Cultural Victory: Discussing the basics

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by El Conquistador
The thing I hate about cultural victory is that it makes me choose Catherine of Russia as a leader and I don't want to choose her. I want her to be one of the other civ's leaders. That way she can tease me with those naughty comments of hers.

try Ghandi...

he works fairly well....

any leader will do though, but one that starts with Mysticism gives you a better shot at the early religions.

...



As per getting the religion founding in the 3 cultural cities... I tend to only have 2-3 cities by the time I have the first 5 religions, (only Phil and DR are missing) so at least the majority are there.

but they aren't needed to be founded in the 3 cult cities for a cult victory.. just speed it some.

[gentle]

I have just completed my test game (attached at bottom) and it turned out that it was easier than I expected. I got Liberalism 525 BC and grabbed Gunpowder.
My final date ,as usual, was 1AD and I have 3 GPs left, which I saved because I initially thought I would require them.So, obviously this game could easily be improved by the effect of 3 GPs. I produced my standard total of 8 GPs til 1AD.
Grabbing some important techs works quite well indeed, though it is a little bit tricky, because one has to watch the research closely.So, here is my "beeline" to liberalism which I used after I took a closer look at the GP tech donation table:

Mysticism
Polytheism
Mining
Bronze
Masonry
TheWheel
Monotheism
Priesthood
Writing
Alphabet
---safe techs one may trade for--
Meditation for Philosophy is a must
Agriculture
Animal Husbandry
Hunting
Archery
+see forbidden techs beneath
---
Literature
Drama
Philosophy_Oracle
Theologie_Prophet
Mathematics_Interference with Paper
Paper
Education_Scientist gave 1100 beakers
Iron Working_Interference with Liberalism
Liberalism_Scientist gave 1500 beakers

Do NOT! research or have available until Liberalism:
-Pottery
-Fishing
-Construction
*****
I have researched more techs than listed but this is the best way to Liberalism imho.

The savegame:

1AD_Saladin

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Ok.. I've got a question. What are you people talking about when you say stop research at 100% and move the cultural slider to 100%?

It was my understanding that the only thing the culture slider actually does is provide one happy face per city per 10% of the slider value. (ie: 10% culture slider gives one happy face per city).

It doesn't actually generate any culture itself. In order to generate culture itself, you have to have the individual cities change their production to culture.

Is that incorrect? I suppose by using the culture slider those extra happy faces might be able to create more artist specialists.. but I always have a food problem, not a happiness problem.. especially when it comes to "adding" specialists.

If the culture slider actually produces culture.. how exactly does it work?

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
Ok.. I've got a question. What are you people talking about when you say stop research at 100% and move the cultural slider to 100%?

It was my understanding that the only thing the culture slider actually does is provide one happy face per city per 10% of the slider value. (ie: 10% culture slider gives one happy face per city).

It doesn't actually generate any culture itself. In order to generate culture itself, you have to have the individual cities change their production to culture.

Is that incorrect? I suppose by using the culture slider those extra happy faces might be able to create more artist specialists.. but I always have a food problem, not a happiness problem.. especially when it comes to "adding" specialists.

If the culture slider actually produces culture.. how exactly does it work?

It does produce culture, and it does make ppl happy (if you have the relavant buildings in the city that says +X happy face/XX% slider)

you have 3 items that total to 100% globally. research, culture and gold.

these work on each of your cities commerce (coins directly before mods) output.

the culture produced by upping the slider is given to the city that produced it, whereas the gold and research are truely global.

make sense, or do you need more?

[Urban Ranger]

You can also set individual cities to produce culture. That converts 50% of production each turn to culture.

[gentle]

just for completeness
The Culture Bomb Thread

[gentle]

Which trait does support culture victory ?
For my GP research I like PHI a lot atm, though dont have a lot time to play.
Will do some testgames at the weekend on higher diffs but atm wonder which other traits might be interesting.
Also, how important is it to have a civ that starts with mysticism ?

[Urban Ranger]

You forgot to add cathedrals.

[gentle]

ah thx, that was the name for the ones i stated "religious buildings"
always get confused with shrine and cathedral

[MasterDave]

Every game is different, so it is difficult to give a definite order for a cultural victory. Universal factors that are always critical in getting cultural victories are having a minumum of nine cities (so that you can build a cathedral type building for each of your religions in each city and so that you can build national wonders that require multiple base buildings such as the forbidden palace and globe theater), getting as many religions as possible within those cities (five or more is ideal), and choosing three cities early to be your designated legendary cities.

The legendary cities ideally should have decent production AND food production. I have had a couple of games where one of my legendary cities was limited by lack of food growing to size 9 or 10 and it made it very difficult to maximize culture there due to lack of specialists. A city with a good food surplus can support several artist specialists and this becomes important.
Another general tip in achieving cultural victory is to try to build as many wonders as possible to and to spread them out among your three legendary cities. Great engineers can be very helpful in getting wonders built in your lowest hammer-producing city. The most important wonder for winning a culture victory IMO is Sistine Chapel. Great Artists should generally be used as super specialists in your legendary cities rather than culture bombs unless you have less than 100 turns left before your targeted victories. Also, I like to choose my targeted legendary cities early so I have time to build as many of the monasteries as possible before I get scientific method. I generally do not build obelisks as I am not sure that one extra culture per turn is worth the opportunity cost of the time it takes to build an obelisk with a young city. Also, free religion is a great civic for culture victories because you get one culture per religion in a city as opposed to one culture per turn for a state religion. However, sometimes it is neccessary to switch to organized religion at times if you need to mass produce missionaries for a religion you acquire after you get Scientific method.

It sounds like there are some differing opinions out there about this, but I will generally not shift my culture slider until after I get mass media and assembly line techs. This usually coincides with my being able to get at least five cathedrals and broadcast towers built in all three legendary cities. The culture you get from the slider does you the most good when you maximize the +50% modifiers you get through the cathedrals, etc, and I do not feel that sacrificing science is worth it until then.

I usually play on Monarch level, and it is quite challenging to win a culture victory on most maps. Often, I will need to use spies to be sabotaging AI space programs before my three cities can finally cross the finish line. Although it can be done, and I really enjoy winning by culture the most because it takes the most careful planning of the various victory types.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by gentle
Which trait does support culture victory ?
For my GP research I like PHI a lot atm, though dont have a lot time to play.
Will do some testgames at the weekend on higher diffs but atm wonder which other traits might be interesting.
Also, how important is it to have a civ that starts with mysticism ?

Several traits can be helpful for cultural victory:

Industrious for wonder building
Creative for two bonus culture a turn and cheap theaters (leading to more artist specialists)
Philosophical (for more GP's)
Financial (for more science, cash, and culture from commerce)
Spiritual for cheap temples- this is actually very nice since you will need to build 9 temples for each religion you have (probably 36-63 temples!!)



Also, Starting with Mysticism is nice because you are almost guarunteed to found a religion or two which is very helpful in building up lots of culture early. (Holy shrines are often the earliest +4 culture buildings you can get).

I have won culture victories with Ghandi, Catherine, Elizabeth, Qin, and Louis. Louis is probably the easiest leader for cultural victories I suppose, although I really like having financial as a trait in general.

[gentle]

Every game is different, so it is difficult to give a definite order for a cultural victory.

Sure. Though there are keytechs like Liberalism and Radio,imho.
If I take this as criticism for the research path til Liberalism, then the point is that my research proposal is sort of forced if one likes to use the GPs for the techs, because what techs they give depends on what techs one has.Of course one doesnt have to play like this, just thought it was an interesting idea and it turned out pretty nice I think.

Great Artists should generally be used as super specialists in your legendary cities rather than culture bombs unless you have less than 100 turns left before your targeted victories

Agreed!

@masterdave

Nice trait descriptions.

[johnmcd]

I would say financial is the best trait for a culture win just because it really helps that culture slider be meaningful when it is finally slid.

Others I'd go for are
Industrious - loads of wonders is never a bad thing
Philisophical - extra GP can be very valuable, especially artists

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I like the culture victory and the main observations if you want to go for speed is Philosophical civ, as you can get as many as 30 GP (dependable on lenght of the game, and how much food you have around your cities) than getting the early wonders as Parthenon, Pyramids are nice to get to all government types early, give you an engineer for wonder rush or two, plus create a GP city, plus getting the religions. With the Mercantilism/Caste system and Representation you can get your science going with Culture slider being turned quite high, while getting to Liberalism and after if going for Mass Media or Industrialization. The main requirement is cities with lots of food.

I am just curious is there any way to get other religions with another means apart from conquering their cities or pure luck (as in if they spread by themselves).

For science I think pottery is good, for generation of GP, all the religious and cultural ones are naturally a must, and extra ones are Liberalism and than going towards mass production but dependable on the state of you culture and city size that might not be necessary.

[gentle]

Originally posted by johnmcd
I would say financial is the best trait for a culture win just because it really helps that culture slider be meaningful when it is finally slid.

Others I'd go for are
Industrious - loads of wonders is never a bad thing
Philisophical - extra GP can be very valuable, especially artists

Indeed. I guess the theoretical best civ for culture would be PHI / FIN...problem there is the civ that actually has these traits starts without mysticism, which i think is a more than just notable drawback, because it can mean that you do not get any of the early religions.
I wouldnt want to change PHI so it comes down the question if FIN is worth being non-mysticistic/non-religious.
Atm i would say "no", though i will test that more deeply (only played a few games with the english so far).

edit:
oh..it comes to my mind that Philosophy grants a missionary. thats pretty cool , so i can make sure my GP city has a religion for pacifism.
ok, i change my vote to "yes, but..."
...but another prob is, that i cant change civic (pacifism) and religion (taoism) in the same turn, which i do in my current games because i am PHI / SPI (saladin-see above). this actually slows that down by 5 turns *sigh*

bah! still these two i cannot decide between...
arabs leading atm because they are cooler...but...*sigh*