[GS] Naturalists v Rockbands

[Hogimus]

So, between cities where you might only have a spot for one and cities that you settle just to build NPs around them giving you 4, you average like 2 NPs a city. And, if you’ve got more than twelve cities...the Mountie is a great unit.

obviously this whole discussion is moot for Canada because they can just save all their faith for Rock Bands. Also, building Holy sites to get that faith also gives you extra appeal.

 

[tedhebert]

Thanks for the link btw @acluewithout ...

Very informative... I've always struggle to understand CV, this really helps.. I know @Victoria has explained it many times, but I guess I'm too thick to understand it the first time around ;-)

Questions for you all: Do you actually THINK about NP when choosing your city founding sites ? Cause I sure don't... Do you guys decide in the early game that you will later on build a NP
so that you don't improve the tiles ?

I'm basically a SV type of players... campuses in every city, always... and rarely build a theatre square before turns 120-130... then build them in every city also. This allows me to stay ahead in
unit strength for the whole game, but it also makes for longer games

maybe it's high time I changed that formula ;-)

Thanks again

 

[tetley]

Questions for you all: Do you actually THINK about NP when choosing your city founding sites ? Cause I sure don't... Do you guys decide in the early game that you will later on build a NP
so that you don't improve the tiles ?

Yes, I think about it. It affects city placement, so that I make sure I have all 4 valid NP tiles within my radius. However, I might still improve some tiles anyway, knowing I will remove them later.

 

[Victoria]

Do you actually THINK about NP when choosing your city founding sites ?

For Canada yes, for others no, normally a CV is quite fast and I tend not to bother. I tend to think oooh, mountains, ski slopes.

 

[tedhebert]

For Canada yes, for others no, normally a CV is quite fast and I tend not to bother. I tend to think oooh, mountains, ski slopes.

hmmmm... define 'fast' ? Since I always play huge map/12 civs, It always seems pretty hard for me to win CV, even at 200+ turns. I know part of that is because I don't play for it, but I feel that the PMW video
succeds to stress that more civs = better maths for NP, but what it fails to point out is that you almost certainly will get 1, if not 2-3 VERY good culture civs in there. at least I seem to always get some, and
playing huge maps, the offending civs are rarely close enough for me to do something about it without a long and painful military exodus...

I've been reading a lot of peeps in here saying that CV is easy for them, and that actually, they have trouble avoiding it. Is it because most people play small/normal maps with few civs ?

 

[Victoria]

I've been reading a lot of peeps in here saying that CV is easy for them

12 civs is harder and longer so you are right. Not only do you have more good culture civs, good culture CS they have access to, and more culture wonders etc. but it takes a lot more time and effort to find those civs to encourage tourism. You cannot influence much with long distances either. Play a small map and a CV is even faster.
Do not get me wrong, if I start a map and do not bump into a culture CS in the first 30 turns I will not be playing a CV and this is the point really, I guess I play to the map I am dealt... if I find Nazca and Jerusalem I will play an RV.
So size does matter negatively and I hope PMW picks these more subtle points up in his full CV video as does Not making cultural allies ( it just feeds the enemy culture).
Playing with Greece, Russia, Kongo and Brazil is just not nice and with 12 civs you can easily have this,mesoevially with 2 geeky Greeks in the game.
Then we get to crap starts, I will play a rubbishy start but I will play it for Dom or SV... not my beloved culture so yes I am biased and my culture games are fast but you see I am not BS’ing I just sort of baby my CV’s. I cannot speak for other players.

A fast CV time would be sub 120, normal around 160-120 and slow above that. But that is seriously concentrating on CV’s, proper pushing.

 

[tedhebert]

12 civs is harder and longer do you are right. Not only do you have more good culture civs and good culture CS they have access to and more culture wonders etc etc but it takes a lot more time and effort to find those civs to encourage tourism. You cannot influence much with long distances either. Play a small map and a CV is even faster.
Do not get me wrong, I start a map and do not bump into a culture CS in the first 30 turns I will not be playing a CV and this is the point really, I guess I play to the map I am dealt... if I find Nazca and Jerusalem I will play an RV.
So size does matter negatively and I hope PMW picks these more subtle points up in his full CV video as does Not making cultural allies ( it just feeds the enemy culture).
Playing with Greece, Russia, Kongo and Brazil is just not nice and with 12 civs you can easily have this,mesoevially with 2 geeky Greeks in the game.
Then we get to crap starts, I will play a rubbishy start but I will play it for Dom or SV... not my beloved culture so yes I am biased and my culture games are fast but you see I am not BS’ing I just sort of baby my CV’s. I cannot speak for other players.

A fast CV time would be sub 120, normal around 160-120 and slow above that. But that is seriously concentrating on CV’s, proper pushing.

Thanks... It's a relief to read this, because it's pretty much reflects the opinions I have gathered from my playing... but as I don't play small maps, and always play regular speed#Immortal, I can only fairly comment on games with those parameters.

I Usually decide what kind of Victory conditions I'm going to go for after I've seen enough of my region of the map. I usually DO try to go for the strengths of the civ I'm playing (trying to win a game with them all, still got 12 of them to go...) but the map
and the neighbors don't always fit that... in the end, I don't really like RV or Diplo V so will only play those if the civ really call for it, so it's mostly CV or SV because domination on a huge map is pretty tedious in the end... I do it from time to time for fun, but it just takes too long

 

[Pietato]

I play huge continent maps as well, where a sub 200 CV is excellent. Standard speed, deity. Discovering everyone and countering the inevitable cultural AI takes time. Maori are good at the first one, but lack the books for a quick victory.

Also, for national parks, Maori are great at those as well, as forest spam is gold for them.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

They use it on Emperor too but usually switch it back out after a few turns.

They only switch it back when they are not going for a CV themselves. A couple weeks ago I played a game on Immortal, and the culture runaway Pericles sat on that card for at least 30 turns. I saved faith to buy about 10 rock bands, and all of them had to sleep outside of Greek borders for all that time, and at some point I just got bored and retired.

Although the card to block rock bands is far away in the civics tree, the cultural runaways will not have issues getting there fast. And rock bands are about culture bombing those players... so idk, I have had some bad experiences with rock bands, and I think they are situational for peaceful CV's. In my game, I could have just destroyed Pericles altogether, but I didn't feel like it.

And the problem I have with national parks is by the time they are available, my cities are already developed and built up so there is no space for parks. Like, I don't want to plan for something so far away, and I generally like to build stuff and grow my cities. Just started a Persia game because I wanted to test out pairidaezas with national parks, but I am having so much fun planning pairidaezas with districts for additional yields that I don't even care for parks anymore.

 

[bengalryan9]

And the problem I have with national parks is by the time they are available, my cities are already developed and built up so there is no space for parks. Like, I don't want to plan for something so far away, and I generally like to build stuff and grow my cities. Just started a Persia game because I wanted to test out pairidaezas with national parks, but I am having so much fun planning pairidaezas with districts for additional yields that I don't even care for parks anymore.

Conservation should come earlier.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Also remember that Conservation gives walls tourism, so that can be a decent boost. Especially since Limes lasts until Ideology now and there's really nothing else to build anyways. If you had 20 cities with ancient and medieval walls, it'd be an extra 60 tourism immediately. With Renaissance walls it becomes 6 per city.

So the question becomes one of "how many turns does it take to get the conservation detour vs getting Cold War?"

 

[tetley]

I know people are about low turn-count, CV, VC, etc., but when I have built NPs, my primary incentive was not even the tourism--it's the 6 amenities. And then I go on to win a not-quite-dom win, turned into a CV because I didn't want to finish with it.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Rock bands come at Cold War, block bands card also comes at Cold War, if your Rock Band is blocked that means your culture is worse than your opponent. Why do you go for a cultural victory, and still fall behind in culture?

 

[Archon_Wing]

if your Rock Band is blocked that means your culture is worse than your opponent.

No, If your culture was equal to that of your opponent, then they'd also be able to block your Rock band too! Also, travel time.

I mean I know what you're saying, but I just felt like being pedantic.

Why do you go for a cultural victory, and still fall behind in culture?

Idk. As noted in another thread, there is a lot of misinformation running around the internet so maybe people have been reading those. There's been more than one post that suggests you should wait until Hallyu to get Rock Bands or "only faith matters" so they don't get culture at all.