What are the best ways to prevent an AI cultural victory?

Two obvious ways I see are:

1. Invade! Works great if you're stronger, but sometimes it's very difficult (too far away, across an ocean, too well defended, is your peacetime vassal, etc.) and AIs seem motivated to defend their culture cities to the death.

2. Spy disruption. Easy to pull off usually, but only slows them down a little bit, right? You can't destroy wonders, which give the big culture bonuses. I guess lowering health or happiness in one of the 3 culture cities is the best bet here? (Or stealing techs to get a tech lead to enable option 1...)

What else can be done?

Why I'm asking: In my last couple games (on Prince) I've been doing pretty well militarily and economically, and am far ahead in land and points. But somewhere in the 1800's I find that one of my rivals (who's been insulated from most wars) is racing toward a cultural victory, and unless I stop/slow them, will get it before I can get tech or domination. In both games invasion doesn't seem immediately feasible.

Thanks!

Bribe them to war or bribe a stronger opponent against them. They'll stop the culture slider.
Option 1 is usually the best though.

Invasion is the most surefire way. You can try a nuke attack, that should level some buildings.

I will say you usually have until the late 1900's to win. When I played Monarch (epic) I was getting my own Culture wins in the early-mid 1900's and Space wins by 1950-60 or so and I've found the same sort of timeline on Emperor (epic). My last two Culture wins were in the '50s and I actually had a really good space win in the '30's, so you might have more time than you think.

Invade.

You don't have to keep the city, you can just raze it. Or even if you don't raze it, the culture will still be reset to zero after recapture, culture buildings and any National Wonders that you also have yourself will have been destroyed and World Wonders will stop producing culture.

Typically civs will slow their tech research if they go for a cultural victory, so it is a matter of working out which tech gets you the edge when you invade. Artillery is usually a good bet. And you can have some time to plan your invasion, there's no problem with leaving it until fairly shortly before the 3rd city goes Legenday (although not too close, you don't want to get caught out by a Great Artist)

You don't have to keep the city, you can just raze it.
true
Or even if you don't raze it, the culture will still be reset to zero after recapture,
false
culture buildings and any National Wonders that you also have yourself will have been destroyed
true, but all nat wonders are destroyed regardless of whether you have them
and World Wonders will stop producing culture.
false, they always produce culture for the Civ that built them

Also, nuking a city will do nothing to slow down the culture growth. I know, I tried it once. Only razing will do the trick, if you do not have much time.

>>Also, nuking a city will do nothing to slow down the culture growth.
That's not true; while it won't stop building culture and settled guys culture, it prevents artists (or any other spec w/ Sistine Chapel) and more important it prevents the culture slider via reducing the commerce (both worked tiles/trade routes).
If they have corporations, only raze will really do.

Edit: if you can nuke, you should be able to spare a paratrooper and drop next to the city, enter and raze.

>>Also, nuking a city will do nothing to slow down the culture growth.
That's not true; while it won't stop building culture and settled guys culture, it prevents artists (or any other spec w/ Sistine Chapel) and more important it prevents the culture slider via reducing the commerce (both worked tiles/trade routes).
If they have corporations, only raze will really do.

Edit: if you can nuke, you should be able to spare a paratrooper and drop next to the city, enter and raze.

Maybe so; when I tried it, Gandhi was VERY close to culture win. The best thing to do would to check the VC screen often enough, that way you won't have to try desperate strategies.

yes, check the victory screen earlier so you don't have to try last minute desperate meaures.

other than what has been mentioned (war, bribe another civ to war them, spies destroying culture buildings)...with enough money and good relations you can bribe them out of culture producing civics like Free Speech. Non spiritual civs will cause 1 turn anarchy when they switch out and another when they switch back (assuming no Cristo). You can repeat this process after the 5 turns wait for civics switch but it costs more gold each time.

Note that you will have to be in the target civic to bribe them to it. Works best if you have Cristo so that you can go in & out of different civics and continue to bribe them back & forth so they never hit free speech again.

This is a situational technique since it requires gold and good relations, but it can buy you some time to get your invasion force or spies in place...or build a nuke, etc.

cas

The best way to prevent a culture win is to invade and raze the cities.

Nukes will slow down the cities but come at a cost, and they will get the culture win eventually. This is good if you are in a tight space race and an extra dozen or so turns is all you need.

Espionage only really works well if you contiually send a city into revolt. I managed to do this in the Third Peter RPC but it was tedious as hell and was only done to prove a point.

Ahh one more: if you can give away a crappy city to use spies, dont hesitate and do it; you can pre-keep the spies there and use them after it's given away immediately. Make sure the city has the same state religion as yours.

What about taking sistine or some other early tech strategy? Does that not delay a cultural victory?

other than what has been mentioned (war, bribe another civ to war them, spies destroying culture buildings)...with enough money and good relations you can bribe them out of culture producing civics like Free Speech. Non spiritual civs will cause 1 turn anarchy when they switch out and another when they switch back (assuming no Cristo). You can repeat this process after the 5 turns wait for civics switch but it costs more gold each time.

AFAIK AIs don't get anarchy when switching out by a bribe. They do when switching back on their own though.

@Silu

Really, didn't know that. I saw them go into anarchy, but it must have been when they were switching back. Good info to have. :)

cas

No anarchy for spy influence. However having Cristo can totally wreck the AI, switch as many civics as you deem useful (erm useless to them) and the religion as well (if applicable), the AI won't hesitate and spend a few turns into anarchy. Switch 'em back.

Also, nuking a city will do nothing to slow down the culture growth. I know, I tried it once.

This is very hard to believe. Most likely you nuked a city that wasn't part of the 3 cities being used for the culture-vic.

This is very hard to believe. Most likely you nuked a city that wasn't part of the 3 cities being used for the culture-vic.

No, but I did explain myself rather poorly. Actually at the time I did it I believed that dropping a nuke would destroy some of the culture that was created earlier. Of course it didn't happen.

You don't need to remove any culture that's already there. You just want to put a stop to his culture that is going in every turn.

Thanks, y'all! A lot to think about here, very helpful. In one of my games, the target is my peacetime vassal, so I'll have to rely on spy- or bribe-based methods for now, since I can't declare war.

I've tried demanding all of his strategic resources, hoping to provoke war, but he just forked 'em over. That should slow him down somewhat (no railroads, no coal plants, etc.) but probably not enough. I did destroy a cathedral in one city w/ spy, so that should help some. But won't take him too long to replace it.

I would bribe another civ to attack him, but problem is it's just 3 of us on the continent, and the 3rd civ completely hates me (I'm now in the process of wiping them out, hoping I can squeak out a dom victory including the credit for the vassal's territory.) It's too early for any other civ to launch an effective marine invasion, maybe later.

The AI is teaching me that sometimes being a vassal is a good thing.

What about corporations? I just founded Mining Inc. If I spam my vassal with the corp, but demand all of the resources that would activate the corp, could that drain his economy enough to slow him down?

Probably not. The hit for corps is fairly modest -- 4 gold per city or some such. It's maybe one notch on the slider bar.

Which is not to say you shouldn't do it, if it's not too much trouble for you. Every little bit helps.


Waldo

No, since corporate mainteinance costs are directly proportional to the amount of corpo resources he has. Best way to leverage his vassal-ness is to constantly change him away from Free Speech if he's in it. You're pretty much stuck to relying on spies though, either constant revolt or constant poisoned water & destroying all health buildings.