Satisfying and frustrating

[LAnkou]

for the first time since i have the game, i went to prince difficulty level.

going with India for a culture win on a random map.

It appears that it was a pangea with le in the center and my direct neighbours being clockwise starting from the north:
-Mongolia
-Ottomans
-Arabs
-Siam
-Iroquois

Other civs were Rome, Songhai, England and america

England and america got dispatched easily by Siam and Ottoman respectively.
Iroquois and songhai got conquered and destroyed by a combination of Rome and Mongolia.

While all of this happend, i'm woluntarily stuck with 3 cities, crawling to get my culture victory.
Since Mongolia is the closer, i decided early on i would stay allied and give in to any of genghis demand. It was great thus far, you'll understand why:

-England and america declared early on but i never saw any unit. Then the begged for peace and that was it before they dissapeared
-I got declared by arabs because i bought some land (a spice tile) that was close to one of their city. I managed to destroy all their units and settle for peace. a part from that, they are really nice neighbours.
-then it was iroquois who declared (i don't have the biggest army). Again, i dispatched thier units and they begged for peace (and went romanised after that)
-Siam and Ottomans declared against me and honestly it's another story, they have technological edge, but as i'm a good friend with all other civ, i managed to get civ not at war with them to DoW them and helped me.

Honestly, this game is harder, i don't have technological edge (thanks to 3 cities only), but the diplo game is really nice (especially the mongolia dragging). It's a warmongers fest and i'm trying to win culturally (9 SP to go with an average 17 turns without really focusing on it) and finisher for SP is a really nice thing. that is the satisfying part, i'm full of OMT syndrom with only 3 cities but i have some frustration coming from the following point:

-The AI is terrible at warmongering, i'm fighting cavalry with longswordmen and trebuchet. If i can't liberate any city state, i'm far from being conquered.
-gold is really really important (too much): buying unit, buying allies, when i'm in a stress situation, i go gold focus. If i stayed gold focus, i think i would have fared even better in this game...
-maybe it's me, but being limited to 3 inland cities make it hard to choose which SP to select for a culture win. I went with landed elite (obvious), piety (obviously), patronage (CS are nice and welcomed with a small empire), i'm doing commerce (gold) and i don't know which one to chose for last: order and rationalism are out of question, honor? liberty? freedom? industrialism? I don't know if it's a choice or a lack of choice...I think i'll go with freedom for the GP bonus
-Siam and Ottomans won't go for peace if it doesn't involve a city, but they never were close to getting one of my cities...after the 100 years war, the hundredS turn war. That's just ridiculous, especially with Mongolia on thier track.

 

[Glassmage]

Hmm, you don't always have to pick the last 3 policies: Freedom, Order, Autocracy. For this type of situation pick Tradition, Piety, Patronage, Commerce/Freedom, and Honor. Honor is great for happy and defensive war, since you lack luxuries from not having enough land. Freedom is very good for culture win! Commerce is the weakest tree and not justified if you don't have a lot of cities.

 

[Tatran]

-Siam and Ottomans won't go for peace if it doesn't involve a city, but they never were close to getting one of my cities...after the 100 years war, the hundredS turn war. That's just ridiculous, especially with Mongolia on thier track.

I don't want to burry your hopes of a win, but it seems you've lost.
I had a similar game months ago, with 2 big and advanced neighbours and the only
way to stop the war was giving up one or more cities.
I refused and my cities got nuked.
It doesn't matter anyway if you give away city now, peace means nothing.
There will be another war until it's game over.

 

[chazzycat]

might be a little late, but with small empires going for culture, tech is really important. You're probably not getting a ton on your own so try and sign more research agreements. I won a OCC culture game a few days ago on emperor by going rationalism instead of piety. It seems counterintuitive, but worked out pretty well for me. When the Ais are much larger than you, you need the science boost to keep up with them in tech. Especially the opener to boost RAs and if you can build the Porcelain tower as well, do it. You need to open up the critical culture techs ASAP anyway, like acoustics, archaeology, radio, and mass media. 17 turns is not great with 9 policies remaining, because they go up in cost quite a bit towards the end.