Maximizing GWAM as Japan

[TranceBlossom]

I'm playing a game as Japan where my strategy starting out was to focus on warring and use the GWAM I got from the UA to roll into a cultural victory. I thought I'd maximize this by putting lots of guilds and GWAM buildings/wonders in my capital where the UA procs and going Artistry to get even more GWAM generation going, but I'm wondering if that was a mistake. I read that Japan's UA gives exactly 50% of the total GWAM points needed for the next one (meaning it always takes 2 GGs/GAs to get one of each), and basically up until now I've only gotten GWAM from the UA and never from points from specialists despite being mini-tradition in my capital (Granted, I haven't been working WAM specialists as much as I would ideally and instead have been pumping out military units faster). So I'm wondering:

1) Is it true that the GWAM points from the UA are exactly 50% of the required amount at that level, meaning 2 GGs/GAs will give you exactly enough points for one of each?
2) If so, does that mean putting guilds/other WAM generating buildings in your capital is a waste of time because the 50%-based point generation from GGs/GAs will always outpace the slow buildup of points from them? Does that also mean the LToP, National Monument, and other percentage-based reductions of great people requirements won't help "speed up" the GWAM generation at all because the UA is a flat "halfway" boost?

If my understanding is totally wrong, or if there's other ways to create synergy with the Patronage of the Daimyo UA, I'd love to hear them.

 

[CrazyG]

1) Is it true that the GWAM points from the UA are exactly 50% of the required amount at that level, meaning 2 GGs/GAs will give you exactly enough points for one of each?

yes

2) If so, does that mean putting guilds/other WAM generating buildings in your capital is a waste of time because the 50%-based point generation from GGs/GAs will always outpace the slow buildup of points from them? Does that also mean the LToP, National Monument, and other percentage-based reductions of great people requirements won't help "speed up" the GWAM generation at all because the UA is a flat "halfway" boost?

How many great generals/admirals can you get total? That's the big question. If you get 8 generals throughout the game, that would be only 4 writers.

If you war non-stop and don't work the specialists full time, the war alone probably would overtake. I can remember getting a great writer from specialists in one my Japan games, but I think generally it is more accurate to think of the UA as replacing specialists in the capital, rather than working together.

 

[TranceBlossom]

I think generally it is more accurate to think of the UA as replacing specialists in the capital, rather than working together.

That's what I thought, so I guess building guilds/LToP in the capital was a bit of a waste. Thanks for confirming.
I think even if it's not "nonstop" warring, if you use free great people for GGs/GAs and use faith to buy them as well, you can all but guarantee you'll be pumping out GWAM faster than specialists would produce them.

Is there a clear best-option for medieval trees? Even with specialists not being a major factor (at least in the capital), Artistry's bonuses seem to make a culture victory significantly easier, but some of the fealty policies would also work really well.

 

[CrazyG]

Is there a clear best-option for medieval trees? Even with specialists not being a major factor (at least in the capital), Artistry's bonuses seem to make a culture victory significantly easier, but some of the fealty policies would also work really well.

Artistry still boosts your tourism output by a lot and gives extra archeological sites, so yea it will probably help raw tourism the most. Fealty doubles construction of Dojos and has other useful things. Statecraft isn't too bad either, the extra strategics can be really useful and +50% rewards on quests is really nice if you complete a quest to conquer a city.

 

[Stalker0]

The great late game trick is faith buying of GG and GA can help you faith buy more writers than just writer buying alone, due to the way faith buying scales.

 

[azum4roll]

I didn't know that it always gives 50% GWAM points for the next one. Does this also apply to France? Should we build guilds in Paris?

 

[Omen of Peace]

France works the same, yes.
If you can afford to build guilds, it's fine to build them. They still give out culture, and gold (mostly the Writer's Guild - for others it mostly offsets the higher maintenance cost).

 

[Paramecium]

If you want to maximize your GWAM generation, I highly recommend getting a religion with Hero Worship as a founder believe. In one of my games with Emperor and Epic Speed, I am at the renaissance and at the doorstep to the Industrial Era and I already got 8 GG and 2 GA, which are 5 of each GWAM. The problem at that point was, that you wont have enough space to place the Great Works, but luckily one of my neighbours was Ethopia who took Mandirs as a follower believe, so I could spread that religion to my cities just to build those to have space to place my GW of Music.

But I have to say, that I nearly managed to get the perfect Religion for Japan. Besides Hero Worship I got Orders, which buffs your units and their starting exp, so more yields from Dojos, and Zealotry, so until that current moment, I only build my starting unit's in the Capital and now I can faith buy every single one, only ships I have to build the normal way. On top of it, I got Crusaders and after I finished the Fealty Tree, I plan to go full Imperialism. The only believes I think that dont line up perfectly with Japan are my pantheon and the second Follower believe, I took Goddess of the Hunt because I got Truffels as my starting monopoly and the second luxury ressource was Furs, so I thought it would give me more Faith quicker in the early face. I think in the long term, as Pantheon their are two better options for Japan to synergies with its unique abilites would be God of war or Goddess of Protection.
As my second Follower believe I took Thrift, to fight the unhappiness from Poverty better and have a bit more use in puppets, as you cant faith buy buildings there, and to have more gold for unit upgrades, as I didnt open Imperialism yet. In synergy with the huge faith generation by killing stuff with Orders in all of your towns combined with all the yields you get from conquering cities, I might should have picked veneration instead, because of the extra yields you get from faith buying.

If you go the full conqueror line, I would more recommend to go Fealty because it gives you a push on the military buidings of the Medieval Era and you want to get your Dojos asap and the extra happiness from Castles will help your bigger empire to stay happy and it makes your faith buys cheaper.
With entering the Industrial era, I think that I will only spend my faith on new buildings and the needed inquisitors and missionaries to manage my religion, but I should get enough faith to buy a lot of extra GG and GA, so I think my GWAM output will be okay, even if I try to maintain all specialist slot atm, too.

Only downside if you would pick such a custom picked Religion for Japan, you might get problems with the happiness, because you dont get that much extra yields or unhappiness reduction if you would pick other believes. At the moment, I am tech leader already and built the most gold and food/production buildings in most of my cities, but I am still get quite high amounts of distress and poverty unhappiness.

So if you really want to totally maximize your GWAM generation, I could see that you could pick Artistry as your second Social Policy Tree, but in that case I would recommend not to go full Domination victory, but keep conquering your neighbours, but just to raze most of their cities, so you still get a lot of GG/GA points from Hero Worship.