Cultural games and the number of cities

I need a thumb rule of how many cities I should build in a game as France targeting a Cultural Victory. I plan to go puppet all the cities I manage to conquest to save on the cultural points needed for a social policy upgrade.
Normally I build 4 cities in my games but I wonder if that is too much in a cultural game (maybe better 2 or 3)?

I am still looking for some input here.
I have tested a game with 4 and 3 and found very little difference. Now I try with 1 (OCC) - and that seems to be better actually. Another question raise up here when to go out attacking (horsemen or knights or swords?).

With my play style 1 or 2 suits me. 3-4 and focus starts to wain.

Policies are critical as well. Generally tradition, piety, freedom are the norm.

Prioritize cultural wonders, especially the ones that grant % increases.

Cultural city states are huge.

Ranged units are the key to attacking. Catapults are the first big leap to go on the offensive.

With all that being said France is an interesting bird as their UA may mitigate policy increase of many cities.

Haven't really seen any out of the box play in terms of wide culture. I say you disregard the conventional tall advice and expand like crazy with a mix of liberty, piety, patronage, and order. Focus 100% on cultural buildings with gold being next. Use gold to buy culture buildings and keep city states. Don't spend it on RA's. Good luck!

I won a decent cultural win with Egypt, 5 cities, only one coastal and it wasn't one of the large culture producers, so Sydney Opera House was almost completely wasted.

There's no correct answer to when you should attack, sometimes you don't even have to attack at all. It all depends on your opponents, lay of the land, tech lead, alliances and so on. But as whyidie mentioned, ranged units are the key to success.

PibbZ said:

I won a decent cultural win with Egypt, 5 cities, only one coastal and it wasn't one of the large culture producers, so Sydney Opera House was almost completely wasted.

There's no correct answer to when you should attack, sometimes you don't even have to attack at all. It all depends on your opponents, lay of the land, tech lead, alliances and so on. But as whyidie mentioned, ranged units are the key to success.

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What turn range was the victory on? I'm willing to bet it was over T350 because 5 cities is just too much for an early cultural victory, atleast with civs other than France.
Speaking of France and cultural, combining representation with France could allow settling a few extra cities and still get an early victory... I might try that.

black213 said:

What turn range was the victory on? I'm willing to bet it was over T350 because 5 cities is just too much for an early cultural victory, atleast with civs other than France.
Speaking of France and cultural, combining representation with France could allow settling a few extra cities and still get an early victory... I might try that.

Click to expand...

It was most definitely over t350, as I played marathon. I believe it was around AD 1850's.
The OP didn't mention any early cultural victory though, just cultural victory in general

for cultural victory, 1 city seems to work best for me. i had a fun deity game the other day, took religious settlements, tradition opener, put in krepost right away and later got angkor wat and great wall. my borders were huge and anyone stupid enough to enter my territory was easily picked apart. i didn't even bother getting dynamite in that game in order to keep the great wall functioning for the duration of the game. in the end i could have easily switched to science or diplomatic victory, nearly all my workable tiles were great people freedom tree buffed tiles.

STMO, it depends on your map. If you can build four, do it. Go with less if you can't.

@Black213

Check this out. Turn 242 cultural victory by Ribannah with 5 cities (Byzanthium).

I think now that culture has been loosened up a little, a less-than-four cities strategy is not optimal. You can go up to 5 or 6 now and still be fine.

Culture definitely calls for a more tall strategy, but a OCC is utterly unnecessary (and likely unhelpful) in going for Culture. In addition to offering little benefit, it leaves to open to attack by your nearest warmonger.

I seem to find that going 4 tall-cities placed fairly far apart (5-6 tiles), tends to work best for when seeking a culture vc.

When I have 5 or more cities I run into significantly more trouble with sharing borders with other civs early on, which in turn forces me to focus on building my army much earlier so that I can survive a war should someone DOW me. At that point I find it hard to resist just continuing to build military and dominating.

Also, around 6 cities, I see a large enough boost to science output that it feels I can more easily obtain a Science VC rather than Culture.

4 cities allows for optimal use of free culture buildings from the Tradition branch. Normally I will make sure that I have at least monuments constructed in all cities before taking Legalism in order to get amphitheaters. I also like that with 4 cities I can easily balance specialized roles for each city. My capital will normally prioritize production and spend much of it's time making wonders. My second city I like to found around lots of good production tiles and I'll use this city to build most of my defending army. Then if at all possible cities 3 and 4 will be settled next to mountains and/or food tiles and will provide the bulk of my science generation.

I've tired going with only 2 or 3 cities, and while it works, I always seem to feel much more vulnerable to attack and resources are far more scarse. My science suffers alot with 2-3 cities too and it becomes much more difficult to get the mid-late culture buildings for that final push to unlocking Utopia.

My experience with going OCC is quite limited, as I've only completed one game with a single city. But this was a run away victory and I did go with Culture. Though I think this may have been in large part due to luck... Egypt, with lots of food, and 3 luxary resources and no shared borders until about the time I was researching railroad.

I always go 4-5 cities with liberty/tradition opening for cultural vic. Place your cities a bit further apart to allow for maximum growth and tile spread. I feel that's the only way to guaruntee you have enough natural resources to survive the late game. You'll need coal, oil, aluminum and what have you in order to make units. Save Legalism for after you have an amphitheatre in all cities. then bam you get 20 culture per turn and you can use a GE to rush your Hermitage the next turn for a 50% culture boost in your capital.

I suppose if you were one city challenging it you could make sure to grab the Patronage Tree which might make up for it. I dunno how you'd generate large gold renvue though without a few cities.