Deity Culture Victory Guide

War gives you two great advantages: 1. you cripple potential culture runaways, 2. you get lots of wonders and great works/artifacts. For hammer-wise, it's a lot more effective to build units and take cities than to make archaelogists.

Click to expand...

This is now old news - best way to do a cultural win is kill other civs - GREAT ...

Sry this is pointless, if i can outtech AND kill ai all other winning conditions are way more easy and faster.

This is just horrible design ...

tommynt said:

This is now old news - best way to do a cultural win is kill other civs - GREAT ...

Sry this is pointless, if i can outtech AND kill ai all other winning conditions are way more easy and faster.

This is just horrible design ...

Click to expand...

I agree that it is indeed bad design, but I disagree that other conditions are easy and faster - for example, diplo is so weird right now and you might need to wait like 30 turns if you got unlucky.

And if I went for domination, I could have done it for sure and probably faster, but it requires lot more game play time as now you need to have all caps and warmonger hits and lack of trade routes are annoying.

I feel like this kind of culture win is like diplo win at GnK - you beeline to globalization and build UN for win 10 turns later. Instead, you beeline for internet and win within 10 turns later - when your GMs reach other civ's lands.

Sounds like cultural victories now is giving incentives for players to use more variety in their games. That is, wage war, get CS, keep up with science, build key wonders, etcetc. An optimal victory would (probably?) require doing all of this, but not specializing on any one of them.

glory7 said:

I agree that it is indeed bad design, but I disagree that other conditions are easy and faster - for example, diplo is so weird right now and you might need to wait like 30 turns if you got unlucky.

And if I went for domination, I could have done it for sure and probably faster, but it requires lot more game play time as now you need to have all caps and warmonger hits and lack of trade routes are annoying.

I feel like this kind of culture win is like diplo win at GnK - you beeline to globalization and build UN for win 10 turns later. Instead, you beeline for internet and win within 10 turns later - when your GMs reach other civ's lands.

Click to expand...

The ''reach-the-tech-and-wait-10-turns'' victory design is, indeed, a bad design. These victories should be an amalgam of some things to ''accumulate'' and ''reach'' and this should be mutually exclusive from domination games.

In other words, if you go for a domination game, this should normally really make you a lot harder to achieve these ''peaceful'' victories. Not the opposite. In fact, the AIs need to be a strong complement and not an obstacle.

I guess the BNW-way has sunk in because it took me a few minutes to figure out what you were referring to regarding ''reach-the-tech-and-wait-10-turns''. Then I remembered that's what we had to do for Diplo pre-BNW....I think.

whats wrong with culture games lending themselves to war often?

If a civilization effectively took over the world would they not be "winning" by culture?

Looks at how the world has been colonized in real life. Western culture is a real thing in the world (along with others of course). If for instance muslims took over america/britain or vice versa they would be spreading their culture

How does Brasilian Great musician work? Is it stronger when born during carnival or when used during carnival?

ScantilyCladLad said:

Looks at how the world has been colonized in real life.

Click to expand...

Sure, but gameplay and real life are rarely compatible.

it kind of is is this case, isnt it? sure you could go on to develop a mighty military and take over the world by force. Or, you could take over half of it then let the spread of influence from your empire assimilate others into your way of life

BlackWizard said:

How does Brasilian Great musician work? Is it stronger when born during carnival or when used during carnival?

Click to expand...

Brazil UA works exactly like The Internet or intl games. Thus, your GM benefits more if it spawns after the golden ages buff applies. It is a 2nd layer of tourism buff. That is, an empire-wide scale and not a targetted AI scale.

So if you run a regular 600 TPT at the top of your screen after the internet (no world religion or freedom broadcast towers for simplicy) and get a 6000 strength GM, getting a GA the next turn won't improve its strength.

However, had you waited after the golden age had begun, your TPT at the top of screen would've jumped to 900. Spawning a GM immediately after that would've granted a 9000 strength GM.


The only thing I am not sure as of yet is whether GPPs are calculated before or after golden age points (because natural golden ages achieved from happiness could then impact the exact turn which you would want the GM to pop) in the in-between turn yields flow.

If I recall though from the long vanilla thread/discussion about it, city-level yields are always calculated before empire-level yields. Thus, the golden age points only kick in after the GPPs/great person spawn so you would have to delay a GM from guilds until the turn after the golden age occurs, not both on the same turn.

I admit, it does bother me that the key to a Diety CV is TECH TECH TECH. The road to a CV shouldn't be so similar to what you need to accomplish a Science Victory.

A Domination Victory doesn't require you to be significantly ahead on tech. Nor does a Diplomatic Victory. Nor should a Cultural Victory. Otherwise it's just...a Science Victory.

It also seems like you could just make a slight detour and win a Diplomatic Victory via this strategy. Maybe not even detour at all. Maybe even have to *intentionally not vote for yourself as World Leader* in order to get a CV in some cases.

It feels like you should be able to focus on culture and tourism generation, not tech, to win a cultural victory. If you're roughly even in tech, it should be enough.

But then, this is Diety. In a Prince multiplayer game, you wouldn't be fighting against a tech deficit, so you wouldn't be so forced to focus on it so much...

Bleh. Diety still feels artificial. I yearn for a difficulty level that mirrors playing against skilled opponents.

I don't even know why people bother playing Deity, I can understand Immortal to a certain extent. Just play multiplayer.

Deau said:

Like you could reasonably use all your GW and early GAs like a SV to bulb rationalism earlier and just push for a bomber or artillery rush completely disregarding CV all game along and winning CV simply by plundering 3 or so civs' worth of GAMW all of this whilsts beating the clock faster than a regular peaceful CV even in crazy good conditions from late game scaling.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but you will finish 50+ turns later than glory if you go this way. His game is a shining example of balancing decisions, resulting in cultural finish time, comparable to peaceful approach.

Don't disregard larger than standard maps too. Going for cultural there is good alternative (and extension) to domination in terms of finish times.

Peaceful game overall is much easier in BNW anyway (peaceful AI's, slow tech rates, no one going for rationalism) and making it even easier (by favouring peace approach, like you suggest) may result in another joke strat., like super sites.

The game can be tweaked to be more challenging on all levels, not easier.

That said, i wouldn't mind if few works of art burned along with citizens, upon city capture.

Cheers for the strategy Deau- it allowed me my first diety win, on t286, since a cheesy Duel companion cavalry rush when the game came out. I tried it with tommynt's 4 city Poland since they're rather overpowered and finished trad and liberty, before opening aesthetics then going secularism. Also managed to get the Oracle, and late Pyramids, as no one went liberty.

One of your strat's better aspects is it allows for either a science win or a diplo win if you miss some key wonders or have to go to war- I almost went for a SV when I missed the Louvre by 3 turns, but Broadway, Uffizi, Hermitage, Oxford, and 4 museums with a double theming bonus turned out to be enough. I probably could have won earlier if I hadn't waited for an archeologist to fill the last museum slot, and simply used all the GMs on the nearest cultural powerhouse (Babylon).

When I started the game, and noticed there was a 9 tile gap between Attila's capital and mine I thought I was a goner. I somehow managed to bribe him into perpetual war against someone that wasn't me throughout the game, and bribes weren't even necessary once the AIs got ideology, as he of course went autocracy, unlike all his neighbors. Once the human players or the other AIs reach artillery he isn't too threatening- his tech rate is pretty abysmal, so he ended the game with his GWI, leftover cannons, and odd piece of artillery getting bombed by enemy GWB and actual infantry.

Another weird aspect of the game was that Brazil settled between two of my city's, cutting my empire in half- I needed to keep open borders with them throughout the game to keep my city connection gold flowing. All in all, the game felt too peaceful for me- I don't feel Attila should have put off attacking me, even after denouncing me, given how close we were and my complete absence of an army. Brazil also should have attacked me, or at least not maintained a DoF with me throughout the game given our ridiculous border situation. I feel like as long as you have a sufficiently strong economy to pay heavy bribes you can always avoid war in BNW.

Although I wonder whether going liberty/trad is a good idea with a Poland cultural win- I had a kick-ass religion (DF, Pilgrimage, Pagodas, Mosques, Itinerant Preachers), but I only every bought Pagodas in all (but one of) my cities, as I used a lot of faith on missionaries, and after industrial I wanted to stockpile. Perhaps going trad opener, then piety -> organized religion -> cheaper missionaries/buildings, finishing trad, patronage -> consulates, open aesthetics, rationalism -> secularism would have been better. The major downside to this is not getting the liberty finisher GE, and slower expansion. I'm not at all sure I could have gotten the liberty GE on Pisa -> Pisa GE on Uffizi -> hard build PT snowball without it.

Anyone seen the AI's go rationalism on Deity or Immortal? It seems that not doing so, and not running all their science specialists, and their city spamming just puts them completely out of the tech game by the late industrial relative to the human player.

Another question- has anyone won a sub 250 culture game on Deity?

Nihil Videmus said:

Anyone seen the AI's go rationalism on Deity or Immortal? It seems that not doing so, and not running all their science specialists, and their city spamming just puts them completely out of the tech game by the late industrial relative to the human player.

Another question- has anyone won a sub 250 culture game on Deity?

Click to expand...

1. Not frequently, but AIs (especially ones like Korea and Russia) do choose rationalism.

2. There are a lot of sub250 CVs... just to name a few, you can find one in this thread (india, t242). Also you can see one at DC33 - t241 iirc. Lastly, not typical, but if you take a look at the example under the Sadato's sacred site thread, you see t133 CV with sacred sites. I am pretty sure that you can find other examples too.

Your guide should provide a word of warning regarding the bugged CN Tower wonder that is particularly relevant to culture games..


The "free" broadcast towers from CN Tower wonder (no matter how you acquire it - build it/conquer it ) stack with existing built/rush brought broadcast towers .. (+1 culture from buildings (base culture) in every city that had a broadcast tower and extra 33% city culture output)

This can have 2 effects:

In the hands of the player it can significantly speed up social policy acquisition (especially in a culture game) ..

In the hands of the run away AI it will obscenely inflate its endgame CPT making it problematic to overpower with tourism (to get to exotic level or popular in culture games) ..

Finally! Turn 339 Deity Cultural Win with Spain on Continents! I am so happy to finally achieve CV on Deity after thousand tries and failures!

I started nearby Uluru and was the first to discover it. Dropped a city right away. I had my first great prophet on turn 23 I proceeded to get a turn 80-ish NC afterwards and kept teching and getting the right policies/techs.

I only fought a defensive war against Japan and Shoshone, which was pretty easy since terrain was pretty much impossible for them to mount a huge offensive. I just killed the units they sent and after 15-20 turns (yea it took long) they asked for peace. Boudicca was the biggest cultural adversary of mine, so it took concert bombs and lots of inciting wars against her to dominate her culturally. At one point she was at war with Mongolia, America, Japan and China.

I gained tech leadership around Modern Era I think and never dropped down. Multiple RAs with other civs kept my lead nicely firm. The wonders I built were Louvre, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower and Syndney Opera House. I have to say the biggest factor is an early National College. If you can get it before turn 85-90 and then get your universities around turn 110-120, you're good to go in terms of science. After that, just rush Radio, get your wonders and Public Schools up, then to Research Labs and then beeline all the way to Internet. In my game, World's Fair and International Games weren't necessary for me to win, if I had those it would be like 30-40 turns earlier I think.

There are a thousand things I could do better. Timing of my GMs for example,I had 2-3 too many to spawn before Internet. Also, I had almost 0 CS allies which made things harder sometimes, plus made it pretty much impossible to win an International Games or World Fair (both were rejected during the game I think, never had to build them). I actually purposely let IG fail because I didn't want the winner get a tourism lead over me before Internet. Nevertheless, I am satisfied to finally do it. I have always wanted to do it with Pacal or Ramkhamheng but those games didn't work out.

Uluru is located to the southeast of Barcelona. I regretted not planting the city at the coast, on top of the Gold.

Well first off this guide is awesome. Really cleared up a lot of my confusion on Tourism. But I have a quick question regarding conquered cities. I was at 100 TPT around turn 300 (don't laugh please, I got wonder after wonder built a turn before me and almost rage quit).

Anyway, in frustration, I conquered Rio de Janeiro, because it had roughly every wonder in existence. So I take it over, plunder 8 artifacts (I guess, is that what that symbol is? It said you conquered 253 gold, 0 culture, and 8 something), puppet the city and then... nothing. Despite getting the Eiffel tower and several other wonders, my tourism didn't change. Why is that?

CivilizedPlayer said:

Well first off this guide is awesome. Really cleared up a lot of my confusion on Tourism. But I have a quick question regarding conquered cities. I was at 100 TPT around turn 300 (don't laugh please, I got wonder after wonder built a turn before me and almost rage quit).

Anyway, in frustration, I conquered Rio de Janeiro, because it had roughly every wonder in existence. So I take it over, plunder 8 artifacts (I guess, is that what that symbol is? It said you conquered 253 gold, 0 culture, and 8 something), puppet the city and then... nothing. Despite getting the Eiffel tower and several other wonders, my tourism didn't change. Why is that?

Click to expand...

simple, the city is still in resistance; you will receive the bonuses AFTER the city has settled down (takes the same number of turns as the population left in the conquered city--which can be a long time-- unless you had some level of influence over them)

InDubioProReo said:

I only fought a defensive war against Japan and Shoshone

Click to expand...

Where is the Shoshone? Eliminated?

I always wonder how it is possible to instigate wars on these difficulty levels... every time I am trying to get a friend DoW someone, they have their straight face and say "I don't see how this is possible", only except when it's Geghis or Attila.