Overall Strategy: Getting to 130K

[DaveShack]

Fellow Fanatannians, you have decided rather decisively in this poll that you prefer a path towards a cultural victory. There seems to be more support for an overall national victory (130K) than a single city victory (20K). Although these goals may change over time, if we want either cultural path to be possible our overall strategy should be aligned that way.

Ultimately all our nation's energies should be directed towards attaining our chosen goal. We need to research or acquire the technologies which enable us to improve our culture and we need to target cultural rivals to ensure we have twice as much as the nearest competitor. We need an efficient military so we can balance unit costs with the cost of maintaining improvements. We need strong production so that some of our precious production resources can be diverted to great wonders.

Our path is a difficult one, and we need all our citizens to devote their energies to moving us along it. The culture victory condition is one of the most balanced ones. Beyond the obvious need for building culture, we also need good military strategy and tactics to compete with our neighbors, good foreign affairs to keep us out of conflicts which do not serve our interests, good science to allow us to build culture earlier and take advantage of the 1000 year doubling effect, and good trading to ensure we can keep our citizens happy and productive.

I now call on our consuls to focus more strongly on developing departmental strategies which interlock towards this goal, and the citizens to give their ideas and experience to this noble cause.

 

[Nobody]

thats not a poll

 

[DaveShack]

thats not a poll

Right you are! It's fixed now.

 

[Bertie]

My general strategy when playing for a cultural win is to expand as quickly as I can up to the domination limit. This means it’s important to produce as many settlers as quickly as possible, so I stress growth and production. When I run out of territory (which happens quickly), I need to take it away from a rival. At that time I’ll begin my military campaigns. My military strategy is to conquer civilizations that occupy ground I covet and weaken other civilizations to slow their tech pace, expansion, and potential to cause me harm.

I usually space my core cities so they can work 12 tiles each. Once I get past my core I jam in as many cities as possible. It’s important to get as many cities as possible so I can build (rush, in the case of corrupt cities) a library and temple in each. Later in the game I’ll build universities and or cathedrals. A library & temple yields 5 culture per turn; if I have 100 cites, that’s 500 culture per turn.

I’d rather build city improvements than Great Wonders. The best Ancient Age Great Wonder in terms of culture is the Great Library, which costs 400 shields and delivers 6 culture per turn. Those same 400 shields buy 2 libraries and 4 temples, which yield 14 culture per turn (although there is a maintenance charge). Those 400 shields will also build a barracks and 18 vet archers for an archer rush sufficient to capture 3 to 5 rival cities. Later in the game when I run out of city improvements to build in my core cities I’ll build Great Wonders like Sistine Chapel, Bach’s, Smith’s, Newton’s, etc.

Because I’m interested in a healthy economy I favor the Republic over Monarchy. I also value research up to Steam Power (for the production gains it yields). After that I tend to turn off research to yield more cash for rushing cultural improvements.

These are just several things I think about when I’m formulating a strategy for a cultural game and I look forward to reading the ideas of my fellow citizens.

 

[Black_Hole]

temples should be the first things built in new cities
our capital should build a temple immediatly, once we get ceremonial burial

 

[Octavian X]

temples should be the first things built in new cities
our capital should build a temple immediatly, once we get ceremonial burial

As an important side note, we already have Ceremonial Burial. Even still, I'd disagree with you - a temple in Camelot won't do us much good if it's our only city. As stated above, part of our strategy for a cultural win should involve rapid expansion.

And, if we are headed for a culture win, our next tech target should be Literature - for both the cultural power of libraries and the Great Library.

 

[Black_Hole]

As an important side note, we already have Ceremonial Burial. Even still, I'd disagree with you - a temple in Camelot won't do us much good if it's our only city. As stated above, part of our strategy for a cultural win should involve rapid expansion.

And, if we are headed for a culture win, our next tech target should be Literature - for both the cultural power of libraries and the Great Library.

oops we do
well it involves the right balance, Im not shur how much slack we have with expaning, I only play on Monarch... so im not shur how fast the AI expand.. but that is probably right

 

[mad-bax]

I will give a more considered answer later, when I have time. For a purely technical strategy with no "entertaiing diversions" I would proceed very roughly as follows.

Expand to the domination limit as quickly as possible by any means possible. Increase city density to ICS limit thereafter.

During expansion phase only build those cultural buildings that are required for reasons other than culture, but no more. Don't build any cultural buildings at all in any case, until we are a republic.

Target Sistines for happiness purposes. Most cities will get Cathederals and it is therefore a cost effective Wonder.

Target Smiths as our GA trigger and time it to complete with learning steam.

Once we control about 30% of available land, then begin to add cultural improvements for their own sake, but balance with unit production.

At domination limit fight further wars to reduce any civs capable of building the space ship.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I think that you have to build culture early and often in order to reach 130K. It is too late to catch up later.

The biggest impact is city density. 12 tiles a city, dense pack. We previously didn't vote for that though, so our approach is a little disjointed.

 

[DaveShack]

I think that you have to build culture early and often in order to reach 130K. It is too late to catch up later.

The biggest impact is city density. 12 tiles a city, dense pack. We previously didn't vote for that though, so our approach is a little disjointed.

There is nothing to say we can't change department level strategies to account for the overall goal. Mad-bax's point, and I happen to agree, is that we have a tendency for each leader to treat his / her position as a standalone entity instead of working toward the common goal.

It is up to all of us, the citizens, to show our leaders that we support coordinating our actions to reach the goal supported by the majority. If you see a strategic plan from a consul which does not support this goal, then point it out and start discussing how to modify it to meet the goal.

 

[MOTH]

I think that you have to build culture early and often in order to reach 130K. It is too late to catch up later.

The biggest impact is city density. 12 tiles a city, dense pack. We previously didn't vote for that though, so our approach is a little disjointed.

That's not true. Go lurk in the SGOTM forum and check out the nice graphs for SGOTM6. Take a look at team Tao's graph vs team Peanut (I'm excluding the team I'm on to avoid spoiler info). You can assume from the graph that team Tao expanded first and then jumped on culture and that Peanut started on culture as soon as initial expansion was over. Right now its still a horse-race as it looks like Tao has more cpt at this point in time but peanut has about a 10 turn lead in total culture.

It shows that you can build lots of culture later once you reach the domination limit and catch up. Its much more important to be able to expand quickly and then conquer quickly.

Consider (with a bunch of assumptions):
Assume our 1st city is averaging 7 spt. The 2nd city will take 20 turns to build the temple and 15 to build the library.

A temple at 60 sheilds and will get 2cpt. Followed by a Library at 80 shields and 3cpt. That's the equivalent of a barracks and 5 vet horses.

I will assume that 5 horses will only capture 1 more cities at which point both cities would build their culture. The only 1 city is a very low assumption as any that live will move on to capture more cities.

Case 1 is culture first then barracks/horses/city capture.
Case 2 is military then culture.

Case 1:
Turns 0-7: 0 cpt
turns 8-20: 2 cpt (26 total) - 1 temple
turns 21-60: 5 cpt (5*40+26 = 226) - 1 temple + library
turns 61-75: 7 cpt (7*15+226 = 331) - 2 temples + library
turns 76+: 10 cpt - 2 temples + 2 libraries

Case 2:
turns 0-27: 0 cpt
turns 28-40: 2 cpt (26) - 1 temple
turns 41-55: 7 cpt (7*15+26 = 131) - 2 temples + library
turns 56-75: 10 cpt (20*10+131 = 331) - 2 temples + 2 libraries
turns 76+: 10 cpt

Wow, I didn't expect my assumptions to work out exactly equal. As soon as you figure in to keep building more Horses instead of culture you will realize that the growth in this case is exponential.