Is a culture win possible here?

[NFIH]

I'd like some advice on whether or not I should continue to pursue a culture win given current conditions. Those are: I'm playing as Egypt's Hattie, year is around 1860, my research is around 150/turn, I've founded three religions (Judaism, Confucianism and Islam) and I currently have three cities pursuing legendary status at between 10,000-13,000 culture points each. (Per turn culture generation in these cities ranges between 80-150.)

Other relevant data:

Game speed is normal.

Difficulty level is noble.

Map is custom continents and I share one continent with the Americans.

I have eight cities.

I'm running caste system (for max artists) and will probably adopt mercantilism when I get it.

Other victory conditions include: domination, conquest and space race.

No. of civs is 15 and one that I know of has been wiped out so we're at 14 total now.

I've met about six other civs and am in the lead among those (even over Mansa!) points-wise.

My three leading cultural cities also lead among all the other civs I've met. (Question: Does the victory screen show the points for the leading AI cities of civs I haven't met? Right now it only shows American cities and I can't imagine someone else doesn't have more than they do, even if I'm still in the lead.)

I'm worried that I'm not generating enough culture to get to 50,000 in three cities in any appreciable length of time. But then again, I've never gone for a culture win so I have no idea if my worry is founded. I've been building all the religious buildings I can to increase culture, etc.

[MyOlde]

I just had a culture win on Noble and I think you're on your way. Do you have artist specialists in some cities trying to generate Great Artists? You should be able to do it.

I'm sure others will have more expert opinion. Just make sure your defenses are good.

[Ming]

It sounds like a culture win should be easy. Create as many artist specialists as you can and crank out the great artists. It should be a piece of cake from the sound of things. However, make sure you do have an army to defend yourself

[sowings]

Using Great Artists

What is considered "best strategy" for using a great artist when pursuing a cultural victory? Great works (+4000 culture) or the settled artist (+12 / turn)? Do you always do one or the other, or try to make the decision based upon the number of turns remaining?

[NFIH]

Yes, I've been trying to crank out the artist specialists.

In my three leading cities, I've got anywhere between three and six specialists going and I managed to build the Sistine Chapel. When I get biology I plan to convert some land to farms and up the total more. However, I have to be very careful to keep my commerce up as I'm only barely keeping up in tech with the Americans and will in fact soon lose out there. But my plan is to deter attack by keeping a strong deterrent force on my borders (lots of cats to smash any SoD before it gets to my cities).

I'm currently beelining for democracy in an attempt to get the Statue of Liberty but I fear my science rate is too low and someone will get it before me. I have no real way of increasing the science rate now other than to switch artist specialists to science ones, which I won't do, for obvious reasons.

I'm also running the culture slider up at 30% or 40%--quite on purpose as I'm hoping to catch all the other civs napping and beat them to a win by culture before they wake up and think about invading me. I may be forced to knock the slider back down to zero and up science anyway. We'll see.

[NFIH]

Re: Using Great Artists

Originally posted by sowings
What is considered "best strategy" for using a great artist when pursuing a cultural victory? Great works (+4000 culture) or the settled artist (+12 / turn)? Do you always do one or the other, or try to make the decision based upon the number of turns remaining?

I've definitely been bombing them for the 4,000 points. I think that given that you need three cities at a whopping 50,000 each it's a no-brainer that you have to, one, crank out the specialists as quickly as possible, and, two, bomb them for the 4,000 points. It's a huge chunk to get in one fell swoop.

[snoopy369]

Culture win should be easy. Make sure you get the three cultural wonders in the Electricity chain - Broadway, R&R, and Hollywood. Also, the Eiffel Tower is a nice one in that area. Those are more important than the Statue if you're going for a culture victory.

You really should keep the culture slider off until you have at least those three wonders - teching quickly to that means you can more quickly multiply your culture. I assume you have all three cathedrals in all three cities? Try to get another religion or two if you can - even by conquest (quick-grab a city with a few unowned religions, if necessary, then quickly go to OrgRel for some quick missionaries).

[snoopy369]

Re: Using Great Artists

Originally posted by sowings
What is considered "best strategy" for using a great artist when pursuing a cultural victory? Great works (+4000 culture) or the settled artist (+12 / turn)? Do you always do one or the other, or try to make the decision based upon the number of turns remaining?

If it's late in the game, definitely bombing. Actually, I usually save them up - you never know exactly which city will most quickly hit the 50,000 when push comes to shove, so it's nice to save them and use them the last turn. It's not like it hurts you any, and the additional advantage is the AI doesn't know quite how close you are to a victory.

If it's very early on, the +12 is adequate, but you usually don't know ahead of time you're going for a culture victory...

[NFIH]

Originally posted by MyOlde
I just had a culture win on Noble and I think you're on your way. Do you have artist specialists in some cities trying to generate Great Artists? You should be able to do it.

I'm sure others will have more expert opinion. Just make sure your defenses are good.

Do you happen to remember around what year you won this culture victory and how many cities your total empire comprised?

[NFIH]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Culture win should be easy. Make sure you get the three cultural wonders in the Electricity chain - Broadway, R&R, and Hollywood. Also, the Eiffel Tower is a nice one in that area. Those are more important than the Statue if you're going for a culture victory.

You really should keep the culture slider off until you have at least those three wonders - teching quickly to that means you can more quickly multiply your culture. I assume you have all three cathedrals in all three cities? Try to get another religion or two if you can - even by conquest (quick-grab a city with a few unowned religions, if necessary, then quickly go to OrgRel for some quick missionaries).

Aha, didn't realize all that. Coming from a vet player like yourself, I'll definitely have to reconsider my plans, especially about the culture slider.

I'm a little frustrated by the religions/cathedrals thing. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to in which cities the option to build cathedrals (or that other building just before it) shows up. For example, even though I've got all the religions and temples in my three culture cities, the option to build monasteries and/or cathedrals might only show up in my military or other cities, which doesn't help me much.

Can you explain what influences in which cities these options turn up and what I can do to affect it?

[snoopy369]

You can build one cathedral for every three temples you have built of that religion. It should not vary by city. You must have:
1. The Religion
2. The Temple of that Religion
3. At least three of THAT religion's temples for every cathedral you have of THAT religion, including the one you want to build

Other than that there are no requirements, as far as I am aware.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by snoopy369
You can build one cathedral for every three temples you have built of that religion. It should not vary by city. You must have:
1. The Religion
2. The Temple of that Religion
3. At least three of THAT religion's temples for every cathedral you have of THAT religion, including the one you want to build

Other than that there are no requirements, as far as I am aware.

Right, I understand that. But for example, I have Judaism spread in all of my cities and have eight temples. But only a few of the cities actually give me the option of even building the related cathedral. Shouldn't the option be showing up in each city's available builds and then be greyed out once the cathedral is actually built somewhere?

At the moment what's happening is that the cathedral is not even showing up as an option in my cultural cities despite those cities having all the temples. I'll double-check when I get home, but I believe this is the case at present.

[snoopy369]

It should be possible in all eight cities (as long as you have only 1 or 0 cathedrals), as far as I know.

[Petek]

I ran into the same situation as NFIH in a recent game: I could build a specific Cathedral in some cities, but not others. I couldn't figure out what was happening. IIRC, the Cathedrals eventually became available in the cities where I wanted to build them. This same problem was reported in this thread on CivFanatics. At least one poster there thought it was a bug, but I don't completely follow the reasoning.

For the record, I'm running version 3.17 with Solver's patch.

Petek

[Jaybe]

Sid's Sushi, Civilized Jewelers, Creative Construction. Add resources (through conquest or trade) -- AI civs LOVE to trade resources to you after your corp. has expanded to more than one city.