Jesusin and I recently had a conversation via private messaging that we thought might be of interest to some of you. We achieved fairly close cultural victories in this game, with Jesusin beating me (godotnut: 1705AD and jesusin: 1650AD). Jesusin has been conducting a detailed study of cultural games in general, and we have had an ongoing conversation about our two different strategies. This exchange is a part of that ongoing conversation.
We hope that this exchange will be useful to anyone interested in cultural games, and we invite others to please respond with questions, criticism, or general comments. We are especially interested in hearing from people who also tried cultural victories in this GOTM. We noticed that Lawrence in particular achieved results similar to ours. Note that both of us have posted spoilers earlier in this thread that add details to this conversation.
In this exchange, Jesusin is the one asking the questions and responding to his own questions on the same line. I respond to each question individually just below each one. The conversation has been edited slightly for GOTM purposes.
How many cities did you have? Me 9.
I built 10.
How many religions did you have? Me 4, founded 3.
Founded 4 (Hindu, Jewish, Confucian, Christian), had 1 more spread.
How many hammers did you buy? I whipped 142 people, bought 0.
I don't know how many people I whipped, but far far fewer than that. Maybe 15-20. I also don't know how many hammers I bought. It was a lot, but not as much as my guide suggests, since I was experimenting with culture bar levels during the buying phase. This was not my effort at purely winning. Since it was a low level game, I experimented.
Did you build an Academy? I didn’t.
I received a couple of scientists for some reason. I think I may have forgot to keep close tabs on the cities, and one or two temporarily got added to my capital. I did use them on academies. I learned long ago not to build the Great Library. My guide is outdated in this respect.
Did you declare a religion? I didn’t.
Yes, I ran a religion most of the game. I wasn't at all worried about the AI. They were totally pathetic.
[Jesusin is writing the numbered comments below. I respond in between.]
From what you have written, I can detect these differences:
1.- GP farm and Legendary. I used the copper site as GPfarm and legendary city. You used it as GP farm and had your third legendary city in the Eastern grasslands.
Yes. I do not regret these decisions.
2.- Pyramids or Parthenon. Our everlasting argument
I built both. I built: Pyramids, Parthenon, Oracle, Colossus (why I got the merchant), Sistine Chapel, and the Taj Mahal,
not Notre Dame, as I got that wrong in my spoiler. I don't really regret those builds, as I didn't have religious buildings to build most of the time I was working on those.
3.- Rushbuying or whipping.
This is the main reason why I think you beat my score. I should have used the whip more aggressively early on, especially with the missionaries. This was my biggest mistake.
4.- Late wonders (I didn’t build any, but Sistine Chapel, which I think was a mistake to build).
I didn't regret the Chapel, but maybe I'm wrong. The only other late wonder I built was the Taj Mahal, and that was from an Engineer.
5.- GPs: Oracle gave prophets to both of us, so our GP are very similar. But you had a merchant (how is that possible???). I had 10GP in all.
I had more GP than that, but you still beat me pretty squarely. I got the merchant from Colossus.
6.- GP use: I bombed all my GPs, you added them.
I might have added one too many, but I did the math, and the other ones I added gave me either the same or slightly more culture points than they would have as bombs, plus the gold.
Other interesting things to compare would be dates:
Alphabet: me 2080BC (maybe not so important this game)
I got this later, did the civil service/oracle thing (I'm so tired of the word "slingshot" for some reason), which slowed down alphabet.
I got this much later.
Liberalism: me 800AD
I did this about the same time.
100% culture: me 1130AD (hey, so late!)
I did this later, because of the buying phase. End game culture cities were all producing more than 700/turn though.
Cathedrals: me 1st 450AD, 7th 1120AD, 12th 1420AD
Can't recall.
[jesusin again with the questions below and my responses in between.]
You had Academies but we got Liberalism at similar dates, why is that? I assume you went out of the critical path to get one religion more than me.
I received my academies late. Also, you finished alphabet faster than me, so that evened us out.
I don't regret having the GP farm as Legendary city. We don't agree here, maybe detailed comparison these two cities is a good idea.
Declaring a religion was definitely a good idea, I am sorry I didn't. You got more GPs, but they weren't as useful as mine because of the wonders. As you already know, I think Pyramids is a bad move, but I admit is a close thing and you could be right. I think Oracle is a bad idea, but it is difficult to resist the temptation when you can get CS or a religion for free, so I could be worng here too. But Colossus! Oh, my, did you really think it was worth it?
I will do the maths about adding artists, I could have failed miserably here.
[True to his word, Jesusin did the math, and we had this exchange about adding artists to cities versus using them as culture bombs.]
Hi. I have been doing the maths of joining artists. The first one came from Music in 500BC, should have been added, no doubt. The second one one was born in 275AD. Had I added it, it would have given 4170 culture, taking into account the different multipliers in the different periods. Plus the gold. It should have been added. I think the limit is around 500AD, as you suggested in another post. The third artist didn't arrive till 1350AD, too late, would have given 2700 culture if added.
Where do you think the limit was in your game?
[My reply:]
My Pyramids strategy makes adding the artists a bit later more viable, because the rush buying allows me to get more major religious buildings up faster, thus making the multipliers more relevant in relation to the artist points received from added specialists. (The drawback to the Pyramids of course being that it slows early expansion and requires researching masonry on one's own instead of trading for it from alphabet.) For this reason, I am inclined to add artists slightly later than you would be at 500AD. The gold received from artists is also slightly more valuable since it is crucial to the rush-buying phase.
It's worth noting that the best time to stop adding artists occurs on a sliding scale based on your anticipated finish date. When figuring when to stop adding them, I always try to project when I think the game will end up. Thus for a Prince GOTM game, for example, I would continue to add artists later than, say, for an Emperor level HOF game, where we can expect a much faster finish date.
[Jesusin and I hope you found something useful in this exchange, and we wish you all the best in your cultural games in the future.]
. You will be limited by both health and hapiness, but when you conquer territory, you get more resources within your borders.
Cultural Victory by 1840AD
... Why don't I stay on course? I just said cultural victory is my goal. But alas, I look at my economy and poor defenses and upgrade as follows:
Politics
Today I am not sure about the 6th scientist. It might well be that an artist is better. 
born.
/turn. To me it doesn't sound all bad but obviously it could have been better (by about 200 years). Any obvious advice besides "less wonders, more micromanagement"?
I was basically just waiting for the last few space ship parts to finish, building some units, and mostly generating cash to finance my espionage missions. With so little to do the turns sped by.
) Just wanted to make sure the game was submitted before the deadline!
