Culture Victory and Autocracy

It seems that culture victory is the most difficult to pull off, especially if one grows his or her empire beyond four cities. What are the recommended strategies for both a small, tall empire and a wide empire when pursuing a culture victory, regardless of what civilization is used?

In regards to a wide empire, I have read on these forums that the social policy 'Autocracy' is a must for culture victory under these circumstances. How is this so, when it seems as if this social policy does not, at first glance provide any direct culture benefits whatsoever? In fact, choosing Autocracy even seems counterproductive when going for the culture win, considering that choosing Autocracy prohibits one from using the 'Freedom' social policy tree?

I always prefer Freedom for a cultural victory. The benefits to the specialist economy and the double effect for great people tile improvements is a must.

The questions of using conquest and autocracy for culture victory are related but separate. So to address them separately:

Conquest is a great tool for a culture victory. Puppets produce gold and science to keep you in access to good tech, and also a little bit of culture (boosted if you have garrisons in them with Military Caste policy from Honor) and don't inflate culture costs. Conquering and collecting puppets won't necessarily make a CV as easy as a science victory, but it's still a big help.

Autocracy is the of course industrial tree designed for late-game conquest. But it isn't super for a CV because: 1) the happiness benefit is tied to courthouses which require annexation, which hugely inflates your culture cost if you opened on tradition instead of liberty (10% per city instead of 6.6). 2) On harder difficulties, you can't wait until the industrial era to start conquering! So even if aiming for CV you probably already have a strong empire and don't need a military boost that bad. Autocracy is a clunky tree, and I say that as a fan of it.

You would only select Autocracy for a CV if you were more interested in having fun and wanted to extend the game about 40 turns. I have done so before. Freedom is faster.

What Mesix said. Freedom makes the most sense for quick and efficient CV's. But I've won CV's in conquest/domination style games as well, using Autocracy instead- often more by accident than design. Probably wouldn't work on the highest levels, but on Emperor or below, it does. I'd be motoring along conquering the world, with only a couple core cities and all the rest puppets... and at some point late in the game, with only a couple more civs left to conquer, I'd realize I could end end the game quicker by building the Utopia project. So I did.

But even in conquest games, I still play a culture-heavy playstyle, including being a wonder-ho for everything with culture on it. No matter what victory condition you are aiming at, you can never have enough culture and social policies. There have been a number of games where I ended up at a point where I could choose to end the game with any of the victory conditions I wanted, and could just flip a coin. But those are my long, lazy huge/marathon games, usually. Faster games on hardest difficulties, you're not likely to get that kind of luxury.

Bruin said:

How is this so, when it seems as if this social policy does not, at first glance provide any direct culture benefits whatsoever?

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The opener gives you 10 culture per point of culture a city was producing when you capture it. That being said, that's really about it, and Freedom is probably still better. Not being able to buy Artists sucks, and you probably won't be buying generals. It's more geared towards someone like Monty going crazy mid-late game and getting culture from breaking everyone's stuff but it's still not that great. It's just...a weird tree like GhostSalsa said and I almost always prefer Order or Freedom.

Yeah I wouldn't pick autocracy even for my domination campaigns, and it will only marginally help getting culture when freedom's opener, finisher, +2 culture/wonder, specialist boost, will no doubt save many turns.

However, Aztec/conquest culture game is probably the funniest game I've played. Definitely try one at some point, there's often crazy results such as getting ridiculously tall cities, while puppeting many cities and getting insane science/gold per turn in the modern era and after.

What do you mean by the opener? When I look at Autocracy, it states that upon adoption one receives a 33% reduction in unit maintenance costs only. In fact the 10 culture per point does not seem to show up at all in any of the descriptions for the choices on the Autocracy tree. Am I looking in the wrong place?

@Bruin, You are checking in God and Kings right?

I wouldn't use Autocracy for a culture win, mainly because it precludes using Freedom. But I have to say the new culture-upon-capture benefit is awesome and really helps you continue through the tree since if you're using Courthouses and annexing your costs keep increasing. I was pleasantly surprised to keep getting policies in my last domination game, usually Police State is the last policy I get.

Scarpa said:

@Bruin, You are checking in God and Kings right?

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Ahhh, I see it now. I had to actually go into the game itself to see this. The Civilopedia lists this. However, I do not know if the social policy tree from which one selects policies states this. If it does, I certainly overlooked it and as such, came here for clarification.

Thanks to all. This certainly presents one with more options, depending on how the game is going.

The generally accepted fastest way is to go.

Tradition (Finish it)---> Liberty for Representation/Piety for 10% cultural ----> Industrial Freedom Finish Freedom, then backtrack and pick whatever is most useful.

Autocracy offers it's culture bonus upfront and obviously if you are going cultural we are talking huge puppet empire. The tricky part is balancing taking enough cities to make more culture (with a 25% penalty to culture generated by puppets) and having the production and tech to both keep up military and Religious buildings. Not to mention having to somehow "kick" up a gear in terms of how many cities you take... After industrial.

The last part isn't "that" hard since a good Artillery push can get you some extra cities. The rest however is a bit of a nightmare. You'll likely end up slowing down on getting Culture buildings, Culture techs, be hated too much that you don't get enough RAs...

Can it work? Yes. Can it work while still being fast, as fast or faster than accepted build order... So many factors... From Difficulty, to Map type... I doubt it. <.<

Bruin said:

However, I do not know if the social policy tree from which one selects policies states this.

Click to expand...

It's there when you hover over the opener. It lists the maintenance reduction and the culture boost on captures

Btw something interesting to consider. With the way the tech tree is now, Steampower no longer blocks Radio. So you can get all the needed techs for a Culture Victory with France and still pump 2 culture per city... Add in a murdering city taking spree with Honor, and their might be some interesting build.

By the time you're that far down the tech line, 2 culture per city is not a big deal to lose
Not saying you shouldn't hold off on steam power a bit, but leaving it til dead last probably isn't that beneficial

Don't forget the significant gold boost Autocracy gives. If you're having difficulty keeping cultural city states under your wing it can be a boon.

But yeah, almost always better to go for Freedom.

Where I can see Autocracy being beneficial towards a CV would actually be on higher levels, but take this with a grain of salt as I don't generally play higher than Emperor.

Especially on Deity, where pretty much all of the wonders up through the mid-game are going to be built by the AI, the culture bonus when you conquer a city can be pretty significant, especially if you manage to conquer a wonder-hog city more than once. Plus the discount on unit maintenance would come in very handy when the AIs have such huge armies/fleets.

Better than Freedom? Probably not...aside from allowing you to buy GAs with faith, the closing bonus to great person improvements can provide a huge late-game push & will almost certainly provide more overall culture than what you'd collect by capturing cities. But I can picture scenarios where it'd be close.