I was finally able to achieve a cultural victory in FfH!

In Vanila BTS, a cultural victory is accomplished by building as many wonders as possible in the three cities that will eventually achieve "legendary culture" and splitting up late game wonders (Broadway, Rock & Roll, and Hollywood) that give +100% culture. The early wonders double their culture output after 1,000 years. Building a Broadcast Tower in each of the three cities (or the Eiffel Tower) will give another +100% bonus. Having every religion in the three cities with a Temple and Cathedrial is also a must (as early as possible).

With fewer wonders and fewer cultural bonuses in FfH, I was not sure if a cultural victory was possible. My first thought was that enough great bards could add +4,000 culture to each city numerous times. In between Great Bards, missionaries could spread additional culture. This idea seemed plausable, but not much fun. It also didn't feel right thematically to crank out Great Bards and missionary units just to get a cultural victory.

Then I discovered the Sidar. Their Shades can settle in a city as a Great Person of any type (excluding a Great Prophet), and they get a bonus from standard GP. Coupled with the Hall of Kings, all of these Shades produce additional culture (especially Great Bard Shades). What I did was build a lot of Adept Units. While they were sitting in the cities gaining exp (need to be level 6 to become a Shade) they would cast a combination of Hope, Inspiration, and Stone Wall. When they reached level 6...instant specialist! By the time I won a cultural victory, I had more than 35 GP created by my Adept/Shades. My standard GP were used to build shrines, construct the first six levels of the Alter of Luonnotar, and start golden ages.

Here is a screen shot:

Did you only have 2 cities for a long time? 4 religions founded in one city is nice!

And... congrats!

Did you only have 2 cities for a long time? 4 religions founded in one city is nice!

And... congrats!

They weren't all founded there. Only Octopus Overlords was founded in my city. The other religions were spread later on. I tried to get as many religions in each of the three cities as possible to build multiple temples (+20% culture). I had more than three cities, of course. The other cities in my empire built units while my three culture capitals cranked out GP and wonders.

edit: I see what you are looking at. Three of those are guilds. I had the Ratcatchers Guild, The Guild of Nine, and The Guild of Hammers in that city if memory serves me right.

Yeah, I forgot you can move the holy cities now :)

You can move holy cities? How do you do that???

Oh, maybe I didn't forget :) In one thread there was discussion of making all holy shrines items that you can move.

In that case, Gratz again, the city in your screenshot is the holy city of 4 religions, hence the star, right?


Doh! Nm, guilds.

Three of those four are Guilds, not religions. The city is the holy city of the Overlords and has the headquarters of the Guild of the Nine, Guild of Hammers, and the Ratcatcher's Guild, in addition to having FoL present.

I thought I had spread Order too...I guess I missed this city...a lot going on in the game.

Of the three guilds present...only the Guild of Hammers was a concious decision to put there.

Yeah, I forgot you can move the holy cities now :)

Sorta. I think you can only try to move Ratcatcher's Guild, increasing crime rate in the city.

Congratulations! I find that a cultural victory is possible regardless of race, religion, or wonders. The key, I think, is through civics. I posted a while ago about a cultural victory as the Kuriotates under Runes of Kilmorph. If you're interested, you can read it here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197876

Although some of the information may be outdated (that was under version 0.21), I think the basic premise remains the same.

adepts to shades is slightly exploitative, even though I use it myself. I prefer it to expending combat units... since the whole sidar theme is pacifism and ninjas ( seriously, the ghost model.. fighting great spy yay :P)


It's really really exploitative if you play with an Amurite mate willing to gift some mass adepts for you though.

I think that outside of the Recon line ( hunters, ghosts, hero et al) Sidar's military units should have some kind of debuff to account for this aspect of their playstyle and the benefits it grants.

-10% strength on axemen and the rest of the straight melee line, or something.

Empyrean holy shrine is +2 XP to disciples, so combine that with a high lvl altar and you will probably feel a bit more exploitative witeh the Sidar. Especially since whatever xp you still need comes combat free anyway.

What speed? What difficulty level?

you have to burn a lot of science and a lot of great prophets to build the altar of the luonnatar to any nice degree though. Adepts just take one tech and some time.

I ran a cultural victory as the elves on epic. Without founding half a dozen religions. I cleared all the other civs off my continent, built all the culture adding stuff I could early, used every civic that gave a culture bonus, and set my culture to 100% for about 200 turns, while selling goods overseas to finance myself. Starting as a creative leader also helped, because that's +2 for every single turn in the entire game, and over time that adds up.

As long as you have a secure position with enough resources to keep you in the red while throwing your entire economy and research into producing more culture, than it's not difficult at all. It just takes a while.

you have to burn a lot of science and a lot of great prophets to build the altar of the luonnatar to any nice degree though. Adepts just take one tech and some time.

I did build the Altar of Luonnotar in one of my cities. My Capitol was pumping out GP ever few turns, so the six GP that I had to burn for the Altar was no big deal. Since there was no need to settle GP with the Sidar, six of them being plugged into the altar meant that every city had extra happiness and priest specialists had extra production.

It actually takes a few techs to get to mages, but they are beneficial anyway. Casting Hope and INspiration in all of my cities was a nice benefit. The Octopus Overlords UU, Hemah, was nice as well, defending against any would be attackers.

I ran a cultural victory as the elves on epic. Without founding half a dozen religions. I cleared all the other civs off my continent, built all the culture adding stuff I could early, used every civic that gave a culture bonus, and set my culture to 100% for about 200 turns, while selling goods overseas to finance myself. Starting as a creative leader also helped, because that's +2 for every single turn in the entire game, and over time that adds up.

As long as you have a secure position with enough resources to keep you in the red while throwing your entire economy and research into producing more culture, than it's not difficult at all. It just takes a while.

I was actually running my slider at 100% science. Once I finished out my tech tree, Future Tech came in handy to increase the happy and healthy limit on my city growth. With all of the settled GP from my Shades, there was no need to switch civics or pump culture with the slider.

I was actually running my slider at 100% science. Once I finished out my tech tree, Future Tech came in handy to increase the happy and healthy limit on my city growth. With all of the settled GP from my Shades, there was no need to switch civics or pump culture with the slider.

Well then, it would appear that we currently have not one but two ways to achieve a culture victory without Hollywood. Which is awesome, but I prefer to max everything out. Feels more efficient, somehow, plus it went along with the story I was writing in my head.

I thought that using the Sidar Shades was both thematic, and appropriate to the story in my head (maybe we should both see a shrink). I am planning to try some of the other methods mentiond by other players. I think I will try as the Kuriotates. In my game, I had problems working enough tiles to feed my specialists. Having extra tiles for farms seems like a nice bonus when going for a cultural victory.

Am I the only one who finds the idea of the Overlords winning a cultural victory to be extremely disturbing? No, not improbable; that's just the thing: I can envision it thematically, and those visions are haunting my dreams.

I thought that using the Sidar Shades was both thematic, and appropriate to the story in my head (maybe we should both see a shrink). I am planning to try some of the other methods mentiond by other players. I think I will try as the Kuriotates. In my game, I had problems working enough tiles to feed my specialists. Having extra tiles for farms seems like a nice bonus when going for a cultural victory.

Another reason to play the elves for this kind of victory: they're very good with spamming farms.

Am I the only one who finds the idea of the Overlords winning a cultural victory to be extremely disturbing? No, not improbable; that's just the thing: I can envision it thematically, and those visions are haunting my dreams.

Maybe the three of us should see a shrink.

The elves would be great for GP farms. Getting and additional +1 food/+1 production from a farm that has an ancient forest on is is brilliant!

OO is wacky in general.

I could argue that they got the most useful hero and wonder of all the faiths.

I like the order heroes. Ducal can cast hope in cities that he takes over, allowing them to pop cultural borders while he heals and before he moves on to the next city. The angel unit doesn't arrive until late game, but when it does...!

Ducal? who is that? The Order's Heroes are Valin and Sphenor. The closest thing to "Ducal" that I can think of is the Bannor hero, Donal.

You're right...he is a Bannor hero. I only play Order when I am playing Bannor, so my mistake. Valin isn't too bad, but he isn't much different from the FoL hero.

On a side note: Order priests can also create a city from a city ruins. This is a nice ability to have too.

I hope Donal Lugh gets his own model soon. His civpedia makes him out to be such an iron jawed badass.

oh, and Hemah wins games, Valin does not.

I've had cultural victories as the Kuriotates and the Balseraphs, and both were relatively easy. One thing that is not clear to me is how soon the player should stop pursuing technological advancement and production and redirect all resources toward increased culture. I can't help but think you could have achieved a higher score had you not bothered to complete the tech tree. (That's not a criticism of your play style, incidentally.)

oh, and Hemah wins games, Valin does not.

Get Valin Mobility II and Blitz (or Orthus' Axe) and then tell me he doesn't win games. I can take out five enemy defenders a turn with Valin, even without Archmage support (although having 9 meteors every turn is nice support). Supply him with a proper entourage to clean up the remaining defenders and you can take a city in a single turn with Valin.

BTW, Valin is available with Orders from Heaven tech. He is more comparable to Saverous than he is to Hemah. Sephener is the late game hero for Order, and he really does win games!

I wouldn't say that any one religion is inherently better than the others. Each has its benefits and its drawbacks. Different playing styles synergize with different religions. Depending on what civ I am playing, I use all five of the original religions. I haven't really been motevated to take the two new religions out for a test drive yet.

edit: If you notice, I played OO with this cultural win!