Policy order and timing for cultural victory.

[Wuddel]

So far I only won tech/diplo on G&K (Immortal). What is the most efficient order in G&K. And how do you time it with expansions buildings.

Tradition or Liberty first? Finish up the policy tree or mix and match first. You obviously want to jump into and finish "Piety" as soon as possible.

So Liberty, found 3 cities (for 4 total to get optimal free buildings), build amphitheaters in all of them, and pop "Legalism" afterwards to get 4 free opera houses?

 

[Harv72b]

Legalism is under the Tradition tree, which makes the most sense to pop first (+3 culture to your capital vs. +1/city for Liberty, when you likely only have 1, 2 cities at most). With the free settler policy moved back in G&K, I think it makes the most sense to open Tradition first, then Honor (to get culture by killing barbs), then Liberty. Depending on how far your want to expand, it might make more sense not to even open Liberty, and to spend that early culture working through more of the Tradition tree (for Legalism & the wonder boost), before moving on to piety and then opening Liberty ASAP.

I'm playing at a lower level than Immortal so my timing with buildings is going to be different than yours, but I don't think the policy order would really change depending on level.

Oh, also note that G&K fixed Legalism. It will now "save" your free culture building until it's available, if none are available when you choose it. Not only does that mean that you don't have to wait for the right tech before you pick it, it also means that if you have fewer than 4 cities when you adopt Legalism, your next city(ies) will automatically have a monument.

 

[Wuddel]

Oh, also note that G&K fixed Legalism. It will now "save" your free culture building until it's available, if none are available when you choose it. Not only does that mean that you don't have to wait for the right tech before you pick it, it also means that if you have fewer than 4 cities when you adopt Legalism, your next city(ies) will automatically have a monument.

yes. I have noticed that. But however with legalism already taken new cities will expend there free building on a momument. I guess you will want to push it higher.

 

[Harv72b]

yes. I have noticed that. But however with legalism already taken new cities will expend there free building on a momument. I guess you will want to push it higher.

Two ways of looking at it--pushing it higher is nice, but having an extra culture right off the bat is also nice, or having a brand new city pushing 2 culture/turn with both legalism and Liberty active.

It's always seemed to me that with the population growth between when a city is first founded & when the latter cultural buildings are available, the time necessary to build a monument vs. an opera house is pretty much the same. At least when we're talking about turtling for a culture win vs. expanding in the late game, when all sorts of cultural/religious production bonuses are in play.

 

[Adjuvant]

Tradition, piety and freedom are obvious. Honor depends, really. Will I get more benefit from 2 culture per turn each city with garrison or will the bottom policies from patronage gel better with mandate of heaven? Can I even keep city state allies at the time? Would I ultimately be better off just taking Honor as my "last 6"? I think this is often the case.

If I can keep 2-3 (preferably culture) city states, I want patronage over honor, and not waste slots on honor yet because educated elite gives great people.

Great people are important, and not just artists, but they're the primaries, since I use artist specialists. Great prophets probably won't be used as missionaries since I get culture bonus with them as holy sites finishing piety, and double finishing freedom. An early scientist or two will instantly become academies.

At what point will economic bonuses from commerce help me outright buy the buildings I need? What about protectionism with mandate of heaven? Alot of this all is situational and I kinda "take it as it comes". It can all be so dynamic, I'm not sure there's a solid "route".

 

[Harv72b]

Tradition, piety and freedom are obvious. Honor depends, really. Will I get more benefit from 2 culture per turn each city with garrison or will the bottom policies from patronage gel better with mandate of heaven? Can I even keep city state allies at the time? Would I ultimately be better off just taking Honor as my "last 6"? I think this is often the case.

I think that at the least, you'll want to open Honor early to get the culture for barbarian kills. You can absolutely put off finishing that tree or even moving up to the garrison bonus.

It is obviously situational, and admittedly I'm playing on a lower level, but I've found what works best for me overall is Tradition/Liberty/Honor/Piety/Freedom, although I've also had success in G&K by swapping in Commerce instead of Liberty.

Patronage is nice to have, but it's really only helping by elongating the time between having to re-pay your cultural city states and, later on, the occasional great person gift. You can now make up for the first part through religion and espionage, and of course cultural city states now give you cultural quests, which you should win easily every time. As for the latter, being able to buy specific great people with faith helps to make up for not getting random ones from city states.

 

[Bad Wolf]

new cities will expend there free building on a momument.

I don't see it this way. Usually by the time opera houses become available, your cities should be able to build them with little effort - certainly little enough that it's not worth wasting a social policy (or in this case, denying yourself Landed Elite and Monarchy, not to mention the growth bonus and free aqueducts you get from finishing Tradition). Furthermore, you're denying yourself all the culture you could be accumulating with those monuments (which are more of a pain to get out early on in a brand new city, especially when you might have other things to build at that time like a military or workers) for all the turns you're waiting to get them up. It also helps with border expansion which, if you're going to be a tall empire, you need to grab as many resources as possible, since you won't be expanding much, if at all.

An alternative strategy for cultural victory that I don't see get discussed much is to go for a massive puppet empire; puppets don't give you a social policy accumulation penalty, but they do give you culture so you can accumulate social policies WAY faster than you would otherwise. In my Austria game I ended up doing a space race victory, but I could have waited about 20-30 turns and done a cultural victory, since my many, many puppets were producing a huge amount of culture for my core of about 6 cities. In this case Order instead of Freedom is enormously helpful. I also won a cultural victory as China one time on an Earth map with an absolutely massive empire, no puppets. I allied with all the cultural cities states, chose the Piety tree (as well as Tradition, Liberty, Honour and Order). Built cultural buildings in every city right away. It was rather unorthodox but it did the job!

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think you want to get through the Tradition tree ASAP to start growing your cities, and that means that Legalism will come sooner and you'll have monuments.