I have won all different ways pre-patch on Immortal-King victories except Cultural. vexing gave some really good tips and I wanted to try them out for the first time. The results were really good despite having to successfully fight off many DoW. Here were the keys to success, fwiw:
Set up:
Small Continents
Standard Size, Speed, Resources
8 civs/16 city-states
King
Playing as Egypt
1. Tech start was:
Mining (ruin)
Pottery
Writing
Calendar
Sailing (for pearls)
Anim Husb/Wheel (to get War Chariots)
Philosophy (from GL)
2. Build orders in Thebes were:
Scout
Scout
Monument
Great Library
Library
work boat
couple of War Chariots (to fight my first DoW)
Oracle
Burial Tomb
Hanging Gardens
National College
Circus
Hagia Sophia
3. Settled Thebes in a resource-rich river coastal plains and building two other cities also in a resource-rich area (over 18 luxuries total). Annexed Honolulu for my fourth and final city.
4. First turning point was using a GS->Acoustics and getting Legalism (Opera Houses), GE->Sistine, building Hermitage and Free Religion/Theocracy pair to finish Peity all within 13 turns to go from 51 culture to 133 (no city-states)
5. Second turning point was (2) GS-> Navigation/Archaelogy, building museums, opening Freedom, building Louvre and settling two Landmarks to go from 171 culture to 231 in about a dozen turns.
6. Third turning point was finishing Tradition, getting Constitution, researching Radio and Telegraph (helped by RA) with Replaceable Parts in there to upgrade to Infantry, building broadcast towers and Cristo to go from low 400s to mid-500s culture.
7. I had 9 DoW from next-door Rome alone, plus two from Polynesia and one from Siam. Had to keep up militarily, which meant several War Chariots early on, then WC->Knights, Swords->Longswords mid-game then Rifle/Cav and Artillery/Infantry later on. I don't think I was slowed down that much because there were two long breaks in culture building (Steel to Banking and Astronomy, and Gunpowder to Rifles and Fertilizer/Military Science to Dynamite/Electricity) that focused on military/production while there were no culture to build. My overall population and production (mid-late game) was pretty low as the focus was on culture, wonders and defensive units.
8. Had really great luck with Wonders despite not getting Aristocracy until much later. Capturing Honolulu gave me four wonders when I had most of the others myself. Thebes had good production early until I started building Landmarks (had 6 altogether). Built Himeji as well as other defensive bonuses that held off every attack, even the late ones when I had only Artillery/Infantry to defend.
9. Only three cultural city-states and didn't get any of them (would've entailed even more DoW, I think) until pretty late. Nice boosts but others could've done better early on to manage getting them.
10. Overall, I love getting most of the Social Policies (some clunkers in there) and the finishers were great bonuses, lots of choice ones even if you are not going for such a win. But others could win quicker than I did but I love fighting battles (offensive or defensive, it didn't matter) too. In the end, a cultural win is just as easy as the other victory conditions IF you focus on it early in the game (the other victories can be switched to later on), even if you have spend a lot of time fighting wars. They key point was to get to and maximize the snot out of the Acoustics/Legalism, Archaelogy and Radio/Telegraph turning points.
11. Final note about the AI opponents. It has long been my criticism that they do not do enough to "play to win". There were several times that I held my breath when I was fighting yet another war with Rome on my northern front when England or Siam should have attacked my weak under-belly. I also wished that England or Greece could've been more aggressive in getting city-states (didn't help that they kept fighting each other) and no one built the UN. And despite a couple of Manhattan Projects, no nukes appeared. Unlike others, I do not like being in control of my destiny when playing a game - opponents should be all about making me lose, esp. since I was the leader in points most of the game. Perhaps a cultural game is seen as passive enough to the opponents, unfortunately. Rome was the only one that was aggressive enough with their nine DoW that kept me busy but they couldn't get through my lines. Wished others were the same way, esp. at the same time.
Set up:
Small Continents
Standard Size, Speed, Resources
8 civs/16 city-states
King
Playing as Egypt
1. Tech start was:
Mining (ruin)
Pottery
Writing
Calendar
Sailing (for pearls)
Anim Husb/Wheel (to get War Chariots)
Philosophy (from GL)
2. Build orders in Thebes were:
Scout
Scout
Monument
Great Library
Library
work boat
couple of War Chariots (to fight my first DoW)
Oracle
Burial Tomb
Hanging Gardens
National College
Circus
Hagia Sophia
3. Settled Thebes in a resource-rich river coastal plains and building two other cities also in a resource-rich area (over 18 luxuries total). Annexed Honolulu for my fourth and final city.
4. First turning point was using a GS->Acoustics and getting Legalism (Opera Houses), GE->Sistine, building Hermitage and Free Religion/Theocracy pair to finish Peity all within 13 turns to go from 51 culture to 133 (no city-states)
5. Second turning point was (2) GS-> Navigation/Archaelogy, building museums, opening Freedom, building Louvre and settling two Landmarks to go from 171 culture to 231 in about a dozen turns.
6. Third turning point was finishing Tradition, getting Constitution, researching Radio and Telegraph (helped by RA) with Replaceable Parts in there to upgrade to Infantry, building broadcast towers and Cristo to go from low 400s to mid-500s culture.
7. I had 9 DoW from next-door Rome alone, plus two from Polynesia and one from Siam. Had to keep up militarily, which meant several War Chariots early on, then WC->Knights, Swords->Longswords mid-game then Rifle/Cav and Artillery/Infantry later on. I don't think I was slowed down that much because there were two long breaks in culture building (Steel to Banking and Astronomy, and Gunpowder to Rifles and Fertilizer/Military Science to Dynamite/Electricity) that focused on military/production while there were no culture to build. My overall population and production (mid-late game) was pretty low as the focus was on culture, wonders and defensive units.
8. Had really great luck with Wonders despite not getting Aristocracy until much later. Capturing Honolulu gave me four wonders when I had most of the others myself. Thebes had good production early until I started building Landmarks (had 6 altogether). Built Himeji as well as other defensive bonuses that held off every attack, even the late ones when I had only Artillery/Infantry to defend.
9. Only three cultural city-states and didn't get any of them (would've entailed even more DoW, I think) until pretty late. Nice boosts but others could've done better early on to manage getting them.
10. Overall, I love getting most of the Social Policies (some clunkers in there) and the finishers were great bonuses, lots of choice ones even if you are not going for such a win. But others could win quicker than I did but I love fighting battles (offensive or defensive, it didn't matter) too. In the end, a cultural win is just as easy as the other victory conditions IF you focus on it early in the game (the other victories can be switched to later on), even if you have spend a lot of time fighting wars. They key point was to get to and maximize the snot out of the Acoustics/Legalism, Archaelogy and Radio/Telegraph turning points.
11. Final note about the AI opponents. It has long been my criticism that they do not do enough to "play to win". There were several times that I held my breath when I was fighting yet another war with Rome on my northern front when England or Siam should have attacked my weak under-belly. I also wished that England or Greece could've been more aggressive in getting city-states (didn't help that they kept fighting each other) and no one built the UN. And despite a couple of Manhattan Projects, no nukes appeared. Unlike others, I do not like being in control of my destiny when playing a game - opponents should be all about making me lose, esp. since I was the leader in points most of the game. Perhaps a cultural game is seen as passive enough to the opponents, unfortunately. Rome was the only one that was aggressive enough with their nine DoW that kept me busy but they couldn't get through my lines. Wished others were the same way, esp. at the same time.
)
). Only around infantry did I manage to be on par technologically with most other civs, and the runaway civ was still a bit ahead of me and had built the United Nations.
