RB19 - True Cultural Challenge

[Compromise]

Nice! Good to see that culture accumulation works exactly as you'd expect/hope.

I also wanted to apply this knowledge to understand culture-bombing with a Great Artist. The above would imply that your culturebomb increases the total culture in a city and thus the number of squares that the c-bombed city's culture influences. But, unless the city with your Great Work also has a higher culture generation rate (and the culture bomb doesn't help you here) than cities within the newly expanded cultural radius, you're never going to flip those cities. Is that right?

In fact, to flip a foreign city that's already within your cultural reach, it's better to settle a Great Artist than to create a Great Work because the former affects your rate of cultural control over the tile, whereas the latter affects the number of tiles you assert that control over. Is that right?

Hamburg and Munich are sooo falling to Arabian culture!

 

[Gotag]

In effect, the culture bomb adds to a cities "reach" while the merged artist adds to the strength of that reach. I've had a newer 60% city eat tiles from an enemy 80% city because it produced more culture per turn.

There is a one time additive to the tiles though since a culture bomb will take tiles away from a rival city immediately even though no culture pressure has existed before. I'm not sure how that works.

Gotag

 

[Blake]

Excellent turn set Sulla (of course Id've expected nothing less ), an emphasis on growth is exactly what I would've done.

So okay I have the save and I'm looking around for Things To Do.

Irrigation chaining, one of the simple pleasures of CIV! So irrigation of the plains at Mecca.
Also in Mecca I don't think that temple is actually needed, it's only +1 culture and we have 0/3 hindu temples so it's not like it'll let us build a cathedral anywhere. I'm tempted to build a marketplace but that will provide on average only +3 gold/turn, so I think it might be better to train Conf missionaries and convert JC and also provide +3 gold, as long as they don't fail (which is unlikely since JC's cities only have 1 religion), another option would be Islam/Hindu missionaries to push all of our religions into all of the big 3, altough spreading religion internally is most important when cities actually have the spare produciton cycles to build temples. Thoughts?

At Damascus I think it will be best to shift workers from the 2-1-1 tiles to 3-0-1, this will provide a +3/turn food surplus and growth in 5, this will increase the eta on the wonder by 1 turn (8->9), but I suspect that after growing working a hammery tile with the 11th worker will reclaim that turn.

In Medina a harbor might be better sooner rather than later, to provide +2 health and some extra trade route income.

At our nearly acquired Essen, I see that Sulla already has a workboat enroute, excellent.

I'm not sure what to do once the Medina GP pops, probably switch Medina to 2 artists + max hammers to build the harbor (etc) and run slavery to whip some stuff... slavery does reduce our upkeep too.

Checking Diplomacy, everyone is pleased with us! That's great news! I think I'd still be happier though if JC and Qin had some tension...

I'll play in a few hours, probably, or maybe tommorow.

 

[Compromise]

Also in Mecca I don't think that temple is actually needed, it's only +1 culture and we have 0/3 hindu temples so it's not like it'll let us build a cathedral anywhere. I'm tempted to build a marketplace but that will provide on average only +3 gold/turn, so I think it might be better to train Conf missionaries and convert JC and also provide +3 gold, as long as they don't fail (which is unlikely since JC's cities only have 1 religion), another option would be Islam/Hindu missionaries to push all of our religions into all of the big 3, altough spreading religion internally is most important when cities actually have the spare production cycles to build temples. Thoughts?

I think converting JC is a great idea, but since relations seem decent and since we have the tech to whip some longbow defense in an emergency, I lean toward the internal religion spread first.

I'm not sure exactly how the AIs "Declare War on the Human" algorithm works, but Sullla probably bought us a short reprieve from Roman hostility when he gave Julius Paper in 1210AD. That leans me further toward the internal spread of religion.

I'm not sure what to do once the Medina GP pops, probably switch Medina to 2 artists + max hammers to build the harbor (etc) and run slavery to whip some stuff... slavery does reduce our upkeep too.

How about this: if we pop a Great Artist, switch to Slavery and celebrate by whipping. If we don't, keep running caste until the next GP or the discovery of Liberalism, whichever comes first. It may not be optimal gameplay, but it sure seems like a crying shame that we haven't generated a Great Artist yet.

 

[·Imhotep·]

Lurker's comment:

The gold from converting JC is just a side effect. I would estimate that the value of the created tensions between JC and the other AI is greater than that. In fact you could use JC as a shield which will fend off every hostility against you. Once he is pleased/friendly with you JC is a good pal and very worthy for trades. So I would recommend trying to convert him as long as you got Open Borders with him and he's not in Theocracy...

·Imhotep·

 

[Blake]

Turn 0: 1250AD.
I've decided to go ahead with operation Roman Tension.

Turn 1:
A Christain and Conf missionary complete.

Turn 2:
Holy crap! I was expecting this to be an exciting turn because of the GP generation!

Tokugawa is basically horribly behind in tech, other than the usual (optics and calendar), he's especially behind in cultural techs.

I've heard of starving artists and tragic artists, but artists who neglect to bathe?!!!

Thepis (woohoo!) is scurried over towards Damascus.

Christainity is successfully pushed into Mecca.

A conf monastary is whipped into Kufah, a harbor is whipped into Basra (lots of overflow towards a conf temple).

Turn 3:
More missionaries.

Turn 4:
Thepis is settled into Dam bringing it from 41 to 55 culture.

I trade fish to JC for 6g/turn.

Turn 5:
Not too much happened.

Turn 6:
Hindu is pushed into Dam.

Turn 7:
I could switch back to Caste now, but I think we want to keep building stuff...

Basically more missionaries, more religion spreading.

Turn 8:
Not to sound like a stuck record... but more missionaries, more religion spreading.

Turn 9:
We complete a very expensive but oh so cultural paper-weight (without a state religion, it gives us no income)

Turn 10: 1350AD
I whipped an Elephant into Najran - put it into Damascus, I'm not comfortable with our holy city being so vulnerable to knights attacking from german culture.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/RB19-AD-1350.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Blake]

Temple counts:
Christ: 5/6 (6 cities have Christ) - Build temple in Mecca.
Conf: 5/6 (7 cities have Conf)
Islam: 1/3 (3 cities have Islam, 1 missionary enroute) - Islamic temple can be whipped into Kufah for one pop.
Hindu: 1/3 (3 cities have Hindu) - Ignore Hindusim for now.
Buddhist 1/3 (1 city have Buddhism) - Ignore Buddhism for now.

I have queued temples as appropriate and tried to ensure that all of our cities have useful cultural builds (either cathedrals or temples to enable more cathedrals).

Mecca: Crank out the Christain Cathedral then Temple, then go to maximum growth (I think that'd be best) and University.

Medina: The harbor will complete and free up 2 health, Medina will grow. Work all coast and run 2 artists.

In general:
We can build Universities now, and they would probably be a good idea especially in Mecca and Medina.

Workers don't have much to do, so continue to chop marginal forest.


Diplomacy:
Qin will trade us any tech except Philosophy. Judging by what he'll trade for Education, he is probably already halfway through researching it. He'll give us something useful for Divine Right, Engineering might be a good choice if we want to make the trade (I think the remaining wonder on DR is far too expensive to bother with).
Next turn we'll have a 3rd fish hooked up, we should trade it to Qin for 7gpt.


I'm pretty sure that Caesar will either switch naturally to Conf soon, or we could change to Conf for 5 turns and ask him to switch out of friendship - this might annoy the others though, altough in just 5 turns it's unlikely they'd try anything - 5 turns of conf and Org.Rel might be good for building stuff too.

I think we should go with a non-credible military, as long as we remain without a state religion it seems to be one big happy family. If we do get attacked... well we go into emergency defense mode - Slavery, Theocracy, 100% gold, upgrade, poprush etc... we can hold off any attack, it'll be expensive, but probably we can recover in only like 20 turns. But better yet would be never having to invest in a military.

I was checking every turn for "We have enough on our hands" and continuing to do so might be a good idea.

I can't think of anything else right now.

edit: Okay, to elaborate on the Liberialsm situation:
Qin has Philosophy and we havn't started it yet.
We have Education and Qin is currentely researching it, probably has about 1200 beakers to go.

At the moment it looks like we are tied. It might be a good idea to get Universities in ASAP (maybe even switch to them NOW in Mecca, Damascus and next build in Medina) and also avoid whipping any coastal workers. Qin is bigger than us and Financial, so we might need the edge cheap universities give us to beat him.
Getting Liberalism first (and thus free nationalism) should more than cover any lost culture.

One other thing:
Don't worry about Marketplaces (etc), we can run 80% science even without them. In a normal cultural victory marketplaces would eb useful as they would allow running the culture slider higher, but in this case we can't use the culture slider. As such marketplaces would only improve our research speed. More research is good, but Universities will improve our research speed more, and Cathedrals will definitely help out our culture a lot more than any fruits of research. So ignore marketplaces unless there is nothing else to build.

 

[Sullla]

I downloaded the save, and everything looks good (as usual). One thing I thought I'd mention - any reason why we shouldn't pop into Caste System and run as many Artists as we can support at Medina? I'm sure that we can go without whipping for the 10 or so turns we'll need to increase our odds of getting another Artist in that city. I concur with the rest of Blake's suggestions on what to build.

Qwack is up next, please post your availability one way or the other in the next 24 hours.

 

[Qwack]

Got it, ill have it played in 12-36 hours.

 

[Blake]

I downloaded the save, and everything looks good (as usual). One thing I thought I'd mention - any reason why we shouldn't pop into Caste System and run as many Artists as we can support at Medina? I'm sure that we can go without whipping for the 10 or so turns we'll need to increase our odds of getting another Artist in that city. I concur with the rest of Blake's suggestions on what to build.

There's no particular reason. I did a whipping or two on my last turn.
And I REALLY wanted that Harbor in Medina (Harbor = big trade routes + Academy = Science!) which meant working hammery stuff so *I* couldn't run any more artists.
But with the Harbor in place there's no particular reason to not go with caste.
Altough I would still reccomend working the horses at all times in order to get the cultural infrastructure finished faster.

edit: Actually there might be one reason. I think that maximizing science SHOULD be one of our objectives until liberialism, so I'm actually going to reccomend staying at maximum hammers until the University is completed in Medina. After the university is in would be a good time to switch to Caste and add a bunch more artists.

 

[Qwack]

Turns completed. No time for detailed report but ill post a summary.

As far as I can see, University in Medina would take like 4 turns with the artists and 3 turns without them. So I decided to switch to organized and caste system and put 2 more artists in Medina. Scientist popped in Damuscus, and in this situation I saw no reason to not make an academy in Mecca. We are racing towards liberalism and printing press will not benefit us much at the moment since we are running alot of farms.

I did exactly what Blake suggested, switch to conf and ask JC to switch. Check it out:



We meet cyrus in 1400. Hes as pathetically behind tech wise as Tokugawa, and hes also jewish.



Philosophy comes in 1420 BC, I immedietely start on liberalism. So anyways, the situation is as follows: Liberalism will come in 4 turns with some micromanagement. We have a artist at 65+% odds in medina which is due in 1 turn. I have started more temples throughout our empire, we want to get atleast 6 for all the religions we have. And have built some universities throughout our empire as well. We are still in Caste System, I didnt see any reason to switch back to slavery.

The save:

 

[Sullla]

Good to hear that we got Caesar to convert to Confucianism, especially without having to give him anything for it. We have Pleased relations with all of the AI civs on our continent, and since some of them have much worse relations with one another, I think we're pretty safe from an attack. Even if one should come, we'll have Nationalism via a Liberalism grab in just 4 more turns, and emergency drafting should keep us safe in all but the most dire of circumstances. (For that matter - how about Taj in Damascus once we have Nationalism?)

Some other things that I'm wondering after looking at the save... If we were in Confucianism for 5 turns, I'm surprised we went with Organized Religion rather than Pacifism for more Great Person points, given that we weren't working on any wonders. As far as the Great Scientist that we did generate, I probably would have used him in Damascus rather than Mecca. Both cities are horrible at commerce (don't let Mecca's Bureaucracy bonus fool you), and Damascus could have used the culture more. Not a huge deal, of course...

There are a couple of weedy moves going on in the game right now though. Mecca is still running max shields, getting a measly ONE food per turn - while working on a temple! This is a golden time to be growing the city, so I have no clue what's going on now. Medina is in STARVATION to build a courthouse!

I'm sorry but this is just not the way the city should be managed. When we go the Artist route, Medina needs to give up the plains hill and the plains horses tiles. That gets it up to 5 Artists, with NO food loss. Furthermore, we have virtually no use whatsoever for courthouses in our tiny empire here. Medina SHOULD be working on some Buddhist missionaries, since it's still our only city with that religion. What's going on now is severely non-optimal.

There is also some work to be done on the trading side of things. We can send our extra fishes to Qin for a gold resource. Cyrus is WAY behind in tech, and we can send him backwards stuff like Code of Laws (!) for tech. We should also pick up his world map in the process and find out where the other continent is. I also think it's high time we traded away Divine Right for something good from Qin; see what he's willing to part with. We can stay caught up in tech, but we need to work at it and be diligent with our trading.

Mecca: 5635 culture, 117/turn (Christian cathedral, Confucian/Islamic temples)
Medina: 4622 culture, +87/turn (Buddhist/Christian/Confucian/Islamic temples)
Damascus: 3514 culture, +99/turn (Confucian cathedral, Christian/Confucian temples)

Buddhism: present in 1 city (Medina), 1 temple
Christianity: present in 6 cities (all but Essen), 5/6 temples (missing Mecca)
Confucianism: present in all 7 cities, 5/7 temples (missing Kufah and Essen)
Hinduism: present in 3 cities (Mecca/Damascus/Basra), 0/3 temples
Islam: present in 5 cities (all but Damascus/Basra), 2/5 temples (Mecca and Medina)

Clearly we still have some religious spreading and temple whipping to be done. (After we generate a Great Person next turn in Medina, it's ABSOLUTELY time to go back to Slavery for 5 turns and do some whipping. Those temples aren't going to build themselves!) It's also time to build that whale city in the south and start spreading some religions into it. That will get us up to 8 cities, and we'll need it for more temples/cathedrals.

Compromise is up.

Sullla
Blake
Quack
Compromise <<< UP NOW
Garath <<< on deck

 

[Blake]

A courthouse will save us a constant 4g/turn in Medina which isn't horrible - it looked a bit weedy, but Medina doesn't really have anything that useful to build and the other cities don't seem to be lacking cultural options so pushing out more missionaries isn't immediately essential. I think we should always work the Horses there, since the tile does half feed itself. I agree with not working the Plains Hill though - what I'd do is move the PH worker to the coast and continue running 4 artists.

Other comments...
Trading the fish. Definitely. Trading that fish right away would already have earned us about 60g, possibly enough to shave a turn off liberalism (it was weed of me to not get the workboat out earlier).

Organized Religion vs Pacifism... I'd actually have gone with Org too. We already have +100% gpp bonus everywhere and +200% in Medina and I'm not sure what Paci would've done to our upkeeps (it's a pity you can't "try before comitting").

Diplomacy:
Be careful of what we trade with the other continent civs. Cryus is worst enemies with someone on our continent, and it stands to reason that someone could be worst enemies with Cryus. Making some trades with Cryus could result in some serious negatives. I didn't have any luck getting Caesar/Qin/Biz to tell me who thier worst enemies are - prehaps they havn't decided yet, or are worst enemies with someone we havn't met yet.

At the moment it seems to be Us against Them, with Us being everyone on our landmass and Them being those nasty civs living over the seas. This is good for Arabia, since as long as Us is unified there wont be any pesky demands from Qin/Caesar/Biz to stop trading with Qin/Caesar/Biz - Us can remain one big happy family, unified by our common hatred of Them.

So think thrice before any trade deal with those who live overseas. The only exception is demands - giving into demands does not count as a trade.

 

[Compromise]

Got it. Will play the turns within about 36 hours. Looks like it will be time again for some whip-cracking.

 

[Compromise]

Only played 5 turns. This gets us back on a reasonable turn-date setup and permits discussion before continuing.

Turn 0, 1450AD: Switched Mecca to high food for growth. Pulled citizen off the plains hill and made him into an artist. Changed Medina to Buddhist missionary in preparation for switch to Slavery next turn. Switched Kufah to Christian missionary to be whipped next turn.

Also, I notice that both Bismarck and Julius won't trade techs with us because the fear we are becoming too advanced!!! This causes me not to trade anything in this turnset, pending discussion with everyone.

Turn 1, 1460AD: Interturn: Cyrus wants Open Borders. I decline, because Julius and Qin are Annoyed with him, and without Astronomy, there will be no trade routes.

University completes in Damascus, start a Hindu Temple

Big news:

Wang Xizhi (a Great Artist) is born in Medina! I send him to settle down in Damascus.

To celebrate the birth of the Artist, I switch to Slavery and go on a whipping spree. Buddhist missionary in Medina, Christian missionary in Kufah, Islamic Temple in Najran, Granary in Essen.

I had to pull an scientist off the boards in Medina and get him working the coast.

Turn 2, 1470AD: Hindu Temple completes in Mecca, start an Islamic Mosque. After the whips, start Longbow in Najran (there's no barracks, but I couldn't think of anything else to build there now), start Settler in Basra, and start Confucian Temple in Essen. Send Christian missionary to Essen and Buddhist missionary to Najran.

Turn 3, 1480AD: Hindu Temple completes in Damascus...
just as Wang settles down there; start Hindu Mandir. Whip another Buddhist missionary in Medina, an Islamic Temple in Kufah, the Settler in Basra and a Confucian Temple in Essen.

Turn 4, 1490AD:
We get Liberalism. Are we first?

Indeed we are! I choose Nationalism and set the science slider to 0% research. I'm not sure where to tech next, so I aim for Printing Press. We need Optics, but I'm not sure if we want to trade for it or not.

Turn 5, 1500AD:
Missionaries are very successful, spreading Buddhism in Kufah and Najran and Christianity in Essen! Very good fortune considering that all those cities had several religions already. I switch Najran from the Longbow to a Buddhist Temple and queue up a Christian Temple in Essen.

I found our whaling city of Khurasan on the Black Dot site. It has one more non-shared coastal square than the site one square NE of it.

The forests that I thought were going to be used to chop in some infrastructure here were being chopped when I started this turnset, and I didn't notice in time to stop them. So, this is indeed a desolate community.

As a parting blow on the Arabian people, I whip a Confucian Temple in Kufah.

Garath is up with the attached save.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, so there are a few issues to discuss. One is our tech trading. Two of the three civs on our island will no longer trade with us, at least not at "Pleased" attitudes. We have Liberalism and Divine Right that we can trade to Qin, though. And Cyrus is willing to trade with us, though both Julius and Qin are Annoyed with him, so I'm reluctant to irritate them.

Even though we'll need Optics when Khurasan's borders pop, t seems like a waste to research it when we can get it from Qin.

I'm thinking the Taj can go in Damascus, while Mecca can have the Hermitage. I'm on the fence about whether to put the Hermitage in the poorest producer of culture or the richest. Biggest benefit is the latter, especially if we plan to have an artist or two to play catch up at the end. Also, I just checked and at the moment, Damascus is our biggest culture producer!

Our new whaling town could use a couple religions. It's so slow growing, though, that we can wait until one spreads there on its own before using missionaries there. I hope it happens soon, though, so we can start working the whales.

As for the next research aim, I'm just not sure. I chose Printing Press because it'll help our towns and villages, but I'm not convinced that's the best at this point.

Hope the 5 turns was okay. Seemed like a good place to stop.

 

[Sullla]

Generally the turns look good. I don't understand whipping Medina - twice! - for missionaries though. Seeing as how Medina can get a good 15 shields per turn, for a missionary every 3 turns, that seems like a totally bizzare decision to me.

Both Damascus and Mecca have one cathedral already and are working on their second. If we are going to put Hermitage anywhere, it should be in Medina (since the other two cities both have +100% culture already, or will shortly). Based on our current situation, I actually think we should put Taj in Mecca, not Damascus (since we run a big risk of losing out on the wonder entirely if we wait to build it in Damascus). Other thoughts welcome, of course.

About civs worrying about becoming too advanced... yeah, it's going to happen. So what, big deal. Does that mean we're going to stop trading? No. It would be a rare situation indeed where I would pass up on a trading opportunity out of fear of worsening the WFYABTA situation. If Qin is the only one who wants to trade with us, so be it. We'll just trade with him instead. Even if Caesar and Bismarck don't like Cyrus, I still think it would be crazy not to trade with him. When I see the potential to pick up at least three techs in trades at no cost to us... well, I think it's silly not to pull the trigger. We can get Optics and Engineering from Cyrus, and then more goodies from Qin after that. Of course, I'm willing to hear other opinions too.

As far as playing 5 turns... it's kind of odd, but I suppose no harm was done. Somewhere along the way we do seem to have gotten off a bit on the turn numbers. Just make sure that the next player (Garath) remembers to revolt to Free Speech on the following turn!

Mecca: 6223, +118/turn (1 cathedral, building cathedral #2)
Medina: 5015, +75/turn
Damascus: 4071, +126/turn (1 cathedral, building cathedral #2)

I think it's clear that Medina needs Hermitage the most!

PS Future Great Artists from this point on should probably be saved for Great Works, not used as specialists. And we STILL have not sent our extra fish resource to Qin for his extra gold. Maybe I'm the only one who constantly checks the trading screens!

 

[Compromise]

Generally the turns look good. I don't understand whipping Medina - twice! - for missionaries though. Seeing as how Medina can get a good 15 shields per turn, for a missionary every 3 turns, that seems like a totally bizzare decision to me.

Hmmm. My justification is that the tiles that the whipped citizens were working were either ocean tiles or plains forests. In both cases, it seemed like the 30 hammers from whipping that citizen would be more efficient, especially since Medina has so much food and we're not near the happiness limit. Also, I felt the need to get Buddhism out in the world, since Medina was the only city of ours to have it. Both Buddhist missionaries spread their faith on the same turn, and the second was mostly to back up the first in the likely event of failure. I'm not sure though, that the missionary currently queued up is the best thing for production there.

Both Damascus and Mecca have one cathedral already and are working on their second. If we are going to put Hermitage anywhere, it should be in Medina (since the other two cities both have +100% culture already, or will shortly). Based on our current situation, I actually think we should put Taj in Mecca, not Damascus (since we run a big risk of losing out on the wonder entirely if we wait to build it in Damascus). Other thoughts welcome, of course.

Actually, I think you're quite right here. The Taj needs to be produced in one of our high-production cities.

About civs worrying about becoming too advanced... yeah, it's going to happen. So what, big deal. Does that mean we're going to stop trading? No. It would be a rare situation indeed where I would pass up on a trading opportunity out of fear of worsening the WFYABTA situation. If Qin is the only one who wants to trade with us, so be it. We'll just trade with him instead. Even if Caesar and Bismarck don't like Cyrus, I still think it would be crazy not to trade with him. When I see the potential to pick up at least three techs in trades at no cost to us... well, I think it's silly not to pull the trigger. We can get Optics and Engineering from Cyrus, and then more goodies from Qin after that. Of course, I'm willing to hear other opinions too.

I'm glad to get your opinion on this. Fortunately, the trades I passed on are still available.

[...]
Mecca: 6223, +118/turn (1 cathedral, building cathedral #2)
Medina: 5015, +75/turn
Damascus: 4071, +126/turn (1 cathedral, building cathedral #2)
[...]
PS Future Great Artists from this point on should probably be saved for Great Works, not used as specialists. And we STILL have not sent our extra fish resource to Qin for his extra gold. Maybe I'm the only one who constantly checks the trading screens!

Arrgh! That fish trade was just boneheaded on my part. I thought I'd made that trade for 8GPT instead of the gold resource, but I must have hit Cancel instead of Okay. Do you think we should trade for GPT rather than the gold resource? (Edit: I thought Qin had high GPT for trade, and he did in 1450AD, but he doesn't now . So, for now, it might be better to get the gold resource. If he or someone who needs fish gets to the point of having 8GPT or something, that might be a better deal for our fish than the gold resource. So, the following suggestion doesn't apply, at least not right now.) We have a lot of happiness already, and the tiles that extra gold resource would open up are not very good. We're going to be whipping Temples in the minor cities, and they aren't growing so fast as to run into serious whipping unhappiness. Our happy-limited cities are going to be our big cultural production center. And until we get lumbermills, those marginal tiles might not pay off as much as simple gold-per-turn (renegotiable as Qin frees up more cash flow). Just a thought.

As for the use of Great Artists. At the end of the game, we'll probably be getting at least +300% culture in each of our major cities, so a settled artist will be producing 14x4=56 culture-per-turn. It takes 72 turns to get more from a settled Artist than the 4000 culture a great work will produce.

Without using the culture slider, I think we're looking at around 100 base culture from each of our major cities (from religions and buildings). With +300%, that's 400 culture per turn. It seems to me that even the next Artist or two could be settled and earn more culture than a Great Work.

Without getting too complicated, maybe a rule of thumb for whether or not to settle the Artist might be: (50,000-<PresentCulture>)/400. This is roughly the number of turns until we win the cultural victory if we've got 100 base culture in each city and have +300% culture (4 cathedrals+Free Speech). If that number is > 70, then it's probably better to settle the artist. Even if it's around 80, I suppose it might be better to save the Artist for evening-out the culture between the 3 cities. (Right now, that number is around 110 or so for our cities.) I'm certainly open to discussion/criticism on this.

 

[Sullla]

Only thing is, we're not going to get up to that +300% culture for a LONG time yet, and even then it would still take 72 turns (!) for the culture to equal that from a Great Work. Not to mention that we can wait and use the culture bombs in the locations where they will be most needed. I'm no math expert on this (and if someone wants to crunch the numbers in more detail, please be my guest!), but my gut feeling tells me that we'll get more value from holding off any future Great Artists and saving them for Great Works.

Anyway, Garath remains up. Please post your status for us in the next 24 hours, Garath.

 

[Compromise]

...if someone wants to crunch the numbers in more detail, please be my guest!...

I guess since I started doing numbers, I'll keep doing them .

All our culture cities except Medina have a +50% building and next turn, we'll have +100% from Free Speech when we're allowed to switch civics again.

Here's the analysis for the situation as it is right now. All our cities have about 80 base culture. They'll have roughly 150% culture bonuses very soon. (And somebody's going to be at +250% with the Hermitage!) They have about 5,000 culture and so need 45,000 culture to go Legendary. The table below assumes we only get one more Artist and that the culture rate stays the same the rest of the game. I know that's wrong, but here's where it leads. [Note: Column (6) is (50000-<RequiredCulture)/<City cpt>]

    (1)              (2)             (3)           (4)        (5)         (6)
Culture Bonus    Settled cpt    Turns to equal  City cpt   Required    Turns to 
    (CB%)          (14+CB%)       Great Work    (80+CB%)    Culture     Victory
-------------    -----------    --------------  --------   --------    --------
    150%             35              114           200      45,000        225
    200%             42               95           240      45,000        188
    250%             49               82           280      45,000        161
    300%             56               72           320      45,000        141

Note that the higher our culture bonus is, the less benefit there is to settling the artists. That's because the cities already have more than +14 cpt so the bonus acts more strongly on what's already there than on the newly settled artist. So, assuming +300% culture favors saving the artists for great works rather than settling them. That's why I used that bonus in my earlier analysis.

As the game goes on, we'll build wonders or settle artists, so our base city culture (80 in the above table) will go up. It's not going to go up too much, though. We won't build more than another wonder or two--or settle more than one artist or so--in each city.

Also, our required culture (45,000) will go down because our cities keep accumulating culture, though it will go down slowly because we're only making around 200 cpt until we get all those Cathedrals, etc. built.

Both of those factors will drive down the number of turns-to-victory. When it gets to be anywhere near close, we should save the artists for Great Works because they also have the use of catching up the slower cities.

But right now, even if we had the biggest bonus we could, a settled artist is worth about 2 Great Works.

Bottom Line (or at least what I think this shows ):
I think for the next 40 turns or so (1500+5x40 = around 1700AD), it will probably be better to settle any artists. (That's about 1 more turnset for everyone.) But again, I'm just making rough guesses. I'm certainly open to criticism here.

Also, I do apologize for not getting Qin's 8gpt when I had the chance. I'm still kicking myself about that one.