For a Culture Victory stay at 3-4 cities and "puppet" the AI

[jobe]

If you´re attempting a culture victory, stay at 4, rather even 3 cities since costs for cultural policies (CPs) scale with the number of your cities.

You can still "puppet" AI cities. They will provide you with culture and other benefits - though will also cost maintenance and have an impact on happiness - but they won´t increase costs for CPs.

[pdxsean]

I'm wondering where exactly the cutoff is for more cities vs culture penalty. There's a 15% penalty per city... is that cumulative or compounded I wonder? So at 7 cities, would I be paying 190% of the base cost, or 266%?

I just went from 5 cities to 6. I am playing the Indians, King difficulty, epic, huge map (if any of those matter). None of my existing social policies effect the total needed for the next social policy. I selected my fifth social policy when I had five cities. The total for the next policy was 1120. I made a six city, and now the cost is 1225. So only a 10% increase in the total cost...

Update : Went from 6 cities to 7. The total went from 1225 to 1330. So the 15% is obviously applied to the base cost, not cumulative. That's good news for the expansionist...

[Alexfrog]

Why 3-4? Why not 1?

[jobe]

Why 3-4? Why not 1?

Because the ratio of "ability to accumulate culture with your cities vs. "cost of cultural policies related to number of cities" is best at that number. You also still need to produce units etc.

If you play a game without opponents or on always peace, things might change, maybe to two cities, maybe not though.