Comparing Science Victory Speed with Cultural Victory Speed

We all know that under the default 2:1 city state ratio & spies on that Diplomatic victory always takes fewer turns under almost all circumstances than either science or cultural so I won't go into that.
Neither will I go into comparing them with domination victory turn times.

It's also clear that Brazil can always get a faster victory going cultural than science. (Largely GA driven after they get their base tourism high enough but their UI also helps with this once Hotels are reached)

But in the other direction, Babylon is designed to get the fastest Science Victory possible, but with more science actually helping all victory conditions, it's not always the case that science will be faster than cultural. Korea also has a big science bonus, but with it also giving science bonus from the guild specialists they may actually lean towards the cultural side.

It turns out that when playing a generic civ (one without any cultural or tourism bonuses) that the standard cultural victory is largely theming great works + tourism driven.

So first, what generates more guild specialists:

1. Garden (requires fresh water unless playing Indonesia)

2. Coffee House (requires you to be playing Austria)

3. Aesthetics opener

4. National Epic

5. Leaning Tower (also provides free great person)

6. Arts Funding (normally popular with the AIs if proposed early, the faster the better so you do want to meet the world.)

Stacking all those faster spawn rates is so important, that if you don't have a fresh water start then unless playing Indonesia or Austria that science victory is likely to be faster. (This situation would also slow down a science victory, but not by as much)

Leaning Tower is normally hand built, and because there are only 2 world wonders + 1 national wonder providing Writing theming bonuses to 3 world wonders +1 national wonder + standard buildings providing Art theming bonuses, using it for the Globe is actually the best option.

The number of turns you save from Leaning Tower + Globe is massive. If you don't have anything to make it up, then if you miss this it's going to result in science victory being faster.
(For a similar reason, if you are on a low enough difficulty level to complete Great Library, it will actually shave more turns off a cultural victory than a science one. [It would also be weird if you got beat out to Leaning Tower after successfully building the Great Library])

So in fact, that is the best guideline, if on turn 0 you are on fresh water and see your capital producing a lot of hammers by Printing Press from say lots of fresh water hills and mining luxaries, then it's looking really good for a cultural victory.
If instead you see yourself with massive flood plains start with some luxury type that provides gold instead of hammers and most of the desert is flat then science victory is a better option.

On the margin, pantheons providing culture will help a cultural victory after Hotels as would Japan's fishing boats. (Same applies to Monasteries with Wine or Incense)

For science victory, early on the AIs generally hate the idea of Science Funding, so its not as important to have the world congress early. However, after mid game the AIs often start preferring science funding which is when this can be safely proposed to squeeze one more Great Scientist out.

Civs with Hills bias: This tends towards a high hammer start which leads to cultural victory.

Iroquois (who leaves the forest intact) : Their normal problem prior to the introduction of cargo ships and caravans to getting their capital big enough to work all the hammers has been food driven. If this is a coastal start, the food cargo ships will help it grow fast enough to easily hand build Leaning Tower for the twofer. If inland (and limited to caravans), I don't know if that is the case or not.

The other start biases are much more mixed. (Hills vs Flat), and in case of the Celts, what's underneath the forest?

Cultural(peaceful) is not always possible even it might be faster. Science victory is almost always possible

The effects of reducing 2:1 city states to 1:1 on victory conditions.

Basically on standard map size this cuts the city state vote in half from 32 to 16 while only reducing the requirement to win by 8.

This does result in some of the fastest cultural victory cases as generic civ (even excluding sacred sites) being faster than diplomatic.

In addition, should you get beat out to FP, the fastest science victory cases can also beat out diplomatic should the World Council to UN switch be mistimed.

Note that FP is NOT a sure thing on Immortal+, Banking is a much more popular tech for the AI to enter the Reanance era with than Printing Press, accordingly its risky to intend to twofer it off of Leaning Tower.

In addition, with the CS ratio cut down, it's much more important to go ahead and build all those police stations everywhere for an extra spy to turn into one more diplomat for last vote than with the default ratio.

Basically if you won diplomatically on the first attempt, chances are that was the fastest possible victory for that game.
If you won on the second attempt, sometimes Culture would have been faster and other times not, but it was definitely faster than space ship.
If you won on the third or later attempt, the Space ship would definitely have been faster.

BlackWizard said:

Cultural(peaceful) is not always possible even it might be faster. Science victory is almost always possible

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As above, if you got beat out to Globe Theater, you shouldn't be seeking Cultural Victory, and in fact you can use being beat out to founding the World Congress as a proxy to this. Even earlier, as above try to envision what production your capital will be like at the time you discover Printing Press.

That is the most likely fail point, you should be able to Host the Olympics even if it's either earlier or later than when you really wanted it.
The other AIs tourism isn't a factor, only their culture and the combo of Leaning Tower-Globe twofer + Effiel Tower (from faith based GE) + the Internet + National Visitor Center + Hermitage + Oxford + Museums, hotels & airport everywhere should allow sufficient Great Musician tours as long as you built both Leaning Tower & Globe. (Even Uffizini is optional, but highly desired)

An AI can even build The Great Firewall, and as long as it wasn't the one with the most culture, it won't impact time of victory. (If it was that one, then it may be time for a surgical strike against that one)

Sometimes you are also very lucky(or unlucky) with landmarks and you really know this only after researching archaelogy. Sometimes you have only 3 landmarks in your 12 city empire. Sometimes you might have 5 in your 4 city empire and if you are lucky 2 of them in capital.

BlackWizard said:

Sometimes you are also very lucky(or unlucky) with landmarks and you really know this only after researching archaelogy. Sometimes you have only 3 landmarks in your 12 city empire. Sometimes you might have 5 in your 4 city empire and if you are lucky 2 of them in capital.

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True, but I've won cultural games where I had ZERO sites within my own territory and in addition there were very few nearby to be placed on Museums.

Landmarks are helpful, and will speed up the victory, but lack of them doesn't make it impossible.

BlackWizard said:

Cultural(peaceful) is not always possible even it might be faster. Science victory is almost always possible

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I disagree. If you deny Hubble and Great Firewall to AIs, you'll win.

Peaceful cultural victory is all about a science game to Archeology and rush for artefacts, Telecommunications and Internet. With Ermitage, museums you can win. Hotels, airports and Internet will do the main job. GM will end the party. And only on Deity it's tight to win International games.

Memoryjar said:

And only on Deity it's tight to win International games.

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There's some hammer starts so poor that on Immortal that the Olympics is also going to be tight, but if your hammer start is that bad it's more suitable for a science victory anyway.

Memoryjar said:

I disagree. If you deny Hubble and Great Firewall to AIs, you'll win.

Peaceful cultural victory is all about a science game to Archeology and rush for artefacts, Telecommunications and Internet. With Ermitage, museums you can win. Hotels, airports and Internet will do the main job. GM will end the party. And only on Deity it's tight to win International games.

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Okay let me correct myself. Culture is not possible for every player. I can always win space or diplo but culture is much harder. Yeah winning culture is possible without landmarks or some wonders but much harder and slower. For me space and diplo with Deity OCC are easier than culture with 2-8 cities. Maybe lack of practice

BlackWizard said:

Okay let me correct myself. Culture is not possible for every player. I can always win space or diplo but culture is much harder. Yeah winning culture is possible without landmarks or some wonders but much harder and slower. For me space and diplo with Deity OCC are easier than culture with 2-8 cities. Maybe lack of practice

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Deity level is the level in which Leaning Tower & Globe go the fastest so you need a start with enough production to support this.
Incas will have a good enough start for it just about every time (Hills + Terrace Farms), and so will the Irq if you use food trade routes to add food to your capital so it can work all the forest with Lumber Mills.

As to the other civs it's going to be hit or miss since there's nothing in the other biases either increasing or decreasing hills.

Also I add that I dont use exploits like worker stealing early game or selling city to AI late game. Well everyone can use those if they will I just dont use them

joncnunn said:

Leaning Tower is normally hand built, and because there are only 2 world wonders + 1 national wonder providing Writing theming bonuses to 3 world wonders +1 national wonder + standard buildings providing Art theming bonuses, using it for the Globe is actually the best option.

The number of turns you save from Leaning Tower + Globe is massive. If you don't have anything to make it up, then if you miss this it's going to result in science victory being faster.
(For a similar reason, if you are on a low enough difficulty level to complete Great Library, it will actually shave more turns off a cultural victory than a science one. [It would also be weird if you got beat out to Leaning Tower after successfully building the Great Library])

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Uh, beg pardon? Globe Theater is not an important wonder by any stretch of the imagination, and I'd say if you're after those sorts of wonders (emphasis on if, as they're ultimately optional) it's far smarter to rush build the Uffizi (which the AI seems to be in love with) or even save the engineer for one of Broadway or the Eiffel Tower if you feel you're behind and at risk of not getting one or either. Hell, even using it on the Sistine Chapel makes more sense, as at least that wonder gives you a passive bonus beyond it's two great artists slots. I mean really, why would you waste an engineer on something that gives the same amount of tourism/culture as a museum? Save the engineer for something useful and settle/conquer another city for your empire; vastly superior option.

As for your victory timing question you're looking at cultural victories the wrong way. Wonder spam is a significantly slower CV time than just going wide for as many dig sites as possible, especially if you can abuse sacred sites (dunno if that has since been nerfed mind you) in the process, although religion can be a gamble on diety.

Manannan said:

even save the engineer for one of Broadway or the Eiffel Tower if you feel you're behind and at risk of not getting one or either. Hell, even using it on the Sistine Chapel makes more sense, as at least that wonder gives you a passive bonus beyond it's two great artists slots. I mean really, why would you waste an engineer on something that gives the same amount of tourism/culture as a museum? Save the engineer for something useful and settle/conquer another city for your empire; vastly superior option.

As for your victory timing question you're looking at cultural victories the wrong way. Wonder spam is a significantly slower CV time than just going wide for as many dig sites as possible, especially if you can abuse sacred sites (dunno if that has since been nerfed mind you) in the process, although religion can be a gamble on diety.

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Eiffel Tower: You get that anyway from faith based GE, you don't even have to work for it.

Globe vs regular Museum: If the regular Museum were available at Printing Press I would agree, however with Museum being on Archaeology (a full era away), the shear number of additional turns you have with it makes it more valuable than it.

Globe vs Sistine: AI is actually in love with that one even more than the ones you've mentioned. There's lots of other theming bonuses with Art slots as well. By contrast the only thing past Globe with theming bonuses for Writing slots is Oxford.

Dig Sites are very late in the game, and are actually unreliable. In some games there's not a single one near you that's not within some major AI territory.

Sacred sites gambit is outside of the scope covered.

1) For starters, you're assuming that Tradition is optimal for a CV, which is not inherently true. I'll humour your assumption though, and just point out that you could still save your faith for more important things instead of needlessly burning a GE for a subpar wonder. Buying scientists with faith to get the techs you need is more important for one, but even if you don't finish the rationalism tree, and do go Tradition there are still vastly superior wonders to rush with a GE later that still make using one earlier on the Globe a massive waste.

2) Non-sense. If you're aiming for a CV you're rushing for archaeology anyway. Even if you aren't beelining it it's still a pretty early tech, unless you're wandering off to grab research labs and artillery first for some bizarre reason.

3) No. Globe gets built before Leaning Tower a frankly shocking amount of the time (the AI is dumb), while the Sistine Chapel tends to slip several turns back because the AI seems to value every other early Renaissance tech over Acoustics.

4) Again, rubbish. If you're playing cultural you're getting to archaeology ASAP, they are not "very late game". Calling them unreliable is non-sense as well. Pay attention to where you find ancient ruins with your scouts; those frequently mark where you end up finding digs later in the game. Even if you're staying small and tall for whatever reason you should still be able to find a couple good city locations relatively close to where some ruins previously stood.

5) Even if you're going to deem it too unreliable and not cover it you're still ignoring the fact going wide wide wide wide is still a way better option for CV than trying to horde wonders that don't do much. Going Liberty to get 6-8 cities for more museums and more dig sites is always going to be vastly superior to trying to wonder spam with 2-4 cities regardless of whether or not you're getting meh wonders like the Globe and Great Library.

And the unaddressed 6) Uffizi is still a vastly superior wonder choice to bulb over Globe Theatre.

Manannan said:

1) For starters, you're assuming that Tradition is optimal for a CV, which is not inherently true. I'll humour your assumption though, and just point out that you could still save your faith for more important things instead of needlessly burning a GE for a subpar wonder. Buying scientists with faith to get the techs you need is more important for one, but even if you don't finish the rationalism tree, and do go Tradition there are still vastly superior wonders to rush with a GE later that still make using one earlier on the Globe a massive waste.

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Using faith for GE and using faith for GS are NOT mutually exculsive nor is completing Tradition, Aesthetics, and Rationalism. They increase separately. There is plenty of faith to use two faith GEs for great wonders providing tourism bonuses and have two faith GSs for even later techs (when your base science rate is much higher.)
It only costs 1 GS (the 3rd one) to first have gone 2 GE due to separate faith counters.

Manannan said:

1)
3) No. Globe gets built before Leaning Tower a frankly shocking amount of the time (the AI is dumb), while the Sistine Chapel tends to slip several turns back because the AI seems to value every other early Renaissance tech over Acoustics.

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Yes the AI completes Globe before Leaning Tower. That doesn't matter though since the timing for this is to research Printing Press BEFORE the AI does and with enough of a lead to complete Leaning Tower before the AI can build Globe.
And we are having different experiences with the AI, mine takes Astronomy, Banking, and Acoustics before Printing Press.

Manannan said:

1)
4) Again, rubbish. If you're playing cultural you're getting to archaeology ASAP, they are not "very late game". Calling them unreliable is non-sense as well. Pay attention to where you find ancient ruins with your scouts.

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Of course I pay attention to the ruins, but it's often the case that the AI founded an city near all those spots and it would require conquest to get them (which isn't peaceful culture victory)

Manannan said:

1)
5) Even if you're going to deem it too unreliable and not cover it you're still ignoring the fact going wide wide wide wide is still a way better option for CV than trying to horde wonders that don't do much. Going Liberty to get 6-8 cities for more museums and more dig sites is always going to be vastly superior to trying to wonder spam with 2-4 cities regardless of whether or not you're getting meh wonders like the Globe and Great Library.

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And run into severe happiness problems from skipping Monarchy? (50% reduction in pop based happiness from the capital), and also NOT have the cities be tall enough (from NOT having Free Aquducts from completing Tradition?
In addition Tradition carries with it a policy increasing wonder speed.

Manannan said:

1)
And the unaddressed 6) Uffizi is still a vastly superior wonder choice to bulb over Globe Theatre.

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It's easy to hand build Uffizi with enough production in the capital.

Manannan said:

5) Even if you're going to deem it too unreliable and not cover it you're still ignoring the fact going wide wide wide wide is still a way better option for CV than trying to horde wonders that don't do much. Going Liberty to get 6-8 cities for more museums and more dig sites is always going to be vastly superior to trying to wonder spam with 2-4 cities regardless of whether or not you're getting meh wonders like the Globe and Great Library.

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I simply cannot see how the extra dig sites you're getting will make up for the theming bonuses, great work slots and free GWAMs you get from spamming culture wonders.
First, the theming bonuses from all those wonders with full Aesthetics is essentially giving you +2 tourism per great work in those wonders. That can really get you a lot of tourism, perhaps upwards of +20 (just a guess, depends on how many wonders you get) and it seems like you'll need quite a lot of dig sites to make up for that.
Also consider that some of these wonders give you a "free" GWAM to create another great work, each one of these is itself worth as much as an artifact from a dig site.
Next, wonders also generate culture. With hotels and airports, each point of culture from a wonder generates +1 tourism; with the NVC (which is considerably harder to build if you're building very wide) it's 2 tourism per wonder culture. That's something you're also missing out on with wide pay.
Lastly, the extra great work slots mean that you can stock more great works into one city, which you'll put the NVC in. Every great work in that city (probably your cap) will be generating an extra +2 tourism, and a great work in a city with NVC and in a wonder providing theming bonuses will be twice as valuable as one in a normal city with just a hotel and airport.

I've just been wondering -- When do you guys usually beeline for Printing Press? I frequently find picking up Astronomy (for ocean crossing and observatory science boost) or Banking(More certain Forbidden Palace) more critical to go for after Education than Printing Press, do you guys not do this?

My impression was that Forbidden Palace wasn't something you went for at all...

I won a 270 CV with the celts on deity but it was a remarkably balanced pangaea with no runaways. It was well before the world leader vote was even possible, and I took the tech lead pretty early on. I didn't even get the chance to build the national visitor center.

I think that the science victory will generally be consistently in the 280-315 range unless you're babs or korea, and cultural will be all over the place depending on the game, anywhere from 250 to very very late.

joncnunn said:

Of course I pay attention to the ruins, but it's often the case that the AI founded an city near all those spots and it would require conquest to get them (which isn't peaceful culture victory)

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You can actually get every single dig site on the map without war if you play friendly and manage your diplo well. What you do is: Prioritize Archaelogy after Public Schools, try to have open borders with everyone, and park units on all ruins ASAP. Then, for each individual civ, wait until you can get archaeologists to every site in their territory. Time all your digs for that civ to end at the same turn. Then, when they complain, promise not to dig in their lands anymore -- you don't care; there's nothing left to dig up anyway. The diplo hit from this is pretty minor. Repeat civ by civ. You can start doing this before ideology screws up diplo, so you can prioritize grabbing ruins from the civs that aren't as solid allies. If you manage to keep actual friendships, you can park on ruins for pretty much the whole game.

Obviously, this strategy is reliant on good diplo, but diplo is controllable to an extent. If you manage it well, you can get massive base tourism from artifacts alone. In fact, you can get so many artifacts that you struggle to find space to hold them. This is the thinking behind the wide strategy. It's not actually about having more land -- it's about having more slots.