Role Play Challenge: A Gentleman of Culture II

[absimiliard]

When chasing culture-wins I typically settle early GPs in an effort to rougly equalize my culture-producing cities. (Well, the three I need for the win that is, I don't settle GAs in other cities)

Late-game GAs get saved for the penultimate turn when I bomb them into the three cities and go for the win.

This helps me keep my cities VERY close in culture. That means I can almost always win the turn my first city gets to 50k (I play normal speed). Without the early settling I find the cities can be tough to keep even enough to win in one turn. Not settling usually means 1-2 cities hit legendary turns before the other one does. I don't like that.

-abs

 

[BARBEERIAN]

Thanks to all for the support and advice!!!!

A few things to discuss

1) The rest of the World. By some responses and accidently seeing the spoiler after posting a reply (I thought spoilers stayed spoiled while replying) looks like SOmeone got teh AP and tried to leverage that for a Diplo victory. I know in the Shadow Monty was the culprit but that could be different in mine as I am pretty sure it was popped by a GE (came fast after theology was founded). SO my way to combat this?? Very simply, I adopt Mercantilism and refuse to open borders or build any more cities after first contact. I believe that prevents the ASI from sending a missionary into Zulu land for that one lone city.

2) What to do with my GAs? Some say settle them, which is 3 gold, 3 beakers, 14 culture (we have the SC). Without any modifiers that's about 850 turns to even out with a culture bomb. Free Speech doubles it so we are down to 400+ turns, plus the late wonders, Broadcast towers , and teh hermitage city. It's against every culture win I have ever done, but this may be the correct thing to do with the GA's I have already. The gold and beakers certainly would come in handy!!! What does everyone think of this?

3) I am seriously considering playing the game out with the tech tree and avoiding cutlure slider to see how fast we can get that cutlural win using wonders, GAs, and artist specialists! Sort of like the HOLY SAL game in reverse where we stopped before scientific method and used no artist specialists or GAs. What do you all think of that idea??

2) Settled GA's are usually better for Cultural vics earlier on. There comes a point in time where there aren't enough turns left for the settled GA to equalize the bomb, so from that point onward only bomb. It depends on a bunch of factors depending on the city (how many cathedrals? hermitage? etc) so you'll have to do some quick math to approximate it (it's not really exact unless you can pinpoint the turn you'll win!) One thing not to forget is you shouldn't try and estimate it based on the number of turns left until 2050, but rather how many turns are left until you think you'll win.

3) Personally I think you're better off (score wise anyway) getting Liberalism for Free Speech, finishing up Rifling for defense and setting 0% science and maxing culture (build wealth in any city that isn't part of the 3 Legendary sites until you can get it to 100% culture). I recently nabbed a BTS cultural victory only 1 of the modern culture wonders had been built by the time I won. Even then it was about 10-15 turns before I won IIRC so it really would've slowed me down waiting for it. Setting my slider to +100% and building only culture producing buildings or raw culture in the Big Three was much faster. You actually might want to avoid wonders late in the game in the big cities. Chances are the Hammer -> Culture per turn will pay bigger dividends than the amount the wonder generates.

 

[semirami]

2)

3) Personally I think you're better off (score wise anyway) getting Liberalism for Free Speech, finishing up Rifling for defense and setting 0% science and maxing culture (build wealth in any city that isn't part of the 3 Legendary sites until you can get it to 100% culture). I recently nabbed a BTS cultural victory only 1 of the modern culture wonders had been built by the time I won. Even then it was about 10-15 turns before I won IIRC so it really would've slowed me down waiting for it. Setting my slider to +100% and building only culture producing buildings or raw culture in the Big Three was much faster. You actually might want to avoid wonders late in the game in the big cities. Chances are the Hammer -> Culture per turn will pay bigger dividends than the amount the wonder generates.

I really dont know, why you should go in 0% research. Your 3 Legendary cities produce very limited comerce , as the most citizens are artist specialist and the rest work farms/food resources, so you will gain nothing. Actually it is less than nothing, because you will damage your good comerce cities and will produce culture there, instead of research. Not to mention that the culture from slider is not affected by any multipliers.

In my shadow game I actualy increased the culture slider to 20%, but for different reason. Happiness. It increased the culture rate in one of the legendary from 460 to 464. Verry "impressive".

 

[madscientist]

Shaka A Gentleman of Culture: Part IV

Yes, Shaka is very happy and delighted with all the entertainment arround. He has built massive amount of culture through his wonderful artists, and has met some uncooth foreigners who cannot hold a candle to his technical abilities, nor his fine class.

OK, first of all we teched off civil service/Iron Working/Paper

And decided Shaka did not those brown barbarians spoiling his nice countryside views, so we disposed of them.

We saved the two barb cities as I think it's in our best interest to start building an empire which Shaka relaxes to the peaceful music.

We met the first off-continent Ai leaders earlier than I expected

Well, I think I will bump up the research and military a bit as I do not trust the Dutch UU

We manage a good trade, but refuse to open borders as discussed earlier.

We also swapped map for map to reveal

OK, Gilgamesh is out there but looks like only two to that cintinent. How exactly does hemispheres work here???

We built another wonder in Paris

We lost out on the University of Sakore and The Mausoleum.

We teched education and liberalism next and

First there so we take nationalism and begin the Taj in Paris. We adjust the civics

Almost completely there.

Oh, I alomost forgot. Those saved 2 Great Artists I setteld in Kyoto. I settled one more and culture bombed all three with three more this segment.

WE built the Forbidden Palace in Kyotot and are 10 turns from the hermitage there at the save.

We popped another wonder in Parris (before we started on the Taj).

And made a minot trade for some need cash with Willem, last 3 turns of drama for 360 gold.

There was a slgith race with Willem for the Taj as he teched nationalism manually.

Techpath for the rest of the segment

gunpowder/machinery/fuedalism/Guilds/Banking/Economics

Once we teched banking during the Taj GA we altered our civics for the final time

We finally met Gilgamech

And traded Philosphy to him

The map from Gilgamesh indicates Monty and Joaoa are on a continent to themselves and likely at each other's throat considering the number of GGs that have popped up. With Joao and his UU there I setup optics as the next tech at the save.

We traded liberalsim to Will for engineering which allowed him to adopt FR and greatly improved our relations.

Now we did pop i Great Scientist out of Paris (damn greta library) which we used to build an academy in Ulundi. We also got the free SM from economics which we stowed away for Sid's Sushi

We saved here and I will continue the post save report in the next post.

 

[madscientist]

Shaka A Gentleman of Culture: PArt IV continued

Game report so far

Power graph

Replacing archers with muskets helped out alot!!!

Our cities

I am planning and building maybe 5 more settlers as we speak.

Victory conditions.

Nice and balanced. wonders in Ulundi and Paris, settled GAs and soon the hermitage in Kyoto. NO culture slider and NO catherdrals.

And the three cities so far

Kyoto area

Ulundi Area

Paris Area

Right now before any additional artists or wonders the needed turns for each city

Ulundi = 336
Paris - 486
Kyoto = 433

OK, next two GAs culture bomb Paris and Kyotot.

At this point I am tech optics so I can find what Monty and Joaoa are about.

Techpath after that: Printing Press then I do not know????

I'll probably go beeline towards corporation, then scientific method/biology/medicine.

However, I am not sure even get far enoguh to adopt Sid's. SM will kill the Parthenon, but we need that for sid's

Well, how are we doing!!!

 

[Mesousa]

Looking good, including the scoreboard.

We finally met Gilgamech

The gilgamech, far superior to a standard battlemech.

 

[Morgrad]

Question (I won't have time to play my shadow game until probably Saturday): how many turns are there in Marathon?

Without culture-bombs you need 486 turns in Paris - how late in the game is that? If it's into the mid-late 1900s it might be difficult to prevent AI space race. If not, just stay powerful enough to fight off any invaders. Of course, you're probably going to have a few artists between now and then...

When you meet Monty, be his best pal from the start - he's always good for beating up a competing neighbor. Of course, you might already have -4 "You have traded with our worst enemies"

 

[madscientist]

Question (I won't have time to play my shadow game until probably Saturday): how many turns are there in Marathon?

Without culture-bombs you need 486 turns in Paris - how late in the game is that? If it's into the mid-late 1900s it might be difficult to prevent AI space race. If not, just stay powerful enough to fight off any invaders. Of course, you're probably going to have a few artists between now and then...

When you meet Monty, be his best pal from the start - he's always good for beating up a competing neighbor. Of course, you might already have -4 "You have traded with our worst enemies"

Arround 1500 I believe. The game should be over before 1800 AD.

 

[Killroyan]

Definitely start to settle the fishing cities. Sids sushi isn't that far away. How about the other cooperations? I guess the next artists is going to be saved for that. If you can get Biology up it will only become better. So far this looks great. Nicely done.

 

[grandad1982]

How about an early industrial age war to spice things up a little bit? You could think of it like touring a play!

 

[CivMcNut]

I think you're on cruise control about now. Just make sure you don't get your guard down with military, you'd hate to see Monty come cruising in there with 5 galleons loaded with troops and have a major city sacked.

It's been nice though, the focus has been on the win for some time now, rather than diplomacy.

 

[madscientist]

Touring a Play, gotta love it. Follwers of my RPCs are definitely a warlike bunch. Shaka is having too much fun at the theater to be bothered with such things.

VicMcNut, yep I am on the lookput. One reason I did the gunpowder avenue early in the last segment. Looks like Will and Gilg do not have it yet, which is good. I am teching optics to see what Monty and Joaoa are up to. Monty I assume is a way off from Atronomy but Joao has that UU which could concievably cause trouble. If Monty and Joao are going at it, I am not concerned, but if one vassals then it's an issue.

Still I am pretty much tech king so far, but I will be on the lookout.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

One point for Sid's you might want to foound a few coastal cities since there are a number of seafood resources just out of reach (probably one South and North on the Eastern Coast)

As for Tech Path... I'd get
Optics,
Democracy for SoL,
Rifling
Physics (free GS for Aluminum co. to boost Creative Constructions)
Corporations (Corp->Medicine->Combustion->Rocketry)
Industrialism (for Aluminum for CC and Last military Tech)
Mass Media

I wouldn't bother with the Culture slider

One side note... I'm not sure if you have a dedicated military city, but you might want to use the other benefit of Caste System now and Workshop it up. (since you have Guilds so they are -1F +3H)

 

[madscientist]

One point for Sid's you might want to foound a few coastal cities since there are a number of seafood resources just out of reach (probably one South and North on the Eastern Coast)

As for Tech Path... I'd get
Optics,
Democracy for SoL,
Rifling
Physics (free GS for Aluminum co. to boost Creative Constructions)
Corporations (Corp->Medicine->Combustion->Rocketry)
Industrialism (for Aluminum for CC and Last military Tech)
Mass Media

I wouldn't bother with the Culture slider

One side note... I'm not sure if you have a dedicated military city, but you might want to use the other benefit of Caste System now and Workshop it up. (since you have Guilds so they are -1F +3H)

Good suggestion about the military city except it's already stagnant in food at the moment. However there are some other choices for a second city so workshops are a good option there.

Once I fin the idiot Aztec I will see what he has. I plan to tech the rifling path as soon as someone either astronomy and replcable part.

I do not have a really great production city that can easily tackle the SoL wonder and I am uncertain whether that one additional free artist in the big three cities will make a difference. Since I plan to stick with caste system the entire game, seams little use for the constitution/democracy path unless I am missing something else (which I might). We already have access to US if we ever need that

Seams like PP/SM/biology may be the next path. Perhaps a slight deviation to communism and spawn a second GA. I'll lose the parthenon, but also lose the GL and those filthy scienctists who are poluting Paris' GA farm. From there it makes sense to hit astonomy/physics/electricity/radio/MM but that's a big amount of tech to chew on especially I'll likely need to hit the rifle path by then.

So PP/SM/Bio. Any other tech's I am missing for that path????

 

[grandad1982]

Are you planning to settle by all those unused flood plains?

Just thinking you could cottage them up and make a few wealth cities and then maybe you could knock the sci slider up a little.

 

[madscientist]

Are you planning to settle by all those unused flood plains?

Just thinking you could cottage them up and make a few wealth cities and then maybe you could knock the sci slider up a little.

Yes I am. If you notice the top of the river west of Ulundi is already cottaged and the settler is being build. With all the wonders in the key cities and courthouses/ikandi in hte newer cities it just has not been a top priority. I ahve tried to settle the resource areas first.

So much to do, but to tell the truth I a little scared to tear Shaka away from his entertainments, so we are proceeding a little slow there. Not every game you gotta settle such a large continent yourself!

 

[madscientist]

Shaka A Gentleman of Culture: FIN

Yes, The classy leader of the Zulu people has obtained legondary status of his three capital cities, with no problems from those backwards barbarians on the other continents. "But they are not so bad, Says Shaka"

SO I played the game through to the end, not much happened but I do have a few shots to lead us through, Basically we spammed artists in all three cities, culture bombed with GAs in all three and, well let start

First we finally meet Joao, officially

We try a trade and find he's pretty dammed far behind in tech.

Ah welll, we tech and culture along

Techpath for the entire segment was

optics/PP/chemistry/SM/Bio/Comm/Corp/Med/RP/rifling/steel/SP/RR/Comb

We used the great spy from communism for a Golden age.

We founded Sid's with the GM we saved from first to economics.

We got two Great Prophets from Paris which we sued to found both shrines for our founded confuscism and taoism.

We also settled the entire continent.

We met our favorite idiot who of cource was annoyed at us.

So we ignored him the entire game.

Will was first to astronomy so we made this trade, getting some good reseources.

Also Will DOW on Gilgy while Monty DOW on Joaoa. Shaka was ever amused by these events.

Here you can see us moving along in culture

We did trade SM to Will for constitution which we need for corps.

One note, at no point did we ever have open borders with any AI the entire game.

Here is the city screen just before we founded Sid's

The benefit's of Sids

And the city screen after Sid's

Once again our victory conditions

A final view of our three cities

And at the magic moment

Viola!!!!

A picture of our classy leader

After the win Shaka continued the culture, finding out how much his people loved him. He built Broadway and he watched plays, they discovered Rock and Rocll and he heard himself on the waves. And he finally discovered the best yet, television. Shaka immediately made frineds with the other leaders inviting them over to his continent to drink some brews and a game of cards while they all watched the final of the great games!!! Monty made a complete fool of himself drinking too much, Will stayed quiet if attentive in the corner, Joaoa was always trying to cheat with cards up his sleeve, and Galingamesh always admiring himself in the mirror. Best yet at halftime there was a preview of a new movie, "SHaka, his life story" to be shown on televison station ALC-21 following the game!!! Life is good!

Thankyou all for the help and following the game.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Woot!

Well played!

You're getting very good at this

Time for Osoka and the Doomsday Machine right?

 

[madscientist]

Comments about the RPC game

About the RPC rules

1) What can I say, a dam great idea for the war-like Shaka to start out like a monster and end up with a culture victory.
2) Getting those 2 AI capitals was a hell of alot easier this time arround.
3) Never missed the cathdrals. Never used the culture slider until the very end and only enough to avoid unhappiness from lack of emanciaption.

About teh specific game
1) Well, I think killing off my only 2 competitors before 1000 BC sort of helped.
2) With an entire continent to control, we got an extremely big tech lead even starting in isolation. We also typically had the scienc eslider at 50-60% and still kept building cities. Plus we had limited cottages in the big three cities.
3) Our tech lead resulted in a large power number lead with few new units build (1-2 per city).
4) The biggest threat was the possibilty of an AP loss, so we avoided that by never opening borders. Did not matter one bit, Will was eventually pleased with us withou them.
5) Never got into war once Shaka soothed his initial bloodlust.

Comments about culture:

OK part of my RPCs is to try and show some educational aspect of the game. This time was that cultural victory is possible with ANY leader, even the strongest war-mongers.
1) Never used religion except for the base value of temples, state religion, monestaries.
2) Never built any multiplier buildings except the hermitage in Kyoto.
3) We never got to electricity to use those late wonders.
4) Spamming artists with the Sistene Chapel ahd running those key civics representation/free speech/caste/mercantilism/pacifism were huge. Those civics work themselves providing you farm the big three cities.
5) We used wonder alot in this game. They are needed but we did use what we had. Remember the first game (Dam HC and his techpace) we came fairly close to a win with essentially only getting Stonehenge.
6) The corps were nice and helped but were not essential to this game. We also did not abuse the globetheater/national park in any of the cities since we farmed all three cities and chopped the forrests for the wonders.
7) The Great Library is a bad wonder to get for this type game.
8) Te culture sldier was insignificant in this game.
9) I lost count be we got a tremendous number of Great Artists, 17 of them. Settled 3 in Kyoto with the hermitage and bomed the rest.



So we did culture via the religious angle ala HOLY SAL, we did the artist abuse way in Gentleman Shaka, somewhere along the line I would like to get a culture win these RPCs using heavy cottaging and the culture slider. Tat would be the three ways.

Any comment sor shadowed game let me know!

Next RPC is: Asoka and the Doomsday MAchine

 

[Morgrad]

Yay, and kudos!

I've ignored the RPCs until... last week, I think - and they just might be my favorite now.

Well done.