Getting Started

[Seek]

The one issue I had with having to fill out 6 trees, is that I was forced to take a tree that excluded one of my earlier trees. It seems to me that going for a cultural win, you should be able to build a more homogenous empire and all your policy picks ought to be able to compliment one another, or at least not conflict.

How could you have been forced? There are eight trees available without conflict.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm still not certain that the difference is as drastic as you make it out, however.

Maybe Thal will post the numbers.
But for an approximation: suppose in vanilla that 30 policies cost X. Then 36 policies will cost at least (6/5)X, and 36 policies in TBC cost (5/4) times what 36 policies cost in vanilla, so the total cumulative culture cost increase to get a cultural victory is at least 30/20 = 50%.

Nothing much happening most of the time except me hitting the "Next Turn" button and waiting for the other civs to play.

This is in part because in WWGD, the AIs are not aggressive enough. It is too easy to remain friendly with the AIs, and for them to not invade you even if their military is much stronger.

 

[Seek]

Maybe Thal will post the numbers.
But for an approximation: suppose in vanilla that 30 policies cost X. Then 36 policies will cost at least (6/5)X, and 36 policies in TBC cost (5/4) times what 36 policies cost in vanilla, so the total cumulative culture cost increase to get a cultural victory is at least 30/20 = 50%.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I don't disagree that the hard culture required for victory is higher. I just don't think that it matters to the extent you think, because:

There is a *lot* more culture available in TBC than vanilla (which the costs do not reflect, obviously).

In terms of turn-count, I wouldn't be surprised if a TBC culture win was as fast or faster than vanilla, so the fact that it requires more culture is basically irrelevant.

 

[Questdog]

How could you have been forced? There are eight trees available without conflict.

Because trees were not unlocked yet when it was time to start a new tree.....

 

[Txurce]

In terms of turn-count, I wouldn't be surprised if a TBC culture win was as fast or faster than vanilla, so the fact that it requires more culture is basically irrelevant.

Given how different TBC now is from vanilla, this is the only truly valid comparison... and it will always be a fuzzy one. By the way, I don't have an opinion as to whether one is faster than the other, since I never played for a CV in vanilla.

 

[Seek]

Because trees were not unlocked yet when it was time to start a new tree.....

Er, how could that be? Rationalism is the first tree available that blocks another one, but there are six trees available before that - if you had all of them filled out (Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Piety, Patronage and Commerce, which strikes me as impossible) you would have already won..

 

[Questdog]

Er, how could that be? Rationalism is the first tree available that blocks another one, but there are six trees available before that - if you had all of them filled out (Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Piety, Patronage and Commerce, which strikes me as impossible) you would have already won..

You are correct, I could have chosen Honor or Patronage, but without much of an army, Honor seemed useless and I don't usually play with city states any more so Patronage WAS totally useless. Rather than choose one of those, I felt Rationalism was more or less a forced choice, though as you pointed out it was not actually physically technically forced....

 

[Seek]

You are correct, I could have chosen Honor or Patronage, but without much of an army, Honor seemed useless and I don't usually play with city states any more so Patronage WAS totally useless. Rather than choose one of those, I felt Rationalism was more or less a forced choice, though as you pointed out it was not actually physically technically forced....

Ah, I see. Out of curiosity, why didn't you go Freedom?

 

[Ahriman]

I just don't think that it matters to the extent you think, because:
In terms of turn-count, I wouldn't be surprised if a TBC culture win was as fast or faster than vanilla, so the fact that it requires more culture is basically irrelevant.

I would be very surprised if culture production was 50% higher in TBC.

 

[Questdog]

Ah, I see. Out of curiosity, why didn't you go Freedom?

I did choose Freedom; Rationalism was tree #6.

 

[GoUtes53]

In version 7.2.3, I had a scout that entered a goody hut and was promoted to an explorer, but lost the "Ignores Terrain Cost" Promo. Shouldn't Explorers have this trait as well, or was this by design?

 

[Thalassicus]

This chart seems to support my point. 6 full trees (36 picks) are dramatically more expensive to reach than 30 picks are in vanilla. In fact, they're more expensive to reach than 36 picks are in vanilla. So you have made a cultural victory harder to achieve.

I would be very surprised if culture production was 50% higher in TBC.

Policy rate is income/cost, and the chart I linked only showed costs. Consider a size-20 city with each of the cultural buildings up to and including Museums.

Originally we got about 18:

• 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 14 from buildings
• 2 + 2 = 4 from artists

In the mod it's currently 40:

• 2 + 3 + 10 = 15 from buildings
• 3 + 3 + 6 = 12 from artists
• (15 + 12) * 1.5 = 40 total

This change mainly applies to the post-Opera House era however... around the time the increasing costs kick in.

Look at the chart again - the baseline is the 100% line and the vast amount of policies are below 75% of vanilla costs!

Seek's point is actually important even though the chart it does show cumulative costs:

• We have fewer cities in the early game.
• The policy cost reducers are later in the late game (representation, free speech, Christo).
• Our last two policies are free.

Since policy costs are on average shifted from the beginning to the end of the game, it reduces the total culture required for victory.

I've completed two culture victories since the main policy changes were completed; one is detailed in the thread I linked:

I achieved victory on turn 351 in 1650 AD with a score of 2743 and 9 cities. I had income of 1300/turn and 1100/turn (1600/turn during the continuous golden age at the end of the game). My score for this game was lower than my typical Domination victories, but 54% higher than my 5-city 1775-score cultural victory as Kamehameha.

I demonstrated in the thread that empire size is not a significant factor for cultural victories. What does matter is warfare: I feel somewhat confident a peaceful game is required to achieve the fastest cultural victory. Any significant military expenditure costs too much to be beneficial for this victory type. We lose science (DoFs), production (building units), and gold (maintenance).




@Questdog
Do you play with no citystates on the map, or just not interact with them? In general I think culture players get cultural citystates because it converts gold to culture, something useful when going for this victory type. 8 out of 10 trees are useful for a cultural victory, and 6 are needed, so we can pick the 2 out of those 8 we want to leave out.

In version 7.2.3, I had a scout that entered a goody hut and was promoted to an explorer, but lost the "Ignores Terrain Cost" Promo. Shouldn't Explorers have this trait as well, or was this by design?

I did this to avoid overpowering Explorers. At 3 they still move at a rate of 2 through most rough terrain, same as Scouts. They move slower in rough+hill or over rivers, but faster in open terrain, so the movement is about the same.

I also want to be careful about explorer vs pikeman balance. They've got the same strength and cost, so it's important for explorers to be slightly weaker in combat than pikes. I think this is accomplished since explorers are much weaker on the attack (no shock/drill to improve attack strength), and it's very difficult to get Survivalism III in the first half of the game, so they're not terribly good at defense yet either. The advantage of explorers is their higher speed, sight range, and they complete the scout -> explorer -> lancer chain so we can upgrade our units. These characteristics make them great Medics.

 

[Stalker0]

I've done several cultural victories under Thal's mod and I can say with only 5 trees I would breeze through culture victories.

Its important to realize that in cultural victories, a huge percentage of your culture comes from a 1-2 cities (your cultural capitals). Any multiplies that affect a single city (like the 50% bonus from national epic) has a massive impact on the culture rate.

 

[Questdog]

@Questdog
Do you play with no citystates on the map, or just not interact with them? In general I think culture players get cultural citystates because it converts gold to culture, something useful when going for this victory type. 8 out of 10 trees are useful for a cultural victory, and 6 are needed, so we can pick the 2 out of those 8 we want to leave out.

I play with no city states on the map, now.

I do this because it seems the city states make the game much easier by

1) Buffering you from Barbarians
2) Making it way to easy to keep your happy face
3) Making strategic resources basically a free commodity
4) Sometimes, by being close to you, it keeps an AI opponent from settling a city near the spot, thus giving you an easier path to expanding your empire and allowing you to build a city elsewhere, saving the city state location as a future city site.

I posted about this earlier, but I couldn't find that post; there may be other reasons that I've forgotten. Your comment about them helping you towards a cultural victory is another good reason to not have them; cultural victories being ridiculously easy already, without them.

If they were any kind of threat to your existence, then they would be fun, since in the early game some of the CS's can build quite a lead on you in units. But instead in the early game, they are basically just free barbarian killers to help keep your borders free of the nasties.

This barbarian effect of the CS's is very large. I now play without CS's and substitute an extra AI civ for every 8 Cs's that were originally scheduled; i.e. 10 players on a standard map. With CS's it is rare for more than 2 barbs to be on your soil at any given time; without CS's, especially on smaller maps, having only 2 barbs knocking at your door seems like a vacation.

 

[Seek]

@Questdog
You have some valid and interestin points. Have you tried halving the number of CSs on the map? That might accomplish some your goals while not removing an entire game mechanic. Additionally the diplo victory would be more difficult. I think I'll try that next game.

I'm assuming you don't have the most recent map pack? The continents+ mapscript puts the CSs on islands off the coast. Here they cause zero threat when at war, but the barbs are free to attack civs.

 

[Questdog]

@Questdog
You have some valid and interestin points. Have you tried halving the number of CSs on the map? That might accomplish some your goals while not removing an entire game mechanic. Additionally the diplo victory would be more difficult. I think I'll try that next game.

I'm assuming you don't have the most recent map pack? The continents+ mapscript puts the CSs on islands off the coast. Here they cause zero threat when at war, but the barbs are free to attack civs.

Yes, I tried fewer CS's before I decided to eliminate them. Fewer CS's only alleviated the barbarian issue (though the barbs were still not as numerous). The other issues (easy resource acquisition) were unchanged. Or perhaps they were worse, since my relationships with CS's left fewer CS's for the AI to befriend.

 

[Zeppelin4]

I'm assuming you don't have the most recent map pack? The continents+ mapscript puts the CSs on islands off the coast. Here they cause zero threat when at war, but the barbs are free to attack civs.

May I ask what map pack your talking about?

 

[truetom]

No CS? Hmm, might try that as well.

 

[Seek]

May I ask what map pack your talking about?

Don't recall the name, but it's the most recent one that was released at the same time as the Danish DLC.

 

[Ahriman]

<shrug>
If people find that it takes a similar number of turns to achieve cultural victory as vanilla, then we should leave things as they are in terms of number of policy trees.