How many cities when shooting for Cultural?

I have two I founded and one puppet.

Is that a good number or should I have gone for one more while the getting was good?

It's 1200ad, if I want another I'll have to take it. And I've already had my one 'nobody will hold it against you' war.

That was a funny war, BTW. I ran across someone's Settler early game and that being a powerful unit I took it. A couple of dozen turns lately he gave me a city for peace. Other than taking the settler not a shot was fired in that 'war'. But I did get a pretty decent city out of it.

for any victory, it is almost always neccessary to have 4 cities. one city should be coastal, unless on a no ocean map like Europe or similar.

It depends on the type of culture victory. For peaceful culture, 3-4 supertall cities is a good strategy, although wide can work for this too, especially with some kind of culture UI/UB for hotel/airport tourism.
For warmongering, anything can work as long as your hammers and economy are in good shape.
@jilm2001: 4 cities are not always necessary. Deau's CV guide shows a good way of doing it with 3 cities.

I've played two Cultural Victories on King difficulty this week and 3 cities seem to work just fine. I'm more of a tall player than wide, but 4 wouldn't be a bad option either as you can use it as a support city.

With the BNW cultural rules you can win with any number of cities, though I'd guess less than 3 or 4 would be difficult to do as I always seem to run of of slots for works. I actually typically spread a little wider for the cultural victory. If you have a unique tile that generates culture, a pantheon that does, or a religious building with sacred sites the wider the better. For normal victory...I'd guess focusing on 4-8 cities would be good. Building most wonders in one city can help too as you'll get the bonus later from that one national wonder and that can only be built one place. I've always tended to go wider though as the tourism benefits are usually better and the game often ends before I get to that national wonder. Plus going wide benefits religion, which if you can make world dominant and push through congress will grant that 50% tourism bonus to your holy city a lot earlier than the national wonder. I've by no means optimized it though...I'd guess just don't go too small. I think you'll run into problems with only 2 cities running out of slots, esp. for artifacts. I usually need at least 4-5 museums to house all my artifacts as I aggressively push for all nearby artifacts out of my territory. One trick I've learned is the AI does not get mad if you dig up in their territory once as long as you say you won't again. So you can rush archaeologists and time them to get a couple out of a neighbor's territory on the same turn. You get a few more and they don't get made bc you promise to not do it again and don't. I also will send troops out to sit on sites so no one else can take my planned excavation sites. These strategies net me a ton of artifacts so less than 5 cities would never work.

You can win an OCC cultural victory even with BNW, but this would require building able to build some of world wonders to get enough slots, Globe being the earliest.
It wouldn't be optimal though; 3 cities would still work much better, and normally 4 is better than 3.

I don't understand that you can dig up antiquities on other Civ's land without declaring war. Each time I want to dig up on another's land..the window always pops up which says do you want to declare war.

What am I missing on this sneaky move.

Brew God

You are missing open borders

Open Borders is something you should aim to have anyway when going for a CV (unless youre dealing with Shaka, Monty etc.) so that you get the influence modifier

Depends if you are abusing religion or not. Otherwise 4-6 core cities, like most strategies.

With less than 3 cities you will need wonders for slots, trade routes to cultures that you're unknown to, open borders, spies to spread your coolness and a stock of great musicians.


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When you're playing Byzantium and have 3 religious building follower beliefs and Sacred Sites?

Unlimited.

Might not always work. More suited for Tiny maps. And Prince or lower. Not very experienced.

Doktor Vic Tim said:

When you're playing Byzantium and have 3 religious building follower beliefs and Sacred Sites?

Unlimited.

Click to expand...

You still need enough faith to buy them all. You'll hit diminishing returns for number of cities faster as Byzantine with 3 religious follower beliefs than you would another civ with only 2 of them as the cost increases every era.

I usually try to get 4 cities, but if they are very good cities you can get away with 3 (immortal and below).

Just won my first BNW cultural victory last night. Seems way, way harder than the old way.

With only 3 cities you run out of slots to put great works, so 4 or even 5 seems like a minimum.

Faith is important as it lets you buy great people late in the game.

I had every cultural city-state, and every single cultural wonder, LOTS of antiquities sites, hotels, airports, the internet, the whole works and it still took me till 2033 to win.

This was a game that had a particularly good early start, I have a hard time imagining a cultural win unless you are doing REALLY WELL in the game. I had two strong production cities that let me knock out all the wonders.

I concentrated on great people throughout the game, that was a big help.

culture isn't that hard once you get used to the new mechanics, especially below immortal. If you are building all the wonders and allying all CS, it should be a breeze.

Play wider. That's my advice. I've never had the problem running out of slots this way and usually end up getting a little more tourism due to tile yields, antiquity sites, tourism buildings...etc. Plus impressing CS is easy with a wide empire...so is faith gen and everything else that helps. It's usually over on emperor before airports in my experience without sacred sites.

joncnunn said:

You still need enough faith to buy them all. You'll hit diminishing returns for number of cities faster as Byzantine with 3 religious follower beliefs than you would another civ with only 2 of them as the cost increases every era.

Click to expand...

Yes, good point. the game I was running I got a Spanish start with two NW's near me, and along with Pilgrimage founder belief and plenty city states, the faith started accumulating fast.

joncnunn said:

You can win an OCC cultural victory even with BNW, but this would require building able to build some of world wonders to get enough slots, Globe being the earliest.
It wouldn't be optimal though; 3 cities would still work much better, and normally 4 is better than 3.

Click to expand...

You don't necessarily need the Cultural World Wonders. You get quite a few slots in National Wonders, and pushing through the Cultural Heritage Sites resolution will earn you a lot of Tourism from any World Wonder.

OCC culture is pretty tough from my experience. At least, on immortal.

Emperor should be doable, and certainly below that. 3-4 cities will still be faster though.