Culture win unavoidable in science game?

Not literally, perhaps- but in my games (King, huge, epic), it always seems like I end up rolling up the opposition with a tourism victory well before I could get to the point of winning a science vic. Not counting the games where I get roflstomped by a runaway, of course. When you're doing well in science, it's fairly easy to get a lot of wonders and tourism along the way, and unless I deliberately avoided those things (which would be counterproductive to a winning strategy and not very smart), my tourism inevitably ends up beating the world with Nikes and Madonna instead of missions to the stars. Anyone else running into this too?

I find the opposite. The amount of time it takes for me to become influential over the runaway with their massive amounts of culture is far longer than it would take me to do a Science victory. And there's a runaway in virtually every game I play.

This seems to be only you. It is very easy to avoid a culture victory. You are obviously investing heavily in culture because I have games where I don't focus on culture and I get close to the end of the pack.

I agree with Euler, for me it is pretty hard to get a cultural victory without focusing on it (on emp/immortal). I always have to make an effort to get all of the cultural modifiers in such as open borders, trade route, diplomat, etc.

You can try a couple of things to prioritize science over culture. Try to work scientist specialists in your cities instead of the culture specialists. Consider using the great people for their "one time" benefit, like a golden age or a culture boost, which help you more towards a science victory. Make sure you focus on the corresponding policies in ideology, obviously you would never want anything that modifies your tourism. Build other wonders before you even go for a cultural wonder. If you can just get all the wonders, consider moving up a difficulty level.

Also, what turn/year are you talking about for your culture/science victories? Either you might be really good at tourism or your science might be lacking.

The only time I win culturally is when I take out my biggest competitor (there is usually at least one) either through military (in this case, all must be taken) or with musician boom (bought with faith most likely).
Sure I can influence one or two sometimes.

I don't buy influence/coup/gunboat/treaty ALL City States to become my allies with a muscle cramp in my hand unless I am going for a diplo-win or to stop Alex.
I'm only go for a healthy culture score (and also some tourism to go with that) unless I'm aiming for a culture-win of course, then I go all in, even with military if I have to.
I'm do not take capitals (much) unless I want to have a bad rep (and say "the hell with the world" and then conquer them all).
Science-win is pretty much a relaxed endgame. You do need a healthy number of research agreements and some scientist boosts or academies, but those things are good regardless of what you do/aim for.

What do you generally prioritize? Recently I've been finding myself in the late game with almost no tourism (especially on deity, where you tech up faster with spies and trade routes and don't have the time to produce everything) and finding it easier to work with that instead of focusing on tourism. I'm intrigued though, this seems like a very different play style that probably works pretty well too. So, yeah, how do you do this?

Same thing happened to me as Korea, was going for the science victory. I was the first to found an ideology and had a lot of tourism and culture, ended up being influencial over 7 of 8 civs except for poland who were autocratic and in a sort of cold war with me. I actually had to mess with my great works in order to lessen my tourism gain through the theming bonuses. I managed to get the final boosters on my rocket about 4 turns before beign influencial over all civs. Its rough man. I shouldn't have got internet.

I've found that unless I absolutely beeline everything I need for my spaceship, someone is likely to get a culture or diplomacy victory before I'm ready to launch. Or that I'm in position to get a diplomacy victory before I'm ready to launch. I've ended up having a few late-game wars while trying to assemble my spaceship, just to sidetrack Alexander or Napoleon or someone from winning first.

redwings1340 said:

What do you generally prioritize? Recently I've been finding myself in the late game with almost no tourism (especially on deity, where you tech up faster with spies and trade routes and don't have the time to produce everything) and finding it easier to work with that instead of focusing on tourism. I'm intrigued though, this seems like a very different play style that probably works pretty well too. So, yeah, how do you do this?

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Well, my first half dozen games of BNW were all culture/tourism ones, as that was always my favorite before. So I have that route and it's techniques pretty well down. So when I go for a science game, it's quite easy to just do all the culture and tourism things as a sidelight. I'm not the kind to deliberately ignore parts of the game just to make things harder for myself, hence I don't skimp on culture/tourism just for the heck of it. Bad strat, unless you are into masochism.

And since I play King and not Deity, of course I am able to get a lot of those things as I go along, even when focusing on science. I understand you couldn't easily get many tourism-flavored wonders on the high diffs, so naturally you're not going to have that issue there. But at the level I play at, it's fairly easy to pick up a lot of tourism as you major in science stuff. To avoid the tourism win, I would usually have to deliberately avoid great works during my game.

This is only a king-difficulty issue. I had the same. I wanted to get the "poland can to space" achievement but in my 3 consecutive games I always ended up with either cultural or diplomatic victory first. On emperor, it's not that simple anymore and on immortal it's impossible to achieve cultural victory without wiping out at least one cultural run-away civilization.

I too, have yet to win a science victory. The amount of science I need to generate to start building my spaceship feels a lot bigger.

I managed to do it as Korea, but that's Korea. Besides, I was picking up insane amounts of tourism anyway.

I've been doing fast Deity wins (low 200s) with zero Tourism.

Writers go to SP generation, Artists go to GAs, and I don't even bother producing Musicians. Build orders are too tight to squeeze in Opera Houses, rendering Musicians useless.

This requires a significant buffer, but even when I play 'correctly' and create great works I still get hammered when someone else reaches Industrial and picks a different ideology. So why bother?

I'd think that taking this approach would solve your problem on King.

In a game where you built about every single wonder and every single building in every city. Yes, it's unavoidable for you. Up the difficulty maybe?

The only time I was at risk of an unwanted Cultural victory is when I completed the Aesthetics tree. Also if not wanting a Cultural victory don't research the Internet and consider skipping National Visitor Center. (Technically speaking I did want a cultural victory as well, but I was going for a twofer in achievements.) I did though manage to barely get that last space part built just in time so that I could get that as well.

Now, on the standard size map, this is going to be very dependent upon which civs are in your game. If you draw no AIs interested in a cultural victory themselves, then a Cultural victory will be much faster than Science.
But if a single AI is interested in a Cultural victory (and not wiped out), then chances are high that a science victory could be faster.

But if you're interested in fastest possible victory other than domination, at the moment this is Diplomatic; (as all civs, not just those with city state advantages).
Basically going for Diplomatic play normally until Atomic Era, and then beeline to Globalization. (Use most spies to secure city state allies and then relocate and turn into diplomats in time for the next vote after Globalization)

Why u always lack of money:
-You want RA with all AI. Sometimes impossible but still. So if you have a lot of money you should indest them to make friends. If AI has no money, you can trade or even gift.
- You want more internal trade routes.
Why u always lack of shields:
-You always want to put 'food focus'.

So if u have nothing to build or too much money - there is always way to spend it for science not tourism.

If u go SV in right way, u'll never get CV.

This mainly happens at the lower difficulties. At higher difficulties much of the time the AI snatches away more of the wonders. You might be able to catch a few of them but some of the AIs seem to beeline Parthenon and Globe Theater. It's also made much harder the more AIs there are because each one has a separate chance to snag the wonder. In any case I'd wonder if you couldn't get a more successful science victory burning Great Artists for Golden Ages and Writers for Policies instead of settling them for the Tourism bonus.

FrostK said:

So if u have nothing to build or too much money - there is always way to spend it for science not tourism.

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LOL! Had to grin at that one. Never had nothing to build or too much money... ever.

Smokeybear said:

LOL! Had to grin at that one. Never had nothing to build or too much money... ever.

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I meant 'nothing' = 'nothing that boost your scince'