Orion's Home School 3: Nobles Learning Culture

[Orion071]

From that city shot I see you are yet to spread Budhism around. I assume the great religious spreading will being soon.

Well, Machu Picchu wasn't very developed when it was my only Buddhist city. It took a while to get that first Missionary out. To be fair, 4 of my 10 cities are Buddhist and once Cuzco's Forge is done, it can probably produce a Missionary in 2 turns. I'll get the other converted soon enough.

I need to convert every city for 2 reasons. 1) The Organized Religion bonus and 2) To be able to dominate the AP elections.

Quick question:

What's the difference between you and Monty in power?

I want to gauge the power difference I need between a very aggressive warlord and myself.

I don't know exactly and can't check here at work, but every other time I've checked, I've been ahead of him in power. I'm actually ahead of almost everyone (2nd, I think). Monty was pretty far down. I guess it must be a lack of cities on his part. I need to build an exploring Chariot or something to map out everyone's territory.

 

[Roxlimn]

Wouldn't it be better to build a Scout to do that? Less hammers. Less maintenance? Won't matter if it gets trapped somewhere bad. Can be built in any city, not necessarily a military one with Barracks. With Barracks and Theo for two promos, can get Woodsman 2, randomly useful for mapping undeveloped areas.

 

[dawn]

Another quick "Thanks!" and for the excellent series.

As you get closer to the point of dropping the GA culture bombs, will you cover the benefit of increasing the target city's artist specialists - i.e. raising the city's culture output before bombing it? There was a whole set of Realms Beyond SGs on winning through Culture Domination and this was one of the tactics that came out of it.

I'm not at all fluent in the math behind it, but simply put if you switch to a maximum # of artist specialists the turn before you bomb, it will increase the net result of the bomb. Then you switch the city back to pre-bomb specialist settings. Granted that was done to push borders and pressure AI cities, but an increase in city's culture is an increase, right?

This could have been nerfed in BtS or the latest patch. Haven't tried it out since moving to BtS.

 

[Orion071]

Wouldn't it be better to build a Scout to do that? Less hammers. Less maintenance? Won't matter if it gets trapped somewhere bad. Can be built in any city, not necessarily a military one with Barracks. With Barracks and Theo for two promos, can get Woodsman 2, randomly useful for mapping undeveloped areas.

A Scout, a Chariot, heck, I've even used a Worker for this (especially a Fast Worker!) if he's only going through AI territory. This is a Panagea map, so there's not much free space left and few Barbarians. I said a Chariot only because maybe he'd be useful later on. It too late for a Scout to go into Barb infested areas. He'd get chewed up by any Barbarian Warrior or Archer, Woodsman promotions or not.

Another quick "Thanks!" and for the excellent series.

As you get closer to the point of dropping the GA culture bombs, will you cover the benefit of increasing the target city's artist specialists - i.e. raising the city's culture output before bombing it? There was a whole set of Realms Beyond SGs on winning through Culture Domination and this was one of the tactics that came out of it.

I'm not at all fluent in the math behind it, but simply put if you switch to a maximum # of artist specialists the turn before you bomb, it will increase the net result of the bomb. Then you switch the city back to pre-bomb specialist settings. Granted that was done to push borders and pressure AI cities, but an increase in city's culture is an increase, right?

This could have been nerfed in BtS or the latest patch. Haven't tried it out since moving to BtS.

Yeah, I've seen this move in one of the culture SG's, but it doesn't apply to a pure culture win. The net result doesn't change inside the city, the difference is in the surrounding area. Switching to all Artists before you bomb will cause more culture to be dumped into the surrounding tiles, but the amount of culture in your city is still +6000. I don't have to worry about my borders in this game, just the pure amount of culture in my cities, so this technique is unnecessary for me.

 

[eewallace]

Orion71: Wow, things are looking a little dicey in terms of religion! Good move switching to Isabella's religion (I actually would never have thought of that because I am so used to being at odds with her and figuring out how to crush her). Since you have Christianity (and you can't see what Isabella's doing and she LOVES Christianity) don't you think maybe you should build the AP?

By the way, nice CS slingshot. I've found that it works less than half the time on noble for me, following basically the same tech path. (But I play on normal speed--maybe you have a slight edge on this on the slower speeds.) Just a note: If you had done a more modest CoL slingshot, you might have got a confucian missionary to Monte in time to keep him out of Izzy's religion...

PS. I finished my companion Huayna culture victory last night with a score of 29 thousand-something points. (My second highest cultural score.) But I didn't have problems like Monte and Izzy to deal with. Just shared a continent with my best buddy Genghis and that heretic, Pericles... Diplomatically a much easier situation. I got a "build 7 triremes" quest early on that allowed me to enhance my harbors +1 C. With financial trait, during a golden age, you should have seen my coastal cities' water squares filled with large money bags!!!

 

[deanej]

Two questions:
1. How do you keep the AI from getting lots of EPs on you if you don't use the espionage slider? I usually fall way behind until I turn the slider to 10-20 % and run a great spy specialist in my capital.

2. How do you keep up with research with the slider at only 60%? Again, the AIs quickly overtake me if I have it at less then 70-80%.

 

[Orion071]

Two questions:
1. How do you keep the AI from getting lots of EPs on you if you don't use the espionage slider? I usually fall way behind until I turn the slider to 10-20 % and run a great spy specialist in my capital.

2. How do you keep up with research with the slider at only 60%? Again, the AIs quickly overtake me if I have it at less then 70-80%.

1. I don't and I don't care. The AI's will have more espionage points than me early on. Unless I'm at war with them, they won't do anything with the advantage. Since I'm the first to Code of Laws, my Courthouses will let me catch up a bit. Once I can get the Jails and the other EP buildings, I'll never have to touch the espionage slider.

2. It's a good question and one that is often misunderstood by new players. Let's take a look at my current demographics screen:



As you can see, I have roughly twice as much land as anyone else. I have 10 cities right now and most of my rivals have in the 4-6 city range. You can also see that my GNP is twice as much as my nearest rival, and roughly 3 times the average civ.

Let's look at my Financial screen:



My 60% science translates in 92 beakers/turn.

Let me go into a theorectical example here. Say I'm producing 150 commerce every turn. 60% of that is going to science so that is 90 beakers/turn. Civ #2 (let's call her Izzy) is only producing half of that in commerce. So she's bringing in 75 commerce/turn. Her super-Shrine allows her to run 100% science so that translate into 75 beakers/turn. Well look at that! I'm still crushing her in research, 90 to 75! If another civ is only producing 50 commerce (like, say, Monty), there's no way he'd even be close to me in research.

The point is, the % of your science slider isn't nearly as important as your raw number of beakers produced per turn. Right now I'm absolutely dominating everyone in research because I'm producing so much more raw commerce than they are right now. Heck, I still have 2 Gold tiles and a Gems tile that I haven't even Mined yet. If you expand as rapidly as I have, then you'd have to expect to drop your science to 60% or even as low as 40%. But you'll find that the beakers/turn you're producing is staying the same or even increasing in some cases. As your cities get bigger and produce more commerce, your research rate increases exponentially.

There is a tipping point. You can expand too fast and completely crash your economy. I knew I'd be in good shape because of my super-capital and the fact that I'm bringing Courthouses on-line. If you find that you have to drop the science slider down so far that your research rate is suffering, then it's time to stop and build the economy back up.

 

[Grifftavian]

Turn 155: Izzy asks for Alphabet. That's a bigger tech than I'd like to give, but Joao has it already. I say yes. She's Pleased with me now.

I can understand why you would want to keep the unpredictable Izzy on your good side, since you are not wanting to fight any unnecessary wars going for the Culture victory. My question: if you give Izzy Alphabet, and Joao already has it, wouldn't this have been a good time to try and trade it to everyone else and see what you could get, before the AIs trade it among themselves?

 

[Orion071]

I can understand why you would want to keep the unpredictable Izzy on your good side, since you are not wanting to fight any unnecessary wars going for the Culture victory. My question: if you give Izzy Alphabet, and Joao already has it, wouldn't this have been a good time to try and trade it to everyone else and see what you could get, before the AIs trade it among themselves?

At that point, there wasn't anything I could get for it. I didn't have Currency yet, so I couldn't even sell it off for gold. Nobody had any techs that I didn't already have. Once I got Currency I could have sold it around, but I don't like selling off a big tech like Alphabet for 40-60 gold (which is all anybody had). A small tech like Priesthood? Sure. But not Alphabet.

Looking at the last tech screen I see that Monty has 100 gold and lacks Alphabet. I'll make that trade because I'm running at -20 gpt right now and could use the money, but more importantly I really, really, really don't want him attacking me right now. A couple of + diplo modifiers could go a long way. I'm sure I could fight him off if he attacks, but I'm more interested in culture, not war.

 

[Thorn]

The point is, the % of your science slider isn't nearly as important as your raw number of beakers produced per turn.

So to increase your raw number of beakers produced per turn are you saying you should be larger in size than the other Civs? And/or are there other methods you use to increase the number of raw beakers?

 

[Daedal]

So to increase your raw number of beakers produced per turn are you saying you should be larger in size than the other Civs? And/or are there other methods you use to increase the number of raw beakers?

Yes and yes. Increasing the number of tiles you work (by building/capturing cities) is the most straightforward way to get more commerce and thus more beakers. Cottage spam pretty much every available tile and in time you'll have a respectable economy. Specialists can also give you more beakers, especially with representation, and settled great people can also give you more beakers, especially in large numbers and with representation.

 

[Orion071]

So to increase your raw number of beakers produced per turn are you saying you should be larger in size than the other Civs? And/or are there other methods you use to increase the number of raw beakers?

Not exactly. I'm saying that you need to focus on increasing your commerce. There's lots of ways to do that. Having more land is one of the more obvious ways. Building more cottages is another easy way. Making sure your cities have a Library and University will also increase science production.

My point is that too many people focus on the science slider as an indication of how well they are researching. "OMG, I'm at 90% science but everyone is more advanced than me!!!1!". Sorry, buddy, but your 2 cities working a total of zero cottages isn't going to cut it. Build 3 more cities, take the hit down to 70%, build some cottages and watch your research zoom upwards.

You don't always have to be bigger to be better, especially on Noble. A smaller, highly developed civ can beat a larger civ. That's why I'm constantly saying people need more Workers. Heck, I could use about 5 more Workers myself. Developing cities goes a long way towards helping out research.

 

[Grifftavian]

That's why I'm constantly saying people need more Workers. Heck, I could use about 5 more Workers myself. Developing cities goes a long way towards helping out research.

Is there a general rule of thumb regarding workers to cities ratio? 1:1? 2:1?

 

[Spaced out]

To Thorn and others,

and come from minus unit and city maintenance. So to inscrease scienc you can
a.) increase
b.) decrease maintenance by courthouses or deleting those scouts and warriors. (check tax screen to see breakdown of maintenance and unit costs)
c.) decrease

My general rule is always build a granery, forge, courthouse, then if the slider is > 50% build library if the slider is at less < 50% build bank or grocer.

Note: If you are running a slight deficit like -3 at 70% science and have built a courthouse a grocer or bank will be next in line if it keeps you from droping to 60% science the empire wide effect of loosing 10% science outways the gain in 25% for that city from a university.

I would also consider trading off a resource for 5 or 6 gold per turn to keep the science booming.

Just letting my mouse hover over items in the city info screen may teach you alot about the economy system in CivIV, if you havent already checked it out.

 

[Levgre]

Note: If you are running a slight deficit like -3 at 70% science and have built a courthouse a grocer or bank will be next in line if it keeps you from droping to 60% science the empire wide effect of loosing 10% science outways the gain in 25% for that city from a university.

This isn't completely accurate. You effectively can have say 68% or 65% science, because...

At 70% you lose 3g, but at 60% you gain 9g and can go at 70% for 3 more turns. So out of 4 turns, 3 are at 70%, 1 is at 60%.

Averages out to 67.5% research rate. It is still not worth it to build grocers or banks over libraries, if the city does not have much commerce anyways. There are much better ways to overcome the deficit, including:

financial buildings in high commerce cities
wonders, great people, specialists
financial techs, courthouses, trade

 

[Refar]

Since you mentioned not being too familiar with Pacal, and because i just hate him , i would like to throw in, that in my experience he is a moronic maniac. And he seems to like early wars.

I had him as close neighbour 3 games now (that i remember).

1) He actually Axe-Rushed me . Isn't it supposed to be the other way ? Well... I went a bit wonder crazy so i guess i asked for it. Dont sure what his diplomatic stance was towards me - i usually not pay to much attention to it that early in the game.

2) We both founded a early religion. I chose my over his. We also had border tensions. Remembering 1) i paid attention te my power rating. In fact i was clearly superiour and was building up a force to attack him but did not jet moved it close to his borders.
He declared on me, i beaten him up badly, he refused to give me anything for peace - not even some gold (well maybe he had no gold, but he had Horseback Riding on me) - so i had to wipe him out.

3) He founded a early religion (he likes to do that, as it seems). I was planing on taking the holy city from him later anyway, so i converted to his faith. I built some wonders - more then i should have again sometimes i just can't stop myself . But - again - remembering 1) i did not neglected my army completely - i was at equal footing in power. We got 'close border' tensions pretty fast, he went mad at me despite the shared religion (i think the time with the same faith was not long enought to build up more + points in relations)
He declared on me, attacked with a force consisting of a couple of those ridiculous holcans and a good deal of of chariots (Which actuelly were already slightly outdated at that time, but the mainstream of my army were Axes, so ouch ). I still thwarted him very fast, but was unable to counter attack. The war ended without any gain/loss. I killed him with macemen a bit later - the only war with him, that actually i declared my self.


I have to say, that i usually am bad at diplomathy, so my experience might be kind of a worst case scenario. Still he seems to freak out pretty easily, even with a shared religion.


---

Overall...

Izzy the Zealous fanatic,
The Mad cannibals Monty and Pacal,
Jao & The Khmer Guy whose name no one can spell - the backstabbers.
Willem i am not sure about, but he's dead anyway. You might have killed the only sane AI in the game
Did i missed out someone ?

With this being a cultural victory game, i have to say the god of Random numbers displayed some sick sense of humor while choosing the opponents.

 

[Orion071]

ROUND 3 (115 AD - 1070 AD)

The REX phase of my game is over (well, except maybe 1 more to grab Marble). Now it's time to spam some wonders in my culture cities and spread some religions around.

Turn 181: I sell Math to Monty for his 100g. I'm trying to bump him up from Cautious, but no dice.

Turn 184: Cuzco finishes its Forge. I start on some more Buddhist Missionaries. Machu Picchu finishes a Missionary and starts on a Courthouse.

Turn 187: I'm getting a little worried. I'm seeing some stacks of Monty's units running around near my territory. Do you need a Chariot, 2 Axemen and 2 Jaguars to guard a Worker? I don't think so.

Turn 190: Music is in and I get a free Great Artist. I'm going to settle him in Tiwanaku. I think it will be the weakest of my 3 culture cities because it lacks the production power of Amsterdam or Cuzco. Cuzco has produced a few more Buddhist Missionaries. Just 2 more to cover all of my cities.

Since I can't get anyone to trade me Calendar, I'll have to research it myself.

Turn 191: I start a Settler in Utrecht so I can whip it next turn. I want the last spot to the SW where I can grab Fish, Silver and the important Marble. My Workers are up north trying to hook up the Stone. Having both of those would be wonder-ific.

Turn 192: The Settler is in. He heads on down to the Marble spot. Monty continues to bother me. Why does he have 4 units guarding each of his Workers?

Turn 194: Calendar is in and I go for Philosophy. Amsterdam finishes a Courthouse and I start on the Pyramids. I'm building more Workers so I can improve the Calendar resources in my territory.

Turn 195: I'm in full wonder mode with my 3 culture cities. Cuzco is building the Great Library and Tiwanaku is starting the AP.

Turn 200: Philosophy is in for religion #6. My newest city becomes the Taoist Holy City. A Buddhist Missionary arrives the same turn so now all of my cities are Buddhist. My other cities are still building the key infrastructure. Utrecht, my GP Farm, is building the National Epic. It will build the Globe Theatre when it's available.

I'm going to Paper next on the way to Liberalism.

Turn 203: Izzy is now Friendly with me, so I trade her Code of Laws for Construction.

Turn 209: All of the Calendar resources are hooked up, so my cities have a lot of room to grow. Paper is done and Education is next.

Turn 210: I buy Izzy's world map. The others are willing to give them to me for free. Monty and Joao don't like me enough to trade maps even though they're both Pleased.

Turn 212: Utrecht builds the Nation Epic. I don't have the 6 Theatres on-line yet, so it will work on the Parthenon.

Turn 213: My first main wonder is in as Cuzco finishes the Great Library. It will work on the Mausoleun of Mausollos. Ironically, I hook my Marble up this turn. Great timing. Go me.

Turn 214: Tiwanaku produces another Great Prophet. I debate what to do and I think this is the best use for him:



There's 9 cities with Judaism total (and only 4 of mine) so the Shrine will pull in some decent cash. Not to mention that it's more culture for a city that I think will need it before all is said and done.

Turn 217: Tiwanaku finishes the Apostolic Palace. The election is between myself and Joao. We all know by now that Joao like to expand and he has around 11 cities now. With its new Shrine in place, a Market makes sense for next.

Amsterdam finishes the Pyramids. I don't think I need to switch out of Hereditary Rule right now, so I'll save that for later. It starts on an Aqueduct so I can build the Hanging Gardens.

Turn 218: Monty votes for me, but everyone else votes for Joao and he's the AP leader. That's a bit troubling. I have more votes than any one else individually, and Monty and I should be able to block a Diplo win. We'll see.

Turn 222: Utrecht finishes the Parthenon and starts on the Globe Theatre. I'm not going to build any more wonders here after this so I can concentrate them in the big three culture cities.

Turn 223: Joao finishes Machinery so I give him Paper and Literature for it. My spies tell me he's going for Engineering next. I was hoping someone would do that so I can get these techs in trade. Pacal is researching Fuedalism so I can get that from him. Everyone is Friendly with everyone else, so trading restrictions are thrown out the window.

Turn 226: Education is done and I go for Nationalism. I want the Taj Mahal and my first Golden Age. I think I'm going to play this one a bit differently from the others and delay Liberalism a bit. Like my other games, the Liberalism race isn't a race, it's a runaway. So I can wait for a while. I'm not going to go too crazy, but maybe I'll get Democracy as my free tech. We'll see.

Cuzco finishes the Mausoleum of Mausollos. I'll sneak in a University before going back to more wonders.

Turn 230: Amsterdam finishes the Hanging Gardens and works on the Hagia Sophia.

Turn 231: Uh-oh. Pacal calls for a Religious Victory vote. I'm a little worried, but I should have enough votes to block him.

Turn 232: Whoops.



I certainly didn't expect that!! I don't want it to end this way. So I'm going to hit the rewind button and back up a few turns. I guess when the vote comes again, I'll just abstain. *Sigh* This thing is going to be a pain in my butt the whole game. I may have to tech to Mass Media just to get rid of it.

(but hey, 870 AD win, not bad! And 86,963 points too!)

Hold on, where's that rewind button...

...

...

...

That's better. I'm still the leading vote getter, even with me abstaining.

I also get my first city revolt. Pacal threw a couple of cities ridiculously close to mine and one of them has revolted. It isn't joining me yet, and I don't think I even want it if it does.

Turn 233: Arrrrrgggggh! Pacal beat me to a wonder as he finishes Chichen Itza. Um, you can have that one, bud.

Turn 234: Izzy completes Feudalism first so I give her Paper and Drama for it.

I sell off Aesthetics to some really backwards civs to keep my deficit research going. I'm losing 10 gpt at 70% science, but I have over 400g in reserve. I haven't built a military unit in ages, but only Pacal has recently passed me on the power graph.

Turn 235: Pacal's crummy little city flips to me and I disband it. I don't need any more cities. On the plus side, I get a free Longbowman!

Turn 236: Utrecht finishes the Globe Theatre. I assign it 5 Artist specialists. Hopefully, it will provide me with a ton of Great Artists from now on.

Turn 238: Nationalism is done and I go for Divine Right and the last religion. My big 3 are still working on other wonders, but I'll slip the Taj Mahal in there somewhere eventually.

Turn 239: Amsterdam finishes the Hagia Sophia and starts the Sistine Chapel. I can't believe I haven't started this one before now. With the new +5 culture for the state religion buildings, this is a VERY nice piece of the culture win puzzle (and it was really good even before that).

Utrecht produces a Great Artist. One of many to come, I hope. I send him to settle in Amsterdam.

Turn 245: Divine Right is mine and I get the last of the religions. All 7 religions are in one of my cities so it should be pretty easy to spread enough of them around. I don't necessarily need all 7 in every city. The Missionaries have a bigger chance of failure the more religions that are already present. But if I can get 5 or so Cathedrals in every one of my big 3 cities, I should be fine.

Printing Press is next.

Turn 246: I finish the Sistine Chapel and the University of Sankore. I want to make sure that all of my cities have the Buddhist Temple and the Buddhist Monastery. Each one gives and extra 2 hammers, 2 beakers and 5 culture! Once I finish the Spiral Minaret, then they'll give 2 gold as well!

Turn 248: All of my cities are building Buddhist Temples.

Turn 251: Cuzco starts on Oxford University while Tiwanaku works on the Forbidden Palace. Yeah, the Palace should save me a lot of cash by building it so close to the real Palace, but I don't really have that big of an empire.

Printing Press is done and Constitution is next. After that will be Liberalism so I can grab Democracy.

Turn 252: Tiwanaku produces another Great Prophet. I don't really need another Shrine, but I could use this:



My first Golden Age will really get things going. I plan on building the Taj Mahal during this GA, so it should last me 30 turns.

Since I can make free civics swaps, I go into Representation. I really should have gone into Caste System too, but I didn't think of it.


I'm going to stop here for now. Not much happened (except I accidentally won ), but I built a lot more wonders and my GP Farm is up and running. The fringe cities that aren't building wonders will be building Missionaries in an attempt to put as many religions in my cities as possible.

There's still soooooo many wonders left to build, but 30 turns of a Golden Age should get me most of them.

After Liberalism grabs me Democracy, I'm not sure where I'll go after that. I was hoping that someone else would research Guilds and Banking for me, but I may have to do that myself. I could easily stop researching after Democracy and go into phase II of the cultural win plan. I may end up doing that.

Well, here's the save. I'll try to put up some State of the World shots later, but that may end up being tomorrow.

View attachment Huayna Capac AD-1070.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[18lama]

Nice to have that rewind button handy!

 

[EDaddy]

yeah it does! :lol

 

[Nickzilla]

omg, you won by MISTAKE???

This makes me feel inadequate.