Autocracy for Culture Victory, lacking?

Astennu

Warlord
Joined
Oct 4, 2013
Messages
123
Hi guys,

Played a game as Brazil on Immortal last night, it went ok and I managed to barely win the Worlds Fair and had built 5 decent cities. Furthermore my capital didn't have too much jungle so it had some decent production.

The main problem arose when Autocracy became the dominant world ideology. Although Brazil gets massive Tourism during Carnival, I was between Golden Ages when Ideologies kicked in so my Tourism was not that great and was less than the Immortal Difficulty level AI. I possibly could've held on to my initial choice of Order dspite the unhappiness/public opinion penalties, but I thought Autocracy would be an interesting change for CV

I found it to be quite lacklustre for generating Tourism and culture in general. I missed having the extra production from Order which allows me to built culture buildings/wonders quicker not to mention the better food/production from Internal Trade routes.

250 Tourism for every great person seemed lacklustre, and the extra tourism to CIvs fighting a common foe seems way too situational. In my last Order game as France the tenet which generated tons of Tourism for Civs with less happiness was wicked. The Autocracy tenets I chose were nowhere near as powerful.

I had to stop playing as it was getting late, but I've been thinkin what I could've done differently in the game. I think sticking to Order despite the happiness problems would've been best as I would eventually generate more tourism to offset them. Possibly switching to some temporary warmongering with Prachinas once I switched to Autocracy as well?

One major error I'd like to point out was taking the Cathedrals religious belief. Great works of art are not generated near enough in the early game to fill the slots, which is when the faith cost for the buildings is lowest. I prob should've chose Swords into Plowshares instead as I usually do, as Brazil can struggle with growth in Jungle starts unless theres a ton of bananas and growth is key to all victory types.

Has anyone got some successful CV Autocracy stories?
 
If you go autocracy CV, I think this means you just declare war and destroy your biggest competitors. Then steal their great works and world wonders. I'm not sure it works all that well for Brazil, because Brazil is about having lots of golden ages, which means tall and high happiness.
 
If you go autocracy CV, I think this means you just declare war and destroy your biggest competitors. Then steal their great works and world wonders. I'm not sure it works all that well for Brazil, because Brazil is about having lots of golden ages, which means tall and high happiness.

Thanks for your reply.

That actually makes alot sense. Much different than the stay at home and generate tons of Tourism that the other Ideologies have. Although Ireally didn't have the infrastructure to conduct war in that sense, especially si nce it was a Huge 12 person map.

I think than even some early warmongering to obtain Great Works might be a good option for CV regardless of the Civ you're playing.

I'm gonna replay the game tonight. Its not a normal "win" if I come out on top, but I find it extremely interesting playing the same game over again and tweaking strategies.

I forgot to add that since I played Tall (5 cities), 3 of which were coastal, I had very little land to work with and only had 2 Antiquity Sites in my borders! Guess thats the price you pay for choosing Tradition.
 
Echoing redwings1340, Autocracy culture is for when you are conquering the world, but notice that it would be quicker to just use the stolen great works (and world wonders with theming bonuses) to win culturally than to conquer the world.

Similarly, Autocracy diplomatic is for when you plan to use your military to both intimate city states into becoming your ally and conquer anybody daring to attempt to take your city state allies away from you. (This also includes conquering the city in which Forbidden Palace was built.)
 
Thanks guys,

Considering this I'd say France is the better option for a Autocracy CV since they don't rely on Golden Ages like Brazil.

Any other Civs who'd fit the bill?
 
Japan is a great fit. The fact that their culture bonuses are water based works well with the fact that the important naval techs are on the way to the important culture techs. It's a nice idea for a Large Islands map or something like that.
 
Brazil could do good for autocracy when you tech straight to plastics and get the pracinhas. You could kill units with pracinhas for the golden ages and keep the happiness up with the military buildings and fortifications that give +2 happiness each. Not to mention if you get the prora resort.
 
Go to the modifier 50% tourisme when fighting a common war pay off a civ to declare war on a civ (for example sweden) and then declare war you'reself on sweden and take their capital and all their great works, wonders. And smile for the tourisme modifier for at least 10 turns

Each time you see a AI declare war join in
 
Autocracy works fine in my books. That 50% bonus for fighting a common enemy is larger than the 34% for being happier that Order has, and larger than Freedom's +33% from Broadcast towers. Order's 33% to other Order civs is nice when the whole world goes order, but it doesn't help in what I find is the toughest case: one holdout with high culture who has a -33% which can only be partially overcome by a diplomat.

The biggest obstacle to Culture victories is typically a runaway who snagged more Wonders: they'll often join in joint wars because they're ahead in many respects. Persuade them into a war and go for it!

Broadly speaking, Autocracy is for when you're the underdog anyway (or have a strong desire to conquer the world). War is also a decent tool when you're behind, so I kind of like autocracy for culture.
 
Thanks for all the great replies guys, wow it actually sounds fun now taking all the suggestions.

I think my weaker southern neighbour, Siam, will lose a few cities, possibly his capital when I restart tonight.

On a side note, do you guys create works with Great Writers or generally use them to generate Political Treatises and speed up policy obtainment?
 
During the earlier times, filling up all the great writing slots in my buildings is something that is done so often by me first. Political treatises are done by me in the latter eras where more culture can be generated and the gw of writing don't produce that much culture anymore.
 
Autocracy also works well when you hold off on generating any of the GWAMs until after you take futurism. The 250 tourism applies to every civ which is equivalent tourism wise as getting a great work 125 turns prior. If you stop one turn from generating until after futurism you could quickly pop out two of each for 1500 tourism with everyone, which would probably give you the lead or at least offset any ideology pressure.

With futurism you get the tourism boost and can still use the GWAM for a golden age or culture/music bomb. Then you fill all of your open slots with archeology digs or plundered great works, throw in a few wars for the 50% bonus and exterminate the culture leader and you are all set.
 
Futurism also gives the boost when you purchase a Great Person with Faith... and I used that to great effect when I went for Autocracy CV.... also at one point, I bribed the other empires to basically DoW everyone else (two bribes per empire pulled it off) then I DoWed everyone... the bonus for shared war stacks for each shared war, so I ended up getting more of a tourism boost than with OB/TR + Aesthetics by starting a massive World War.... was pretty easy to pop a CV after that began (just needed to Faith buy a few GMs to get the sturdiest two to influential).
 
the cult of personality tenet require too much AI exploit to be of use though...without bribing to declare war, such as when playing multiplayer, the effect is too situational.
of course, stealing great works and wonders is the best way of winning CV, so in a roundabout way, autocracy still have powerful tenets for CV. just not the cult of personality.
 
the cult of personality tenet require too much AI exploit to be of use though...without bribing to declare war, such as when playing multiplayer, the effect is too situational.

Touche. I'll admit it does require AI exploitation; however, it's not aimed at CV as much as getting a minor influence boost so when you are going for Domination there is less resistance time on former "allies". Futurism is the primary tenet for CV in Autocracy and it's quite useful if you've going for CV (generally gone Aesthetics allowing Faith purchasing of the GAMW and sought the World Congress Arts Funding proposal).
 
Futurism is quite powerful for early cultura wins. If you been pushing tourism through religion with sacred sites, chances are that you are not that far away from influencing your neighbours. I just won a turn 281 normal speed prince cultural victory with byzantium, 3 religious buildings with sacred sites and autocracy with futurism.

A few GWAM pop-ups and those 250 tourism ate the rest of the culture left.
 
Woot, think I should update as I replayed the map last night and its going pretty well.

I built 5 cities in decent locations, second one being next to Mt Fuji, a marble resource and 2 spice. Like every game, I rushed Stonehenge (I do every game, can't bypass a definite religion and free wonder from the GE later.)

I took Fertility Rites as my Pantheon, Tithe and Religious Community as openers, a the 2 faith per World Wonder for the final ( I wanted Swords into Plowshares because 15% growth is huge but it was taken. I also took Reliquary for around 80 faith per Great Person expended. Buying GE's for wonders and GWAMs, especially Musicians for Tours later is very important for CV I guess.

Long story short, I stuck to science, growth and culture without any wars. Monty is my Eastern neighbour and he was close to marching and annihilating a couple times, however I bribed him to focus his attentions somewhere else (literally a game saving move!)

It is now the Information Era, and I'm somehow no.1 in Tech. The Autocracy Tenet which allows for half the stealing time for techs has allowed this, as I have siphoned 6+ techs from the Tech leader and runaway Sweden.

The wonders in my Capital include Sistine Chapel, Broadway, Eiffel Tower and Louvre, whilst I rush bought a GE and got Sydney Opera House in another city. The free policy is real nice but I'm wondering if I should've saved the faith for a GWAM later?

I read a guide which suggested beelining Printing Press after education, getting Pisa then burning the free GE on Uffizi later however I got beat to it (with 12 player Huge Maps its hard to get many wonders)

Currently, Sweden is dominating in practically everything except tech. The started near Tundra and Desert and had a ton of room to expand, and have swallowed up Siam to my south and France in the SW. They have a ton of CS allies and are highest in culture. If left untouched I think they will easily win a Diplomatic Victory.

Sooo, it appears that I will have to knock Sweden out to secure victory. Stopping them from building a Spaceship and getting enough Delegates to be elected world leader. In the process I'll ransack all their Great works and artifacts and boost my Tourism significantly.

It has turned out EXACTLY as you guys advised. Time to go out and War my way to victory instead of sitting back and building up! My army has been pitifully small all game so I'll have to go a bit nuts in building one, especially since Sweden has alot of bombers. After I'm done with them I think I'll go and payback Monty for being such a prick and forcing me to bribe him not to attack.

Sorry for the long post but theres just so much strategy in this game I love reflecting on.
 
Warmonger cultural victory is probably one of favourite ways to win the game, simply because almost all the enhancements of BNW are in play. But yeah, CV with Autocracy is all about stealing everybody else's great works and eliminating the civs with the most culture.

Japan is a great fit. The fact that their culture bonuses are water based works well with the fact that the important naval techs are on the way to the important culture techs. It's a nice idea for a Large Islands map or something like that.

Don't forget that their Culture bonus from Fishing Boats also translates into Tourism when you get Hotels!
 
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