Ill start with a basic summery and then go on to some details.
Elizabeth VS Asoka, Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa
Tropical Balanced Emperor Marathon
Cultural Victory, 1140AD
The opponents were chosen for their peaceful nature, even in the face of different religions. By tossing good deals their way every once in awhile, I was able to keep my two co-religionists (Buddhism) Friendly, while the lone Hindu AI was merely Pleased. There was no war the entire game, and I never built anything beyond Neolithic warriors to defend my cities.
I built six cities, which I have decided is more or less the optimum number. In this strategy, the winning culture results from building up high commerce in three cities and then converting it all to culture, with multipliers. Two of the other cities served as Great Person farms, and the sixth city switch-hit. I had no production center, and throughout the game my hammer-producing ability can be rated as exceptionally poor.
The number of cities had a bit of thought put into it. The main factor is that the numbers just work out beautifully for six cities on small maps. It takes two temples to make a cathedral, and you have three culture cities, so it works out perfectly if every city builds every temple you need. I also added additional Great Person farms in previous games, up to 5, and found that every GP farm after the 3rd only produces one additional artist. This is certainly something to grab if available, but nothing devastating if it is not.
However, this did not particularly hinder me, as I built almost nothing that wasnt absolutely necessary in my cities. The standard build order was like this:
Warrior -> Granary -> Temples -> Cathedrals -> Wealth/Culture
With the rare deviation for an aqueduct or theater.
The beginning game was marked by chop-rushing all the early wonders, except the Oracle, which I lost to Mansa Musa. Ill elaborate later on why this isnt a devastating loss.
The complete tech path I followed:
Bronze Working (hut) -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Mysticism -> Agriculture -> Masonry -> Animal Husbandry -> Polytheism -> Writing -> Code of Laws -> Alphabet -> Theology -> Philosophy -> Paper -> Music -> Education -> Machinery -> Liberalism -> Printing Press (free) (200AD)
If there are holes in the requirements of this path, they were filled by Tech Trading with the AI. Also note that unlike other players, I avoid Civil Service and Nationalism completely. I view the cost of researching these techs, combined with the cost of building the Hermitage on a marble-less map, to be probative. On balance, Id rather keep the time and use it for 100% culture.
I also experimented with skipping Alphabet and letting the AI research it for you. I found that they give this an extremely low priority, and often you wont see it until after 1AD. This is far, far too long to go without Calendar, and in addition it discourages them from discovering Literature and Drama for you. My strategy was to research Alphabet myself and then quickly give it to everyone, to give them a push in the right tech direction.
The theme of this game was to have my culture cities have as many cottages as possible, and for the cities to grow as fast as possible, in order to work those cottages from the earliest date. In my calculations, a freshly-built cottage needs to be actively and continuously worked from at minimum 1AD for it to reach Town level and provide the associated gold/culture boost for the crucial final turns. Obviously, the earlier the better.
This effected my city placement a great deal. Jungle cities are dismissed out of hand Id never get them clear in time, especially since I was depending on the AI for Iron Working. Likewise, cities with Calendar growth resources were avoided by the time Calendar comes around, the city wont have enough time to grow and work its cottages. The entire theme here is explosive early growth, followed by a steady working of cottages. I gave Emancipation a good, hard look.. but in the end, it was just too far down the tech tree.
I produced sixteen Great People this game. One Prophet from Stonehenge, one Engineer from the Pyramids, and fourteen Artists from my artist-filled GP farms. I used two artists as Super Specialists, to mixed results (see previous post), and twelve to create Great Works. The Engineer built the Sistine Chapel for me, and the Prophet built the Confucian Shrine.
This is what I consider to be one of the crucial decisions of the game. Previously, I had used that Prophet to discover Theology (2160 beakers), but I decided to use him for raw gold production with the shrine (in one of my non-GP farms!). This was an amazingly good decision. By 200AD, the shrine was producing 11 gold per turn, and by the end of the game it was producing 32 gold per turn. After the rush-buying phase of the game (and while cities had nothing better to do), I was spewing out Confucian Missionaries and plastering the faith over every city on the planet. This resulted in the substantial gold income above, which allowed me to run 100% culture at the end and make a profit! I highly advocate this tactic.
On the general subject of religion, I had Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism spread to me early. I founded Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity. I had previously decided that four cathedrals per city is the point of diminishing returns, and that the fifth would be largely a waste of time, especially taking into account the effort that must be made to force a 5th religion into a city. Now, because I had stone, but no marble, I leaned heavily towards the stone-accelerated religions. I spread Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity to every city.
Now, a few quirks.
I regenerated the map over and over until I had a starting position with gold, on a river that ran some length, with decent food resources nearby. The river and the food are self-explanatory, but the gold I consider critical. A quirk of Marathon is that, if you start with Mining, you have time to build a mine before Bronze Working finishes and the chop rushing begins. A completed gold mine produces +3p and +9gold (on a hill and on a river) and so is just as useful for producing workers and settlers as a food tile. The boost to research from this is so huge that I cannot stress enough how vital this is to the start. Absolutely everything goes faster from this point on. As a general rule: if youre playing Marathon, restart until you get gold. It will pay off.
I also consider stone a flat-out requirement. There are only three bronze religions, and Balanced maps typically do not have Marble. Therefore, in order to get the fourth cathedral up without having to pay double, you need stone and a stone religion.
I built three cities initially, with the intent that they would all be research nexuses until the teching stopped, when one would be singled out to be converted to a GP farm. I held off building any 100% positive GP farms until after Code of Laws, as I didnt want to run the risk of the religion being founded there and having the shrine pollute the Great Artist stream. This is a very real concern.
Walkers tip about switching Great Artists to Great Merchants after the city has produced its final Great Person is beyond a minor optimization it is a major improvement that did wonders for my economy! This allowed me to run my culture slider much higher ultimately all the way up to 100%, with a profit!
On that subject, in the final cultural push I ran into times where I had no more gold and no more tech to sell, so under normal circumstances I would have had to reduce the culture slider and accept the lower rate. However, I came up with a minor tactic that kept me going at 90% culture for almost the entire game. When I would run out of gold, I would approach one of my AI buddies and ask them very nicely for a donation to my victory, which absurdly enough they were happy to do. On three separate occasions I asked the AI for lots of 300 gold, which they willingly gave. This, the merchants, and the shrine allowed me to really push the limit of the culture slider.
After the teching stopped, my first priority was to run 0% culture and still have all my citizens happy. 0% culture means Im getting maximum gold, which means Im rush-building at the absolute fastest rate. In addition, no unhappy people means that all cottages are being worked. Initially the culture rate was 30%, but with liberal application of theaters and temples I was able to quickly eliminate unhappiness. The gold from the strong economy, channeled completely into liquid cash resulted in a very short buying period, which ended in 665AD. After that, it was all culture, all the time.
On a side note, I lost the Oracle to Mansa Musa. My plan had been to research Code of Laws and then use the Oracle to get Philosophy, which results in the greatest net beaker gain I am aware of (I do not want nor need Civil Service). However, this is a risky strategy as the AIs can easily beat you to the wonder. Oddly enough, this isnt a real loss. If the AI builds the Oracle, they invariably use it to research Metal Casting, which you can then trade for. The AI tends to avoid both Metal Casting and Machinery until after you need them, so this is roughly equivalent to building the Oracle yourself, less culture and plus gold. In all, missing the Oracle is far from the end of the world.
- Bill
gave away his secrets. I was right about what I was doing wrong though, I wasn't playing as minimalistic as I could. My problem was building things like aquaducts and temples I knew I wouldn't need later. I should have just been generating gold and that would have cut out several turns.
