Deity Cultural Victory Help (France)

Hi guys!

I had a recent game in which I thought I had a very good strategy for culture victory with France, but it turns out I was only influential with 2 of 6 and wasn't even close to the 2 biggest culture civs by the time China won a science victory on turn 315 (standard speed). There were no runaways and actually myself and the top 4 civs were very evenly matched in scores. I'll just tell a bit about the game and I would like any feedback to help me understand where I may be going wrong.

Things I think I did well:

-Good city placement. I have adjusted my city strategy from G&K shooting for 3 to 4 cities for culture victory now to BNW needing 4 to 6 cities. Well I plopped down 6 cities without pissing off neighbors too much. Wonderful resource diversity (8 incense, 3 copper, 1 salt, 1 sugar, 1 silk, 1 pearls, 1 marble, 1 spices), 4 river cities, 3 coastal cities, 2 cities next to a mountain for observatory, 1 decent natural wonder (Mount Kilimanjaro). I had lots of room for chateaus on good workable tiles which helped in using France's unique improvement to its potential. Good mix in all cities of growth and production (only 1 city was slightly behind in production ability). I couldn't have drawn it up much better. Somewhat isolated on a sort of peninsula jutting out of the Pangaea with minimal border touching with my neighbors The Ottomans to the north and The Huns to the east.

-Using France's UA to its fullest potential. I was actually very pleased with the way this game went in terms of filling out great work slots. I built all multi-slot national wonders in the capital and even got the Louvre and Uffizi and filled them up to get the necessary full theming bonuses. My army of archaeologists dominated the earth and I filled up every museum slot (and the 2 Louvre slots for artifacts needed to get full bonus) with artifacts. The only thing was that the Hermitage didn't get the complete bonus until around turn 300 because all my great works of art needed to be in the Louvre and Uffizi for bonuses and I was a slave to waiting on great artists to pop. Other than that, I don't think I could have done any better in filling up great work slots, getting highest bonuses available, and taking full advantage of Frances UA. I built/bought hotels very quickly when they were available and had a Great Engineer pop when the National Visitor Center came available and there were no reachable World Wonders left so I just used it on that. I had 516 tourism per turn (362 from Paris alone) when China won on turn 315. Maybe that's too low but it's the best I've done on deity without the help of something like Carnival or first place in International Games. I guess I should mention somewhere that I used my first 3 great musicians on creating works to put in great work slots, but after that I saved them up to bomb any high culture civs. I had 5 by the time China won, but I even expended them after China won just to see how close I would have been and they really didn't get me that much closer.

Things I may not have done well:

-Poor science progress. Built all science buildings fairly quick, but I only had 1 or 2 research agreement partners at any given time due to a crappy diplomacy game all around. Also I struck out on spy technology steals more than usual (I'd say 2 out of 3 steals I got ones way back the tech tree, not that big one on my planned path most of the time). I got to Internet about 15 to 20 turns before China won a science victory on turn 315. I didn't get to Radar for Airports. Before you ask, I didn't get caught stealing too much so that was not the source of my poor diplomatic relations and lack of research agreements (artifact stealing may have contributed to that though, but the 2 I stole the most artifacts from were actually my 2 most consistent DoF's and RA partners).

-Poor choice of ideology. Going Freedom was a difficult decision. I kind of want to load up the save before I chose ideology and go Autocracy and see if it goes any different. I chose Freedom because there were actually about 4 high culture civs, so I chose the Freedom because it matched the 2 high culture civs that I was already allied with (The Shoshone and Morocco) to keep up good relationships and help my influence with them. This left China and The Ottomans with Autocracy. As it turned out, I wasn't able to even get influential with The Shoshone and Morocco, though I was close-ish with those ones compared to The Ottomans and China (was only influential with 2 of the 6 when China won). I actually like Order the best, but nobody went Order (I got to picking my ideology late) and I thought that could have been happiness suicide.

-Lack of religion. I was able get a pantheon, but got it late and had to take a less than ideal one (Goddess of Festivals, not bad because I did end up having 8 incense in my borders, but I think 5 or 6 of them were on desert, which made them not so great to work). AI got their religions pretty quick so even if I chose to work some of those tiles, I don't think I would have got a religion. I didn't build shrines (except in capital) because I had other priorities and it rarely pays off (I've found it's either an awesome faith generating pantheon on deity or nothing). The religion that ended up dominating my empire was The Ottoman's Buddhism, and it had some terrible beliefs (mostly related to military and bonuses for the founder). Is religion essential for a deity cultural victory?

-Lack of aggression. I've heard that culture victory requires a bit more of military aggression. I only keep a very thin defensive military (this game it probably couldn't even repel an invasion, so I often paid other civs to war with other civs that looked like they were threatening to invade). Being offensive and aggressive is not my typical game and to make up for that I paid strong neighbors to war with high culture civs, which is what I did this game. But China and The Ottomans never lost (or gained) any land in these wars so Atilla and Pocatello let me down. Do I need to take a more aggressive military approach? Where do I fit military in, because I feel like my build queues and gold are typically spoken for with just keeping up with necessary culture, tourism, and science obligations.

-Lack of diplomatic action. I didn't have terrific gold generation (compared to other games) and I saved up a lot of my gold to build culture and tourism buildings in a lot of cities as soon as they came available so I didn't have much available to throw at city states. Due to this, I lacked power in the World Congress/UN. International Games didn't even come up for a vote, and I obviously didn't have the delegates to propose it. I didn't have a religion to declare world religion and Freedom didn't come up for a world ideology vote. I'm starting to think that diplomacy to enact these sorts of things in your favor isn't just a boost for a deity culture victory, it might be essential.

-Inability to get tourism multipliers with the highest culture competitors. China wasn't particularly far away on the Pangaea map as the bird flies, but a huge mountain range made a caravan an impossibility (even after range extending buildings and techs) and the shape of the Pangaea made a cargo ship an impossibility with China as well. With both China and The Ottomans I had differing ideologies (they each had Autocracy, I had Freedom), and there were a couple 30 turn periods where one or both would denounce me and wouldn't give open borders. I'm not sure what I could have done different other than picking Autocracy as mentioned above (but then having to live with its poor tourism generating policies) and then having to compete with the 2 Freedom civs instead. I had decent tourism multipliers with Morocco and The Shoshone, but still wasn't influential when the game ended turn 315 (but spamming my great musicians with them directly might have put it over the top with them, but certainly not the other 2).

Reading these possible issues, it might seem obvious why I didn't win, but it wasn't because I wasn't aware of these things, it was just that I wasn't able to prioritize the gold or hammers to deal with these things in order just to keep up with the very basics of culture, tourism, and science. I could prioritize some of these things but then I believe these others would suffer to the point that I cannot keep up a necessary culture, tourism, and science pace.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I appreciate any feedback. I feel like I must be missing something huge because I wasn't even close when I felt like a lot of things went well this game with 6 very good cities, getting 2 world wonders to put great works of art in the capital and get awesome theming bonuses, and using France's UA to its fullest potential. Maybe France just sucks and I should go back to trying with Brazil and Poland. Anyway, thanks for any help guys.

I dont know. 6 cities seems a bit much. I would of went with 4. How was your policy progression? I would imagine you would want tradition and ascetics maxed and then right into ideaology. I havent been able to pull off a cultural on diety yet. I think your right, you may need to lay into some higher cultural civs. Also, use all great musicians on run away cultural AI. never create great works of music. I have heard of people saving faith for great musicians at the end of the game as well.

Never create great works of music? That sounds a bit much.

What are you going to do with all the musicians that are generated in the early game when your tourism is miniscule?

I imagine for Deity you're going to have to let others or yourself wipe the culture-oriented civs rather than passively grow tourism on them.

Yes, never create works of music. You need all your musicians for tourism bombs to the high culture civs. Each 1 you use raises the amount for each 1 after it. So you need to use them right away so that end game, your GM's give alot of tourism when you really need it. (late game)


Every single musician should be used on the high culture civs if you want to win on diety.

Slivera22 said:

Yes, never create works of music. You need all your musicians for tourism bombs to the high culture civs. Each 1 you use raises the amount for each 1 after it. So you need to use them right away so that end game, your GM's give alot of tourism when you really need it. (late game)


Every single musician should be used on the high culture civs if you want to win on diety.

Click to expand...

Great Musicians have a strength associated with when they were spawned, so they aren't good when saved, unlike other great people. Before the industrial era it is definitely not advisable to use them as tourism bombs.

Hard to tell what you did wrong without a little more info. But here are my stabs in the dark.

1.Sounds like you gave up on faith a little too early. Although your own religion isn't essential having faith to buy GWAM's is very important. Also if China has a great religion and Ottomans have a terrible one, see if you can get your cities converted with trade routes, once one city is converted you could buy missionaries to spread religion to your other cities. I often do this to get sacred sites.

2. What were your policies? Sounds like you did full Aesthetics and one in exploration with maybe tradition? If you were falling behind in rationalism you need at leas two points in secularism ASAP.

3. Why was your gold so low. What were your big expenses, unit maintenance building maintenance, roads, buying buildings? If buildings and roads were so expensive than consider a few points in commerce (although hard to say without knowing what your policies are)

4. For city states did you pick up treaty organization. It's one of the most broken policies there is now for getting enough diplomatic votes. Also where you the first to find everyone?

5. You say that there was no runaways but also with cultural victories its sometimes about stalling and destroying others people culture as much as it is building you own. Was there someone you could bribe to go to war with China besides shoshone? If china already hates you than there isn't that much downside for helping out with the war anyway. Consider rushing for the 6 free foreign legions backed with some frigates.

6. As for great musicians they start with tourism strength when spawned. Early ones should be used immediately for great works. 5 sounds like you had too many saved, what were there strengths?. The ideal strategy is to get international games off and than faith buy musicians afterwards. They'll start off with more tourism.

Surely you want as many chateau's as possible which means going wider? Also this gives you more museums etc to fill with artifacts?

Most important: you need faith! Religion helps (tithe would have helped your lack of gold) but faith is the most important. Saving up 5000-9000 faith will almost always guarantee you a victory if you buy them late and bomb them on the top culture Civs. I rarely go Piety, but settle great prophets, try to settle next to Natural Wonders, and make sure you get a faith pantheon.

Secondly science is so so important, you need to catch up in the mid-game. At least get to Secularism in Rationalism.

6 cities seems to much for me, with the science and culture cost going up, I think 4 should have been enough.

War helps (if you can) but is not necessary.

Don't worry, it took me aaages to win my first cultural deity win, but have followed these steps since and haven't had any problems.

Don't build the Musicians guild until you can only make max musicians. Time it so that both Internet and Radar are done when the first one spawns. The only time you can get away with an early musicians guild is when you can save enough faith to faith buy all your musicians - which is not something you can count on in Deity - better to assume you will only be able to buy 1 or max 2.

Dealing with a far away culture powerhouse is actually quite simple, I did this in a recent game. Just settle a new city and give it to the AI, make sure it is close enough to reach quickly with a musician and has something desirable so they do not torch it. I gave Greece a city next to a ruin.

Also, 6 cities is probably too many.

You tried it out on diety using good benefits for a culture victory. Completing the full aesthetics policy track could've doubled the theming bonus along with the french UA. To win a culture victory, take it easier because it seems you suddenly went up to deity. Religion also has culture enhancing bonuses. Preventing other AIs from victory also could've helped.

Maybe instead of going the same Ideology as the #1 and 2 in culture, pair up with #3 and 4 while conquesting the #1 and 2?

I don't think it's possible to win culturally on higher difficulties without taking out the largest cultural civs through military.

The keys to winning a CV, in my limited experience are:

1) Prevent cultural runaways at all cost.
* Don't suggest the world's fair. You have higher production priorities.
* Don't suggest +33% to GA/GW/GM until you're ready to make GMs.
* Make sure you get Sistine Chapel so that no one else does.

2) Tech, tech, tech. Winning a CV is all about The Internet.

3) Don't build the Musician's guild until the Modern Era. Try to have as much bonus GPP production as possible before you build it. Garden, National Epic, Ideology, Leaning Tower of Pisa.

4) Save your faith for GM. Ideally enough for 3, so 5000 faith. Consider taking Mandate of Heaven.

I'm no expert but this is how I won my France CV. The big advantage to France's doubled theming bonuses is that you can avoid producing more than two archaeologists. (You need two for the Louvre) So that production can go elsewhere. That's about it. Otherwise, France is only so-so as far as CVs go. IMHO.