India

[Txurce]

I played the b6 version of India in my second attempt ever for a cultural victory. Based on my starting position, I decided to build three cities after a NC start. Bouncing back and forth between Tradition and Liberty, I got a free temple and rushed Stonehenge, but forgot about the HE and built it late.

My approach was based on my recent Science games – build up pop and science, with Sanitation System the first builds everywhere, while building culture buildings ahead of science ones. I beelined for all of the culture checkpoints, but the only buildings I rushed were the Broadcast Towers and factories (for a second war with France).

I was on a continent with France, Spain and Siam. France was already at war with both, but DoW’d on my one War Elephant, and attacked my ally Genoa. I lost Genoa, and then Spain piled on. The downside of this is that I had to delay building the Sistine Chapel, and ultimately lost it by a few turns.

The upside was that I got favorable peace terms out of Spain, retook Genoa, and then convinced Napoleon to surrender after taking one of his cities. I could have kept it as a puppet, but sold it back to him (one of my favorite ploys) for over 3200g. This set me up as a caravel made contact with the rest of the world to corner all of the Cultural CS for the rest of the game.

I also Friended all of the Maritimes (apart from Genoa) but filling every single specialist slot kept my pop totals from absolutely exploding. I don’t know whether additional specialists kept my Great Artist numbers down low, because I wound up with only 3 or 4 until near the finish. The end came before I could build the Sydney Opera House, because my cities (sizes 27, 27 and 23 at the end) were pumping out over 660 culture points per turn. That worked out to one SP every 3 turns for the second half of the game. I won in 245 turns.

The final odd note is that I skipped the Piety tree altogether. I didn’t build a single colosseum, and felt I didn’t need the additional happiness. As a result, though, I didn’t get the bonus-policy SP. Instead I filled in Tradition, Liberty, Freedom (no GP in Democracy), Patronage, Commerce and Rationalism.

All in all, an unusual approach to a Cultural win, that resulted in a surprisingly early finish.

 

[Seek]

What prompted you to go rationalism instead of piety?

 

[Txurce]

What prompted you to go rationalism instead of piety?

Circumstances, and not much history ever using Piety when going for my usual Science wins. Rationalism helped me to reach culture techs faster, and I had the gold to pay for Broadcast Towers. However, I thought I was only losing the bonus SP policy by skipping Piety. I just looked and saw that it also increases culture based on excess happiness, so it multiplies itself. Like I said above, to some degree I felt my way through the trees. The weird thing was how well I think I did, all things considered.

 

[Txurce]

I just played a second Cultural game with India. This time I built 4 cities, still got Stonehenge but the Sistine Chapel as well, and was clued in just in time by Seek to go for Piety (maybe a bit late) instead of Rationalism. I also rushed all four Broadcast Towers, and had a GE ready for a fast Cristo Redentor. I also managed to keep France in check (again) with proxy war until the very end, so I didn't slow down to build an army. Due to filling just about every specialist slot, my cities wound up at no bigger than 20. Oddly, I had faster SP's in the second half of my prior game, but still finished in 221 turns - almost 25 turns faster.

 

[iWant921nooow]

Did you get some policies from liberty in the second game also? Ive noticed that getting the 4 policies from tradition then quickly move on to peity (without taking any from liberty) and then to freedom works really good as India (cultural victory). If I skip liberty I get all the good policies from peity and freedom much faster. However, with the boosted representation policy, there could be some interesting openings with liberty also.

 

[Txurce]

Did you get some policies from liberty in the second game also? Ive noticed that getting the 4 policies from tradition then quickly move on to peity (without taking any from liberty) and then to freedom works really good as India (cultural victory). If I skip liberty I get all the good policies from peity and freedom much faster. However, with the boosted representation policy, there could be some interesting openings with liberty also.

My opening policies were all based on timing, so that I could stall the free building until after I had a temple, getting the Wonder booster as I built the NC, and then getting a free Settler from Liberty. My thinking there was not to utterly waste that policy, which is obviously no good once you have all your cities up. I didn't get to Piety as quickly as I could have, and will try to get through it and Freedom faster in my next attempt. The question then would be, when to go for Liberty? As an end-game wrap-up? Maybe.

 

[Seek]

My opening policies were all based on timing, so that I could stall the free building until after I had a temple ...

I just had a perfect timing with Acoustics (for the Museum) and Aristocracy (for the free culture buildings) popping on the same turn, and I didn't receive the Museums!! Beware, apparently you need the tech *before* the sp comes up. I can't decide whether to ragequit or not.

... getting the Wonder booster as I built the NC, and then getting a free Settler from Liberty. My thinking there was not to utterly waste that policy, which is obviously no good once you have all your cities up. I didn't get to Piety as quickly as I could have, and will try to get through it and Freedom faster in my next attempt. The question then would be, when to go for Liberty? As an end-game wrap-up? Maybe.

I'm finding Liberty (with the recent buffs to Representation and Republic) to be a great start to almost any victory condition. Even going for a small 2-4 city empire it can be huge - beeline to Representation, then take Republic: at this point you're bound to be looking solid in all aspects, and from there you can go into any sp tree with minimal losses. So I'd recommend Liberty first - sps might be a little slow to start but it provides such strong early game. I'm actually worried that Liberty is a bit OP now...

 

[Txurce]

I just had a perfect timing with Acoustics (for the Museum) and Aristocracy (for the free culture buildings) popping on the same turn, and I didn't receive the Museums!! Beware, apparently you need the tech *before* the sp comes up. I can't decide whether to ragequit or not.

I'm finding Liberty (with the recent buffs to Representation and Republic) to be a great start to almost any victory condition. Even going for a small 2-4 city empire it can be huge - beeline to Representation, then take Republic: at this point you're bound to be looking solid in all aspects, and from there you can go into any sp tree with minimal losses. So I'd recommend Liberty first - sps might be a little slow to start but it provides such strong early game. I'm actually worried that Liberty is a bit OP now...

I'm going to give Liberty a long look, especially for a Science victory... but it's hard to imagine why you'd want to forestall free monuments or temples plus everything that follows in the Tradition tree until researching Acoustics. My cities can usually build the museums in 8-15 turns... is that worth the trade-off?

 

[Seek]

That's where republic comes in - those two free hammers give new cities a fantastic start. It makes rexing before NC viable, plus Temples are fairly cheap. In the game I mentioned above I went representation->republic->scholasticism->aristocracy (with commerce opener somewhere in there) by turn 130: my production was good, but still couldn't keep up with my science. Hard-building the museums (~12 turns) would be much more of a drain than hard-building the temples (~6 turns) a few turns earlier was; those hammers are better spent on universities. Of course it was all in vain when the museums didn't pop.

 

[Stalker0]

Tradition -> Legalism for the landmark can allow you to pick up the liberty policies you want very quickly, as the culture off your first city can literally triple (3 for tradition + 6 for landmark).

For a culture win, I can't see why you wouldn't want to go that route myself.

I am curious to see how the new representation works with even a small empire of 4 cities.

 

[Stalker0]

Of course it was all in vain when the museums didn't pop.

Well if it makes you feel better due to a bug museums are not nearly as good as they should be

 

[Txurce]

I played a third (and final, for now) game as India pursuing a cultural win on Immortal. I again built four cities, got Stonehenge and the Sistine Chapel, and had no wars. The major variation from the prior game was in shifting to piety early on, leaving Patronage and Commerce for last after Freedom. On a more micro level, I held off on the Tradition tree after the first three to work through Liberty far enough to get the policy that reduces the new-city hit. To do so, I held back my settlers, so didn't get the fourth city built until 1 AD. (Barbarians slowed me down as well.)

I finished the game in 241 turns, a few turns slower than it would have been, had I coal for a factory. The difference with my second game (17 turns) was less science. By the time I could build Broadcast Towers, there was no point in doing so, and I focused on Plastics for Hydro Plant. The reason for the drop in science comes down mainly to the capital not growing fast enough. It had a lot of cattle and hills, so Sanitation didn't do much. As a result, I had to drop science specialists too soon. Still, all three games are in the same basic range.

 

[Seek]

Hmm, since you didn't settle more cities until later the liberty policies were probably not efficient at the start. I'll give India culture vic a shot in my next game, see how well I can make that liberty strat work. Are you playing with CSD, Txurce? I find one needs three to four cities to keep up with production for diplo units.

 

[Txurce]

Hmm, since you didn't settle more cities until later the liberty policies were probably not efficient at the start. I'll give India culture vic a shot in my next game, see how well I can make that liberty strat work. Are you playing with CSD, Txurce? I find one needs three to four cities to keep up with production for diplo units.

Looking forward to the results. No CSD for me yet.

 

[Seek]

Won on turn 235! (My earliest win yet) Emperor, continents (3 myo, wet), standard everything else. Possibly could've shaved a couple turns off if I'd remembered to buy the Hydro Plant before I finished the Utopia Project.

Four city empire, probably could have done a little better without the fourth. The spot was soo tempting (4 fish, 2 fur, 2 cattle and a horse, later turning up an aluminum) but it just never caught up to the older cities. Strangely, my second city was significantly stronger than my capital in everything but culture (which had ~500 cpt before Broadcast Towers); it was nice to have more than one really strong city! Didn't get them up as large as Txurce, only 22, 20, 18 and 16.

Went Liberty (everything but the happy booster) first, then Trad to Aristocracy for temples, then Piety for the happy->culture transform, then Patronage up to the science boost, then down the left side of Freedom - after that, I went with whatever my needs were at the time. I think Order may have been a better sixth tree than Commerce, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference.

Didn't get *any* of the early wonders, but made up for it with later ones; was tech leader for much of the later game so I had my pick. The only later WW I lost the race for was Big Ben, iirc.

Happily it was a love fest for most of the game (in my first attempt I got stomped by the Aztecs and lost on turn 44) with repeated Dofs with Darius and Alex, at least until Darius totally stabbed me in the back. Thankfully I was nearly to Infantry, so my elephant, spear and archer didn't have to actually *defend* anything. Because of Darius' evile ways, the rest of the world turned on him and his pathetic invasions were easily repelled. I didn't bother attacking him, I had a fairly decent choke point.

Overall, it was one of the more enjoyable culture games I've played. The sanitation system UB is excellent, both in it's simple design and usefulness. The UA is still remarkably good: Happiness was a non-issue - not once in the entire game did I fall below 0 happiness and ended the game with 85 smilies (in fact I got three GAs from happiness, another first I think). The elephant UU was much better than I remembered it being in an earlier playthrough, I could imagine a very successful rush using them. India rates well with me at this point!

@Stalker0: It's very possible I could have saved a few turns by going Tradition for the Great Artist first as you suggested, I'll try that next time. Also, the Museums seem to be working correctly for me with b9.

 

[Txurce]

Won on turn 235! (My earliest win yet) Emperor, continents (3 myo, wet), standard everything else. Possibly could've shaved a couple turns off if I'd remembered to buy the Hydro Plant before I finished the Utopia Project.

Four city empire, probably could have done a little better without the fourth. The spot was soo tempting (4 fish, 2 fur, 2 cattle and a horse, later turning up an aluminum) but it just never caught up to the older cities. Strangely, my second city was significantly stronger than my capital in everything but culture (which had ~500 cpt before Broadcast Towers); it was nice to have more than one really strong city! Didn't get them up as large as Txurce, only 22, 20, 18 and 16.

Went Liberty (everything but the happy booster) first, then Trad to Aristocracy for temples, then Piety for the happy->culture transform, then Patronage up to the science boost, then down the left side of Freedom - after that, I went with whatever my needs were at the time. I think Order may have been a better sixth tree than Commerce, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference.

Didn't get *any* of the early wonders, but made up for it with later ones; was tech leader for much of the later game so I had my pick. The only later WW I lost the race for was Big Ben, iirc.

Happily it was a love fest for most of the game (in my first attempt I got stomped by the Aztecs and lost on turn 44) with repeated Dofs with Darius and Alex, at least until Darius totally stabbed me in the back. Thankfully I was nearly to Infantry, so my elephant, spear and archer didn't have to actually *defend* anything. Because of Darius' evile ways, the rest of the world turned on him and his pathetic invasions were easily repelled. I didn't bother attacking him, I had a fairly decent choke point.

Overall, it was one of the more enjoyable culture games I've played. The sanitation system UB is excellent, both in it's simple design and usefulness. The UA is still remarkably good: Happiness was a non-issue - not once in the entire game did I fall below 0 happiness and ended the game with 85 smilies (in fact I got three GAs from happiness, another first I think). The elephant UU was much better than I remembered it being in an earlier playthrough, I could imagine a very successful rush using them. India rates well with me at this point!

@Stalker0: It's very possible I could have saved a few turns by going Tradition for the Great Artist first as you suggested, I'll try that next time. Also, the Museums seem to be working correctly for me with b9.

Great game, and it’s so close to mine that it confirms India’s strength and the strategy pursued. We now have four games between us within 20 turns of each other. I do think you would’ve finished faster with the early landmark, and obviously with Stonehenge as well… not to mention the Hydro Plant!

Although I also built four cities in my best game, I had the nagging feeling that I didn’t need it. (By the way, my biggest city was 20 in that game – they hit 27, 27 and 23 when I had three.)

The idea of going for Order instead of Commerce is interesting. I’ll look at it more closely the next time I try this.

I’ve always liked India because I always liked the UU – not to mention small games. But now they are right up there in my top tier.

 

[Thalassicus]

What have your scores been in these games?

The two free policies are deceptively valuable because they aren't affected by policy cost increases. I typically finish my culture games with Free Religion and 2 final policies. My culture games have usually been something like posted on the policy cost analysis thread (link):

1. Legalism
2. Monarchy → Stonehenge
3. National College and/or Epic
4. Citizenship/Representation
5. Expand
6. Piety → Commerce → Freedom

I do not focus on culture until the renaissance. Once I have freedom and opera houses, I switch over to full culture and fill out artists everywhere. My instinct is early artists hamper growth too much, though I haven't played enough culture games to know for sure.

When Aristocracy's 4 free culture building effect breaks, I'd recommend just manually fixing it to avoid headaches. No reason to let a bug spoil a game.

1. Open the tuner's "Selected City" tab.
2. Select a city.
3. Click the museum in the "Buildings" list (or whatever the city should have been awarded).
4. Repeat for three more cities.

 

[Seek]

My score was about 1900, not bad for a non-puppet culture win. Using Aristocracy for the temples made quick culture specialists available, and with India's new UB it didn't hamper growth significantly.

I encountered a savegame incompatibility (can't load saves) with CivWillard, so that idea of using the tuner is a good one. Thanks Is there any way to change the mod reqs for save files? It would be nice to revisit that game.

Edit: On the topic of mod incompatibities, Thal, v11 of InfoAddict was released to deal with the problems listed on the website. Perhaps you could make a note of that instead? Or I can if you want.

 

[Txurce]

What have your scores been in these games?

The two free policies are deceptively valuable because they aren't affected by policy cost increases. I typically finish my culture games with Free Religion and 2 final policies. My culture games have usually been something like posted on the policy cost analysis thread (link):

1. Legalism
2. Monarchy → Stonehenge
3. National College and/or Epic
4. Citizenship/Representation
5. Expand
6. Piety → Commerce → Freedom

I do not focus on culture until the renaissance. Once I have freedom and opera houses, I switch over to full culture and fill out artists everywhere. My instinct is early artists hamper growth too much, though I haven't played enough culture games to know for sure.

My scores were 1720 (221 turns), 1555 (245 turns) and 1429 (241 turns). Around what turn do your best games finish?

I take the same basic path through the policy tree, except that I put Freedom (once I reached it) ahead of Commerce and Patronage to get its cultural policies. I'm not sure that saving the last Piety policy for the end for the culture-cost savings makes up for, say, getting a jump on the Freedom tree... but it's an interesting notion.

I don't employ specialists in the capital until I reach size 10 or so, but then fill out the culture slot as well as every possible science one. (I sometimes cut back on science to speed growth.) I assume the argument against filling out the slots too soon is that it hampers science and hammers? If so, I take it on a city-by-city basis, and try to maintain a healthy balance. But I would think that waiting for a trigger like opera houses would set back my finish time.

 

[Thalassicus]

I play on epic so the turn times won't match up.

I generally run specialists only for great people, the final culture push, or if I'm out of happiness. I usually have excess happiness in small empire games so I try and grow my cities as quickly as possible, and switch over to specialists at Civil Society's half-food modifier.