Godotnut's Guide to Totally Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory

[supposedly]

Hello,


This is my first post in this forum. I have been reading it for several weeks and I really like it. I have to say that all of the posts in this thread have been incredibly helpful and I thank everyone for sharing their experiences and tips.

I am attempting the cultural win as described by the OP. I achieved a satisfying victory on Monarch the first time, and jumped straight to deity.

Settings:

• BTS 3.1.3.1
• Elizabeth
• Continents
• Standard
• Temperate
• Low sea sevel
• Normal speed
• Standard Resources
• Opponents: Asoka, Catherine, Cyrus, Hathesheput, Mansa, Frederick, Louis

Strategy:

First I tried using the pyramids strategy originally described. I was often able to complete the pyramids, but it took forever; by the time I would get my settlers going, all the land would be taken.

Then I used the strategy described by jesusin, forgoing the pyramids and beelining to Alphabet. I get many techs for alphabet, but in the mean time, my workers sit on their hands with nothing to do. So next time I made warriors instead, but by the time I was ready to start making workers and settlers, most of the land was settled again. Also, the AI took writing/alphabet and ran with it, beating me to everything beyond, building all the key wonders before I even had a chance to research the tech.

Then I tried to build 6 cities as fast as possible, but it is SUCH a drag on the economy and I end up with no money and no research.

So next I tried cottaging the capital first, and then making cities, but the AI and barbarians drop cities everywhere before I can get my settlers pumped out. It also means I can't rush to alphabet because I need wheel and pottery.

I read that the AI doesn't prioritize literature, but it seems they are always building the great library before I can even get to the tech! Has this been patched? I realize that my technique is still pretty shoddy and I still have lots to learn. But I am wondering if these strategies work on BTS, or do they just apply to plain vanilla Civ IV? I would hate to be wasting all of this time if it doesn't work in BTS ;-)

What is the best game speed to use? I have tried using epic and normal. On epic, I get creamed militarily, and on normal, they always seem to out tech me.

Also jesusin, is there a specific thread on that page to read? A 40 second search makes it hard to sift through everything ;-) Some of

 

[jesusin]

Welcome to Civfanatics, supposedly! You will find this is a friendly community, I have learnt so much here!
Is your post complete? It looks like an abrupt ending to me.


This extraordinary guide was written for Vanilla. I suppose a good part of it is useful in BTS too.
Please note that godotnut partly changed his mind later on and he wasn't recommending building the GLib (too many GS points leading to less GArtists).


Reading about your difficulties I would say that you have yet to master the initial part of the game. Your problems are not related to the cultural VC but would happen in every game. But you are not losing your time at all! You are following the best path I know to learning more: trying the same settings, once and again, with different strategies. That's how you learn what works and what doesn't, the price you have to pay for an early WW, and so on...

When beelining Alpha from the beggining, there are a number of ways to get there, so your Workers should never be idle. Also, adding the Wheel to the beeline and going to Writing through Pottery is a very sound strategy, and allows the non-stop building of cottages.

When expanding, I try go get to 4 cities by 1000BC and 6 cities by 1AD. A bit faster is possible, but your economy suffers.

Take care with Louis and Cathy, they look a bit treacherous.

Speeds: For every VC Marathon is the easiest. Except for Culture, where the best speeed is either Marathon or Quick (because only 25K are needed instead of the "fair" 33K )
But don't let that change your habits, play the speed that you enjoy the most.


Come on! Don't be lazy! 40seconds times 2 == 80 seconds...
The first 2 links are the most interesting IMO. Please pay attention to any remark by WastinTime.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232250
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185818
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=198399
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=267358
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193460
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204150
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187986


Good luck! And don't forget to try BTS Gandhi too, it took me some time to learn (part of) the uses of Spiritual.



Disclaimer: I hope I am not hijacking this thread. If anyone has different ideas, by any means, express them here. Or additional links, or anything. I am not in possesion of truth and this is not my thread!

 

[supposedly]

Welcome to Civfanatics, supposedly! You will find this is a friendly community, I have learnt so much here!
Is your post complete? It looks like an abrupt ending to me.

Yes it is cut off, but I have totally forgotten what I wanted to say ;-)

This extraordinary guide was written for Vanilla. I suppose a good part of it is useful in BTS too.

I figured as much. One thing I have noticed is that I can never seem to beat the AI to Alphabet. Aesthetics, however, they seem to ignore, and I can trade it away for lots of goodies. I will keep playing on BTS because I like the new opponents.

Reading about your difficulties I would say that you have yet to master the initial part of the game. Your problems are not related to the cultural VC but would happen in every game. But you are not losing your time at all! You are following the best path I know to learning more: trying the same settings, once and again, with different strategies. That's how you learn what works and what doesn't, the price you have to pay for an early WW, and so on...

I stopped playing with barbarians. It is just too frustrating. Nothing sucks more than a stack of six barbarian axemen popping out of nowhere and ruining your game. I also reduced the number of AI on the map by one.

These two changes significantly altered the game. Before, I could never get the cities up in time, but now I seem to have plenty of time and space. With barbarians turned off, I can explore at will, and search for optimal settler placement.

When expanding, I try go get to 4 cities by 1000BC and 6 cities by 1AD. A bit faster is possible, but your economy suffers.

My research bar is usually at 20% by 1AD. I never beat the AI to anything except Aesthetics. They just always get to Alphabet faster than me, and never trade anything. So I started trading aesthetics away, and the AI seems to trade the house for it, but I will never discover music first and get the free GA.

Take care with Louis and Cathy, they look a bit treacherous.

Now I play with Asoka, Frederick, Cyrus, Hathsheput, Sitting Bull, and Ghandi.
Louis just builds too many wonders and Catherine stirs up trouble.

Come on! Don't be lazy! 40seconds times 2 == 80 seconds...
The first 2 links are the most interesting IMO. Please pay attention to any remark by WastinTime.

I discovered the Google Search option which is way faster

Disclaimer: I hope I am not hijacking this thread. If anyone has different ideas, by any means, express them here. Or additional links, or anything. I am not in possesion of truth in this is not my thread!

Thank you for all of your help, and also to everyone else who posted in this thread. I haven't beaten deity yet, but I have gotten pretty close (AI diplomatic victory at last minute). I have learned a lot so far!

 

[da dick]

mansa musa using cottage spam and religious buildings seem to work best for me, but is there any way to win the game at 1600s WITHOUT USING RELIGION?

will building stuff which increase gold output, work just as well with cottage spam?

 

[Mesix]

mansa musa using cottage spam and religious buildings seem to work best for me, but is there any way to win the game at 1600s WITHOUT USING RELIGION?

will building stuff which increase gold output, work just as well with cottage spam?

The thing you have to realize about cottages is that they do not produce they produce . Understanding the difference makes a world of difference. If you already know then ignore my beginner advice.

is commerce and can become , ,

 

[Mesix]

mansa musa using cottage spam and religious buildings seem to work best for me, but is there any way to win the game at 1600s WITHOUT USING RELIGION?

will building stuff which increase gold output, work just as well with cottage spam?

The thing you have to realize about cottages is that they do not produce they produce . Understanding the difference makes a world of difference. If you already know, then ignore my beginner advice.

is commerce and can become , , , or depending on what your slider is set to. At the beginning of the game, only the slider is available so commerce can become or . If you are running the slider at 100% then your cottages will not prodece any at all. They will only produce .

The is the reason why you are likely to read a lot of posts about Financial trait leaders being powerful at research (and not necessarily at accumulating riches).

Buildings such as Marketplace, Grocer, and Bank only modify the that is being produced by a city and not the . If you are running your slider very high, then these buildings are not going to modify the output of a developed cottage (or town) tile.

The best way to tech quickly is to build Libraries in the cities that are working cottages and commerce resources. Later add Universities and Observatories to them as well. If you are running a Cottage Economy, you want to run your slider as high as possible. without losing gold. Once you have Libraries, running Scientists GP in your cities will also keep your research going.

I generally only build Marketplaces and Banks in cities that have a Holy Shrine or something else that produces . Even on a huge map, I only have about 3-4 cities that build them until after Corporation is researched and I need 8 to build Wall Street.

 

[da dick]

thanks. i thought gold and commerce was the same yellow thing. guess it would be much tougher to build up culture without the cheap culture multiplying catherals(sp?)

is using great people just to create golden ages, a better idea than hoarding great artistes for the endgame?
---

and i usually play with "random personalities" to keep thing unpredictable. it's nice to interact with a monty who isn't trying to fight everyone. but a gandhi AI with a warmonger's personality is quite fearsome.

 

[supposedly]

Well tonight I finally completed my first cultural victory on BTS deity. I narrowly won by one turn in 1720. Lincoln had already launched the spaceship but was too slow, and Pericles was just one step behind me in reaching his 3rd legendary city.

I was lucky and built the pyramids, but I had a pathetic GP farm, so I guess it evens out.

My biggest mistake in prior games was trading away aesthetics literature or drama too soon. The AI wants those badly, but it never researches them, so I think it's better to take it straight to music and get the free artist. I chose to lightbulb drama with him, but it may have been better to save it for later.

If you have built the pyramids, use the engineer on sistine chapel and only then trade away those techs. Otherwise, try to get a jump start on the sistine before you trade music, or drama/lit. If you have to use hammers for the sistine chapel: keeping an eye on who has spawned Great Engineers is helpful, because that's the AI you don't want to trade drama or literature to. The AI can and will research music and use the engineer on it all before you can complete the sistine chapel.

I gave up on trying to reach liberalism first, it just seems impossible unless you have a ton of early luxury resources mined and ready to go. I was never really good at trading extra resources like clams and rice for cash, because you can't ever get more than like 4 gold in the early game. After the point the AI gave me decent money (8-13g), i had already turned tech off and was culturing.

Anyway, thanks for everyone's help on this thread! It has been quite a learning experience.

 

[Genv [FP]]

Guys..This is harder on BTS.. The AI is smarter

 

[oyzar]

How smart the AI are doesn't matter if you don't plan to interact in it in any way but trading! BTS have sistine and corps that makes it very good for cultural victory. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=278350 here and http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232250 here are two nice threads on cultural victory imo... The first might be better on how to do it and the second one better for what to do to do it faster. Marathon quecha exploit with big and small getting sushi asap is probably the fastest way to win as shown by killercane.

 

[Antonionius]

I never build any barracks or any troops other than one warrior per city. I don't hook up with copper until I've built six warriors, so that the option is present to build warriors and not the more expensive axemen or spearmen. If diplomacy fails and someone invades (rarely happens), retire, rinse, and repeat.

Does anybody know a good thread, or has advice on diplomacy. One warrior per city sounds like breakfast for those pesky AI warmongerers

 

[da dick]

i don't think anyone would fault you for tweaking the custom settings so there won't be barbarians and aggressive leaders in your game.

 

[Antonionius]

Cheers, yeah I did that. From the threads I've been reading, it seems to be the only way. I've been playing BTS and usually go for Mansa, Gandhi, Pericles and Lincoln. Pascal as well sometimes, but seems to get well peeved if you're not the same religion in my experience.

I haven't braved above Noble level yet. I got a 1780 win on BTS (Liz/small/quick). I tried on vanilla (Liz/small/quick) with inland sea (recommended on the forum) Noble again and got a victory in 1575, so I guess a BTS cultural victory is quite a lot harder

 

[godotnut]

I wanted to take a moment to thank Jesusin for maintaining this thread while I was away. I'm sure he's the better expert on cultural victories anyway, especially since I haven't played more than a game or two in years, and have only played BOTS twice. So culture mongers are probably best served looking for his posts in the GOTM threads, rather than asking me. I will be happy to try to respond, however, if you want some old school advice from godotnut.

 

[stauntonel]

You go from 100% research to 100% culture in one turn, the moment you've got all Liberalism, Natio, Drama and Music.

You don't worry about research anymore. There isn't anything you really need to research to win the game now.

Maybe wait until you get Printing Press?

Good luck, although you don't seem to need it!

Thanks, it's not luck i need but tech skills so i can play on higher levels.
My record untill now is 1465 AD this was on noble.
I get the feeling i have to move up in difficulty level, because it takes ages before AI have some interesting techs to trade. Deity is still along way to go, but who knows one day i will get there.

 

[jesusin]

Maybe wait until you get Printing Press?

PP is sometimes a good idea. Sometimes it is better not to research it. It depends on the number of cottages you are running and the number of cathedrals. Just do the maths, if you have an idea how many turns remain till the end, it is easy.

In Deity you can trade for it. Most of the times I don't research it.

Thanks, it's not luck i need but tech skills so i can play on higher levels.
My record untill now is 1465 AD this was on noble.
I get the feeling i have to move up in difficulty level, because it takes ages before AI have some interesting techs to trade. Deity is still along way to go, but who knows one day i will get there.

That's not a bad date. I think Deity is easier because of tech-trading.

Just dive in! My first game of Civ4 was on Deity.

 

[Snowbeavers]

This is my first post here and have only been playing Civ IV (not BTS but normal one) for about 6 months.

I used to be a war monger but now really enjoying the peaceful cultural victory.

I just won a cultural victory on Monarch with Gandhi in 1963 and narrowly beating out a AI space victory. I want to try on deity but I don't think I have the skills yet.

I have a few problems and would appreciate your advice.

1. What produces more culture, a city with loads of farms to make a GP factory or a city with cottages?

2. Do you try and get any of the Great Wonders after liberalism or just quit teching? I read that some people try and go for Broadway and Rock and Roll but then wouldn't your cultural output suffer?

3. Should I try and get 9 cities so that I can get the extra religious buildings? I can only do this on large maps of course but my last victory I had 7 cities and won.

4. I have found it nearly impossible to have a peaceful cultural victory with the likes of Monte and Isabelle out there. Do you pick peaceful AI opponents?

Thanks for your help!

 

[ShannonCT]

1. Cottage cities will produce more culture than GP farms, especially your capital with Bureaucracy. Build your cathedrals in cottage cities first.

2. Taj is the only wonder you would try for with the standard strategy. The commerce you spend on researching Radio can be spent on culture instead.

3. Cathedrals in your 2 cottage cities works fine. The extra cost of 3 more cities can cause you to run the science and culture sliders lower than you want to.

4. Yes! Choose peaceful opponents.

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums supposedly.

 

[Snowbeavers]

1. Cottage cities will produce more culture than GP farms, especially your capital with Bureaucracy. Build your cathedrals in cottage cities first.

2. Taj is the only wonder you would try for with the standard strategy. The commerce you spend on researching Radio can be spent on culture instead.

3. Cathedrals in your 2 cottage cities works fine. The extra cost of 3 more cities can cause you to run the science and culture sliders lower than you want to.

4. Yes! Choose peaceful opponents.

Great. Thanks for the tips! Will try them out