Building culture when NOT pursuing CV?

[RaidandTrade]

In my recent games where I've been going for a domination or science victory I've been trying not to neglect culture along the way but find when I've met everyone I'm near last culturally so wondering what I'm doing wrong.

Most recently, I'm playing as Japan going for domination and picked them for the bushido benefit but also specifically to get the CPT from fishing boats which I've had out as soon as I could get them. I'm on Archipelago map and have about 8 or 9 boats on the water. Writers and Artists guilds are up and staffed and I'm now cranking out the museums. I've been bulbing my writers for culture and bulbed a GA for a golden age although in hindsight should have created a work.

I've now met everyone and find that I'm about half of Siam's culture and a third of their CPT and am something like 6th or 7th in the overall culture stakes. Like Siam, I have 3 cities so now trying to figure out what I should have done differently. I've just hit the tech lead (planted 2 GSs and now saving future GSs).

Culture was so bad that when I took Order and Siam took Autocracy 2 turns later I got pressured pretty badly so switched immediately as pretty much everyone else was going that way or, if not, getting pressured.

I guess the general question is whether there are any tips for building culture when NOT pursuing a CV?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Get the guilds because the great workers and the speciallist give alot of Culture for very cheap price.
Only build Culture Buildings that got great work slots if you need the slot or you are going for museums and archaeologists becuause the Buildings themself give very little Culture.
Get some Culture CS as allies.
Try not to trade with, open border with or share religion with civs who get alot of turism and have Another ideology.

If you got the tech lead but did not build Wonders which is very important for Culture, rush straight for archaeology and plunder every ancient ruin you can find both theirs and yours and you should be in good shape.

 

[mice]

Maddjin in his beyond the monument instalment about tourism says that "culture on the ground" is more powerful when converted to tourism through hotels and airports than great works.

"culture on the ground" being culture from landmarks, wonders, pantheon tiles, Moai statues - things like that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPNrhaT5XY -somewhere in the middle-

I don't know if its true but Im going to try for more tourism this way in future (tourism being an effective counter to ideology pressure just like culture )

 

[Moriarte]

Maddjin in his beyond the monument instalment about tourism says that "culture on the ground" is more powerful when converted to tourism through hotels and airports than great works.

"culture on the ground" being culture from landmarks, wonders, pantheon tiles, Moai statues - things like that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPNrhaT5XY -somewhere in the middle-

I don't know if its true but Im going to try for more tourism this way in future (tourism being an effective counter to ideology pressure just like culture )

I noticed that decent tourism is good habit for highest levels. 0 tourism can literally kill you unless you pursue an ultra fast win of some sort.

Get the guilds because the great workers and the speciallist give alot of Culture for very cheap price.

I wish we had them.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maddjin in his beyond the monument instalment about tourism says that "culture on the ground" is more powerful when converted to tourism through hotels and airports than great works.

"culture on the ground" being culture from landmarks, wonders, pantheon tiles, Moai statues - things like that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPNrhaT5XY -somewhere in the middle-

I dont know if its true but Im going to try for more tourism this way in future

The absolut strongest way I would say is to spam Wonders and get the Congress to vote for the Culture from wonders thing.

Great Workers is very powerful if you can get theming bonus, add in double from France and astetics and you get something very powerful.

Culture from the ground is kind of limited but is probably the best shoot you have for a CV in higher difficulties.
Civs that can build Culture improvment got a hugh advanatge of all the others at this victory type.

 

[joshua43214]

... Like Siam, I have 3 cities so now trying to figure out what I should have done differently. I've just hit the tech lead (planted 2 GSs and now saving future GSs).

Culture was so bad that when I took Order and Siam took Autocracy 2 turns later I got pressured pretty badly so switched immediately...

can you clarify this please?
You should not have been forced to switch if you only had three cities unless something was very wrong.

did you have 5 unique lux's? If not, you settled too many cities.
did you give open borders? if so, never ever do this.
I usually take autocracy in domination with the assumption I will be forced to switch at some point, but I have never been forced to switch until after I have purchased all the units I could possible want and I am just moping up the last 2ish civs.

The issue is not culture, the issue is happiness. Pursue culture primarily to get policies and you will have enough for defense, and your culture and tourism should grow as you dominate.

 

[ravenmagus]

When you take an ideology always get the nice happiness policies first - for Order get that +2 happiness for monuments policy; it's huge.

You shouldn't have to switch ideologies that fast; even with crappy culture and no tourism by that point in the game you'll probably only be influenced at the smallest level, which is not a big happiness hit at that point (easily covered by ideology policies).

If you get ideology by beelining Radio and get it early enough, you can sometimes get World Ideology passed before most of the world even has an ideology to oppose it, and that will cement your ideology in and you won't have to worry about influence much even with 0 tourism.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Hi

Thanks for the tips.

Joshua - to your questions:


did you have 5 unique lux's? If not, you settled too many cities.

I had 5 crabs and a copper. One of the cities was near Mt Sinai for faith and the other was near lots of jungle (and a crab and 2 fish) so was hoping for trading posts to boost the science going later. Most AI's didn't seem to have multiple lux so that didn't help. I could lux for lux trade on 3 though.


did you give open borders? if so, never ever do this.

No. I never do OB.


Re: ideology, I took Order initially and was forced into Autocracy which didn't seem like a bad choice - just the period of no science, growth, gold was a pain but otherwise I only lost the one free policy.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ravenmagus]

One of the cities was near Mt Sinai for faith and the other was near lots of jungle (and a crab and 2 fish) so was hoping for trading posts to boost the science going later.

One thing to note for jungle cities - it may be worthwhile to keep a few jungle tiles around, but you should clear most of it for farms. A jungle heavy city will grow very slowly, and science is based heavily around population - a low population city won't produce a whole lot of science even if it's in lots of jungle (and won't even have the ability to work a lot of jungle tiles anyways). Not to mention the city will have no production to do anything else.

Jungles are really slow; try to clear it away and get the city growing!

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

One thing to note for jungle cities - it may be worthwhile to keep a few jungle tiles around, but you should clear most of it for farms. A jungle heavy city will grow very slowly, and science is based heavily around population - a low population city won't produce a whole lot of science even if it's in lots of jungle (and won't even have the ability to work a lot of jungle tiles anyways). Not to mention the city will have no production to do anything else.

Jungles are really slow; try to clear it away and get the city growing!

You could move food with caravans to jungle cities and also because how the pop system work getting big cities is extremely expansive food wise and eats up alot of happines, each jungle tile is basicly a free pop worth of science after university which is lower tech compared to public school which are needed to make pop as good for science as jungle.

Better is to save the jungle for a city later on in which you rush by university and transport food too then to farm away the jungle.

 

[budweiser]

I noticed that decent tourism is good habit for highest levels. 0 tourism can literally kill you unless you pursue an ultra fast win of some sort.

I wish we had them.

I make sure to get a wonder in my cap, then three in Aesthetics after Tradition is done before moving on to the other trees. With a functional arts program, all but the early adapters will follow you.

'Culture from the ground' takes longer, but OK, it is strong. I like to get Hotels up and running as soon as practical and this amplifies all my great works..

 

[Txurce]

I noticed that decent tourism is good habit for highest levels. 0 tourism can literally kill you unless you pursue an ultra fast win of some sort.

In my experience on Immortal pursuing a SV, I have a problem with ideology so rarely that I don't even worry about it. I'm talking about games that take as long as 300 turns on Pangaea, and maybe 320 on the various continents maps. My only cultural expenditures are for Writers and Artists' Guilds, and cultural CS. Then I beeline for the World's Fair, usually win it, chain-bulb my saved GW's, and then beeline for Radio, after which I try to establish my ideology for the world. I don't always succeed at this last, but have enough happiness policies to survive being in the minority often enough that changing my strategy seems like a net step backward.

When you say it can kill you, I assume you mean more often than it happens to me. Is this because domination takes much longer?

 

[chazzycat]

In my experience on Immortal pursuing a SV, I have a problem with ideology so rarely that I don't even worry about it. I'm talking about games that take as long as 300 turns on Pangaea, and maybe 320 on the various continents maps. My only cultural expenditures are for Writers and Artists' Guilds, and cultural CS. Then I beeline for the World's Fair, usually win it, chain-bulb my saved GW's, and then beeline for Radio, after which I try to establish my ideology for the world. I don't always succeed at this last, but have enough happiness policies to survive being in the minority often enough that changing my strategy seems like a net step backward.

When you say it can kill you, I assume you mean more often than it happens to me. Is this because domination takes much longer?

pretty much agree with this, for immortal diff. The AI isn't likely to get more than 1 level of influence over you, which is only -10 happy or so. If you go order, there is so much happiness it doesn't really matter. Just getting the cultural CS, using artists & writers wisely, and winning the world fair is generally enough.

When I do this, I get a very strong feeling that it wouldn't work on deity though

 

[Scarpa]

When I go Domination I make it a point to have as many CS allies as possible, and a large part of my war spoils go to keeping it that way. In those situations I prioritize Mercantile then Cultural City States. Having Cultural CS allies from classical onward can be a huge amount of culture banked against tourism later on.

 

[Memoryjar]

Depend which victory condition you choose.
I agree with Joshua for luxs. If I'm going tall I settle cities only if I have one unique lux over two first for my capital. You can survive with 4, sometimes 3 luxs for 3 cities but 5 is definitely the best way.
An archipelago maps, if I'm late in culture and have unhappiness cause different ideology, I DoW culture leader or civ with capital with plenty wonders, specially Taj, Chichen Itza, Notre Dame. It makes me a longer game, but it assures victory.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Thanks for the tips - will give these a shot in my next game. Just did GOTM 77 and had an easier time of it with culture and pressure so will see how that works with a Domination game as well.

What really killed my Japan game was a peace deal where I took a 17 pop city thinking I could immediately buy a courthouse.

A memorable game for the lessons learned if nothing else!