AI Cultural Victories are EVIL

[Yosho]

Yeah, spies help slow down a AI who's going for a cultrual victory, help a great deal. About the only time I ever use the espeanage slider. Poison the wells in the three big cities, destroy cultrual buildings if you can, perhaps take out health resources as well to intensify the damage due to the poisoned wells. If you can keep his population in those cities down to 1, he can't make as much culture there. Remember, he's putting everything he can into culture at this point (usually about 90%), so anything you can do to hurt his economy will help.

Also, the way the AI goes for the cultrual vicotry means you have to be a little careful these days about spreading multiple religions to certain AI's, and you REALLY don't want to spread, say, Sid's Sushi corp to someone who might go for a culture win; the AI is smart enough to spread that corp into his three big culture cities if you give him a chance.

[Kuciwalker]

I had already send 5 transports into her direction to raze one of her legendary cities, but then the UN decides to force peace

I approve.

[couerdelion]

If you are trying to win a game, you should always have a good idea of whether the AI might get there first.

In other words, the Victory Conditions screen is not something that you check when you are 20 turns from victory. You should be looking there much early so that you can prepare for these things. By the time you hit Astronomy is probably a reasonable enough point.

As for the UN vote I don’t understand the problem. You accept it -> You lose. You don’t accept it -> You might win. That’s not a very difficult choice.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Blake
Remember, the AI is behind BECAUSE it's going for a cultural victory. It's not going for a culturally victory because it's behind or something...
In other words, there's a good chance that at least some CV AI's, could have done a viable spacerace, if they wanted to, but instead they decide to go for a CV.
(Which is an earlier win, anyway).

It was already behind me long before it decided to go culturally!

[Saurus]

Based on my experience, cultural victories in BTS do not feel very balanced.

In BTS I have won a cultural victory while actually trying to win a space-race victory.
A Cultural victory in BTS seems so easy you can achieve it by pure accident.

This could be because the endgame of BTS is longer while the required culture for cultural victory is still the same as before. (am I correct?)

[binTravkin]

Cultural victory should actually be one of the easiest and earliest.
Conquest victory must be the quickest as it depends on how fast you kill everyone, but if you start stockpiling culture as soon as it seems reasonable, you should be winner long before spacerace is possible.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Cultural victory should actually be one of the easiest and earliest.

I’m not sure I see why this would be the case. The cultural victory certainly requires a fairly clear early focus on culture. In the early game, this implies getting a decent early mix of religion to allow the multiple cathedrals to be built and probably the acquisition of a few early game wonders. Of the different victory conditions this is probably more of the normal tech path so an early decision needs to be made.

Domination, Diplomatic, Conquest and Space Race can actually fall along the same general game plan so a decision on which to go for can be left until later in the game.

[binTravkin]

I’m not sure I see why this would be the case.

You answered yourself here

an early decision needs to be made

Domination, Diplomatic, Conquest and Space Race can actually fall along the same general game plan so a decision on which to go for can be left until later in the game.

I was talking about a Conquest victory ASAP, in which case you will be quite focused on war from the very beginning, even earlier than decision about Cultural victory (which you can decide after the initial REX phase, where question would be whether the territory you've got is easily defendable and has the needed resources).

[couerdelion]

What I was saying that the cultural victory is likely to be more problematic because it forces an early decision. It does not make the actual victory that much sooner.

Conquest and Domination I tend to put in much the same box. They are really the same thing and fall naturally into any strong game plan which involves aggressive expansion (the standard default).

Space Race wins if you get a tech advantage - ie have a large empire

Diplo wins with a large empire.

So of the non-cultural wins, Diplo is probably the soonest if you have a reasonable rate of research. Arguably, its easier than Domination and Conquest because you can stop fighting when you don't need to any then coast to victory.

Perhaps for the work involved, cultural victories can be considered easy since there are fewer decisions to make. But they also tend to leave you behind in other factors. The actual generation of the culture may not be a problem but diplomatic and other matters may become more tricky because you are that much weaker.

It's all a matter of what you consider difficult.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by CyberShy


It was already behind me long before it decided to go culturally!

I think they decide pretty early on what victory they're going for ...

[ben_vii]

Does anyone have a rundown on how many points on each game speed a city needs to be deemed legendary?

[MinorAnnoyance]

Originally posted by Adagio
Cultural victory

I haven't lost to an AI winning this way yet, but I've been close


The closest I've been was when Russia had a lead in culture and was heading straight for this victory. They had the strongest allies and the weakest enemies. While I was in the middle. I didn't have a strong enough military to take both Russia and their strong allies out... hell, even holding back from them was impossible
Lucky me Russia did something very stupid: Just before winning they decided to attack America, who also had a defense pact with the strongest player, which means Russia's ally was forced to attack them. And since Russia had a smaller army than me (after their ex-ally took one of their cities) I decided to attack and raze one of their cities...
The end result: I won by culture instead

Had Russia played it smart I wouldn't have had a chance

I had a similar game. It was an oasis map and I had no good resources so I couldn't fight the whole game. I couldn't even build a spaceship so I dropped out of the science race went for culture, but Russia was going to win before me with a space win. So I sent spies into Russia and intentionally took missions with low success rate so they'd get mad an declare war. We had a mutual ally but since Russia was the declarer, Persia sided with me. They took a break from building the space ship to build gunships. We nuked each other and I lost some buildings/improvements but I won before they crossed the map to get to me. A narrow victory and since I twice had to reload back 30 turns twice to chance strategy I didn't really feel like I won. Also my lowest score or any winning game.

[Robert]

Originally posted by snoopy369


I think they decide pretty early on what victory they're going for ...

You have no idea how good I was
But you're most probably right, I've just been defeated in a fair and honest way

[Blake]

Originally posted by CyberShy


It was already behind me long before it decided to go culturally!

The AI has usually decided around about Judaism. Under odd conditions an AI can decide to go for a CV at a later point in the game, for example if an AI is vassalized and a CV looks viable it might shoot for it when it wouldn't as a non-vassal, and if the AI somehow picks up a lot of religions it might decide a CV looks good, but they usually decide very early on.

[Robert]

When I checked earlier on in the game Hatseputs had about the same cultural city values as I had, that's why I didn't worry for a long time
Then about 200 turns later it was like 48000/32000/30000, that's when I started to worry.
And then she really was on fire and got about +800 per city per turn. w0w!

I just didn't saw it coming.
I lost the game before that as will to a cultural victory, that's why I checked it early on.