Having recenty won a diplomatic victory, I started a new game and planned to go for a cultural victory. Noble, egypt, small, archipelago, snaky continents, medium ocean, pretty much the same settings as my last game. Here is what I attempted... built 3 cities, yep only 3 the entire game. Went straight for religion and cultural techs with a few others in between. I traded for non-culture related techs that I thought I needed and just about any other techs I was able to trade for. My military, it was a complete joke. :lol: I am talking my entire military consisted of only 3 warriors for several turns until I was later able to build archers and better units. Still throughout the entire game I had anywhere between 3-6 land units and a couple of ships, that was my entire military.

Well, all was going good, I founded 3 or more religions in each of my cities which was still only 3 cities, thats all I built the whole game. I built every kind of temple and culture related wonder and building I could build in each city. Still, I was doing very well with this approach. Here it was about 8 turns from ending and I had approximately 41k culture in each city. So what happened? Well I forgot to do once crucial thing, that was increase my overall culture precentage and drop science down. I played with 0% culture setting the whole game. This is why I lost because I never changed it early enough and I lost do to a timed victory acheived by another nation. After a while I was looking at the total amount of culture each city had and this was after about 75% of the game was over. Then I was realizing I would never make it and was trying to figure out what was wrong. Well, I realized that I needed to increase overall culture percentage. As soon as I done that, cranked it up to 90%. Man, my culture started to sky rocket! Still, I did not do this early enough but it was so very close! When it ended, I had about 44K in each city. :( It seems I should have done this about 70% through the game or a little the entire game.

After realizing my mistake, I decided to start another game with all the same settings. This time I would change that culture slider to as much as I could right in the beginning. This game was a disaster. I never even came close to winning the second game, I only had about 23k in each city when it ended and I lost to another timed victory. Part of the reason was because Greece had decared war on me fairly early. Then 4 gallies appeared of my coast and here I was with 3 warriors in each city :eek: So I had to slave build some of my own gallies and get archery as quick as possible. This forced me to change into a war strategy and tore up my economy, science and everything else. For crying out loud, Greece had longbowmen on one of those ships! So I engaged i several sea battles, lost more then half of them. Then I managed to get archers just in time which actually made Greece call of a landing. Anyway, the bottom line, I done alot worse this game then my first.

So, I tried a third game, same settings. This one... I won't even want to talk about, put it this way, I had to retire after about only 1 hour of playing because I was getting the heck beat out of me. :lol: War broke out, I was badly attacked and beaten.

Well, I will give it another shot, see how this next game turns out. :rolleyes:

I won twice on Noble with cultural victories. I didn't boost the cultural slider up to 100 until I had gotten riflemen and could defend myself. I won the first game with 65 turns to go, and the second with 15 turns to go.

It is always helpful to have more cities that support your 3. Religions for example. You can build each religion's super temple (not the founding city one) for every 3 cities that have a temple of that religion. ex, you can build a Christian Cathedral if you have 3 Christian temples built. Another one is the Hindu Mandur. Each one of these buildings increase the culture by 50%. So if you have 9 cities total, each with temples, you will be able to plop down every religion's great temple in your 3 culture win cities. That combined with ?Free Speech? (100% to culture) and using the culture slider, you shouldn't have any problem winning a culture victory on Noble.

I managed to win a culture vitory on Emperor (still working on military) with my highest culture city at around 100k. It was knocking out nearly 900 culture per turn at the end.

Another helpful thing was I had set up my GP production to production Great Artists. I saved every one that was produced. They produce 4000 culture points each when they make a great work (i think that is what it is called) in a chosen city. At the very end of the game, I took all 7 into my last city that needed to reach 50,000 cultural and had them all build their great works in one turn. That was 28,000 points! The reason I did it that way was so that the AIs wouldn't see me about to win a cultural victory and beat the crudola out of me. :mischief:

Whats crazy is that I done progressively worse each game I played after my first using all the same settings. I almost had that 3 city victory in that first game, I it would work but not all the time. I think the key is, is when and how much the overall culture is turned up, at least with playing 3 cities. Never tried with more then that but yeah, that could work especially since you had won on emperor that way. It would probably be very difficult to win with only 3 cities on emperor but it certainly could be tried. I am going to give this cultural victory game another shot see how it works.

Forgot to mention broadcast tower (+50% to culture) as well.

One thing about great artists. They can be much better if added as super specialists depending on what improvements are built in the city. By themselves, they take a long time to generate the 4k that a great work would create (286 turns at 14/turn). However, with free speech and tower and a few religious super temples, they can churn out 50-70 culture/turn. Throw in mods to the culture slider and they can make up the 4k great work culture in ~50 turns. Every turn after that is gravy.

I acknowledge of course, that there are situations in which you would want to use the instant 4k culture. Avoiding getting the "cudola" beating out of one's self comes to mind. :) Just pointing out that using an artist as a super specialist can have bigger advantages.

EDIT: Its funny on the Emperor thing. I wasn't even trying to win a cultural victory at first. I just had 3 really nice cities that were losing ground to higher culture civs. They would have dried up had I not done anything. So I researched 100% culture and focused 100% culture in those 3 cities to at least maintain my borders. I didn't even realize I had so much culture until it dinged I had won. I was just trying to keep my towns and resources. :)

Another helpful thing was I had set up my GP production to production Great Artists. I saved every one that was produced. They produce 4000 culture points each when they make a great work (i think that is what it is called) in a chosen city. At the very end of the game, I took all 7 into my last city that needed to reach 50,000 cultural and had them all build their great works in one turn. That was 28,000 points! The reason I did it that way was so that the AIs wouldn't see me about to win a cultural victory and beat the crudola out of me. :mischief:

Great Artists, yep I forgot to mention, I was using them and those played a big part in my quest for a cultural vic. The thing is I was using them as I got them. Mostly if later during the game, I would drop them into cities that were behind for 4000 culture. If I got them early during the game, I would add the +14 to it. I never tried saving them before, I would be afraid war may break out if I did. Then I risk the chance of losing them or having to pile all of them in one city, good idea though. I never knew you could actually set it to produce a certain type of GP, how do you do that? Did you just boost up the GA chance of production or can you actually set it some kind of way?

Don't neglect your military, even if you never plan on using them. You don't need a massive army but having more than one warrior per city will help keep the agressive AI's from attacking you. If you plan on using the culture slider you need strong commerce cities, if you plan on mainly using great artists (and normal specialists) you need strong food producing cities. Try to make that descision early in the game and stick with it for all three cities.

Originally posted by Warspite 2:Did you just boost up the GA chance of production or can you actually set it some kind of way?

Sorry, I made that sound like a much more certain thing than it was. There was no guarantee I was going to get great artists. I just made artist specialists, and in my best GP city I tried only to build wonders that increased the chances of building great artists. I think out of the 14 or so GP, I got that game, 7 or 8 were GA. I also had built city improvements like theatres that allowed me to create some specialists, which further improved my Great Artist chances.

I didn't want to just add them to cities as specialists. Because for a lot of the game I couldn't tell what my number 3 city was going to be.

Earlier in the game, I had tried to get Great Prophets so I could build shrines and found religions. :king:

Here's a great guide for Cultural Victories. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138647)

I managed 2 cultral victories on noble.

First one was as japan, got constantly attacked by alexander and montezuma, kept backtracking but always got hammerd, gave up when i held out till late 20th century only to get tank rushed with about 5-10K to go in all my cities (now I cringe every time i see ol alex glare at me with his hand on his chin, or monty act all aggresive and suddenly crack a smile) i later started on it again about 500 AD

second time as india, i had the good fortune of being sole occupant of a relatively large island. settler rushed it while founding three religions, spread all three, built cathedrals in the three highest 'culture' cities, while the rest pretty much were for research and revenue. it was this game i learned the finer points of foreign policy: when dragged into a fight, side with your closer neighbor, or failing that, the stronger civ. Nobody likes a switzerland. Went universal suffrage and rushed broadway, eiffel tower, and hollywood, (also UN, never lost as secretary general, but could never manage a diplomatic victory no matter how much crap i gave away, I'll figure diplomatic victories later.) and set the slider up around the turn of the century. I kept watching other civs launch stuff into space and kept passing turns nervously. finally won.

went back to my first game, kept my border garrisons strong (4/city), even wasted 2 greats on a golden age just to raise the revenue to upgrade to rifles/grenades. I had napoleon, alex, monty, and musa on one side, huanya on the other, and when everyone ganged up on musa, i joined in just to prove i was part of the 'in' croud, took timbuktoo, set up 2 more cities on the border to buffer one of my cultural cities, kept them well armed, and this time around all 3 maniacs left me alone and invaded the continent of rome instead. I lent naval support just to stay on their good side. I had rushed a nearby island but Capac got one city in, and the new cities were all getting these new religions which i was spreading around the mainland thanks to organized religion (i think i had em all except tao). Capac backstabbed me and none of the dreaded three were willing to help. I kept the cultural cities focused and put all my other cities on wehrmacht mode and pretty much flattened him. my 3 big cities were stuffed full of cathedrals and the same 4 wonders (tried UN again considering the 3 were all 'pleased,' but lost to napolean anyway (backstabbing pricks). My siege of inca broke at the gates of the capital, but by then i had 2 50K's and a 46K. I dropped an artist I had laying around and gloated "I still win, beyotch!"

tips:
be ecumenical, either organized(while spreading multiple) or free(any other time) religion. dont bother with a state religion. oddly even the biggest moonbats of history dont have an attitude penalty towards you if you're secular. spread them temples, then cathedrals in the big 3

you'll want at least 9 cities(3 cathedrals need 3 temples each), more if some of your smaller ones cant churn out temples quickly. Therefore settler rushes are OK. multiple monastaries will help offset the strain on research that comes with a large but poorly developed empire

electricity -> radio -> mass media ASAP, even if it means putting culture on hiatus. eiffel tower in the biggist 'producer,' broadway and hollywood in the other 2.

being technologically inferior late in the game it means you'l want to foster good long standing relations with more powerful countries, sometimes it means getting dragged into wars with weaker nations earlier on. If you can, lend enough support to make sure they STAY weak. Otherwise, just declare war on command and go at it like france (build a manginot line and sit on it)