Some recent mp games reminded me of this thread. Obviously a futurism win can be done, for instance arvius and filthy robot have at least one video each where they execute it. But having tried it myself now twice (both failed) i strongly doubt that a tourism/futurism win is possible when people defend properly. Id like to offer some disorganized thoughts and hope for some input on how and under which circumstances to go for it.
When and how to enter modern era is a central question, and i still wonder what the answer is. Obviously the earlier you enter modern era the less tourism output will be required since the opponents culture is lower the fewer turns are played. But in a practical game rushing modern and then going autocracy should backfire as you will make yourself a target very early.
I was once part of an allicance who killed a guy who had bulbed for radio and then went autocracy/futurism. Since he had no special science output and still reached modern way ealier then everyone else it was obvious what he was doing. His tourism became threatening quickly so that all players just combined their resources to take him out. His approach was doomed.
In both of my tries i have most probably not played perfectly but im sure didnt do much wrong either. Popped the first three great persons right after taking futurism, had maximized great person output in the guild city, went for all great person wonders. The only thing i missed were some bonuses from social policies: sacred sites and the free artist from aesthetics. Also i wasnt able to prevent everyone from allying with cultural CS all the time. In both games the culture of at least one opponent was just unbreakable. One time i had gone to radio as fast as possible (without bulbing), the other time there was a chance i needed gatlings, so i went industrialisation/factories.
The tourism one can create with futurism is limited to a certain amount, and this amount is not high enough to break the culture of someone with a nice culture output, it seems to me after these two games. Maybe one of the math guys can come up with a number for required culture output of an opposed civ that cant be broken with futurism alone? I find it hard to estimate at an early stage (when i usually would start building guilds) if futurism may be a winning option here.
Even when the tourism output doesnt win the game, pressuring the opponents has some nice side effects. Do they ever outweigh the disadvantages one has to take for going autocracy/futurism? Or in a different way: Can futurism just be an unlikely but possible option in an otherwise legitimately played game? First of all and strangely enough, going for a cultural victory via autocracy hurts the culture a lot. Restricting yourself from building and working the guilds for a long time makes progress in the social policy tree painfully slow. I find this way of committing to a winning option hurtful. Secondly autocracy is just a crappy ideology as long as the game is about maximizing beakers/pop/food.
In one of the above posts i stated that going for a traditional cultural victory via slowly piling up tourism will not work since going all the way on the top of the tech tree will make one vulnerable to being killed by modern military units. Then i played a game where i learned about the defensive value of mechanized infantry. Mine was one of three strong civs competing for the win and mine turned out to be the one without uranium. So i rushed shelters, had no chance for hubble, was extremely late at xcom tech, but could have been very early at internet tech. While being nuked several times and defending mainly with mechanized infantry for a long, long time i wished i had piled up some tourism in the game as hotels and nvc were all on my path. So i guess that a culture victory the traditional way may be possible afterall if you just from turn 0 on play it like a game where you know that you dont have uranium?!
