from massed theater districts fill those up nicely.

I went a bit to crazy investing in culture instead of balancing with science. That delayed Radio and Flight far too long.
However, I did end up researching Future Civic a couple times before ending the game.

To sum it all up: I had a good time playing and learned quite a bit.
I looking forward to starting an Emperor game shooting for improvement tourism. I'll not pull any punches with that game.