SGOTM 11 - Phoenix Rising

[Kadazzle]

Our goal is to go for a culture win, correct? To me, that is the easiest victory condition, especially given what we have to work with. First off, we have three religions present on our continent - Confucianism, Christianity and Taoism. We need to set our three culture cities (I'd assume PN, PC and VR?) and we need to build Temples and then Cathedrals/equivalent there. In order to unlock Cathedrals or course, you need to spread and build temples in our other cities. Added to that, Markets in Vultures Ridge and Pheonix Nest are vastly important, also considering we're thinking about spreading our religions to other continents (which I think we should wait on). IMO, the GE should be used to Rush-build the Sistine Chapel, possibly the best culture wonder in the game. Missionaries should be used to spread religions to our cities.

We may also want to whip Harbours. Every city with an over-seas traderoute gets +2 extra commerce, which is very, very good. Added to that, we still need to whip Temples/Libraries/Lighthouses/Granaries and Courthouses in a lot of our cities, so I don't think we should switch into Caste/Pacifism right away. None of our cities except for VR and Pheonix Next need a Forge.

I vote we switch to Confucianism, and go into Organized Religion for whipping and infrastructure construction. Added to that, we can then build and spread Christianity, Confucianism and Taoism to all of our cities. Also, I presume we're in Theology due to the diplo bonuses.

Roc City should be working the Marble tile.

Only negatives from religion is the negative diplo points. We can try and combat these, somehow though. We need to see if Saladin has settled the ice/crab city at the south of his continent. If not, we need to settle that and gift it to Saladin. I'm not worried about Izzy, but if she can potentially war dec us, we need to get Zara to cancel open borders. Only way we can get Toku to have better relations with us is through gifting cities and switching him into Confu. The latter we can do by utilizing spies.

I think what we need to focus on, in order of importance is:

1. Maintaining diplo relations through the use of spies, civics, techs, religions and gifting cities.
2. Getting into Pacifism/Confucianism, bulbing Education then switching into OR.
3. Getting infrastructure up, including Harbours, Granaries, Courthouses, Lighthouses, Libraries and Temples.
4. Building Cathedrals as soon as possible for the +50% culture.

Consider, a 2 pop whip gives you 90 hammers (I think), less on a wonder. 2 citizens working 4 hammer tiles each gives 8 h/turn. So unless you can regrow the 2 population within 11 turns, it's not worth the investment, and even then is marginal given that you lose commerce and lower happy cap as well.

Happy cap issues goes away, and you don't whip away commerce (cottages), you whip away farms/mines. I agree that we should whip PN or VR, but you're vastly underestimating the value of whipping. Plus, you don't have to wait 11 turns for the building to be complete - it is finished the next turn.

 

[Kadazzle]

Why flood missionaries to Justin and Zara? Aren't they already Confu? Seems they a waste of hammers if there are. I also see it hard to make Izzy switch, as didn't she found Hinduism? The AI won't switch out of a religion they founded unless forced to through trade or espionage. Toku's capital is already under Confucianism, so we need to get him to switch through espionage, gain open borders THEN flood him once we know he will most likely stay in Confu.

Also, I think we're over-valuing Optics over some other techs. We need Education, Liberalism and Nationalism. Optics can be traded for, or can be teched later.

 

[Kadazzle]

Forgot to mention that Gulltown will make a decent Globe Theatre spot. Opinions?

 

[Gumbolt]

Our goal is to go for a culture win, correct? To me, that is the easiest victory condition, especially given what we have to work with.

I think we were going diplomatic. Purely as with culture it is hard to meet all the victory conditions. Such as convincing all the Ai to stay in a state religion. Obtaining all 4 resources on map. 2 of the resources are held by Spain, 1 by Sal and the 4th is on a barb island we believe. There will only be one fur resource on the map.

We wanted optics as we need to explore that barb island and check for other islands hiding silk, dye, ivory or fur!!!

Culture is our other route. If we can convince Izzy to vassel early on then it makes our goal easier. The downside is Toku will form a new fleet soon and attack again at some point.

We are planning on spreading xtian religion as Izzy/Justin/Sal and Zara love it. The idea being to gain + diplomatic points.

Can you argue the culture side and how we might obtain all the victory conditions? Especially controlling Toku!

 

[Gumbolt]

I think we really need to decide best way to acheive all the victory targets now. Diplo vs culture. We shouldn't continue till this is settled.

One thing is certain we will need some form of fleet to capture the fur city and protect it from invading AI ships.

Going direct to nationalism is an interesting option as it allows drafting and a possible golden age.

Kadazzle : What is your thought on bulbing machinery with GE vs saving it for TM wonder? Sistine chapel is useful for culture.

Do you think Izzy would vassel to us if we converted her to xtian religion based on a higher power rating?

 

[Jaybone]

Happy cap issues goes away, and you don't whip away commerce (cottages), you whip away farms/mines. I agree that we should whip PN or VR, but you're vastly underestimating the value of whipping. Plus, you don't have to wait 11 turns for the building to be complete - it is finished the next turn.

Whipping is generally most effective at city sizes of 3-5, not at city size of 9 or 10 given the difference in how long it takes to regrow that missed population. You do get the building immediately, but you lose the production of the citizens, so you have to weigh how important you consider their ongoing production is versus getting the building quicker but losing their production and lowering happy cap.

Consider PN, capital with academy and library. You can whip away 2 citizens, or you can run them as specialists. Is the 90 hammers worth 20 beakers/turn for 11 turns?

The goal of this game is to win as quickly as possible. That's it. We don't care about score or relative value or how nicely functioning each city is. We probably should so a test game to see which goal we can get to first. What screws our culture play is we can't really culture bomb at the end becase we have to save 4 GP.

Where's our latest test game? We really should try to see how quickly we can get there using each approach

 

[Kadazzle]

I don't think any of the AI will peaceful AI to us yet, even if friendly. I feel like we simply don't have a high enough power rating, though I do believe in the future we can get Izzy and Zara to peaceful vassal to us. Have we decided who our two war targets are going to be? Toku and Sal seem like obvious choices, and we can do a Draft Rifle war vs. both of them, and either sweep or vassal both of them very quickly.

I forgot about the resources and you're right, we do need Optics soon. Instead of building units, we could then simply build Caravels which will destroy all Triremes and Galleys, until the AI gets Optics itself. Toku doesn't tech very fast, so I don't think we should be too worried about him getting Optics.

I personally believe we should go for a Cultural victory, as it is possible to achieve that quicker than a UN victory. Culture bombing is a good way to get cities to Legendary culture, and I believe we should do just that. I know by the end of the game, you need 4 GP of any type. We are Philosophical, so I'm not too worried about getting GPs, plus if we can head for Physics (Free GS), Communism (Free Great Spy?) and that other tech which gains us a Free Great General. That way, we'd only need to generate one GP ourselves, which by that time our cities will be between size 15-20 and we can starve the city and run caste to get the GP out quickly.

Besides culture bombing, there's other ways to get cities to Legendary. 1000 years after being built, all buildings double culture. That is important. Besides that though, we have three religions present - that means we can get three Cathedrals in each of our culture cities. If we settle the GA we get from Music in our lowest culture city (Pegasus Creek) it'll net us +12 culture and +3 gold (Settled GP also get the Sistine bonus, so actual amount is +15 culture/turn). Sistine gets us +2 culture per Specialist, +5 culture from all State Religion buildings, which is a lot.

I'm supposed to be studying, but here's my current break down of

Spoiler :

Break down of culture per turn:
Capital - Currently at 3268 culture getting 61/turn with these bonuses:
Palace: +2 culture
Monument: +1 culture
Library: +2 culture (+4)
Confucianism: +1 culture
Christianity: +1 culture
Confucianism Temple: +1 culture (+2)
Academy: +4 culture
The Oracle: +8 culture (+16)
The Pyramids: +6 culture (+12)
The Parthenon: +10 culture
The Great Library: +8 culture
= 61 culture per turn.

Listed is the base value of all these buildings. In brackets is the "after 1000 years" bonuses we already have.

BUT, we have the potential to gain more, through religious spread, cathedrals, culture slider and the Sistine Chapel. Here are the other culture buildings we're not far off from:

The Sistine Chapel: +10 culture
University: +3 culture
Theater: +3 culture
Taoism: +1 culture
Confucianism Monastery: +2 culture
Taoism Temple: +1 culture
Taoism Monastery: +2 culture
Christian Temple: +1 culture
Christian Monastery: +2 culture

Pheonix Ridge: 190, +8/turn

Founded Christinaity: +5

National Epic: +4 culture

---------------

Heroic Epic: +4
Globe Theater: +4
Hermitage: 100% (of base value)
Cathedrals: 50% x 3 (Confu, Theo, Tao) (of base value)

I'll finish how many turns it will take us to hit legendary tomorrow. I'll attempt to include Sistine bonuses, but specialists can vary.

 

[lymond]

Well, it's good to see someone else has interest in a culture victory. If we decide that I'm all for using the GE on Sistine. If we beeline Nationalism though or choose it with Lib, I think using a GE on the Taj is a waste - reason being is the assumed lead on the tech and the marble bonus. This potentially could be said of Sistine; however, the difference being is that the sooner we get Sistine up the sooner we take advantage of the culture bonus. GAs are GAs.

Kaddazzle - I wasn't saying build markets everywhere. However, I think it would be nice to have one in a city that is running tons of merchants. Any reason not too? Oh..and PC might be our potential Wall Street if we choose to spread Christianity.

(Note: Not sure if this was addressed to me - I was not advocating whipping in places like VR myself. Just saying if we do whip to do so effectively and not on things like the HE. VR will grow faster once we get chain farms up there though)

For Culture, PN and PC seem obvious candidates. I think PL should be consider simply for the fact that it can run lots of artists later.

If we go culture, spreading religion (outside of borders) may be less of a priority, except to foster peace and improve our shrine income.

 

[lymond]

@Kaddazzle - regarding GPs - yeah...and we're bound to pop some non-artists later as well. We simply keep them and bomb the artists.

OR sounds good. Get xtian and tao into PN so it can start spamming missionaries out to our cities to build temples. VR will still need to focus more on units but can build an occasional missionary. Roc and PP might be able to take on some missionary production too.

Also, here's direct link to the SOTM Progress page from which you can download the latest save and check our progress against other teams. I suggest bookmarking it.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php

If we go culture, we need a target tech like Biology to start upping the culture slider. Research is nerfed at that point, but still somewhat productive by lots of Rep artists. We should still be able to trade for some techs to keep pace to a point, but it's about getting to the culture finish line asap.

 

[Gumbolt]

If we go culture how do we ensure that every Ai stays in a religion? Also how do we ensure we get the 4 resources?

We really need to vassel Zara and Spanish so we are only really worried about the silk and fur.

 

[cripp7]

So the key thing with either is getting the fur and silk. Getting Optics and scouting out the barb island is main point short term, going would be easy popping GAs with 100%.

The only thing I can think of to is the trieme, then switch to caste. PN can spit out a couple workers faster than any other city. What units mainly from VR? Also, I didn't think a GG is actually a GP for our 4.

 

[Gumbolt]

So the key thing with either is getting the fur and silk. Getting Optics and scouting out the barb island is main point short term, going would be easy popping GAs with 100%.

The only thing I can think of to is the trieme, then switch to caste. PN can spit out a couple workers faster than any other city. What units mainly from VR? Also, I didn't think a GG is actually a GP for our 4.

If we go culture PC could be a 100% GA farm! If Sistine gives GA points build in PC too.

Question is by what date could we reach Culture victory? With cultural getting the fur and silk could be an issue and ensuring Ai adopt a religion. Toku will never go quietly. On Culture you can use GA bombs to ensure final date of game. We could even draft units to ensure fur at end.

What date would we acheive diplomatic victory? Diplomatic is easiest to acheive all goals

It is not like a normal map as we don't have huge swathes of ocean to cross. With a high power rating most Ai would fold pretty easily.


Lets have some productive discussions on which route is faster and most effective.

 

[Gumbolt]

We could do with a test save to test out both strategies. It will never be perfect but we can certainly get the Ai better fitted to map. We need a test game where Toku is actually closer in size to real game.

 

[Gumbolt]

For a bit of fun tried a cultural win on test save. I paid little or no attention to trades or builds really once I had 2-3 temples in most cities and 3 religions in most cities.

Overall 1746 would be the latest date we should finish by. I had time to build units quite generously too. No one switched out of a religion!!

Trading for the other resources would of been more interesting.

So if we take 20-30+ turns off my date we are closer to our actual target finish date.

Maybe pre 1700ad? Could we do diplomatic before then?

Of course this was made easier by fact no one attacked me.

I used about 8-9 artists to culture bomb and hermitage went in VR. PC mainly was bombed with 6-7+ artists. I sort of ran out of specialists near the end so lets not waste the ones we get, Running pure artists farms helps.

Vasseling Zara might of helped me.

 

[Gumbolt]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=298093

This is a link is to cultural win guides. Some HOF games get cultural wins by 1350ad!!

From what I can see we will struggle as we have don't have 2 commerce cities. As most optimal strategy for culture is to have two commerce cities and run culture slider maxed out.

When we hit liberalism we should hit FS for +100% culture. Settle first few artists.

I really think we need to be shooting for a sub 1600ad win here.

Now the complication is that everyone needs all 4 resources. Can everyone reach barb city without other techs like astronomy. Hmmm.

Overall read through the entire thread on culture wins.

 

[Gumbolt]

This may sound like a horrible idea. Attack Zara and grab his cottage strong capital as one of our cultural cities?

The capital would have GLH and that gives all our cities 2 extra trade routes. Obviously we keep him alive. Not sure we have the units for this.

This all assumes we go the cultural route. Not sure what date a diplomatic win would come by.

 

[Jaybone]

I would say if we go for diplomatic maybe we should save the GE the rush UN

Phoenix nest can get a lot of culture easily, but the other cities will be difficult, to say the least

 

[Jaybone]

editing our test game file. Is there a way to adjust the date in worldbuilder?

 

[Kadazzle]

Look up any of Obsolete's games to see how he wins culture WITHOUT cottages (look up his "Industrious" series).

I can't give any more input for today as I have to continue to study for my final two exams which are tomorrow morning. Will be sure to look at this thread afterwards though.

 

[Gumbolt]

editing our test game file. Is there a way to adjust the date in worldbuilder?

Don't think you can. I played on to 310ad and edit population/buildings etc. Really the AI need about 7-8 more cities in some cases.