Cultural Victory?

[AreliusMaximus]

I'm currently in the middle of a standard Civ game, it's 700AD and I'm trying for a cultural victory. I set the nation to random and ended up with Washington. I have three large cities that I've built theaters. I had a great artist that I dropped in one of my cities for for +4000.

I ended up going to war with the English and have taken two of their cities. Not sure what to do with them.

How can I boost my cultural ratings? Right now I'm looking at about +15, +17 and +38 per turn on culture in the three main cities. I have open border agreements with everyone, and good relations with everyone...well except the English. They're not too happy I sacked their cities

I've also researched Drama and Music. What's a good path forward towards cultural victory? (This is on chieftien level, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?)

[phlucas]

Re: Cultural Victory?

Originally posted by AreliusMaximus
What's a good path forward towards cultural victory?

Cathedrals. Build enough temples of all religions to create as many cathedrals as possible in your culture cities.

In the late game, build broadcasting towers (or the Eiffel Tower) and wait.

[Nugog]

Have a look under Vicotry Conditions, see who the closest Cultural scores to you, amass an army and destroy them!

And then, yeah, cathedrals, broadcast towers, specialists, wait.......

[Solver]

Cathedrals and Wonders. The Free Speech civic and the Eiffel Tower when you get to those. And possibly use the culture slider.

+15 or +38 won't be enough in the long run. I've never went for a Culture victory specifically, but I have had cities with as much as +300 culture per turn.

But generally, in those three cities, build everything that contributes to culture. Use Artist specialists if the terrain allows it. Don't bother attacking "competitors" - the AI is unable to achieve a culture victory.

[ColdPhoenix]

Originally posted by nugog
Have a look under Vicotry Conditions, see who the closest Cultural scores to you, amass an army and destroy them!

It doesn't matter what the opposition culture is (unless they get three cities to legendary culture first which is unlikely).

As above, but also go straight to Mass Media and then change the economic slider to 100% culture or the highest that you can afford. You can fund your research by most of your cities building research other than your 3 culture cities building culture. Depending on what the cities culture is like you could build hollywood etc, though if you're not too far off the legendary status it might be better to build culture.

This is assuming you have an adequate military to defend yourself, or some very good friends. Your research won't be great if you're funding it exclusively from cities but if you focus on military techs (after reaching Mass Media) to keep your army up-to-date it should be okay.

It may be worth building the heroic epic and westpoint in one of your non-culture cities. I know it's some culture that is being lost but you could keep that city churning out troops to discourage attacks.

[Saurus]

Try to choose as early as possible witch 3 cities are going to be your key-cities to cultural victory.

Then boost the culture in theese cities with any means possible.
Many religions equals many temples witch in turn equals many cathedrals!

Also, out of theese 3 cities, always priorize most the city witch have the LOWEST culture (and lowest culture output) at any given time
(So that you end up building the hermitage in a city that produces the least ammount of culture at that point for instance)

If you can manage to get all 3 of your cultural cities to reach legendary culture at about the same time, then you have planned well.

Should one city reach legendary status much before the others then you have priorized one city too much at the expense of the others.

[snoopy369]

Keys to winning a cultural victory (my favorite and most common victory type!):

1. As many religions as possible in your cities. Try to get them on your own, but if you can't found them get the AI to give them to you any way possible. 4 is the real minimum, 5-6 is much preferred.
2. Build every religious building in your three target cities, for each religion. Temples from all (5-6) religions, cathedrals (+50% culture for each), and monestaries in each. This gives you some decent base culture plus the major modifiers.
3. Build all of the other major cultural buildings: University, Theatre, etc.
4. WONDERS! At least one of the three cities should be a World Wonder city. Focus on wonders that give more culture, and wonders that provide Great Artists. Wonders like the Spiral Minaret, Sistine Chapel, etc. that give 8+ culture are key to focus on, as well. Great Artist and Great Engineer are focuses, but also just try to generate culture with them for this city. Eiffel Tower is also key for me late in the game, and is usually the last Great Wonder I really push for.
5. NATIONAL WONDERS! There are a few national wonders that you should reserve for cities that need them. Specifically, your weakest city. Basically, look at the culture from the national wonders and put things like the Globe Theatre, Forbidden Palace, Heroic Epic, etc. in the cities that need culture the most. You can build these wonders at ANY time, so even if the city takes 50-60 turns to build it, do it anyway!
6. MEDIA WONDERS. Broadway, Hollywood, Rock & Roll. These three are MUST BUILDS. I've never won a cultural victory without at least two of these; although they're just the equivalent of one Cathedral, it's the fact that these ARE buildable (and there's not an equally advanced or more advanced AI out there who'll beat me to Space Race) is important. Of course put these in the cities that need the culture the most... and if you can use a great engineer to build them, so much the better.
7. GREAT PEOPLE. One of your cities should be your GP generator - and probably your lowest hammer city, if you're lucky to get say a floodplains city or some such. GP is a key to the cultural victory. This city should have a ton of specialists, I usually go 8 to 10 by the end, so irrigate every square you can. You should have the max engineers available, and the rest should be artists. Either build the Globe Theatre here, to allow plenty of artists, or run caste system (as discussed below). Artists are key for culture, of course, but Engineers are key for helping build those key wonders later in the game. Wonders built in this city should be the Artist and Engineer wonders, so you don't waste GPPs on prophets or merchants etc. GAs that spawn with more than about 50-80 turns left in the game should be SETTLED, not used to build their great work. Remember, you're massively multiplying their culture with buildings; 5 cathedrals alone takes their culture to over 40 per turn, and that's hopefully not all of the multiplying you'll be doing.
8. CIVICS: You should of course run Free Speech as early as possible, and Caste System usually as long as possible (for that major GA city). Pacifism is key for the GPPs, and the other two you can run whatever; usually Universal Suffrage or Representation, and Mercantilism/Free Market.
9. GO ALL CULTURE: At a certain point in the game, for me usually with the discovery of Mass Media, it's time to move that culture slider to 100%. Trade techs for cash freely at this point, trying to get enough gold to be able to run at a deficit. (However, don't help any civs that are near space capability to get there.) The culture slider can be worth 50-100 unmodified culture per turn, plus all of those modifiers which usually run 300%-400% in your 3. By the time I'm running the culture slider 100%, I have about 500-700 culture per turn in my three core cities. That means 70-100 turns from the start of the game to 50000 culture at this rate; usually I run it for about 50 turns, as my three core cities are in the 20,000 range by this point.

When you're in a culture victory scenario, you have a few things to watch for:
* AI Space Race: If you lose, it'll probably be to the space race. Be aware where the AI is on this front.
* War: The AI may go to war with you. I suggest building as many military units as humanly possible with your nonculture cities. That discourages the war and helps you fight the war if it happens
* UN: Make sure the UN isn't going to cause trouble for you. Expect it to eventually force you to the 5 advanced civics ... so don't depend on Pacifism and Caste System to get you that late GA. If you can set up a situation where you are the UN SG, so much the better, but usually that's hard at higher levels.

--------------------
One other thing: You need to decide to go for a culture victory from nearly the start, unless things just pan out randomly like this. You need to have a city that can easily be your GP generator (a city with tons of food, usually flood plains or several cows/wheats/corns/etc. in the fat cross), a city that can be your Wonder Builder, and usually your capital is the third city (as it has an advantage over the other two). You need to found several religions, build temples early (remember culture increases on old buildings!), and keep building them. You need to try and build NINE cities, so that all three culture cities can bulid all of the cathedrals available. You need to send missionaries for ALL of the religions to ALL of your cities. You need to build the right wonders, and not waste GPs on those silly Merchants or Prophets (except maybe at the very start, to get your money rolling and build culture-generating Great Temples). And it helps to have the right leader traits... Industrious and Philosophical being the two major ones, of course.

On any level above noble, cultural victories are HARD, even harder now that Blake kicked the AI into high gear. But, they're not impossible (I won a culture victory against my second Prince 2.08 game, and came within 2 turns (Space Race) of winning my first one) with the right planning. A simple war to eliminate the tech leader in the mid game can help, and is necessary above prince as otherwise the AI will just space race to victory before you can get the culture.

Good luck

[AreliusMaximus]

Wow that''s a lot of great advice! Thanks for all the tips. I'm wondering if in my current game a cultural victory is impossible since I didn't do some (alot ) of the things mentioned, especially with religion. I didn't found any religions and only one has spread to my territory.

Which leads me to another question: Is it possible to shift strategies as the game progresses, or is it too difficult once you start down a path to realistically be able to pull anything else off?

I realize there's a lot of strategy involved in Civ IV and that you definitely need a plan, I'm just wondering how sensitive it is to early game decisions. Say you start going for culture, a couple other civs beat you to relgiions and get a couple wonders. Can you realistically expect to shift strategy and still win?

[ColdPhoenix]

Culture victories need more forward planning than any other and I'd think you've probably missed your chance now. Having only one religion is the killer. To get another you'd have to hope that another civ sends a missionary or capture a city with a different religion and start spreading it from there. All this takes time which you don't have.

If you going for other victories then a focused early game can make it easier but you should be able to achieve any of them in theory. This is assuming you're still around 700AD. If you're in the 20th century you'll have to settle for a space race victory.

[snoopy369]

I wouldn't say it's impossible to shift strategies during the game ... heck, I'd say it's nearly mandatory. But when I say "shift" I really mean "adapt", as in adapt your strategy to how the game is actually going. I don't usually start the game by going specifically for a cultural victory, but I make sure the groundwork is set for it, as it's the type of victory you need the most groundwork for. Once I get into the middle ages or so I usually can tell what sort of victory is likely; if I have a tech lead, then space; if I have a decent number of wonders and three good cities, then culture; if I have some friends (many other coreligionists) then UN; if I have none of the above, then probably domination. That shift of strategies is essential, as if you don't adapt to the conditions of the game, you have no chance ...

[Brutus66]

I can't improvise that well.

When I'm assigned a random leader, I evaluate his strengths and weaknesses and decide on turn one what victory I am going to steer for.

When I depart from my strategy or try to hedge my bets, like building spaceship parts when going for a culture win, is when I lose or squeek by with a Dan Quayle win.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Keys to winning a cultural victory (my favorite and most common victory type!):

1. As many religions as possible in your cities. Try to get them on your own, but if you can't found them get the AI to give them to you any way possible. 4 is the real minimum, 5-6 is much preferred.
2. Build every religious building in your three target cities, for each religion. Temples from all (5-6) religions, cathedrals (+50% culture for each), and monestaries in each. This gives you some decent base culture plus the major modifiers.
3. Build all of the other major cultural buildings: University, Theatre, etc.
4. WONDERS! At least one of the three cities should be a World Wonder city. Focus on wonders that give more culture, and wonders that provide Great Artists. Wonders like the Spiral Minaret, Sistine Chapel, etc. that give 8+ culture are key to focus on, as well. Great Artist and Great Engineer are focuses, but also just try to generate culture with them for this city. Eiffel Tower is also key for me late in the game, and is usually the last Great Wonder I really push for.
5. NATIONAL WONDERS! There are a few national wonders that you should reserve for cities that need them. Specifically, your weakest city. Basically, look at the culture from the national wonders and put things like the Globe Theatre, Forbidden Palace, Heroic Epic, etc. in the cities that need culture the most. You can build these wonders at ANY time, so even if the city takes 50-60 turns to build it, do it anyway!
6. MEDIA WONDERS. Broadway, Hollywood, Rock & Roll. These three are MUST BUILDS. I've never won a cultural victory without at least two of these; although they're just the equivalent of one Cathedral, it's the fact that these ARE buildable (and there's not an equally advanced or more advanced AI out there who'll beat me to Space Race) is important. Of course put these in the cities that need the culture the most... and if you can use a great engineer to build them, so much the better.
7. GREAT PEOPLE. One of your cities should be your GP generator - and probably your lowest hammer city, if you're lucky to get say a floodplains city or some such. GP is a key to the cultural victory. This city should have a ton of specialists, I usually go 8 to 10 by the end, so irrigate every square you can. You should have the max engineers available, and the rest should be artists. Either build the Globe Theatre here, to allow plenty of artists, or run caste system (as discussed below). Artists are key for culture, of course, but Engineers are key for helping build those key wonders later in the game. Wonders built in this city should be the Artist and Engineer wonders, so you don't waste GPPs on prophets or merchants etc. GAs that spawn with more than about 50-80 turns left in the game should be SETTLED, not used to build their great work. Remember, you're massively multiplying their culture with buildings; 5 cathedrals alone takes their culture to over 40 per turn, and that's hopefully not all of the multiplying you'll be doing.
8. CIVICS: You should of course run Free Speech as early as possible, and Caste System usually as long as possible (for that major GA city). Pacifism is key for the GPPs, and the other two you can run whatever; usually Universal Suffrage or Representation, and Mercantilism/Free Market.
9. GO ALL CULTURE: At a certain point in the game, for me usually with the discovery of Mass Media, it's time to move that culture slider to 100%. Trade techs for cash freely at this point, trying to get enough gold to be able to run at a deficit. (However, don't help any civs that are near space capability to get there.) The culture slider can be worth 50-100 unmodified culture per turn, plus all of those modifiers which usually run 300%-400% in your 3. By the time I'm running the culture slider 100%, I have about 500-700 culture per turn in my three core cities. That means 70-100 turns from the start of the game to 50000 culture at this rate; usually I run it for about 50 turns, as my three core cities are in the 20,000 range by this point.

When you're in a culture victory scenario, you have a few things to watch for:
* AI Space Race: If you lose, it'll probably be to the space race. Be aware where the AI is on this front.
* War: The AI may go to war with you. I suggest building as many military units as humanly possible with your nonculture cities. That discourages the war and helps you fight the war if it happens
* UN: Make sure the UN isn't going to cause trouble for you. Expect it to eventually force you to the 5 advanced civics ... so don't depend on Pacifism and Caste System to get you that late GA. If you can set up a situation where you are the UN SG, so much the better, but usually that's hard at higher levels.

--------------------
One other thing: You need to decide to go for a culture victory from nearly the start, unless things just pan out randomly like this. You need to have a city that can easily be your GP generator (a city with tons of food, usually flood plains or several cows/wheats/corns/etc. in the fat cross), a city that can be your Wonder Builder, and usually your capital is the third city (as it has an advantage over the other two). You need to found several religions, build temples early (remember culture increases on old buildings!), and keep building them. You need to try and build NINE cities, so that all three culture cities can bulid all of the cathedrals available. You need to send missionaries for ALL of the religions to ALL of your cities. You need to build the right wonders, and not waste GPs on those silly Merchants or Prophets (except maybe at the very start, to get your money rolling and build culture-generating Great Temples). And it helps to have the right leader traits... Industrious and Philosophical being the two major ones, of course.

On any level above noble, cultural victories are HARD, even harder now that Blake kicked the AI into high gear. But, they're not impossible (I won a culture victory against my second Prince 2.08 game, and came within 2 turns (Space Race) of winning my first one) with the right planning. A simple war to eliminate the tech leader in the mid game can help, and is necessary above prince as otherwise the AI will just space race to victory before you can get the culture.

Good luck

This is a nice summary but the vast majority of the time you should be shutting off research after getting liberalism and demo - going further into the tech tree is a waste. You should switch to culture even earlier if you snag the pyramids.

And when you've got the technique down pat culture victories are pretty easy to pull off at the higher levels - in fact I'd argue easier than Spaceship on anything higher than Monarch.