king culture attempting conquest

[20jordo]

hey all.

so leveled myself up to king recently. after a couple tries took a science victory. now attempting a cultural victory with catherine

currently at turn 306 - 1872
405 science
225 culture

so ya anyways.. everything seems to be going well.. only pain in my rear is the pest oda below me who seems to be causing all sorts of interruptions to my progress. army is up to date, i can fend him off every time but need to spend precious gold and production doing so.. im ahead in science my spies cant steal sh*t and my units are ahead of everyone elses. almost completed rationalism for my 3rd tree.. im ahead in cultural race but maybe just barely.

i know my science is low. i read in these threads guys doing like 1000 a turn by 1000 ad... i have no idea how people can achieve that it seems impossible. i take every measure i can to boost science.

i have 5 built cities and 2 i took from oda... just annexed them after having puppeted for about 60 turns

do people micro manage cities more at king level? i just started doing it.. but i only do it til the city hits around and 8 or a 10.

do i need to be building more cities.. 5 or 6 is usually how many i like to build.. i keep them max 5 squares apart.

any input to any of the above appreciated. starting to feel like im getting the hang of things. thanks all.

 

[fuzzatron717]

For the culture question. well you only need to keep at a low number in the early game early-mid game because at that time culture would be cheap at low city number so it ok but late game you want to build citys because 2-3 citys can't produce the culture needed so build 5-7 cities to make suffient culture for late game policies.

 

[Smokeybear]

For the culture question. well you only need to keep at a low number in the early game early-mid game because at that time culture would be cheap at low city number so it ok but late game you want to build citys because 2-3 citys can't produce the culture needed so build 5-7 cities to make suffient culture for late game policies.

It's easier to win faster culture vics with 2-3 good cities, as long as they can produce what you need. If they are marginal, then you probably should have gone domination instead anyway ;-) You can always capture and puppet some more cities to boost your gold and science (and culture, though to a lesser extent) output without incurring the negative culture penalty that your own cities (or annexed ones) would. You can win culture games with more cities, I've done it with up to 7 non-puppet base cities... but it won't be fast, and it won't be early- it will take you well into the later epochs.

If people can win 1-city challenge culture victories, then it obviously isn't the case that you need more than 2-3 cities to be able to produce enough culture. It isn't the quantity, it is definitely the quality of the few cities you have and how you manage them, that makes all the diff.

 

[Syntax Error]

Your science is high. It's your culture that needs work. 225 CPT at turn 300 is baaaad if you're gunning for a culture victory. Building 5 cities is good but not optimal. Don't expect a sub-300 victory if you go more than 3 or 4 cities. Annexing the cities you conquered is also bad, since it adds to the culture costs of future policies.

A good metric for culture victories is that when you're down to the last few policies (the last tree or so), you can pop a social policy in 6-8 turns without a Golden Age. This doesn't take into account the number of cities. In culture victories, it doesn't matter how many cities you make so long as you can get SP's at a steady clip.

 

[Jelster]

What population do you have ?

In my CV games I normally have 4 or 5 cities max, with population over 20 in each.