King of the World #8: Shaka

[alfon]

Double post

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I'd say try to whip out temples in most of your cities (a temple whip is happiness neutral) and try to get the cathedrals for your religions up. I'd say Hannibal can wait as he's pretty much a pushover at this point.

How many seafood resources can you get? Would Sid's Sushi be a realistic option?

Finally, wouldn't a golden age have been a better use for that great spy than settling? It would have given you that civics change you wanted, and let you really get in the liberalism race.

 

[patagonia]

If going straight for culture, liberalism's worth a punt whatever your chances of winning the race, since it enables free speech.

Given the way the AI pathfinds, a decent garrison up near the Suez bottleneck will take care of any military problems you may encounter pre-Monty, since Saladin's a friend and Hannibal's a non-factor on this map.

 

[JammerUno]

You have the resources to build cathedrals at half the cost, and enough cities to enable them. Whipping temples, beelining cathedrals and teching to a half-decent defensive position should work.
Going for lib though, I wonder whether it will repay itself in the long run. You can't whip temples and tech at a good rate, and that might set you back more than getting lib later will.

 

[Neal]

All right, this is a little early for a new round, but I had some free time and decided to put it to good use.

I had my veteran forces in place in Morocco, and not a heck of a lot to do with them once the Cultural Turtle was in full swing. I decided to take care of the last major irritant remaining on my flank:

Hannibal hates our guts. He's not much of a factor, but with him gone, we can pull off the classic one-archer garrisons everywhere but Thebes.

Kerkouane was staffed by a pair of Longbows, but still fell without too much trouble:

Yeah, I burned it. I'll let the AIs waste maintenance gold on useless desert cities.

Hippo was a somewhat tougher nut to crack, but I had some green Crossbowmen I could sent into the breach:

They died horribly, but each knocked off one of those three Longbowmen.

The remaining garrison was slaughtered mercilessly:

And, well, that was that. Hannibal was gored by an elephant. Fitting, I think. The troops headed east to Thebes to hang out and keep an eye on the Sumerian border for the rest of the game.

The ruins of Zara Yaqob's palace turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving:

Sadly, the investment didn't pay off, but 405 beakers is 405 beakers. If a ruin is on a tile like a Desert Hill, I think that Random Events make it worth keeping around. Beats the heck out of a Mine that'll never get worked.

It turns out that we weren't the only ones wiping belligerent nobodies off the map:

So Constantinople wasn't taken by the Turks, but by the Chinese? Hm. I wonder how They Might Be Giants is gonna phrase that one.

Regarding the Liberalism race, I ran it, but didn't sell out for it. I still whipped out Temples, and for a long time I kept running the Culture slider at 20%. I did, however, make some less-than favorable deals to set myself up:

Ack. You've got me over a barrel, Liz.

It wasn't a total loss, though, I guess. Ragnar helped to defray the costs:

Thanks, pal.

In 1050, a Great Engineer was born in Memphis:

I was tempted to burn him on a Golden Age, but then I decided that I could take Nationalism with Liberalism and use him on the Taj Mahal. That would be a Golden Age plus 10 culture per turn, so I kept him.

Oh, and we now have another reason to declare war on our good buddy Saladin:

That's the opportunity for another Cathedral in each city. Well, we'll see. Maybe Saladin will spread Islam to us of his own free will. Or maybe we can grab Minoan culturally.

We grabbed Engineering from the otherwise-backward Genghis Khan:

We are falling distressingly behind in the tech race. I mean, meaningful Tech trades with Mongolia!? I guess that's part and parcel of Cultural Victory, though.

The Random Number Generator continued to punch us in the nose:

25 gold is a pittance at this point, but still... Throw me a friggin' bone here!

Early in the 12th century, the German behemoth began to crumble:

So, naturally, I took the opportunity to dogpile:

A fake war, but this'll earn me diplomacy points with pretty much everybody.

In 1180, our quest came to naught:

Hrmph. I hate losing the Liberalism race. Ah, well. Should've cut back on Culture sooner. Live and learn. It's still worth pursuing for Free Speech.

We got a nice little consolation prize:

I was awfully tempted to take the +4 culture, given that we're going for a Cultural Victory, but I think the boost provided by the Golden Age is a better choice.

So that's where I decided to call it. We're in a Golden Age. I think the first decision to make regards Civics:

Shaka's been a petty warlord for long enough. It's time to get civilized. Free Speech is coming, but we can make a change and then change again before the Golden Age expires. So, what do you all think? I'm leaning Despotism (we don't really need the Happiness bonuses)/Bureaucracy (Ulundi could use the short term boost)/Caste System (Artists, artists and more artists)/Pacifism (to get Great People while they remain useful). Maybe include HR in the switch when we grab Free Speech.

Here's a look at the map:

Willem is free to settle the Northwest African coast. Knock yourself out, there. Huh. It also looks like Isabella took Lisbon. Don't know how I missed that. Oh, well. It's a good thing. Get another jerk out of my Diplomacy Screen.

Speaking of...

Poor Otto. And it looks like our friends and enemies are pretty well defined. Not a single Cautious on there!

And the Tech situation:

We are really falling behind. Babylon has no fewer than five techs on us!

In somewhat happier news, here's a look at our Domestic Advisor:

As I'd said, we have plenty of Happy Cap room. Largely because we only have three cities over 10 population.

So... Temples are going up. Cathedrals will follow. Should we declare war on Saladin to grab the Islamic holy city? It would seriously hurt our international street cred, but it would be nice to have. Then again, I just need the religion to spread to one of my cities. Saladin does love to send out missionaries. What do you all think? And what about Civics? Is my plan a good one? And that Great Engineer is still chilling in Memphis. What do we do with him now that we've lost the Liberalism race?

Here's the save:

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I'd say adopt the civics you recommended (including pacifism and caste system) but also adopt hereditary rule, as it doesn't cost more than depotism (right?) and can't hurt. I'd say take the culture slider off for now (it is more efficient to keep researching and then turn the culture up to 100% once we get cathedrals up). The key though is going to be getting a good great artist farm up and running. Save the artists for great works at the end of the game (you are passed the time where settling is more beneficial than bombing).

 

[Jaaboo]

Can you post the victory screen as well? I'm horrible at reading the city screen for how much culture each city has but I imagine the number in parens is the number of turns not to Legendary but rather the step before it?

I think you're in a good position. I would not worry about Islam spreading to you, I think it will, and having the Islam shrine isn't worth the diplomatic hit. The Hindu shrine is another matter, so if you are going to suffer the hit for attacking Saladin, then you might as well go for the real prize. If not, I think you're well set up, the best sites in Africa are yours and you are surrounded by friends.

 

[Joshua368]

Bad idea to run culture at a percentage. Run full science until you have the technologies you want and then turn off science slider altogether for full culture. With whatever you're trying to do (research or culture) you want to do it focused, playing half-and-half will give you mediocre results around the board.

All the techs you need for a good cultural victory are at your fingertips though. Turn off culture until you research Liberalism (free speech), Nationalism (taj mahal, hermitage) and Printing Press. (+1 commerce per village and town) After that as long as you're satisfied with your military situation you can turn off science... though maybe you'll also want Constituation for representation if you plan on running artists.

Also you should still have a shot at the Taj with that great engineer so go for it. Good choice with taking a golden age from the event.

 

[Loki Strikes]

I would self research nationalism anyway as it unlocks both taj(for GA), and HERMITAGE, hermitage will help your cultural victory plans quite a lot, after that I would turn off research and go all out culture, run artists blah blah blah.

 

[JammerUno]

I wouldn't run pacifism, OR is extremely useful while you're still spamming religion and temples. Switch to pacifism/CS/FS/Rep after all your infrastructure is in place, running artists while in a GA seems a waste of a ton of hammers that could be converted into temples and cathedrals, which will make your GAs more useful anyway.
Because of the amount of food the nile delta provides, the length of time you'll be running specs, and the mechanics of GP generation, the GA GPP bonus won't be a big boost to your total output of GPs, I'ld be amazaed if it netted you even 2 more in the long run, and that amount of culture is easily offset by the extra culture provided by getting the cathedrals/temples up earlier.

 

[Kev]

I think it won't be long until Islam is spread - either by the open borders or by missionary. Islam already is in Mecca, so I don't think it would be necessary to take him on now. Spend some time spreading Buddhism around in the mean time. Looks like the other two religions - Taoism was founded way north in Dortmund and I don't know where Christianity was founded but see a few cities northern Asia - won't be in play. Shouldn't need them to win it out though.

I'm more of a fan of going to rifling before turning off the slider, but then again diplomacy is not my strength.

 

[Neal]

Huh. So standard practice is to shut down research after Nationalism? I'd've thought it would be Radio or Mass Media. Okay. We're closer than I thought, then. Cool.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Jesusin wrote an article on cultural victories a couple months ago:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298093

His conclusion is to stop teching after nat+lib+drama+music, and run full culture slider. Make sure you have a GP farm and keep the GA's for a final round of bombing. Build the hermitage not in your worst city but in a city with good base culture and bring your worst city into the fold by the final culture bombing.

Another tactic is techning on until sushi as that allows for much more pop and gives free culture, maybe the creative corp is also good given the amount of shiny metals. Given that you have so much invested in your land you may wish to do that to allow the land to be productive, you can probably only run a very low slider now anyway due to maintenance. Also, it is much more fun to see a corporation-based cultural victory if you think you can pull it off.

[
Edit: I checked the ref guide:
Sushi:Corp+medicine+merchant, gives .5f and 2cult per seafood or rice
civ jewelers: Corp+mass media+artist, gives 1g and 4cult per gold/silver/gems
creative con: Corp+combustion+engineer, gives .5h and 3cult per iron/copper/marble/stone/alu

So, the jewelevers requires an artists, which costs 4000 culture, but is on a useful tech path
Creative con requires an engineer, which costs a wonder but which you already have, but is on a warmonger tech path
Sushi costs a merchant, which you'd have to farm and costs 4000 culture opportunity, and is on a semi-good tech path.

Assuming 10 of each resource, the trio can net you 5 food, 5 hammer, and 55 base culture per turn. If you're building culture and assigning culture specialists, this becomes 55+5+2.5*6=75, If I'm not mistaken, culture bomb culture is not multiplied but corporation culture is, so the 55 base are easily worth 4 times as much (free speech plus 2-4 cathedrals plus 0-1 hermitage plus tower plus 0-3 mass media wonders), so around 300 culture per turn. In my last and only culture game (where I stopped after nat+lib), I think this was my total culture output in my legendary cities...

Tech costs:

All corps need corporation, which requires constitution, guilds, and banking (=4 techs)

For jewelers you will need printing press, astro, scientific, physics, electricity, radio, MM = 7 techs
For both sushi and creacon you need chemistry, which requires gunpowder = 2 techs
for sushi you'd also have to add only bio and medicine = 2 (assuming you're teching MM anyway)
For creacon you'd have to add steel, replacable, steam power, railroad, combustion = 5 techs (idem)

Note that you can have all three corps in each city as they don't compete. Whether it is worth it is another question...

The full monty will require another 20 techs, which also give you railroads for machine guns and railroads themselves and steam power for dykes and brings you pretty close to rifling (1 tech) and infantry (2 techs)

Dropping creacon will shave 5 techs, but also takes away all these goodies. If you tech to medicine you might be able to backtrade quite a bit of the other required techs...

I've never played a corporation-driven culture game so this is all just theory (which in theory should be equal to practice, right? ]

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Huh. So standard practice is to shut down research after Nationalism? I'd've thought it would be Radio or Mass Media. Okay. We're closer than I thought, then. Cool.

Usually if your going for as fast a culture victory as possible (Hall of Fame style) then yes, shutting down research then is the usual. I would be slightly worried about getting invaded in this game, so it may be smart to continue researching towards rifling slowly (perhaps research to Constitution and use representation research the rest of the way.) Statue of Liberty would also be another reason to research to Constitution.

In general, choose your 3 cities now. The best two (usually the one with the best cottages) you should put as many cathedrals and Hermitage (usually Hermitage will go in the second one) and crank the culture slider. The third city should be bombed up with Great Artists you are saving. Don't bomb the artists until the very end, because it is very hard to determine which cities are going need the bombs ahead of time, and how many bombs will be needed.

The key will be getting the cathedrals up in your main two, getting a good Great Artist farm going, bomb the third city and make sure not to get invaded.

 

[Joshua368]

Huh. So standard practice is to shut down research after Nationalism? I'd've thought it would be Radio or Mass Media. Okay. We're closer than I thought, then. Cool.

Well, you can choose to take a late game culture victory with broadway, rock n rock, eiffel tower, hollywood, sid's sushi, creative contructions, and civilized jewelers if you want. Works fine.

But it's also very possible to win even earlier after free speech, hermitage and printing press and then letting all those cottages flood pure culture in while you try getting as many cathedrals built as possible.

I've won culture both ways... and with the latter I was even able to sort of keep tech parity for a good while after "shutting off research" with representation, university of sankore, and trading techs around. If you fall behind it doesn't matter as long as you have good military allies. Another benefit is you never have to learn Scientific Method and kill off the Great Library and those wonderful monastaries. (I don't recall what wonders you built other than sistine though.)

 

[Kev]

The extra benefit for Sid's is of course the extra food, which could translate into even more culture via specialists with Caste and Sistine.... Don't know how much food you're getting in your specific cities, but it may also be nice to consider biology along these tech lines to further enhance the effect.

Tough part is the merchant. Has Econ been discovered yet? Any chance to make a screaming beeline to Econ to get the free merchant involved there? I see that Otto can research it, but he's been slowed by war. I don't see it available to Liz, so perhaps she has already achieved that.

 

[JammerUno]

Going for representation before you set the slider to culture is a good idea, you can then still have some science output by running scientists in the non-culture cities. Going all the way to Sushi seems a waste.

I'm also not sure about using artists for culturebombing either, it seems to me that settling them gives better results early on, only until they net less culture in the long run should you use them for bombing.

6000 bomb
GA + Sistine = 15 culture/turn (?) and you can get 350% bonus on that with FS, harmitage, and 3 cathedrals, so that's 67.5 cpt, so if you're more than 100 turns away from victory, settling them seems best.

 

[ConsoleCowboy]

I never played for cultural victory, never even touched that slider once. As a fan of Neal's threads, I am very curious how this game will turn out. What I do know about all kinds of victories though is, that a compact stockpile of nukes is always helpful. We don't want to be out space-raced, do we?

 

[CreeDakota]

If a decent spot for a new city is still open, you could found one and hope Islam spreads to it.

I would set one city to military regardless of diplomacy. Perhaps Gondar and Nairobi should just build enough temples to allow you catherdrals then pump just units. Even if you get way behind in tech the AI can be intimidated by a Giant out of date Monty Style stack. There if a fair chance Stalin or Mao could attack. Of even Monty himself!!

 

[alfon]

It seems Isabella conquered Lisbon