Is the Cultural VC the hardest to achieve?

[calla]

what type of map do you all play on? i'm finding that pangaea is way too overwhelming for me. maybe fractal would be better?

[Louis8k8]

I haven't played Fractal, but I usually play on Continents, Small Continents and Lakes (My preferred water map. Archipelago is too much)

Pangea is a gamble. I've gotten total BS spawns like one huge round landmass with 3 other civs and i'm the only one in the middle with no water. All 3-civs declared war on me by turn 30 because I'm closest civ to each of them. There's other types where Pangea creates some crazy shape that has a lot more pathing to other civs than plain open space. Like one where I was playing teamed Small map(2v2v1, me as the loner), The map looked like a fat W. and I was in the middle with some great mountain ranges on both sides.

Arborea and Borea is great if you like to rig the game to suit your civ.

[Bibor]

Here are some good tips that apply to both vanilla and g&k.
Culture is not about having "one city doing it all". Well, except in an OCC.
You need 2 or 3 more cities providing science, production, gold etc. The only really important thing is that the extra cities "pay for their culture cost" so that your culture city (usually the captal) has an easier time.
I'm even against building your national college in capital. Because, see, culture is all about Production, working those quarries and mines, and about keeping citizens busy on landmarks. That gives little room for "real" population growth required for tech.

So keep your capital exclusively for wonder building and landmarks. Its gonna have a hard time growing, producing and building all at the same time.

Another good tip is to save up money for rush-buying culture buildings in all your cities as soon as you get the tech (that goes for science buildings too btw. In case you to for space). It might not seem much of a gain but we all suffer from "let me just build this wonder and then ill build that opera house ... Oh another wonder to build now".

[Louis8k8]

When do you guys get the 4 free culture buildings? In the beginning for tall, or you save that for a particular building? (Opera House?)

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Louis8k8

When do you guys get the 4 free culture buildings? In the beginning for tall, or you save that for a particular building? (Opera House?)

I wouldn' worry too much about this. You need all culture buildings up as soon as they are available. Its nice to get a free opera house, but don't build your strategy arouns this.

[prince_caspian]

WRT legalism, does anyone still use it to pop 4 wats in Siam? Or is it just finish the policy and get it done away with?

[GAGA Extrem]

I grab amphitheatres. I don't like delaying the other two polices deeper within the tree, because free aqueducts from the finisher are really neat for early game growth.

[Denkt]

Cultural games is Useally that you got very few but very powerfull cities. Each of these cities is able to easly build wonders just by production and they all got big population. Diplomacy is often very freindly with the civs, dof with most if not all civs should be the norm. Science is useally focused on getting cultural buildings as fast as possible. This is useally powered by people and RA's not GS which still can give you exteamly fast tech. Great person is porbably all or nearly all artists because they can increase you culture gain, how many artist you can generate may be the most important thing on how fast you win. Social policies is focused on getting more culture and cheaper policies. Most wonders if not all is built by you because they all will give you culture. Religion is to focused on getting culture. Your empire should also have alot of happines because GA gives culture.

[EDaddy]

I am trying to win as Ethiopia on King level. Every time though, there's a civ that is way ahead in tech and can easily get a space victory. I have tried over and over again the tall empire way, but I can't get the Utopia Project online before someone gets a spaceship done! It seems like the AI likes to play wide and really its the only way to get ahead in tech.

[budweiser]

Originally Posted by EDaddy

I am trying to win as Ethiopia on King level. Every time though, there's a civ that is way ahead in tech and can easily get a space victory. I have tried over and over again the tall empire way, but I can't get the Utopia Project online before someone gets a spaceship done! It seems like the AI likes to play wide and really its the only way to get ahead in tech.

You've got to make education a priority and do a lot of self research. Get the NC up asap. I just finished a culture win on emperor in 1978 as Persia in which I was about 6 techs behind the leader all game. So you can plan on having at least that long, which is really a long time. That was a good game, I had +124 Happiness in the last age. I also nuked the crap out of China because they were jerks.

[bokaj]

I think cultural victory is pretty easy compared to the other ones.

I NEVER build more than 3 cities. Why would I need more?

The only thing that can screw your game is if you don't have enough military to defend yourself. Get some city states allies for that too.

Other than that just focus on culture as much as you can and a little bit on gold all the way through the game and you're golden. Get the important wonders, I'd even say ignore science and just be-line to the culture wonders and buildings.

People complain about the Piety Social Policy tree but I looove this tree. The only thing that's not good in there is the +1 faith for shrines and temples. But the other ones rock!

Build as many wonders as you can (you have to have at least 1 in every city and the others in your culture city) because when a Freedom SP gives you +2 culture per wonder.
Kick out as many Great Artists as possible and have them make Culture tiles until you think it's enough (about 5-8 tiles) and then go for the golden ages.

The problem with cultural victories is that it becomes really boring during the last 50-100 rounds. It's just 'Next turn', 'Next turn', build this, 'Next turn'...until you build the Utopia project and win.

[budweiser]

Originally Posted by bokaj

I think cultural victory is pretty easy compared to the other ones.

I NEVER build more than 3 cities. Why would I need more?

The only thing that can screw your game is if you don't have enough military to defend yourself. Get some city states allies for that too.

Other than that just focus on culture as much as you can and a little bit on gold all the way through the game and you're golden. Get the important wonders, I'd even say ignore science and just be-line to the culture wonders and buildings.

People complain about the Piety Social Policy tree but I looove this tree. The only thing that's not good in there is the +1 faith for shrines and temples. But the other ones rock!

Build as many wonders as you can (you have to have at least 1 in every city and the others in your culture city) because when a Freedom SP gives you +2 culture per wonder.
Kick out as many Great Artists as possible and have them make Culture tiles until you think it's enough (about 5-8 tiles) and then go for the golden ages.

The problem with cultural victories is that it becomes really boring during the last 50-100 rounds. It's just 'Next turn', 'Next turn', build this, 'Next turn'...until you build the Utopia project and win.

It sounds like we play the exact same way. My last win was anything but boring. I had a very aggressive runaway Bismarck after me all game long and he had a 10 tech lead on me the whole time. It was a grueling tedious fight for survival I was probably at war with him for 150 to 175 turns.

[EDaddy]

Originally Posted by bokaj

I think cultural victory is pretty easy compared to the other ones.

I NEVER build more than 3 cities. Why would I need more?

The only thing that can screw your game is if you don't have enough military to defend yourself. Get some city states allies for that too.

Other than that just focus on culture as much as you can and a little bit on gold all the way through the game and you're golden. Get the important wonders, I'd even say ignore science and just be-line to the culture wonders and buildings.

People complain about the Piety Social Policy tree but I looove this tree. The only thing that's not good in there is the +1 faith for shrines and temples. But the other ones rock!

Build as many wonders as you can (you have to have at least 1 in every city and the others in your culture city) because when a Freedom SP gives you +2 culture per wonder.
Kick out as many Great Artists as possible and have them make Culture tiles until you think it's enough (about 5-8 tiles) and then go for the golden ages.

The problem with cultural victories is that it becomes really boring during the last 50-100 rounds. It's just 'Next turn', 'Next turn', build this, 'Next turn'...until you build the Utopia project and win.

The problem with that is that you might be up against a civilization like Korea or Germany who will have a big tech lead and easily get a science victory. I have even seen Egypt blast way ahead in science before.

Anyways, I finally got an Ethiopian cultural victory! It could of been better though, I lost the reformation bonus on my second city by a few turns first with Hagia, then the Taj Mahal. I didn't get the bonus until the Eiffel Tower got built there. Going for Education and securing those RAs also cost me the Alhambra wonder. Considering though I was up against Egypt AND India, I did good building the wonders I needed to win!

For me it was a peaceful game up until the end where Egypt and I DoW'd China for all the "sins" they did on me. They stole tech after tech and even with a lvl 3 spy and the Police Station in the capital, the other civs kept stealing from me, but mainly it was China. Near the end of the game, I denounced China and they responded by stealing land from me. China had at least 3 Great Generals and used one to steal land from me. After I saw 2 more GG's headed towards my borders, Egypt and I DoW'd China. During the war, I built the Utopia Project and won!

IMHO btw, Organized Religion is a very good social policy. It is good early game, because it allows you to get your religion going that much sooner. Organized Religion is also good for wide empires since those +1 faith bonuses add up real quickly. If there is a weak policy in the Piety Tree, its Mandate of Heaven, although it gets better once you build Eiffel Tower and get in good graces with the Mercantile City-States (or any CSs for that matter.)

[bokaj]

Originally Posted by budweiser

It sounds like we play the exact same way. My last win was anything but boring. I had a very aggressive runaway Bismarck after me all game long and he had a 10 tech lead on me the whole time. It was a grueling tedious fight for survival I was probably at war with him for 150 to 175 turns.

hehe ouch! but sounds like you had more fun than me...in my last game I was surrounded by allied city states...everybody except Gandhi declared war on me at some point of the game but I rarely got to see their units because they wouldn't get past wall of city states.

Originally Posted by EDaddy

The problem with that is that you might be up against a civilization like Korea or Germany who will have a big tech lead and easily get a science victory. I have even seen Egypt blast way ahead in science before.

It never happened to me before. Usually before the others start building their space ship thing I'm already getting a ton of culture per turn because I focused on culture and nothing but culture the whole game through.

Originally Posted by EDaddy

IMHO btw, Organized Religion is a very good social policy. It is good early game, because it allows you to get your religion going that much sooner. Organized Religion is also good for wide empires since those +1 faith bonuses add up real quickly. If there is a weak policy in the Piety Tree, its Mandate of Heaven, although it gets better once you build Eiffel Tower and get in good graces with the Mercantile City-States (or any CSs for that matter.)

Funny, I looove Mandate of Heaven. With only 3 cities it's very easy to get lots of happiness. The thing is that every wonder/building/luxury/city state/policy that provides happiness suddenly becomes more interesting because it now also provides culture. With my last game I had around 140 happiness at the end (on immortal) which was a pretty decent 70 culture bonus.

The fact that Organized Religion is good for wide empires is the problem because you don't want to play wide if you go for a cultural victory. Also I like to go for the Stonehenge so the Organized Religion bonus is pretty minimal during classical era compared to the SH during Ancient era.

[bokaj]

Originally Posted by Denkt

Cultural games is Useally that you got very few but very powerfull cities. Each of these cities is able to easly build wonders just by production and they all got big population. Diplomacy is often very freindly with the civs, dof with most if not all civs should be the norm. Science is useally focused on getting cultural buildings as fast as possible. This is useally powered by people and RA's not GS which still can give you exteamly fast tech. Great person is porbably all or nearly all artists because they can increase you culture gain, how many artist you can generate may be the most important thing on how fast you win. Social policies is focused on getting more culture and cheaper policies. Most wonders if not all is built by you because they all will give you culture. Religion is to focused on getting culture. Your empire should also have alot of happines because GA gives culture.

I agree 100%. Nice summary!

[Sadato]

For all those saying that cultural victory is the easiest, speaking about deity play, apart from warring the world and puppeting many cities, if you intend a peaceful game it is horrible.

I have tried many different approachs playing OCC and unless you get a Desert Folklore Petra Start it is impossible.

Talking about Deity OCC Culture:

- You need a religion. Without cultural beliefs and the free GAs from faith you will advance much more slowly. Talking about deity OCC that leaves you with Ethiopia, Celts and Mayas because with other civs you have to do SH gambles and even with it you can be avoided to found religion around T75. Of those only Mayas have some sinergy with a cultural game due to the GPs they pop although the following artists will come quite late due to the increased cost. I tried a Darius no-religion game and it was awful.

- You need and extremely high population. If you plant some artists, a couple prophets and fill artist slots you can found yourself with a city that is not working any farm or mine at all. That leaves your only option to an Artemis start (on which I'm succesful 90% of the time around T35-38) or a HG gamble (20% of success that If you fail you have to restart because you deviated a lot from the proper tech path). Doing and Artemis start takes you Education 10-20 turns later that doing a normal start, although it pays off you are losing the race against the AIs on the techs of the wonders that you need. Also, to achieve that high population you have to work only farms for a lot of turns having really low production or avoid filling the artist slots which works against your gameplay. If you choose to grow filling the artist slots it is hard to build important buildings like banks and national wonders that are useful and add some culture.

- Your research speed is as fast as a turtle. Without planted scientists and only part-time scientists specialists (you have to take them out to avoid popping one), and without rationalism, techs advance extremely slowly and RAs give you small amounts of tech making Opera House unreachable and Cristo Redentor too late to be that useful. It is a lose - lose situation because due to the slow research you arrive much later to Public Schools and don't even think about Research Labs making your research speed even slower.

- Production cue much more larger than in science victory: You have to build many wonders spending a lot of your production turns in things that you don't need to build playing science victory. You must build Oracle before NC and that means a 10 turns delay on education due to the beakers lost. In addition AI will beat you in most of them wasting many turns. Alambra, Chichen Itza and Terracota army are almost impossible to get. Oracle and Sixtine Chapel are doable and Cristo Redentor is low prioriced by the AI but you arrive so late to it that some AI with spare time sure will complete it. You can actually fill engineer slots to pop GEs and increase your options, but at the cost of increasing the cost of the next GA and taking another citizen from working a useful tile.

- Your 3rd world research capacity leaves you with outdated units most of the time and defending yourself with pikes against infantry is quite difficult.

- You depend a lot on cultural CS while playing science you can ignore them completely. If is funny to see a CS annexed or suffer a state coup after spending 1k gold on it.

- I have tried many different approaches and barring those Folklore/Petra starts I am only able to start Utopia around turn 260 while everyone is ready to nuke you or launch their spaceships and you have to wait 10-15 turns to win. On a science game I start Apollo around turn 190-200 and win around 230-240 without any fear that other AIs may beat you.

Summing all that, I have to say that yes, Cultural VC on deity in G&K at least playing OCC is waaay harder than science and quite a terrifying experience xD

In vanilla I enjoyed a lot playing it, but with the increased costs of policies for OCC and the change in RAs and GS, it is quite broken.

[peddroelm]

Originally Posted by Sadato

For all those saying that cultural victory is the easiest, speaking about deity play, apart from warring the world and puppeting many cities, if you intend a peaceful game it is horrible.

I have tried many different approachs playing OCC and unless you get a Desert Folklore Petra Start it is impossible.

Talking about Deity OCC Culture:

- You need a religion. Without cultural beliefs and the free GAs from faith you will advance much more slowly. Talking about deity OCC that leaves you with Ethiopia, Celts and Mayas because with other civs you have to do SH gambles and even with it you can be avoided to found religion around T75. Of those only Mayas have some sinergy with a cultural game due to the GPs they pop although the following artists will come quite late due to the increased cost. I tried a Darius no-religion game and it was awful.

- You need and extremely high population. If you plant some artists, a couple prophets and fill artist slots you can found yourself with a city that is not working any farm or mine at all. That leaves your only option to an Artemis start (on which I'm succesful 90% of the time around T35-38) or a HG gamble (20% of success that If you fail you have to restart because you deviated a lot from the proper tech path). Doing and Artemis start takes you Education 10-20 turns later that doing a normal start, although it pays off you are losing the race against the AIs on the techs of the wonders that you need. Also, to achieve that high population you have to work only farms for a lot of turns having really low production or avoid filling the artist slots which works against your gameplay. If you choose to grow filling the artist slots it is hard to build important buildings like banks and national wonders that are useful and add some culture.

- Your research speed is as fast as a turtle. Without planted scientists and only part-time scientists specialists (you have to take them out to avoid popping one), and without rationalism, techs advance extremely slowly and RAs give you small amounts of tech making Opera House unreachable and Cristo Redentor too late to be that useful. It is a lose - lose situation because due to the slow research you arrive much later to Public Schools and don't even think about Research Labs making your research speed even slower.

- Production cue much more larger than in science victory: You have to build many wonders spending a lot of your production turns in things that you don't need to build playing science victory. You must build Oracle before NC and that means a 10 turns delay on education due to the beakers lost. In addition AI will beat you in most of them wasting many turns. Alambra, Chichen Itza and Terracota army are almost impossible to get. Oracle and Sixtine Chapel are doable and Cristo Redentor is low prioriced by the AI but you arrive so late to it that some AI with spare time sure will complete it. You can actually fill engineer slots to pop GEs and increase your options, but at the cost of increasing the cost of the next GA and taking another citizen from working a useful tile.

- Your 3rd world research capacity leaves you with outdated units most of the time and defending yourself with pikes against infantry is quite difficult.

- You depend a lot on cultural CS while playing science you can ignore them completely. If is funny to see a CS annexed or suffer a state coup after spending 1k gold on it.

- I have tried many different approaches and barring those Folklore/Petra starts I am only able to start Utopia around turn 260 while everyone is ready to nuke you or launch their spaceships and you have to wait 10-15 turns to win. On a science game I start Apollo around turn 190-200 and win around 230-240 without any fear that other AIs may beat you.

Summing all that, I have to say that yes, Cultural VC on deity in G&K at least playing OCC is waaay harder than science and quite a terrifying experience xD

In vanilla I enjoyed a lot playing it, but with the increased costs of policies for OCC and the change in RAs and GS, it is quite broken.

Science wise you will need to lean heavily into patronage (scholasticism).... Heavy investment into CS means you'd better be Siam (moar food, culture & faith (and happiness?! no extra happiness) from CS) ...You don't really need to establish a religion - unless you are on a island - on deity AIs will happily gift you one quite early ...

Tradition-Patronage<->Piety->Freedom->Commerce{opener ASAP ?} (faith GM for late game gold and CS influence) ?

Will give it a try ..

[Gomer_Pyle]

For an easy Culture Victory go India, 3 cities and go very very tall.

[ShadowoftheDark]

Sad to hear that Sadato. I fell in love with OCC Diety Culture games from your guides from Vanilla.

Now even with your guide OCC Diety Science, I have yet to achieve a victory from it since the AI always gets the Apollo before me! even while I'm Korea!

Still thanks for the advice and insights you've posted man.

[_megafone_]

Still till trying to get a single peaceful cultural win on Deity, and I tried a LOT of different strategies. Won Science, Diplo and even a Domination game (and I'm absolutely awful at fighting), but no Culture yet... too hard! QQ

Oh, @Sadato: 20% on HG is too hopeful, heheh. Only time I ever got it, I was playing Egypt, had Marble and even got 2 Culture goody huts so I took Aristocracy + Landed Elite pretty early =P