Rome - Turn 32 Ancestral Hall

[greenOak]

This strategy uses the hero Anansi to quickly generate 300 culture in the early game and rush political philosophy. Anansi can remove bonus or luxury resources anywhere on the map and gets 60 science, but more importantly 50 culture for doing so. He gets six charges. Rome starts with a monument, and can build the heroic tales project from turn 1. The legend you get is random, so the strategy is admittedly RNG dependant. I got Anansi as my third discovered hero this game which is above average but still not the absolute best. I didn't get any of the inspirations on the way to political philosophy either so there's potential to save time there as well. The only ones you really have a chance for are foreign trade and political philosophy. Craftsmanship is possible if you pop a builder from a hut. Also, any civ can theoretically do this by getting Anansi through an early hut, discovering a natural wonder, or going early monument then getting Anansi first, but the odds are really bad. Rome actually has decent odds. I reckon if you get Anansi as your fourth hero or earlier, you can get ancestral hall up before turn 40.

 

[greenOak]

Playing around with this some more. This time I got Anansi as my second hero, culminating in reaching political philosophy by turn 24, and chopping the ancestral hall by turn 28.

UPDATE

This is probably close to the limit for this strategy. Worked a 2F 3P tile from turn 1, discovered Anansi on turn 5, recruited him on turn 8, got political philosophy on turn 18, and ancestral hall on turn 23. The bottleneck actually becomes being able to produce the government plaza fast enough.

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[walkerjks]

Intriguing. There are always resources that I don't particularly care for (maize, stone, some sea resources) that I don't mind removing. Harvesting them is good, but early ancestral hall is better. Will try this as Rome going for cultural win. Will probably try both heroic tale first and scout first (more opportunities to pop Anansi through continents, envoys, etc, plus other benefits like inspiration for PP) and compare the results. For cultural wins, this is a double bonus - earlier ancestral hall means cities go up faster which means earlier theater squares, yada yada... but iealrlier PP also means earlier drama & poetry, which means earlier theater squares, yada yada. Haven't done a Rome game in a while and this is just the spark to try one.

 

[greenOak]

Yeah I definitely think scout first warrants testing out. Also need to experiment what to do with the tech points. I like the idea of going for iron working so you can use agoge to chop out a legion which will chop more legions, but getting enough iron might be a challenge.

 

[walkerjks]

Turn 10 Discover Anansi
Turn 13 Complete Anansi devotion
Turn 21 Political Philosophy
Turn 27 Ancestral Hall
Turn 27 Drama and Poetry could aim for something else if not looking for Cultural Victory).

A couple tweaks to what you outlined, assuming you are playing with secret societies - choose voidsingers with 1st or 2nd governor. Monument will convert into an old god obelisk which means you have a very good shot at religious settlement which means you have a chance to get the inspiration for early empire. Might not work out, but there's potential there if you have lots of food in capital, get population from a hut, etc. I delayed by 1 turn a resource harvest by Anansi in order to get the inpiration. 32 extra culture (inspiration for EE) isn't trivial.

Second, spending the first or second governor on Amani and doing a suzerain tour (new suzerainty every 5 turns) should net you extra heroes. Assuming you get start your tour on turn 3, you could get an extra hero on turn 8 and turn 13, etc. Plus, the Amni tour makes a classical golden age easy.

So there is still a lot of luck, but you'll have lots of opportunities to find heroes with a scout first and Amani tour.

 

[CappyAA]

I played a Rome game last night and discovered Anansi first, so I decided to go with this strategy. I didn't get the Ancestral Hall as quickly as others here, but wow - this propelled me into a pretty ridiculous start. I sent Anansi to Saladin, my closest neighbor, and weakened some of his cities by removing resources. While using the culture to get to PP, I also used the science to beeline Legions. By the end of the Ancient Era, I had an Ancestral Hall setup in my capital with Magnus and the settler promotion, ready to spam settlers. I also had an army of Legions heading towards Saladin, easily wiping him out. I'm playing on Deity and have overtaken all opponents in score by turn 80 - I don't think I've ever done that so quickly.

Also love the Amani tour for racking up era score and extra scouting.