I have managed to achieve cultural victories, but I think rather late. In order to get the cultural victory earlier I have tried to found early religions and to build lot of religious buildings and wonders. In my latest attempt I most likely concentared all too much for that leaving my military all too weak. As I should have been anticipated I eventually became invaded first by Napoleon and then Isabella (within just few turns). While I was barely able to cope the first invasion wave by the Napoleon, I had no chance against the other invasion, because I simply had not enough military (even as I had slightly better units).

So I would like to know, how would it be possible to concentrate sufficiently for culture (for the purpose of earlier cultural victory) without dangerously negleting the military ? Also I would be interested to know how early it is actually possible to "safely" achieve the cultural victory ?

My prefered traits for a cultural victory are spiritual and philosophical. The only wonder I would insist upon going for is the Sistine Chapel.

A spiritual civ if you're following primary way to culture is through religions. This route requires as much cathedrals as you can build in your three main cities. To do so you have to build temples in your non-culture cities which distracts them from more important tasks (such as building up a military and developing an economy). If you select a spiritual civ those temples will be built twice as quickly and your non-culture cities can focus on other things.

A philosophical civ if you're focusing on great artists. These don't require much from your non-culture cities (other than a stable economy and very few non great artists) which allows you to focus on a military.

My earliest culture victory was in 1692 with Vanilla Mao Zedong (philosophical/organised). I folowed a great artist strategy.

I have managed to achieve cultural victories, but I think rather late. In order to get the cultural victory earlier I have tried to found early religions and to build lot of religious buildings and wonders. In my latest attempt I most likely concentared all too much for that leaving my military all too weak. As I should have been anticipated I eventually became invaded first by Napoleon and then Isabella (within just few turns). While I was barely able to cope the first invasion wave by the Napoleon, I had no chance against the other invasion, because I simply had not enough military (even as I had slightly better units).

So I would like to know, how would it be possible to concentrate sufficiently for culture (for the purpose of earlier cultural victory) without dangerously negleting the military ? Also I would be interested to know how early it is actually possible to "safely" achieve the cultural victory ?

There are basically 2 ways to achieve cultural :
- keeping out of wars, using strong diplomacy
- using a standard domination strat for most of the game, only focusing on cultural buildings in 3 cities and keeping strong enough all through the game

The first way is a lot faster. The second way is a lot safer.
If you want to have a safe cultural win, I'd suggest trying to conquer 10/12 cities minimum with 4/5 religions minimum.
You keep expanding militarily while spreading those religions widely (each religion must be spread to 9 cities including the 3 big ones) and building temples all around the place (this is where spiritual shines! you whip each temple for 1 pop or 2 pops, the happiness bonus covers the happiness penalty, so you don't spend too much time building temples, you have time to build catapults!) and cathedrals in your top 3 cities.

Cabert has it right... 9 cities minimum, spread religions around and build temples everywhere.

Another trick is running caste system, building farms in your big 3 cities, and running artists out the wazoo. You'll make a lot of Great Artists: settle those guys, starting with the "weaker" (in culture) of your 3 cities, to bring it up to speed with the others.

Once you get where you have all the cathedrals you're likely to get (plus theatres and whatever else you can throw in there, but don't waste your time too much on wonders except for Sistine if you can get it), plus caste system, switch your Cultural slider to 100%. Set most or all of your other cities to cranking out Maces and Cats, or whatever your best units are. You won't have a problem with "safety". Even if/when the other players start getting ahead on tech level, you'll have so many units it won't matter.

Wodan

Cabert has it right... 9 cities minimum, spread religions around and build temples everywhere.

I like it how you say I'm right then state the almost complete opposite of what I said :lol:

Thanks for all advices. I have tried to achieve the cultural victory mostly with the religious means, because that seemed to be best way to get culture. I have concentrated to building temples and cathedrals, but the problem I have encountered is that I have not managed to build other things as military units enough. I guess I should try spiritual leader. Perhaps I should also experiment with the artist specialists.

I like it how you say I'm right then state the almost complete opposite of what I said :lol:
That's why I had the transitional phrase, "Another trick is..." (ephasis added) :crazyeye:

Anyway good luck, vsipinen. Just keep in mind that once you crank the slider to 100% culture, no matter what "trick" you're using, it doesn't really matter so much what all your other cities do. So, you have ~6+ cities whose only job is to keep your money in the positive, and to crank out military units. Research is irrelevant for the most part.

Wodan

to obtain cultural victory, you will need:
1. Money
2. Great artist
3. Good Diplomacy

that's why, the most relevant traits are Financial, Philosophical and Spiritual
Basically you will need a decent start location, preferably near Corn/Wheat and Stone

build pyramid after you build 2 cities, then expand to 4 cities
build oracle and discover Code of Law

when you get currency, you might expand more to 6+ cities (either outside your border or inside your border)

the first Great Prophet should lightbulb Theology, and build Sistine Chapel
then you beeline to liberalism and stop teching there

Basically you dont have to found a religion,
in my opinion, it is better to spend the time to research more important tech such as bronze working
religions will come from neighbours soon or later, and i prefer not to adopt a state religion before pacifism (to avoid war)
some leaders are very sensitive if you adopt a different state religion

Hi,
I'm trying for a cultrual victory myself at the moment. Im play saladin on epic/noble/huge/pangerer(soz cant spell). I got 10 cities, at the moment :D , and the statgergy im going for is build everything cultrual in my 3 cities, spread every religion i can to them(got 3), build temples in every city and put all the the catrealals in them, each one adds 50%. Build great artists farms in every city i can and add them as city specialist. With wonders im going for all the high cultural/gp artist adding wonders and puting them in my 3 cultural cities. As for the rest of my cities they are producing missionaries, infrastructure (finiancal/production cities) military units, as im at war with monty :crazyeye: .
Im encountering the same problem with being military weak aswell, which is why monty has gone from giving me cash to war within a few centuries. right now, though, that problem is being solved thanks to those production cities i developed. and just today a scout spotted a small isolated aztec city close to my border, i was going to just egnore it, but then i saw that is was the Tao holy city :eek: , and it was only guarded by a longbowman and axeman :lol: , so now half my army is heading to that city led by crII sworfman.

I disagree about the 9 cities. I think you may find that you have an old city, your original capital probably, that will have a lot of wonders or old culture buildings, so it will be fine without cathedral-level buildings. I think you only need those in the second two cities. So, you only need to build six temples for each religion.

Get however many cities you need to build cathedrals in your 3 cities (9 on standard map), but only 3 need to be any good. Get some religions (the lower the level or the more isolated you are, the more you need to found yourself). Farm your capital, make it a GA farm, cottage the two others. Tech to liberalism/music/printing press, stop science and turn up max culture.

I disagree about the 9 cities. I think you may find that you have an old city, your original capital probably, that will have a lot of wonders or old culture buildings, so it will be fine without cathedral-level buildings. I think you only need those in the second two cities. So, you only need to build six temples for each religion.
Depends on what level you're playing on. Higher levels, you're not going to get many wonders even in your capitol (if you're wasting time doing that, you're dead).

Also, a double temple for being 1000 years old is only a +1 incremental bonus. There's a huge difference between a handful of additive bonuses and a couple of multiplicative bonuses of +50% each.

Wodan

I remember a game where as Ghandi i had settled in the capital-farm 10 great scientists and 4 artists , some GG,GE and i also had the Sistine Chapel , national epic , Oxford University SOL and i was running representation ... That city alone produced 400 Science with the research Science slider at 0 . I was able to set the culture slider to the tops and still have fast research times . Good times.

I disagree about the 9 cities. I think you may find that you have an old city, your original capital probably, that will have a lot of wonders or old culture buildings, so it will be fine without cathedral-level buildings. I think you only need those in the second two cities. So, you only need to build six temples for each religion.

It's possible to win with 6 cities. I did it.
It's just easier with 9+.

If you want to make do with only 6 cities, you're going to need the ermitage in the last city or to culture bomb the 3 city like crazy.

I tried both ways :
1) - 6 cities, ermitage in the lowest culture producer, cathedralless city, culture bombing everywhere
2) - 6 cities, cathedrals in the 2 best culture cities, ermitage in the second best, culture bompbing in the 3rd city only.

2) gave better results (=earlier win), but the games were totally different (different leaders, different levels, different diplomacy), so it's not scientifically proven.

I also found that it's better to have a GP farm not trying to reach the legendary level (= 3 big shot cultural cities + 1 independant GP farm).
If you try to bring the GP farm to legendary, you will need hammers there and you will slow down the rate of GArtists.

edit : what I'm trying to say is that it's better to have more cities, each being able to produce exactly what you're looking for.
SO 9 cities filled with temples + 1 GP farm = 10 cities > 9 cities filled with temples including a GP farm > 6 cities including a GP farm

i find that listening to disco helps me in cultural victory "Back to Heaven" by Number One Ensemble especially.

i find that listening to disco helps me in cultural victory "Back to Heaven" by Number One Ensemble especially.

:lol:
I found that moving the sound slider up made my wife very upset and shortened my playing time = making it really difficult to win anything.

So I would like to know, how would it be possible to concentrate sufficiently for culture (for the purpose of earlier cultural victory) without dangerously negleting the military ? Also I would be interested to know how early it is actually possible to "safely" achieve the cultural victory ?

If your main concern is not getting defeated militarily on your way to a culture victory, then probably be the best piece of advice I can offer is do not adopt a religion. If you have a state religion you are bound to get some big diplomatic penalties with someone out there, and that someone will more than likely attack you because you're going to be militarily weak. So skip the state religion if you're worried about getting attacked.

More generally speaking, pay close attention to diplomacy. Be as friendly as you can with the most powerful and advanced nations. Identify who their enemies are, and do not trade with them. But do give in to demands for tribute from anyone and everyone. Consider even giving in to demands to switch civics or religions, if it won't hurt you too much (e.g., you can switch back again quickly).

You've already recognized that you cannot neglect your military completely. You can usually get away with a weak military at the very beginning of the game because most AIs aren't very aggressive then. Just don't do anything to make them mad at you. But by the time you have 3 or 4 cities in place you should have at least one of them that is devoting a lot of its time to building military units. That won't be enough for you to keep up with the AI in military size, but you're not going on the offensive. All you need are enough troops to fight off a single AI if he decides to attack in the middle part of the game when you're on par with them technologically. This shouldn't be that hard, because the AIs are lousy at military tactics.

In the later stages of the game you can stop building military again because by that time the AIs armies will be so much bigger and better than yours that you can't possibly beat them. :) Once you're fully committed to culture production your best hope is to just concentrate on getting your Legendary cities as fast as possible. Building more Macemen or Grenadiers will not help you if the AI has huge armies of Infantry. All you can do is avoid war at all costs.

A few other general concepts for fast cultural victories:

The Pyramids are very helpful. Representation gives you added benefits for running Artist specialists. And you can speed up the construction of Temples and Cathedrals tremendously by using Universal Suffrage. Among other things this means you will not need to land-grab as much early on, because you can build your last few cities after your culture starts booming outwards and then just rush the necessary buildings in them.

You'll want as many Great Artists as you can get, so a great person pump is important. But as Cabert said, ideally this will not be one of the 3 cities you are targeting for Legendary status, because a city that has to produce both lots of Great Artists and build lots of Cathedrals will be slower at both than separate cities that are more focused.

Getting to Liberalism as quickly as possible is probably more important in a cultural victory than any other type of game. Free Speech is extremely useful. And so is the free tech if you get there first. I almost always take Nationalism, which enables the Hermitage.

I recommend against doing any more research after you get Liberalism. Once you are running Free Speech you should either go all culture immediately, or go all money if you're in a position to cash-rush temples and cathedrals, and then go all culture.

Once you are running all culture, you probably don't need happiness resources anymore. Trade them away for cash (but be careful not to rack up trading with the enemy relationship bonuses). Consider trading them away even earlier if they'll help you get resources that speed up construction of your Cathedrals.

I dont see how this safety level cant matter? The AI often have tanks or even modern armor by the time i am done. It is not like modern units tear through longbowmen like butter. Heck even cavalery or riflemen works. Try to get a defencive pact going. At least if you play on a difficultiy level comparable to your skill level the AI should be starting apollo about the time you win. My last(and i think only) cultural vitory saladin who was above everyone else in tech and power(he even beat me to liberalism!) asked me to adop his state religion, this gave me +4 modifier with him and was enough of a difference to help me maintain a defencive pact through the game with him. This was emproer level. I also had the great fortune that isabella started spreading her many religions to me so the vicoty was sped up by a bit(i only had 3 initially, with 2 of the cities having founded religions and the 3rd beeing my capital), i would still have own thanks to the chineese UB though. I used most of the other cities to produce wealth so i could run a 100% culture slider and gave a damn in the power graph to be able to win before saladin launched.

You want to get research -> money(rushbuy temples and cathedrals) -> culture -> win.

You'll make a lot of Great Artists: settle those guys, starting with the "weaker" (in culture) of your 3 cities, to bring it up to speed with the others.

The early GA gives maximum culture if settled. The late GA gives maximum culture if bombed. It is always true that you should bomb your worst city. I don’t think it is always true that you should settle in your worst city.


You'll want as many Great Artists as you can get, so a great person pump is important. But as Cabert said, ideally this will not be one of the 3 cities you are targeting for Legendary status, because a city that has to produce both lots of Great Artists and build lots of Cathedrals will be slower at both than separate cities that are more focused.

… I almost always take Nationalism, which enables the Hermitage.

Very good pieces of advice in your post, Vynd. I have always been undecided about making my GPfarm one of the Three Legendary. I usually do so, thinking that all that culture the artist produce would go to waste otherwise. But your argument here (or Cabert’s) is quite convincing…

If you have the Pyramids (I never build them in cultural games) then maybe you can rushbuy all the cathedrals in the GPfarm, though.

By the way, in that situation the Sistine Chapel (the most mentioned WW in this thread) is completely useless. I don’t recommend building any wonder in high difficulty levels, anyway. If you must build a WW, then be sure it is the Parthenon.


You should try Printing Press as a free tech, instead of Nationalism, in your high difficulty level games. When you get to Liberalism first the AI stops going after it, and they almost always research Nationalism before Print, so you use Print to trade for Nationalism.


If you want to make do with only 6 cities, you're going to need the ermitage in the last city or to culture bomb the 3 city like crazy.

I tried both ways :
1) - 6 cities, ermitage in the lowest culture producer, cathedralless city, culture bombing everywhere
2) - 6 cities, cathedrals in the 2 best culture cities, ermitage in the second best, culture bompbing in the 3rd city only.

2) gave better results (=earlier win), but the games were totally different (different leaders, different levels, different diplomacy), so it's not scientifically proven.

As long as you have enough GA, the second way can be scientifically proved better.

Culture bombs are mobile and they are not affected by multipliers, so the best way to use them is to bomb the worst city. On the other hand, Cathedrals and Hermitage are multipliers, so they add more culture if used in the best city.

I also found that it's better to have a GP farm not trying to reach the legendary level (= 3 big shot cultural cities + 1 independant GP farm).
If you try to bring the GP farm to legendary, you will need hammers there and you will slow down the rate of GArtists.

Hmmm, that’s quite true. On the other hand, you could bomb your GPfarm all the way to Legendary. Or buy all the buildings in the GPfarm.


My opinions on this subject, together with the scarcity of city sites in high difficulty levels, tend to make me follow a minimalist approach: 6 cities, the GPfarm is the 3rd Legendary city, it receives no Cathedrals and no Hermitage and it is bombed all the way up, if I will have enough GA left after that then the Hermitage goes to the best city, otherwise it goes with to the second best.


@vsipinen, I am sorry I can not offer any military advice, my games are HOF and I try to find the quickest possible way to victory, so I choose peaceful leaders and I don’t build any military at all.

the thing thats hard about making a GP farm not be one of the lengendary cities is that one of the best (well some of the best) culture boon buildings are wonders and wonders produce GAs.

Very good pieces of advice in your post, Vynd. I have always been undecided about making my GPfarm one of the Three Legendary. I usually do so, thinking that all that culture the artist produce would go to waste otherwise. But your argument here (or Cabert’s) is quite convincing…

If you have the Pyramids (I never build them in cultural games) then maybe you can rushbuy all the cathedrals in the GPfarm, though.
quite true
I must admit I rarely get the pyramids.
+ If I get them, then I certainly have stone. If I have stone I hate buying cathedrals using stone full priced. If it's optimal, then I should do so, of course. Will try for my first immortal cultural victory ;).

By the way, in that situation the Sistine Chapel (the most mentioned WW in this thread) is completely useless. I don’t recommend building any wonder in high difficulty levels, anyway. If you must build a WW, then be sure it is the Parthenon.
If I get sistine chapel, then of course the GP farm will be one the big 3.
But as hard as I try, I don't get it often enough IMHO.
I got it at monarch level, and enjoyed the super cultural specialists a lot :).



You should try Printing Press as a free tech, instead of Nationalism, in your high difficulty level games. When you get to Liberalism first the AI stops going after it, and they almost always research Nationalism before Print, so you use Print to trade for Nationalism.

interesting, will try
can't say I always get liberalism first though. At emperor level, getting enough cities out is rather costly in the tech departement.:blush:



As long as you have enough GA, the second way can be scientifically proved better.

sure, but I hardly get enough.
I focus too much on religions to get a pure pool of Great Persons.


Hmmm, that’s quite true. On the other hand, you could bomb your GPfarm all the way to Legendary. Or buy all the buildings in the GPfarm.

bombing is cool (the artist is already there :) = no turns lost in transit)


My opinions on this subject, together with the scarcity of city sites in high difficulty levels, tend to make me follow a minimalist approach: 6 cities, the GPfarm is the 3rd Legendary city, it receives no Cathedrals and no Hermitage and it is bombed all the way up, if I will have enough GA left after that then the Hermitage goes to the best city, otherwise it goes with to the second best.


Note that I'm not trying to say I do better than you.

But I think putting all the GAs into one single city (the third best :)) is more likely to avoid any waste (like bombing for 2000 culture only in 2 cities. Happened to me already, and I didn't like it).
That's why I try to get my best city and my second best city to be legendary in the same turn (or within 1 or 2 turns).

Minor micromanaging tip :
if you see 2 of your cities are going to be legendary at the end of the turn, it's time to bomb city n°3. You win at the end of the turn = 1 turn earlier than if you wait for the 2 best cities to actually be legendary.

Note that I'm not trying to say I do better than you.
Neither do I. I hope my post didn't sound like that to anyone.

Cultural is my favourite victory type and I enjoy discussions about it. I would be glad if someone proved one of my opinions to be completely mistaken. It would put me closer to the perfect cultural game!

Your arguments against doing the GPfarm Legendary are still being pondered in my head.

Minor micromanaging tip :
if you see 2 of your cities are going to be legendary at the end of the turn, it's time to bomb city n°3. You win at the end of the turn = 1 turn earlier than if you wait for the 2 best cities to actually be legendary.

I really hate it when my last GA is on its way and arrives 1 turn late. I bomb it, I check that all three cities are Legendary but I am not awarded the win till the following turn.


A "trick" I learnt from others: I have always been a fanatic of the 100% artist probability and I used to have all my GP to be GA. I have learned that 1 single GS and the rest GA is much better. If you lightbulb half of Education with the GS, you save a greater number of turns than the number of turns you would save by bombing a GA. Just did the maths. So maybe the optimum is 4GS (Academy, Philosophy and two on Education) and the rest GA.

Your arguments against doing the GPfarm Legendary are still being pondered in my head.
It's at least worth a try ;).
If you want to know for sure, do a quick settler level game :).




I really hate it when my last GA is on its way and arrives 1 turn late. I bomb it, I check that all three cities are Legendary but I am not awarded the win till the following turn.

it's only 1 turn, but it's completely avoidable (unless you're waiting for the GA to get the win:mischief: ).


A "trick" I learnt from others: I have always been a fanatic of the 100% artist probability and I used to have all my GP to be GA. I have learned that 1 single GS and the rest GA is much better. If you lightbulb half of Education with the GS, you save a greater number of turns than the number of turns you would save by bombing a GA. Just did the maths. So maybe the optimum is 4GS (Academy, Philosophy and two on Education) and the rest GA.

That's pretty clean work :).
I was wondering if 3 academies could be worth it (more culture from the academies, and faster teching using all those neat cottages), but I'm a "dirty" player and those shrines always give me prophets :mischief: . Now you see why I'm not sure to get liberalism first :lol:.
On vanilla, I always went for music and it's free GA, now on warlords I often can't get it first.

And I only play on "random opponents" games with barbs on, so pure cultural isn't always possible. When I find some time to do so, I'll try a deity cultural game, with selected opponents and no barbs. Should be possible without always peace :lol:.

In the later stages of the game you can stop building military again because by that time the AIs armies will be so much bigger and better than yours that you can't possibly beat them. :) Once you're fully committed to culture production your best hope is to just concentrate on getting your Legendary cities as fast as possible. Building more Macemen or Grenadiers will not help you if the AI has huge armies of Infantry. All you can do is avoid war at all costs.
I don't agree with this. Grenaders and even Maces will adequately defend against Infantry and/or Tanks. You don't have to win, just hold them off. You don't even care so much if they pillage the countryside.

Worst case, one of your big 3 is on the border, and that's the city they choose to invade. So, worst case, they rip up some farms, and cause you to lose some of your specialist artists there. They'll grow back. Point is, if you stock that place with military, they aren't going to be successful. You hit any stack with 6-10 cats and have fortified Maces in there, even Infantry are going to grind to a halt.

I recommend against doing any more research after you get Liberalism. Once you are running Free Speech you should either go all culture immediately, or go all money if you're in a position to cash-rush temples and cathedrals, and then go all culture.
Not sure about this. Quite often, it's worthwihle to spend the effort to get Rifles before you go to 100% culture slider. It's not that hard to get Rifling and, despite what I said earlier, it's easier to defend with Rifles than Maces. ;)

The early GA gives maximum culture if settled. The late GA gives maximum culture if bombed. It is always true that you should bomb your worst city. I don’t think it is always true that you should settle in your worst city.
Yes, of course. I was giving general advice but you're exactly correct. In general, there's some cutoff point where you should stockpile your GAs and use them to bomb your worst city. Don't bomb right away, because the AI "sees" you getting close to a cultural victory and they will invade (especially with BetterAI installed). On the other hand, save them and bomb them at the last minute.

I have always been undecided about making my GPfarm one of the Three Legendary. I usually do so, thinking that all that culture the artist produce would go to waste otherwise. But your argument here (or Cabert’s) is quite convincing…
It's six of one, half dozen of the other.

Keep in mind that a cathedral has to have some meat to multiply. What's +50% of nothing? Nothing. Your GP farm running oodles of artists has a LOT of meat.

If you have the Pyramids (I never build them in cultural games) then maybe you can rushbuy all the cathedrals in the GPfarm, though.
Or, if you're Spiritual, you can whip them.

Cultural games tend to be Spiritual anyway.

By the way, in that situation the Sistine Chapel (the most mentioned WW in this thread) is completely useless.
Not sure I agree. Generally, when you crank the slider to 100%, you still want to run artists in your big 3 cities. To that end, it's a good idea to recognize this somewhat earlier and to farm those 3 cities over, so they have time to grow in pop.

Culture bombs are mobile and they are not affected by multipliers, so the best way to use them is to bomb the worst city. On the other hand, Cathedrals and Hermitage are multipliers, so they add more culture if used in the best city.
Not true. You are defining "best city" as best bottom line. However, the multipliers all work off the base culture. So, we have to determine which city has the best base (the "meat").

e.g., City X has 50 base and +300%. City Y has 100 base and +50%. It's better to build Hermitage in City Y than City X.

Of course, often it ultiimately depends on what city needs it the most.... You want your 3 cities to become Legendary at the same time.

Wodan

Not true. You are defining "best city" as best bottom line. However, the multipliers all work off the base culture. So, we have to determine which city has the best base (the "meat").
:confused: I am confused. I thought bottom line and base line were synonyms, my English is far from perfect. Anyway, I meant what you are saying, I called "best city" the one with the most culture before multipliers.

:confused: I am confused. I thought bottom line and base line were synonyms, my English is far from perfect. Anyway, I meant what you are saying, I called "best city" the one with the most culture before multipliers.
Oh, okay. Well, the way I read it is that best city was the one with the most cultural output. Anyway, we're saying the same thing.

(By the way, "bottom line" means the final tally with everything included. "Base line" is an unmodified value. They are not synonyms. You can go to dictionary.com if you'd like more detail.)

Wodan

Normally i think beelining first to Mass Media is a great idea and so you may need a few turns that the culture slider won't be at 100% . In my opinion it is for the better. Also a GE could be good for those +50% wonders but i like the +4000 a lot also.

Normally i think beelining first to Mass Media is a great idea and so you may need a few turns that the culture slider won't be at 100% . In my opinion it is for the better. Also a GE could be good for those +50% wonders but i like the +4000 a lot also.

mass media will come 200 years after the game is won :p

mass media will come 200 years after the game is won :p

When do you win ? It is possible to get mass media mid 1800 . An eifel tower giving +50% to all three cities is a great boost. I usually finish mid 1900 or in the begging of 1900.

When do you win ? It is possible to get mass media mid 1800 . An eifel tower giving +50% to all three cities is a great boost. I usually finish mid 1900 or in the begging of 1900.

his point stands. the lowest ive been able to get is 1740, but this is before exploiting specialists in my cities.

When do you win ? It is possible to get mass media mid 1800 . An eifel tower giving +50% to all three cities is a great boost. I usually finish mid 1900 or in the begging of 1900.

1900 is a good time to win by space at monarch
meaning that a emperor level AI left alone could easily be in space at this time
meaning that you really need to finish before this.

A good finish time (for me, jesusin has lots of earlier wins AFAIK) is in the 17th century. 1650 or so...

When do you win ?

In my HOF games I win consistently in 1450AD, Deity level. But please keep in mind that these are "cheesy" games in the sense that I choose my civ and my oponents, no barbs.

I have won GOTM cultural awards with finish times around 1650AD-1700AD.

In my cultural victory game, im running at the moment, building the hemitage moved my third cultrual city from third place to second place in the amount of culture and is now currently producing almost 400:culture: , my other two cities are producing around 285:culture: this is with science and culture set at 40% each. The only problem is my encomy is pants, barely in the green, and two of my neighbours, Japan and mongols, are at war with me. Which they declared right after a war with france just ended. At least now i have a good defeasive screen of pikeman facing the mongols, while my camal archers take on japan. The surprising thing about japans attack is that they have half the cities i do and are way below me in power and share a religion, well they did have half the cities, now they have one less.:devil:
But if anyone has any advice on how to get these guys of my back so i can get on with producing culture, i would be grateful.

In my cultural victory game, im running at the moment, building the hemitage moved my third cultrual city from third place to second place in the amount of culture and is now currently producing almost 400:culture: , my other two cities are producing around 285:culture: this is with science and culture set at 40% each. The only problem is my encomy is pants, barely in the green, and two of my neighbours, Japan and mongols, are at war with me. Which they declared right after a war with france just ended. At least now i have a good defeasive screen of pikeman facing the mongols, while my camal archers take on japan. The surprising thing about japans attack is that they have half the cities i do and are way below me in power and share a religion, well they did have half the cities, now they have one less.:devil:
But if anyone has any advice on how to get these guys of my back so i can get on with producing culture, i would be grateful.

first, get peace
second, try to go for friendly status or bribe them on someone else. Japan attacked you as a "dogpiling" act. They came right after you previous war, not on purpose but because they were kind of late.
Just be glad that you could have peace with france before that. After Japan DoWed you, peace would have been a lot costlier.

The best way to get them off your back is to kill them, though :lol:

France did seem quite pleased to haved made peace with me, after i had creamed their invasion force and got my pikeman wall up. As for the other 2, they won't even talk to me and im sure it has been more then 10 turns since the start of the wars. So it looks like i will just have to kill off japan:D , he only has 4 good cities and one isolated weak city, which currently has cats sitting outside of it.

My advice is to change your sliders. You're running at 40/40/20. Why? In general it's better to run at 80/0/20 or at 0/80/20.

Wodan

My advice is to change your sliders. You're running at 40/40/20. Why? In general it's better to run at 80/0/20 or at 0/80/20.

Wodan
with enough cities (building wealth or running merchants), or enough tradable resources, it's better to run at 0/0/100.

with enough cities (building wealth or running merchants), or enough tradable resources, it's better to run at 0/0/100.
Well, yeah, of course. I was responding to his situation where he needed the 20% for maintenance.

Wodan

Well, yeah, of course. I was responding to his situation where he needed the 20% for maintenance.

Wodan

In his situation (2 civs at war!), it's better to go 100% science and forget culture for a while. He's not going to win (unless it's only a matter of turns) without some decent army.

In his situation (2 civs at war!), it's better to go 100% science and forget culture for a while. He's not going to win (unless it's only a matter of turns) without some decent army.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion. I agree he needs a "decent army". But, for one thing, how do you know he doesn't already have a decent army? Even if he doesn't, it doesn't necessarily follow that he needs tech advancement... he might merely need to build some more units (which the slider is irrelevant), or upgrade, in which case he should consider going 0/0/100 (to get cash). Also, we have no data on the relative technological advancement of his Mongol and Japanese enemies. He has Pikes and Camel Archers, that's enough to handle Keshiks and Samurai.

Wodan

I don't see how you come to that conclusion. I agree he needs a "decent army". But, for one thing, how do you know he doesn't already have a decent army? Even if he doesn't, it doesn't necessarily follow that he needs tech advancement... he might merely need to build some more units (which the slider is irrelevant), or upgrade, in which case he should consider going 0/0/100 (to get cash). Also, we have no data on the relative technological advancement of his Mongol and Japanese enemies. He has Pikes and Camel Archers, that's enough to handle Keshiks and Samurai.

Wodan
sure, but GKhan is the last guy I want to be at war with.
It's soooo hard to get rid of him.

And toku isn't a piece of cake himself.
And France will come back with a revenge.

edit: without a save or more infos, I can only guess.
But my guess here is that diplomacy has failed and that a pure cultural game is out.
Maybe using artists in the 3 big ones and continuing science in the other cities (getting more and more, militarily ;)) is best here.

GKhan is not in my game, its the chubby cheeked one Kublai.
As for my game things have improved somewhat. Japan made peace and so did the mongols soon after, must of been that razing of a japanese city:D . my sliders are at 40/50/10 now, and im still making cash and have reasonable research times. one city is about 100 turns away from becoming legendary the others about 30 turns behind. My army still contains a few axemen and is mostly defeasive, but im churning out grendiers and getting rid of the axemen.
My main worry is the incans(i think i called them aztecs by mistake in a past post) they are more powerful than me and have just finished wiping out musa. the mongols have knights and i think muskets as do the japs and maybe the french.
One thing of concern is that everyone has just canceled all their open border and trade deals with me. Is this them just being fickle or is everyone about to declare war on me? I suspect the latter.:sad:
I will try to attach my save game tomorrow, and then everyone can point out all the places where im going wrong or can improve on.

hi,
my save game file is 74.5 kb too big. Anyone know if i can make it smaller some how?

compressing the file didn't work.

you an check in the diplo screen if they are going to war with someone (could be you) :
if all the "declare war on" items are redded out, mouse over the red names.
If they say "we have enough on our hands", it's going to be wartime soon.

@ Cabert
I think i understand what you mean. I will have a look tonight.

In the mean time, since i cant upload my save game, here some screen shots i took. Sorry i haven't cropped them, just don't have the time.

The good news, though, is that i don't have any axemen still, the bad news is that the ememy have rifles:(

and some more.

and still more

sorry there so many. i included everything i though that might be useful.

just this and one more to go

last lot. i will remove all the pics next week

- I have seen too many settled Great Artists, shall you get more, you should save it for culture bombing near.
- I would get Rifling, too, than I would increase the cultural slider even more. You are running representation, your specialists will give you breakers regardless of the type. You should aim for 100% culture. All three cultural cities should focus on culture only. Troops should be build by the other cities, choose one or two for building troops and the rest should focus on gold: merchants, markets, grocers, banks. If the cultural slider is 100%, towns, gold mines, gems are useless in all cities but in the three cultural ones: it's better to farm over grown towns and hire specialists.

yeah victory!!!!:dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: [party] :banana: :banana:

Ive won my first culture victory in 1860! Got to the rank of Churchhill.

Next time though, I will build less in my culture cities and use the times when they have nothing culture to build to put them to turning hammers into culture.
and i should of settled less great artists and used the last 3-4 to culture bomb.
But having a science city and at least two commence cities is a must i think, to make up for the loss of cottages in your cultural cities.

Now on to a warmongers victory!:ar15:

Louis XIV is the best leader for winning cultural victory, because:
Traits:
Creative: +2 culture in every city and somethinf else.
Indrustrous: Wonder production 50% faster and something else.
It's important to have some wonders because those builds create lots of culture.