Tips for Cultural Victory

Read this article on Cultural Victories. Never actually tried to pull one off so I was looking for feedback on the advice given from an eHow article. Please keep in mind I am looking for advice on CV as it pertains to Multiplayer games.

Instructions

1
Build settler units early. When your capitol city reaches a level three population, build a settler unit. Do this until you have created at least four or five cities. Having several cities will substantially increase the likelihood that Great People will appear in your cities.

2
Increase population. Because cities with greater populations will yield the most culture points, begin researching technologies that will increase population once you have settled four or five cities. Build granaries, aqueducts, and harbors in cities that have deficient food production and consider setting your cities' priorities to "Food" by accessing the City Screen and selecting "Manage Workers."

3
Build temples and cathedrals in every city. Having a temple and a cathedral in every city will increase the city's culture based upon its population and will increase the number of Great People that arrive in your cities. The temple, which costs 40 production points, will give you a culture point for every population point you have. A cathedral yields two culture points for every population point you have.

4
Build Wonders and hoard Great People. Some of the Wonders most useful in your quest to win a cultural victory are the Hanging Gardens Wonder, Stonehenge Wonder, and the Magna Carta Wonder. The Hanging Gardens Wonder will increase city population by 50 percent. The Stonehenge Wonder increases by 50 percent the culture points produced from temples, until an opponent discovers literacy. If you have a courthouse in a city, the Magna Carta Wonder will make courthouses produce culture points. When Great People begin to arrive in your cities, settle them. Hold on to ones that arrive in a city that doesn't need the special bonus that comes with the Great Person and wait to settle them in a city that needs the bonus.

5
Build a wall to protect your cities from conversion. As your culture increases, the cities of nearby civilizations will soon convert to your civilization. Be sure to build walls in these cities, as well as in your original cities that are close to opposing civilizations, to protect these cities from converting back to your opposition's civilization.

6
Build the United Nations Wonder. As soon as you have acquired 20 Great People, Wonders, or converted cities, an advisor will notify you that you can now build the United Nations Wonder to win a cultural victory. Remember, your opponents will know that you are building the United Nations Wonder and will attack you in hopes of preventing your win. Once enough turns have passed to complete the construction of the United Nations Wonder, you will win the game.

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Which Civ would you recommend trying this with? I'm leaning towards Americans since they start with a GP; the Egyptians because of the Wonder they start with or the English since they start with Monarchy.

Ironically, I was thinking of using the Aztecs too since I will be building Temples everywhere anyway and would enjoy the beaker benefit from them combined with the 'Auto-Healing' units so I wouldn't have to build many defenders to hold off my enemies - allowing me to focus less on military on more on culture.

Any tips or pointers would be welcome.

Thanks!

the Romans probably, since they have the 1/2 cost wonder and start with republic (so you can easily have alot of cities fast...

teriaky said:

the Romans probably, since they have the 1/2 cost wonder and start with republic (so you can easily have alot of cities fast...

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That's a good one too. They also have the added Great People later on. Have to try them next time.

Tried the English last night and literally choked out my opponents. I only had 3 cities by Medieval but with the cultural borders pushing out I had space for 2 more just within my own borders that I could expand onto at my leisure.

By middle of Medieval I had flipped two enemy cities and settled one more. Also had a Great Artist in reserve to flip another city. I found the power of the Culture wasn't so much the flipping but watching my opponents cities languishing as my borders took away every useful tile they settled near. One was complaining of only having one production at the city so he couldn't build walls to defend.

Worked pretty well. Unfortunately didn't have time to finish the round.

Aztecs or any spiritual. Quick temples for the music cathedral/mosques and synagogues/etc.

The easiest way to win a cultural victory is to go on the attack later in the game and by winning other civ's cities you also get their great people, which add up towards your cultural victory. Then when you have the magic 20 build the United Nations Wonder. I have won a bunch of cultural victories this way. At times I was going for a Domination Victory, but ended up getting a cultural victory quicker.

Mongols arnt bad either afaik, since a city appears once you defeat a barbarian village, by the second age I had like 7 citys and by mordern I had a out 15+ all over the map.

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Best play is to go for even more cities.
You should have about 40 by the end of the game probably.

Rome.

Don't even think about Stonehenge. Literacy is so early and so good, you'll struggle to even finish SH and a couple of Temples before it's obsoleted by some jerk you've never met on the other side of the world. Beeline Literacy for yourself and use the ongoing +1 research/city to get building Cathedrals and Magna Carta ASAP; if you get a Great Engineer, save them for MC as it's such a brilliant Wonder. You'll need Workshops or even Iron Mines before building Cathedrals as they're pretty major projects; massively helped if you get Engineering for the global hammer bonus. Never use Great Artists to steal cities, settle them in a city near several rival cities and add three flips to your magic 20. Throw Spies at any Walls that get in the way of your pervasive culture. Aim to get a very high production city in operation to quickly build UN.

If you're playing humans, it can get tricky, but if you're playing the AI there's very few plays other than early conquest that aren't massively helped by beelining certain key techs for the ongoing bonus they provide. I can't be bothered with +1 pop in a few Iron Age settlements from inventing Irrigation when I could be having extra research and production for the entire game.

Steer clear of eHow's Civ advice. There's early teen demographic console mags that give better tips.

Edit: oh, and camp next to the Ancient Ruins things. Build Temples in your key cities (high population core ones, and frontier cities which'll have border clashes) and then pop a load of ruins. If you get the Ark of the Covenant, the free Cathedrals are basically a win button. If I get a bunch of ruins baggsied, I'll usually steer towards a Cultural game and heavily commit if I do roll the Ark.

muiltiplayer if oyu are going for a cultural win you should dominate the other guy using your military and then use that advantageto cruise to the culture win.
being in the lead in terms of cities and military will allow you to mess up his plans and facilitate your own.

A couple tips for culture wins:

First you have to understand the Cultural Achievement meter works. Each time you flip a city, build a Wonder or acquire a Great Person you move on to the next achievement. Great People appear when you accumulate enough culture to obtain the next achievement (bottom row of R2 menu on PS3). The amount of Culture needed to get a GP increases exponentially with each successive achievement. This make getting to 20 achievements by using your civ's culture to "make" Great People a bit of a mirage.

The only way you will produce enough culture to do this expeditiously is if you were able to take the Arc of the Covenant after you already had many cities (12+), each with a Temple already built. If you try building this many Cathedrals "by hand" you are wasting precious resources (12 x 120 hammers = 1,440 hammers, in other words six or seven good sized Wonders!).

Try to avoid getting any cultural achievements until you have earned the first couple of GPs, which are pretty cheap. You may not need to build ANY Temples for the first couple, since your Cap produces culture unless you are in Democracy.

Do not run out and start building Temples everywhere unless you have found the Arc of the Covenant. Build Libraries and Markets and start making science and gold. Most of your cultural achievements will be Wonders. You need to research the relevant techs and you need gold to rush-finish Wonders. For this reason, you will also stay in Democracy all the time unless you need to declare war. The lost culture from your Cap is too puny to be considered. Most of your mid-game efforts will be spent building Wonders and preparing for the end game.

The first part of your end game consists of realizing that sometimes you cannot build enough Wonders to get to 20 achievements. This is especially a problem in games with Rome as a competitor, since the they inevitably beat you to some Wonders. One solution, as dcboy60 noted, is to simply conquer enemy cities which contain Wonders and GPs. Note that you can find out where the Wonders are in the World's Greatest City Screen. You need to actually plan for this. Pick out cities with sufficient achievements to completer your 20 and use your wealth and superior tech to prepare expeditionary forces to rapidly take those cities. Another way is to just steal GPs. To do this, you will need a Spy Ring and a few loose Spies for each city you plan to target. You will need fast ships (Cruisers) for transport and defensive units to protect your Spies in enemy territory. With both of these strats, stay in Democracy until you are ready to make your move.

City flips are the least reliable form of achievement. You need the AI to cooperate and you will need a big cultural presence. As noted before, you will build your economy and science first, but there is nothing wrong with Temples. Just do not follow the OP's article's advice and place a premium on them. Flips will come in three ways:

- the AI foolishly sends a settler into the middle of your territory. It is a gift, so receive it! Build Temples in your surrounding cities and wait. If it seems to not be happening, try a Spy or two to destroy any buildings such as Temple or Walls which could be hampering you.

- Your Culture is massive and a nearby civ is weak. Go ahead and build up Culture near the border. Use Spies as above to undercut nearby cities' cultural support. But in this situation you might want to consider..

- The Cultural Popcorn Initiative. Where an AI civ has built several cities which lie between their Cap and your civ, make sure your cultural presence is already pushing against theirs. Then send an expeditionary force to take the Capital. Rush a Temple in the captured Capital. That simultaneously removes the secondary cities' cultural support and gives you a large new source of Cultural presence. Each time a city flips, rush a Temple there. They will flip one after another like popcorn in a hot pan! Fun, but as with all city flip strats, it depends to some extent on the Ai setting the map up for you.

Oh, a word on Great Artist/Thinkers: Never use them to flip a city in a culture game. The cities you get this way are generally too isolated and and small to produce enough culture or anything else to be worthwhile. The settled GP is worth one achievement just like the flipped city. In fact, in a culture game, when you have been building up your own culture, it is often the case that the city you are offered is on its way to flipping anyway. You can use the GP to help it flip by sending it to your best culture city near the offered city. Then one achievement becomes two.

Finally, remember to start saving up hammers toward building the UN in time that you can (ideally) finish it the same turn as it becomes available (i.e. when your 20th achievement is announced). I cannot stress this enough. Waiting to build a 500 hammer Wonder after it becomes available is just a big waste of time. You can save hammers in two ways. One is to start (but not finish!) a big, late game "dummy" Wonder such as Military Industrial, Hollywood or Manhattan. The other is to finish a building then decline to choose a new production order. This is preferable since you will never accidentally finish the dummy Wonder.

I would say that you should play it how you play other victories. If you take over your opponents, you will be able to get whatever victory type you want, so maybe the Mongols for early cities from barbarians.

I usually make a beeline for Magna Carta and make sure I build courthouses in all cities.

That usually does the trick, you will pop out plenty of great people.

You will also want a production city (preferably several) to make wonders and make sure enough of your cities pump out gold to allow you to rush production.

And settle every GP.

Rome is fun for cultural victory. But you must play a fairly balanced game, not neglecting military and technology. Versus the AI, (diety mode), its fairly challenging but, assuming decent starting position, a win is usually in the cards.

Building the Magna Carta wonder (and courthouses in all cities) is key.
As mentioned above, one needs to start with 5 cities (and then look to flip some more).

France is a good AI competitor for Rome in a cultural race as it oftentimes builds the Magna Carta early. To that end, and to answer a question above, France would likely be a good civ to go cultural with. (though I never tried it)