Starting Tech Path for Cultural Victories

[IncanCanuck]

Hola, amigos..

I'm here to ask advice on a starting tech strategy for cultural victories.

I've settled on Gandhi as a favourite civ.. typically I take advantages of the Philosphical and Spiritual traits by taking a high food start and pumping out Great Artists whilst spreading religions and whipping out temples then Cathedrals.

Given the starting techs are Mysticism and Mining, I typically take the religious path to Writing -> Alphabet, taking Bronze Working and a food-tech along the way.

The issue I face is that I tech very slowly, due to getting Pottery late. Then I struggle to catch up as my cottages are established late.

I can't afford to take Pottery and the religious path because I'll be too late getting Alphabet and Music.

I'm thinking of taking the Pottery path to Writing but that does mean I'll miss all religions and my shot at the Oracle.

What do you think? Would I benefit from switching up the tech path?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It really depends on the level you are playing, on higher ones its best to ignore the early religions and get food and commerce going. You'll probably be able to found Confu and Philo with the earlier religions spreading to you naturally.

 

[InovA]

For Ghandi I would probably go:
Food -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing. Then you can go straight for Priesthood and with a little pre-chopping still get the Oracle thanks to fast workers! This should work for an immortal game. Alpha or Aesthetics afterwards.

And agreed with NobleZarkon, the early religions aren't nearly as important as a tech path that sets up your economy. Besides, its good to use the Oracle on Code of Laws, this would also give you Confucianism if you wanted to found a religion so badly.

 

[sampsa]

Prioritize. Why do you need to focus on religious techs? Why do you need Oracle? Just go to alpha asap and backfill via trade. Getting alpha means that you can see exactly what techs AIs have, so you can then decide if it makes sense to pursue Oracle. You'll also always be able to take at least currency, which might not be the most urgent tech in a cultural victory though.

Note that the value of this line depends also on the difficulty you are playing. I think that on immortal this is of the highest value, as on lower difficulties you won't get much quickly via trade and on deity the AI will beat you to alpha. If you play lower than immortal, maybe you shouldn't be trying to win cultural, and should learn how to just kill them all in a swift manner.

 

[elitetroops]

Like other people already answered, skip early religions, food first, then get your economy going. Alpha or not depends on difficulty.

typically I take advantages of the Philosphical and Spiritual traits by taking a high food start and pumping out Great Artists whilst spreading religions and whipping out temples then Cathedrals.

The use of the word "whilst" stood out to me here. Usually Great Artists and spreading religions are 2 different stages of the game. Get those temples and cathedrals utilizing slavery and OR, then switch to Caste/Paci and pump out the great artists. The switch should happen at lib, usually lib->Nationalism or lib->Printing Press, depending on how cottaged your legendary cities are. Nationalism is needed for Taj and Hermitage, and lib needed for Free Speech. No more techs are needed after Nat and PP.

 

[rah]

Yeah, but if you've that deep in the tech tree, you might as well research through to MT to defend yourself in case you mess up the diplo. Nothing like a few curs to make up for a bad judgement call.

 

[lymond]

yeah, a "culture" start is really not too much different than any other start really. Every game focuses on food, so that should be your priority. Then it is really up to how you want to proceed.

Early religion is not beneficial as you can just capture some religions, and often enemy capitals can make pretty good L cities as well. Or just let the AIs spread those religions to you for free.

So you can do focus on an early rush or whatever. But general I would always go something like Food>BW>Alpha...POT is always a consideration if there as well to start cottages asap (and well you might not need AH anyway), if that is suitable to your land. Once you have alpha then you start trading and focusing more on culture aspects...religion/Music/teching to Lib>Nat.

Settle compactly 9 cities or more as needed and setup up the appropriate L cities...might be capture cities as well, but pretty much all cities outside of the 3 L cities can be abused for what you need for culture..temples, missionaries, whatevah.

Oracle is not really a necessity for culture..probably more of a distraction really, and hurts your gene pool.

bottom line..focusing on a religious path early is what is hurting you..among probably many other things, but I don't know much about your game

 

[cseanny]

IMO

If you're playing on Prince and below try getting a start on a PH (2), a forested PH (3), and 1 gold or gem as well as at least 5 river side tiles. If you attack AI Capitals at 3000 BC and below they'll *usually* have 1 warrior and 1 worker. Simply work max hammers at the start giving you 3turn warriors. No need to worry about growing. Send 3 warriors to 2 different AI's and attack nlt 3000 BC. Voila, 3 cities with 2 workers (2 captured).

Regardless what level you're playing make map dependent choice in regards to Tech path. If you're playing on Monarch or above where AIs start with Archers then imo a good standard is to simply focus on getting 3 very strong cities set up by 1000 BC. That's very slow and deliberate but it's a solid foundation. With Gandhi you'll get 1-2 more GP than normal so I'd suggest something like:

Capital: This will be your only cottage city. Start cottages early and do you're best to have a secondary city share tiles/cottages. You'll really want to be working cottages non stop shortly after 1000 BC. Hermitage goes here.

2nd City: This can be a great tile sharing city and some nice Wonders like Oracle, Mids, Parthenon, Zeus, etc, Sistine, etc. With nice wonders you'll get some powerful culture doubling effects. I wouldn't worry about polluting the GPP too much here. Why not? Because you should already have gotten a GS for an Academy in your Capital early. This gives you some time for your next GPerson. And if its not an Artis you can simply burn him towards a Golden age until you get your GPF city set up - which is city 3.

3rd city: This will be your GPF and should get NE as early as possible. You'll be using max specialist for culture and use culture bombs to finish the appropriate legendary cities.

To sum up. The Capital would be your only Cottage city and you'll put Hermitage there. 2nd city would have some nice Wonders (definitely Sisten Chapel) so you can start getting powerful doubling culture effects as early as possible. You're 3rd city works max artist specialist which produces some "ok" culture in itselt and then you culture bomb the appropriate cities to finish things off.

Outside your Capital Max Farms and working as many artist specialist as possible in every city would be suggested. The hardest part of culture games imo is balancing ORG vs Pacifism. Every game is different so....