What Should I do?

[Brucha]

This is my new game, after leanring all the mistakes that i was doing before. I My stategy is to win by Vp or Cultural, though I am not sure if this possible. As a self-governing rule, I have decided not to take foreign cities, except by flop, or by Ai civs razing cities, thus giving me the option to build a new city (carthge did this allowing me to build a new city).I have been at war several times, mainly with America and the Aztecs. I sent units into their lands to tear up their infrastrucure and bring America's score down - kind of a punishment stragegy to keep them down. This tactic seems to be working rather well.

I am in the lead now, but I am not sure what to do. I am in the lead with Vp and cultural, so if I continue I should win, but my tech is falling behind because of my far-flung cities that require large garrisons for defence. I have gone for a strategy of a strong navy (although at the save I deleted my man-of-wars and started biulding cruisers), and my colony cities seem to be well-defended.

War has basically erupted b/t all the other civs, though with no mass war with myself.

With all this in mind, any suggestions in the style that I am playing?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

Well, first off, it looks like America is actually in the lead - you have a higher Score, but they have a much higher Culture. I didn't see any Victory Points, either. For your colonies, I would immediately rush-build as many cultural buildings as you can afford. You should also be able to slow down your Science to build up money: the Computer (in my games, at least, which are also Regent) slows down its science production a lot during wartime.

As for general style . . . that "no taking foreign cities" rule seems to be your biggest downfall. It can work in larger maps (Large Pangaea with as much land as you can get) I would advocate taking some of the units from Gloucester and Exeter and attacking the Chinese, or possibly the Romans. You really need more cities with more culture. You have a total of either 11132 or 10941 (Computer's tally vs mine), and with mine you have an average of 547 culture per city. Seeing as it's already 1275AD, you really need more cities producing culture if you're going to take out the Americans and the Greeks.

Hope that helps some.

 

[gmaharriet]

You didn't say whether you are going for 20k culture (single city) or 100k culture (entire civ). BTW, when I open your save I get 1275 AD, not 290 BC.

I'm pretty certain you cannot get 100k, because 3 other civs are already ahead of you in total culture and in cpt (culture per turn). That type of win needs a completely different approach, and IMO it's way too late to start.

As for 20k culture in London, I'm not sure. You don't even have a temple or library there, and some of your Wonders were built in York. As ChaosArbiter already stated, Washington is already ahead of you. You would almost certainly have to eliminate America to have a good chance of beating them.

It's not only wonders that accumulate culture. Some of the smaller improvements...temple, cathedral, library, university, colosseum...are faster to build and, if built early enough, can contribute significantly to overall culture. Any of those improvements built prior to 1050 AD will double in cpt after 1000 years. That works for both 100k and 20k victories.