Gotta remember to always disable Cultural Victory...

Yep. Great Writer boost is much like the Scientist in that after a very short period you get more raw bonuses from the boost ability. Outside of culture victories where you need the tourism, you can often safely just use the boost.

Same thing with Artists, but I find them a bit more difficult to analyze. Golden Ages are temporary while +2 culture is consistent. Generally I will make the works until I run out of artist slots (quick if you aren't running cathedrals, don't go for Sistine) and then burn them from there.

Musicians are low priority.

I'd even argue nabbing one or two quick culture CS alliances will do more for you in regards to Ideology pressure than great works. They potentially come quicker which means more culture stockpiled early on.
 
You lost me at 'As the Atomic Era rolled around...' If you were going for a Domination Victory how did your game even reach the Atomic Era? From your description it sounds like you were playing down from your normal difficulty level, and that you were just toying with the AI with the full knowledge that you had already won the game really.

Big Pangaea map. Lots of civilizations. And I was going for 'full wipeout', leaving no cities behind. Plus a short break between each war to recoup my strength and extend my (rail)road network to the next frontline.

's true that I wasn't exactly playing at the limits of my capability, though. But I rarely do. I find it too stressful - and it forces you to 'optimize' in various ways to have a chance. I'd rather just play it a bit easier, so that I'm free to do things my way, and really play into the 'character' of whatever civ I've selected this time without having to worry about being wiped out unless I screw up majorly. I guess that's also why stuff like this bothers me so much - Sweden is well-suited for Conquest. It's run by one of the greatest strategists Europe has ever known. Winning by Conquest was the RIGHT way to do it. Instead, I got... Swedish Culture? What the heck is cultural about Sweden? >_>
 
Even when I save all my Great Artists for golden ages, and use all my writers for culture bombs, I still end up winning a culture victory before Im anywhere close to a science win.
 
Those who accidentally win by a different means than they intended are doing so because they are not focused on winning in the way they wanted. If you always end up winning Diplo, it is because your choices lead you there. If you go towards Culture, that is because your choices lead you there.

If you want to win by domination, don't earn so much tourism. There is no requirement to earn tourism. If you focused less on it, you might have been able to win by domination sooner.

It appears to me that you are playing a balanced game. You are building an empire that has no real focus. There is nothing wrong with that, but if that balance is tipped towards culture, you'll win that way. If you go after votes, you'll win diplo, and if you build spaceship parts, you'd win that way. While there isn't anything wrong with this, it will cause you to accidentally win by other victory conditions than what you wanted.
 
Those who accidentally win by a different means than they intended are doing so because they are not focused on winning in the way they wanted. If you always end up winning Diplo, it is because your choices lead you there. If you go towards Culture, that is because your choices lead you there.

If you want to win by domination, don't earn so much tourism. There is no requirement to earn tourism. If you focused less on it, you might have been able to win by domination sooner.

It appears to me that you are playing a balanced game. You are building an empire that has no real focus. There is nothing wrong with that, but if that balance is tipped towards culture, you'll win that way. If you go after votes, you'll win diplo, and if you build spaceship parts, you'd win that way. While there isn't anything wrong with this, it will cause you to accidentally win by other victory conditions than what you wanted.

The problem with that theory is that nothing in the game is that simple. Allying with a lot of city-states might get you to Diplo Victory, but it also provides you with extra Culture, Food, Religion and free military units in addition to various strategic and luxury resources. And having enough votes on hand to control the World Congress is desirable in itself, enabling you to pass the modifications you want and block attempts to pass things you don't want. You can, however, elect to not use all of your available votes for a Diplomatic Victory vote, if you don't want to win that way.

Problem with Cultural Victory is that there isn't any 'switch' like that. You can't STOP generating Tourism once you've started. You can refuse to vote for Diplomatic Victory, hold back your armies from Conquest Victory, and... well, y'know, just not build the last part of your space-ship for Science Victory. :p But Cultural Victory will happen regardless if the pieces are in place. It's also, as has been mentioned before, quite FAST.

In other words, you don't need to be 'tipped' towards Culture to win that way. If you build a balanced empire with no particular focus - or rather, if you seek to excel at everything equally - you WILL win by Culture whether you want to or not.
 
Even when I save all my Great Artists for golden ages, and use all my writers for culture bombs, I still end up winning a culture victory before Im anywhere close to a science win.

Like I told OP, move up in difficulty. Am I speaking in tongues? Obviously you can still move up in difficulty. If I'm wrong I'll be shocked.
 
The problem with that theory is that nothing in the game is that simple. Allying with a lot of city-states might get you to Diplo Victory, but it also provides you with extra Culture, Food, Religion and free military units in addition to various strategic and luxury resources. And having enough votes on hand to control the World Congress is desirable in itself, enabling you to pass the modifications you want and block attempts to pass things you don't want. You can, however, elect to not use all of your available votes for a Diplomatic Victory vote, if you don't want to win that way.

Problem with Cultural Victory is that there isn't any 'switch' like that. You can't STOP generating Tourism once you've started. You can refuse to vote for Diplomatic Victory, hold back your armies from Conquest Victory, and... well, y'know, just not build the last part of your space-ship for Science Victory. :p But Cultural Victory will happen regardless if the pieces are in place. It's also, as has been mentioned before, quite FAST.

In other words, you don't need to be 'tipped' towards Culture to win that way. If you build a balanced empire with no particular focus - or rather, if you seek to excel at everything equally - you WILL win by Culture whether you want to or not.

I'm sorry, but it is not a theory, it is simply a fact. If you attempt to build lots of tourism, you will be in position to win a culture victory. If that is not what you want, do not build so much tourism, or speed up your other efforts.

All victory conditions are easily winnable without "accidentally" winning another victory condition. You just happened to have overly built towards a culture victory, and ended up winning that way. By the sound of it, you don't know how to stop yourself from doing that, which is likely the case of having a build order you've grown used to, and as a result, always end up having too much tourism. Just change up your build order, use your great people differently, or speed up your domination.

Many people do not accidentally win other victory conditions. Heck, most people I see here consider culture victories to be the hardest to achieve, and many people simply cannot win them. Clearly this is a play style issue.
 
To achieve a cultural victory, one must be careful and keep an eye on the cultural victory screen which shows how influenced each civlization is by each civilization.. AIs can pull of surprise cultural victories in higher difficulties sometimes and it seems that you have to use other types of victories such as domination or science in order to try to achieve a cultural victory in immortal or deity...
 
I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet (at least I think it hasn't), but it's worth mentioning that even if OP hadn't been making great works, it's almost impossible for a domination civ to completely avoid tourism since you'll be picking it up from conquered cities. The same thing happened to me in one of my very first games, and I hadn't made more than maybe 2 great works along the way. I mean, if you absorb 10 civs into your empire, then you're effectively rolling out 10 civs' worth of tourism, and there's not a good way to stop it. I feel the VC could really benefit from requiring a more proactive finish instead of just passively waiting it out.
 
I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet (at least I think it hasn't), but it's worth mentioning that even if OP hadn't been making great works, it's almost impossible for a domination civ to completely avoid tourism since you'll be picking it up from conquered cities. The same thing happened to me in one of my very first games, and I hadn't made more than maybe 2 great works along the way. I mean, if you absorb 10 civs into your empire, then you're effectively rolling out 10 civs' worth of tourism, and there's not a good way to stop it. I feel the VC could really benefit from requiring a more proactive finish instead of just passively waiting it out.

This may have been more of an issue due to him not just going for a domination victory, but completely eliminating ever civ. It's not an issue if you go for a standard domination victory, but if you take every civ out completely, then it becomes a bigger issue.
 
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