New cultural victory: am I doing somthing wrong?

Gehennas

Warlord
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
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147
Location
Novosibirsk, Russia
There were several topics about how easy the cultural victory became, but I just don't get it. In one of my attempts I was playing Brazil: quit at turn 451 without any chance to win. The last time I quit earlier while playing France as soon as I realised that I'm still in the beginning of renaissance, while everybody have reached industrial long ago. Playing on King, by the way.

I see the following problems:
1. I am really backward in science.
2. There are 1-2 very huge civs planning domination or science victory. I usually need 1000+ turns to become influential over them.

Also, it seems like going tall is not an option anymore: overall culture income is really low for 4 cities.

What am I doing wrong? Any tips?
Thank you.
 
I just finished an emperor game, huge continents map, 12 civs, as Poland winning culture. I had 5 cities (got two more very late through wars). Each of the core cities had about 30-35 population. I out-teched them so much that I was throwing nukes for fun while they were still using great war infantry at the end of the game.

The thing about tourism is that it kicks in really late - as in really, really late. For most of the game you'll trickle at 10-20 tourism, maybe 30, and then after you get hotels, airports, visitor center, internet, etc, you should have tourism at 800-900. Bomb the highest culture civ with Great Musicians and you should be ok.

Culture income is not what you need - culture is only there for you to defend against other civs' tourism. What you need is for your tourism to overtake their total culture. Check the culture victory tab and see how you're doing. If, before you find hotel, you're still mostly unknown for all the civs, you're probably in trouble and didn't get a fast enough start.
 
The new cultural victory isn't necessarily a peaceful one. (that now goes to Science and Diplo to a degree). The easiest way to take out a high cultural civ is to conquer a few of his cities. Conquest also gives you Great Works to display in your empire. :goodjob: On higher levels you often will not get the wonders (and theming bonuses are often rather small anyways), so go wide and fill your museums with plunder and unearthed artifacts.

Sure you can wait for the late tourism boosts. If you don't want to do that, build yourself a religion that is suited for it (tourism on wonders f.e., or the tourism-on-bought-with-faith-buildings). The Tourism game seems to me quite linked with Religion now.
 
To explain it it better.

You only get 1 Culture from most Culture buildings now. So even with Culture in full swing you might only produce 100-200 Culture end game. From about turn 1 to turn 250 every civilization is getting Culture. Once you start building Tourism you need to surpass that Culture. The problem is your Tourism will not get very high till about turn 325+ once you have Airports and Hotels, as well as paintings and plenty of ancient relics.

Now here is the important part, Tourism unlike Culture receive % boosts. Open Boarders? Here Have a free boost. Trading Route? Boost. Same Ideals? You got it. BOOST. Because of this you need to meet certain requirements to receive these boosts in order to surpass there Culture.

Overall, I think this entire Tourism is kind of a mess up. I don't think you can win with it fast enough. I mean on 7 I am winning every game with UN at around turn 350-375. Now that's winning. Simple put right now you can win with it but it takes too much time. Even Science takes too much time compared to UN win. Only thing that can beat it is Domination, if you want to go all out.
 
Tall is great for a cultural victory (especially as France where your UA incentivises you to concentrate you culture generation in Paris) you just need to generate tourism, not culture.

Also, I would say that while you can win a cultural victory while ignoring (most) wonders and religion, both help a lot if you manage to get the right wonders and tenets. And unlike before, science is key to a cultural victory win. Plus, of course, Aesthetics tree is a must.
 
Food is the new black.

Due to the food trade routes, the AI grows it's cities much larger, so if you aren't good at growing your cities you fall far behind in science. You have to use many trade routes on food now and be focused on letting cities grow food from their own tiles.
 
I had some false starts as well and my first victory with Brazil was a mediocre one, by 2013 (don't remember the turn).

Some things for Brazil:
*Late golden ages are key. Sell your luxuries early on to avoid having too many early golden ages, keep your happiness at 5 or so, only enough to keep growing, until you get enough tourism.
*You shouldn't be lagging in tech if you settle one or two jungle cities, as jungle spots give science with universities. Buy everything with money on those cities or send caravans to increase production. If you didn't create the National College early, it's great to have it on a jungle city.
*If your capital happens to be a jungle city, just chop everything. You'll only want jungles by the Middle Ages. Only make sure that nearby jungles are free - don't let your neighbors settle the good jungle spots nearby. If those spots have strategic or luxury resources, you can safely settle them before universities.
*BANANAS ARE YOUR ENEMY. You can't build brazilwood camps on them and are forced to remove the jungle if you want the food bonus. So don't settle a place if it has too many banana hexes.
*While brazilwood camps are nice and dandy, regular trading posts can give you extra science with Rationalism. So consider replacing them or settling another, science-specialized jungle city if you're still lagging in science.
*Make sure that your artist, writer and musician specialist cities are settled by some rivers, so they can have gardens. I can't count how many times I forgot about this and lost the 25% to great people bonus. Also give priority go great people enhancing wonders, as Tower of Pisa.
*You'll want faith for purchasing musicians late game. So found one and pick some beliefs that increase faith, not happiness or money (money is always useful, however).
*Your bonus to tourism applies to great musicians' tours, so you'll want to start saving them for using during golden ages after you've filled the Broadway. You'll also want Chichen Itza and the Universal Suffrage tenet from Freedom.
*Great artists start golden ages, so you'll also want to save them after you fill the Louvre. Don't place art in your museums, use archaeology instead.
*You'll want war when you have Pracinhas. Be ready for a combined arms attack on big culture civs, plunder everything they have, but don't conquer too many cities to avoid the warmonger diplo hit. Call in the aggressive civs to join you and so you avoid making them angry.
*However, if you have culturally dominated all but the higher culture civs, by all means, just wipe them out.
*Remember that Foreign Legion is upgradeable to Pracinha.
 
Brasil has a slow start.

I played a game with them on marathon and I was having trouble and a bit behind with them a long time until i got my Brasil wood camps. Brasil wood camps are where it's at then since you didn't destroy your jungle like the AI you are also getting a whole bunch of beakers everywhere and can complete in the science game even with a limited amount of cities.

Control your golden ages early. try to stay at 0 happiness early on so you don't trigger a golden age before you have your hotels down. That way when you are ready you can begin spamming golden ages until everyone bleeds from their eyes from the power of party.

Your boats will be more about production hammers then trade. Jungle is terrible for hammers. You don't want to remove the jungle though because of the culture / gold / science they roll in for you.

You should be able to win at least before airports especially if you got the Chichen Itza.

Save the great artists. Fill as many slots with archology things instead and save them up. if you can get Chichen Itza and freedom's 50% golden age to combine and start spamming a chain of 2-4 golden ages after hotels it's game over.

I had a runaway austria in my game who seemed to cover half the world and dominated a whole bunch of other places completely and they until just before airports to take over with culture.

if you have to wipe someone out end game don't forget your UU kills for golden age point so try and get the last hits with them.

When you have an economy going buy open borders with everyone for 1-2 gold. You could trade open borders but then they missionary spam and I rather just buy it.

If you aren't playing without a lot of civs getting a panthon with extra culture per jungle, and some buildings with the tourism for buildings can be amazing.
 
The new cultural victory isn't necessarily a peaceful one. (that now goes to Science and Diplo to a degree). The easiest way to take out a high cultural civ is to conquer a few of his cities. Conquest also gives you Great Works to display in your empire. :goodjob: On higher levels you often will not get the wonders (and theming bonuses are often rather small anyways), so go wide and fill your museums with plunder and unearthed artifacts.

Sure you can wait for the late tourism boosts. If you don't want to do that, build yourself a religion that is suited for it (tourism on wonders f.e., or the tourism-on-bought-with-faith-buildings). The Tourism game seems to me quite linked with Religion now.
:agree:The new Cultural Victory requires a fair bit of warfare. If you can take over the capitals of the major :c5culture: leaders early in the game then you are well on your way. If they generate culture (especially from wonders) into the mid to late game then it might be better to eliminate them from the game. Once you have defeated them, you no longer have to surpass their culture. You also get the added benefit of capturing all of their tourism objects.
 
Brasil has a slow start.
Only if you accept a capital surrounded by jungle. This was my first game, I couldn't snatch any wonder. So I've learned that it's better to leave jungles for the other cities. Don't be shy to settle away from the jungle with Brazil. Or do as Brazilians did in real life, just chop it off for farms, mines and plantations, leaving the Amazon for tourists :mischief:
 
Only if you accept a capital surrounded by jungle. This was my first game, I couldn't snatch any wonder. So I've learned that it's better to leave jungles for the other cities. Don't be shy to settle away from the jungle with Brazil. Or do as Brazilians did in real life, just chop it off for farms, mines and plantations, leaving the Amazon for tourists :mischief:

tricky part is A they are so awesome late game and B you wont' find jungle late game because the AI declares war on trees pretty early and refuses to leave a single one standing.

Also even if you avoid jungle your UI isn't until medieval your UA you want to hold back on using until you are ready to keep the golden age cost down and the UU isn't going to come until modern times.

Almost everyone else gets some kind of benefit before you do which slows early Brasil down to a careful start late exploder.
 
I've just finished a Cultural Victory with Venice on King, sure it's more demanding than what it used to be. But also more fun and diversified, now you can't just stay small and ignore all the other civs in play. I had to wait till I've researched the Internet, with a diplomat in all the 3 remaining ai players capital, with the extra bonus from a trade route, open borders and sharing the same ideology it dramaticly increased my tourism output.
 
tricky part is A they are so awesome late game and B you wont' find jungle late game because the AI declares war on trees pretty early and refuses to leave a single one standing.

Also even if you avoid jungle your UI isn't until medieval your UA you want to hold back on using until you are ready to keep the golden age cost down and the UU isn't going to come until modern times.

Almost everyone else gets some kind of benefit before you do which slows early Brasil down to a careful start late exploder.

Yeah, but it's not that much different from other late bloomers and medieval is not that far away. As I posted before, you don't want to settle jungles too early, but you also don't want your rivals to do so. If you have enough production, just destroy or capture any cities they make in your "natural reserves". Or just go ahead, settle the jungles and don't expect much until later, they're easy to defend as they have a natural Great Wall. But have some production cities, there's no problem going horizontal for a culture win now.
 
Thank you for the tips!
Got my first cultural victory as Brazil (with "Rock the kasbah" achievment).
This was easy enough just because all the countries adopted Order.

However it seems pretty confusing for me that cultural victory does not require any "special activity" before the modern era.
 
There are a number of good ways to get your tourism pumped up before the big tourism boosts at the end of the game.

First of all go wide, this equals more slots for great works, more land in your control where antiquities might appear, and more cities to build the tourism boosting hotel/airport in once you get them. Not saying you cant go tall but i feel like culture victory is tailored for wide players. Also more cities in which to build archaeologists to nab those relics and remember they cant be purchased.

While you're at it get a faith and the piety tree. Try to rush to the reformation bonus (other civs love to take this before you) b/c one of the policies i believe provides +2 tourism per holy building (cathedral/pagoda etc..) which once again if every city in your 10-15 city empire has one of these religious buildings that bonus will get bigger.

Also this game starts in the industrial era the sooner you get archaeology the sooner you can make those fellas and get the artifacts out of the ground. Nab open borders with anyone you can and steal their artifacts too, CS'es arent off limits here either.

All of the above should net you 200+ tourism BEFORE you propose the games/research internet


My last big point is that strategic timing of the international games can be critical. That 100% bonus is only good for 20 turns but if youve taken out any runaway civs and have high enough culture this should be good enough, time it with a golden age with brazil and youre gravy. That is key though, if any other civ is making as much culture as you are, wipe them out. It will take forever to outpace them.
 
...So even with Culture in full swing you might only produce 100-200 Culture end game...

I have to disagree with you there. In my last game I was pumping out 1000 culture per turn. In my current game i'm pumping out 700. Culture is usually primarily got from great works. The 3 main culture buildings are the writers/artists/musicians guilds. Also the broadcast tower is another(CN tower world wonder). Culture can be buffed with certain WC enacted policies, religious beliefs, policies, and ideology tenets. A good starting WC proposal is Cultural heritage sites(the one that gives +3 culture for every world wonder). Any civ that has world wonders will vote yay.

Edit: I'm now pumping out 2000 culture per turn, with over 2000 tourism.
 
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