Episode: 4370
Title: HPR4370: Playing Civilization IV, Part 8
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4370/hpr4370.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 23:49:17

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,370.
For Friday, the 2nd of May 2025, today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization Roman
4, Part 8.
It is part of the series' computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Ahukah, and is about 11 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we demonstrate how to win a culture victory.
Hello, this is Ahukah, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio, and another exciting episode
in our ongoing series on computer strategy gaming.
And I'm going to finish up with something I started the last time of demonstrating how
to win a culture victory in Civilization 4.
So the last time I said that I was setting out to do certain things, and we had gotten
as far as some wonders that I wanted to build.
Now, I mentioned three of them particularly.
I did lose one, and that was Chichen Itza, not a surprise, because I did get kind of a
late start on it.
I don't usually go for wonders early on, because I'm busy building up my empire, and
there are plenty to come later when I am built up.
And Chichen Itza is an early wonder, relatively speaking.
Now speaking of which, I usually try to get a forge in each city to add to production,
and that certainly helps for any wonders.
The production I lost on Chichen Itza turned into 144 gold, so not a complete loss by
any means.
However, I did get the Sistine Chapel in my capital.
Now since I have state religion, I get five additional culture from all state religion
buildings, so all of my Judaism monasteries, temples, and cathedrals will get this bonus.
So what I need to do is make sure I build monasteries and temples, but also cathedrals.
And since I cannot build cathedrals in every city, I should make sure I build them in
my three culture cities to cash in.
Getting the Sistine Chapel is a big deal for a culture victory in other words.
Now I notice that the Hanging Gardens, another early wonder, is still available, but I need
to build an aqueduct first before I can build it.
Well, it's worth a try since I don't have anything else pressing at the moment.
Now, as it happens, I did get Notre Dame in one of my culture cities, and I did get
the Hanging Gardens.
Globe Theater will be available as soon as I build two more theaters.
So I need to look to do that next.
I'm at 1622 AD right now, and my three culture cities are at 89, 88, 31, 60, and 22, 46.
Now, there's still a lot of game to play, and this kind of thing builds, you know, what
you're trying to do and sieve constantly, we use the term snowballing, which, you know,
is like you start with a small ball of snow, and you keep rolling it through the snow,
and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
So that's the metaphor for what we're trying to do.
You know, the early stages, you're just trying to add one, two, three more bits of culture,
but it just keeps building on itself.
So I'm sticking to the plan.
Meanwhile, as soon as I got the technology, I built a few caravels and sent them out
to explore.
Caravels are the first ships that can travel ocean squares, and I wanted to find the other
players.
You want to be able to trade with other players, and you have to meet them first before
you can trade with them.
Now, I lost out on Anchor Wat, so immediately started in on Globe Theater in that city.
Then I got a great engineer and used him to complete the Versailles wonder.
The great engineer appeared in my capital, but I moved him to the other city to use him
there because that city had lower production and needed the help more.
This paid off for me when my capital built the spiral minaret a few turns later.
I then built a university in my capital to keep up with science, and when that was built
started on the Taj Mahal.
A bit later, I got another great engineer in my capital and sent it to another of my
cultural cities to hurry the Statue of Liberty.
I completed the Hermitage in my cultural city with the lowest output, which is a good way
to boost your bottom city because it doubles the culture output.
Then I got another great engineer and used it to complete the Statue of Liberty.
That doesn't give you a bunch of culture directly, but it gives you a free specialist
in every city on the same continent.
Now since I only have two cities that are not on the same continent, I will benefit a
lot.
I can make science specialists in my science cities, culture specialists in the culture
cities, and probably engineer specialists in all my other cities.
The reason is that the engineer specialists generate great engineer points so I can get
even more of these very useful people to build wonders.
You can also create specialists from your ordinary citizens, but that cuts into your food
and production.
So getting free runs is really good.
A few turns later, I got the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty, so I'm doing well on
getting wonders.
You get access to more wonders.
I need to do more science, so getting universities in every city is now a priority.
I got a great artist in my capital and sent it to my cultural city with the least amount
of culture and used them to create a great work with 6,000 culture at a pop.
Now that is no longer the culture city with the lowest culture because of this.
Then I researched up to replaceable parts and started building factories in each of my
cities to increase my production.
Then one of my science cities produced a great scientist which I used to create in Academy.
Then the next turn, I got a free great scientist by being the first to discover physics, which
is the prerequisite to researching electricity and electricity opens up building Broadway.
I sent this great scientist to another of my science cities and again created an Academy,
so now I had two academies.
Each academy adds 50% to the science output of the city, so that's a good investment.
I then traded physics for rifling and as we've talked before in a number of these trading
texts with the other players, very, very vital.
Now with the rifling tech, I could spend about half of my gold upgrading all of my military
units to infantry, so now my defense is pretty solid.
Then once I got electricity, I started on Broadway and then immediately started to research
radio, which opens up both the Eiffel Tower and Rock & Roll.
Then I set one of my military cities to building the Pentagon.
In my capital I had three science specialists, so I turned one into an artist specialist
since this is one of my designated culture cities.
Once I got radio, I started on both the Eiffel Tower and Rock & Roll and immediately started
to research mass media, which lets me build Hollywood and also the city improvement of broadcast
towers.
Meanwhile I got a great merchant, which I sent to Timbuktu, the Molly city, for a trade
mission to generate more cash to replenish my treasury after upgrading all of my military
units.
Then with my treasury healthy again, I implemented the social policy of universal suffrage
so that I could use cash to hurry city projects.
I got another great engineer and sent him to the city building Rock & Roll and used him
to hurry the production.
I then set the city to producing Hollywood.
My treasury was starting to look quite good, so in about ten turns I was able to rush
the Eiffel Tower, Hollywood, and Broadway.
Then I set each of them to building broadcast towers to add more to the culture production.
The next step was to go through each of my cities and reallocate my citizen specialists
to be artists.
This should lead my other cities to produce more great artists.
Now I did leave my scientists specialists in my science cities, however, because I don't
want to fall behind on that.
Anyway, this should be enough to give you an idea of how to win a culture of victory,
though you may need a few tries to be successful.
This is a new victory type, and the focus on developing three cities makes it unlike any
of the others.
Now I also want to say a few words about the science and military victories, not going
to go through an in-depth discussion like we did with culture, but these are not terribly
different from previous versions.
Now the trick to getting either of these science or military is to realize that production
is king.
For a science victory you will want to build libraries, universities, observatories,
and labs in every city as quickly as possible, and that takes production.
And for a science victory, having a large empire helps because you can add the science
output of every city into the mix.
And when you get to the end game of building your spaceship, having a number of cities
with high production is what gets that ship built faster.
And of course, production is also key to cranking out units when you're looking for a military
victory.
So for a leader, I would go with one that has the industrious trait, whether talking science
or military, you want to have that to keep your production up.
Then the question becomes, what are you paired with?
Stalin is both industrious and aggressive, which makes for a pretty good military leader.
On a science side, there's not a leader who combines industrious with philosophical,
but you can combine philosophical with expansive, for instance, and get your Peter the Great.
The real point is to adapt your strategy.
You can do well with a financial leader, generate lots of cash, and buy the units in buildings
you need.
That's perfectly valid strategy.
But generally, as I say, the essence of these two victory types is pretty similar to previous
games in the series.
So if you've won a science or military victory in Civ 2 or Civ 3, you're already most of
the way there.
So this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio, signing off and is always encouraging you
to support free software.
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