Finished my first culture victory

[kaltorak]

I just finished my first culture victory, not because I'm new, but because I never cared about a system that doesnt add any value to my empire except "score for winning".

I must say, I had a lot of fun managing the appeal of my tiles to get national forests and seaside resorts. Much more than I expected. It's so fun, I find it even more than before a pitty that it's worthless for your empire.

I did one out of curiosity, but I doubt Ill ever do one again. Going for tourism doesnt benefit your empire at all, what a sad waste.

 

[Victoria]

Going for tourism doesnt benefit your empire at all,

Many people say this and it confuses me.

To me both the science and culture trees are very useful, indeed the fast science victories now use the culture tree

Primarily a culture victory is about pumping out culture initially which really helps your civ and then building some culture victory bits
Primarily a science victory is about pumping out science initially which really helps your civ and then building some science victory bits

Yes there is a fast path in the science victory to the rocketry parts at the end but the rocketry parts do not give your civ anything apart from a small culture burst at landing on the moon first.

The museums and art works all give you culture that does help your civ and may be enough alone to win.The resorts give you gold and quite a lot of it... which makes me wonder why all tourism does not produce gold.... you could even have a gold drain from countries whose people are all going abroad... that could be a very interesting dynamic that is not unreal.

I still believe a true victory is about a balance of all things

There are players that like the culture victory and go for it often like I once did
There are players that live and die by science victories
Both of these seem to be judged on how fast you can get one and playing for a culture victory in under 150 turns can be a challenge with a bad start.

Religious victories are just broken in many ways

Bottom line is war for many is engaging and fun and so domination victory is the way to play and while doing so the last thing you will do is being a seaside resort OR a space part.

So I cannot disagree with OP comments on disliking a cultural victory but I do with the "at all" comment.

 

[kaltorak]

I never said culture wasnt useful. I liked the culture victory of civ4 and civ5 before the toursim expansion. Focusing on world wonders and great ppl, and in the case of civ4, having such a culture you even captured cities peacfully, and the borders of your best cities were awesomely big. Even now, culture is good since it gives you policies and governments.
And yes, going for the tourism victory condition, you need culture too. But still, what you really need is tourism, and that is useless. You can't compare how powerful it makes you to focus in science, in capturing cities or even in religion, versus focusing on useless tourism. Even if you get more culture than usual as a byproduct.

 

[Victoria]

You can't compare how powerful it makes you to focus in science, in capturing cities or even in religion, versus focusing on useless tourism. Even if you get more culture than usual as a byproduct.

That is your opinion from playing 1 cultural victory... you do not focus on tourism... you focus on culture. Some of the most powerful things that give you culture also give you tourism, you only resort to resorts if you need them, late game when you are bored anyway and the change is good. Once you start getting them the game soon finishes.
Also another side to a CV is lowering others culture and trade and peace..... science in some ways is far less subtle.
Each to their own, all I was saying was resorts give you gold and so you do get tourism benefits

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Culture's always critical, regardless of what victory type you're going for. You need to get to Political Philosophy quickly, to Theocracy quickly if playing for a religious victory, and getting to a Tier 3 government is often a bottle neck for me if I haven't kept up my culture output while going for a science victory.

@acluewithout has argued that a cultural victory best integrates the various game mechanics. And I supposed that's true, in the sense that it's a relative victory condition, where your success is based on your progress against the progress of other civs.

The whole tourism mechanic seems very silly to me, though, as currently implemented. Lots of tourists come to my country and that has no impact on the game whatsoever, until one opaque counter exceeds another opaque counter and I'm declared king of the world. Sure, Seaside Resorts generate gold, but National Parks don't and neither do Great Works or "tourism on flight" improvements. It's good that Seaside Resorts do, because it gives you more than one reason to build them, and I dislike improvements that exist only for pursuing a single victory objective/yield. So yes, Seaside Resorts are good, but the whole tourism mechanic, not so much.

I agree, too, that the whole raising Appeal can be a fun part of managing your late game empire. It creates an opportunity cost to Mines and other things, and generally opens up a new avenue for game play. But again, it's so loosely tied to other mechanics, that it's really only relevant when going for a cultural victory. Why isn't it tied to Loyalty, or Health/Housing, or even Amenities (high appeal tile = 1 Amenity, for example)?

In Civ 4 and Civ 5, cultural influence was much more than attracting a bunch of tourists. It was winning over the hearts and minds of other civs. It wasn't implemented perfectly - not even well, really - but it had some impact, potentially forcing a government change in Civ 5 or flipping a city in Civ 4. Loyalty right now is a less interesting city flipping device, being based primarily on relative population, but could be a better one if cultural influence was integrated with it for a combined effect.

Hopefully we'll see some improvements to this system going forward. If not, then you can always just capture the AI's cities, at which point your empire magically converts to a single culture since there are no multi-ethnic societies in Civ, and win a cultural victory over the last remaining AI city.

 

[kaltorak]

As usually, I agree with the earth that looks like saturn because of the plain guy.

 

[Leathaface]

I find Culture to be the most satisfying win condition. I go for Science when I move up a difficulty, or once every 4 games. Space race is the most straight forward victory type. You always need a high output of Science if you don't want to get invaded by superior soldiers, so that science will get you to the key science techs at a good pace.

When you are going for a Culture victory you could be up against someone like Mvemba A Nzinga or Pericles, they could have 700+ culture per turn making it hard to win over them. Plus the earlier you build tourism the more it'll benefit you, whereas you have to wait until near the end of game to start building Spaceship parts.

I don't go for Religion much, and domination seems pretty easy. Just build a load of archers, a couple of warriors/horsemen and bring a battering ram. You'd be well on your way to a domination victory. I'll be waiting until the DLL source has been released and there has been substantial AI mods developed before I go for a domination victory again.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Many people say this and it confuses me.

To me both the science and culture trees are very useful, indeed the fast science victories now use the culture tree

Primarily a culture victory is about pumping out culture initially which really helps your civ and then building some culture victory bits
Primarily a science victory is about pumping out science initially which really helps your civ and then building some science victory bits

That's culture though.

Tourism itself does nothing outside of culture victory, and that's the complaint. It can give benefits to all victories since most items with tourism also come with culture, and yes I'm aware that getting early culture and theater square is actually more important for science than science itself is.

It's most likely in comparison to Civ 5 where superiority in tourism had a number of in-game effects, while Civ 6's tourism is a bucket to fill until victory.

 

[Xandinho]

Cultural victory is my favorite, but I agree that tourism is totally useless if you are not pursuing a cultural victory. It is simply strange that tourism does not grant some modifier of gold in the late of the game (especially after Flight is discovered), building an Aerodrome in a city could transform part of the tourism generation of this into gold.
Moreover, I like the Civ5 system in which your cultural influence on other civilizations could generate popular dissatisfaction with the government, engendering civil wars, which interfered negatively in happiness. I expect this back in Civ6.

 

[kaltorak]

I'm aware that getting early culture and theater square is actually more important for science than science itself is.

Care to explain?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Care to explain?

The biggest bottlenecks to almost every win will be based off of when you reach your first government, governors, and Feudalism.

These things take priority over everything besides expansion but going culture can be easily done while doing that through monuments and such.

Furthermore, it is also more efficient to upgrade units rather than building later era units, thus it can actually be counterproductive to get some techs too fast.

 

[kaltorak]

@Archon_Wing

...

I understand the importance of the first government, but using your first district on a theater square, of your first city, which is usually always the best), on a theater sounds a bit extreme, doesnt it? Even more bc theater district adjacency bonuses suck, and rely mostly on having other districts or wonders. I dont think it would make me get the government so much faster as to justify a theater square in probably my city with most potential for science and production.

 

[acluewithout]

Culture's always critical, regardless of what victory type you're going for. You need to get to Political Philosophy quickly, to Theocracy quickly if playing for a religious victory, and getting to a Tier 3 government is often a bottle neck for me if I haven't kept up my culture output while going for a science victory.

@acluewithout has argued that a cultural victory best integrates the various game mechanics. And I supposed that's true, in the sense that it's a relative victory condition, where your success is based on your progress against the progress of other civs.

The whole tourism mechanic seems very silly to me, though, as currently implemented. Lots of tourists come to my country and that has no impact on the game whatsoever, until one opaque counter exceeds another opaque counter and I'm declared king of the world. Sure, Seaside Resorts generate gold, but National Parks don't and neither do Great Works or "tourism on flight" improvements. It's good that Seaside Resorts do, because it gives you more than one reason to build them, and I dislike improvements that exist only for pursuing a single victory objective/yield. So yes, Seaside Resorts are good, but the whole tourism mechanic, not so much.

I agree, too, that the whole raising Appeal can be a fun part of managing your late game empire. It creates an opportunity cost to Mines and other things, and generally opens up a new avenue for game play. But again, it's so loosely tied to other mechanics, that it's really only relevant when going for a cultural victory. Why isn't it tied to Loyalty, or Health/Housing, or even Amenities (high appeal tile = 1 Amenity, for example)?

In Civ 4 and Civ 5, cultural influence was much more than attracting a bunch of tourists. It was winning over the hearts and minds of other civs. It wasn't implemented perfectly - not even well, really - but it had some impact, potentially forcing a government change in Civ 5 or flipping a city in Civ 4. Loyalty right now is a less interesting city flipping device, being based primarily on relative population, but could be a better one if cultural influence was integrated with it for a combined effect.

Hopefully we'll see some improvements to this system going forward. If not, then you can always just capture the AI's cities, at which point your empire magically converts to a single culture since there are no multi-ethnic societies in Civ, and win a cultural victory over the last remaining AI city.

I'd agree with most of that really.

I do say that CV best integrates with other mechanics, but only in a purely relative sense, i.e. it uses / interacts with more mechanics than science, domination and religious victories.

I don't think tourism strictly needs to have a direct benefit for tourism to be "valuable". If the things that give your tourism give you other benefits too, then tourism is in a sense giving you value. But that comes with two big caveats.

First, I do agree some of the things that give tourism don't actually have much benefit beyond tourism, which is a bit lame. National Parks are a good example. As a point, they do give Amenities, and also faith with the right Pantheon, but that's not much really.

Second, I think the real issue is not that you don't get some additional benefit from tourism, it's more that being "ahead" in tourism / culture doesn't have any impact on the game (other than maybe other Civs not liking you because you're "winning"). If I'm ahead in culture, relative to other Civs, it feels like that should produce some effect. Like maybe more loyalty.

I do hope Tourism gets a bit of a rework in the next expansion.

 

[Casualty of war]

Culture became much more difficult to come by with Rise & Fall, making districts like Theater Squares (and Encampments!) much more essential. Before you could easily stay contemporary or even excel at Culture with just Monoliths and luxury benefits. You didn't need to build any Theater Squares in the first version of Civ6.

Culture producers can make you first to Feudalism, first to Mercenaries in a warring game. First to Theology in a Religious game. First to Guilds! If you are a tier, or even two, governments past your competition, it's no competition.

Then there's all the Era Score that comes from Cultural superiority..... Those pretty works of art add up to a lot of advantages.

 

[liv]

@Archon_Wing


I understand the importance of the first government, but using your first district on a theater square, of your first city, which is usually always the best), on a theater sounds a bit extreme, doesnt it? Even more bc theater district adjacency bonuses suck, and rely mostly on having other districts or wonders. I dont think it would make me get the government so much faster as to justify a theater square in probably my city with most potential for science and production.

If you are playing for a culture victory getting theatre districts up is key. Playing defensive when going for a culture win is very beneficial - meaning you will try to get all the great writers and prevent AI from building up much culture for themselves. You will need far fewer tourists if they cannot make a lot of culture

 

[Archon_Wing]

@Archon_Wing


I understand the importance of the first government, but using your first district on a theater square, of your first city, which is usually always the best), on a theater sounds a bit extreme, doesnt it? Even more bc theater district adjacency bonuses suck, and rely mostly on having other districts or wonders. I dont think it would make me get the government so much faster as to justify a theater square in probably my city with most potential for science and production.

I never said the first district had to be a theater square , but it's rather important. The first districts could still be campuses, but their biggest impact would be to boost State Workforce and Recorded history.... but that's still civics.

It's about getting the writers more than anything else. Adjacency bonuses for your first city or two is not that important. Being able to take at least 1 of the first great writers will put you ahead as well as slowing down any one else's culture attempts.

 

[Disgustipated]

I just finished my first culture victory, not because I'm new, but because I never cared about a system that doesnt add any value to my empire except "score for winning".

I must say, I had a lot of fun managing the appeal of my tiles to get national forests and seaside resorts. Much more than I expected. It's so fun, I find it even more than before a pitty that it's worthless for your empire.

I did one out of curiosity, but I doubt Ill ever do one again. Going for tourism doesnt benefit your empire at all, what a sad waste.

I still do it a lot because it's faster than science victory, at least at the difficulty I usually play at (king). It's pretty much always faster. Yeah tourism isn't great, but it gives a different way to play. I like to create a super tourism city. If you are interested in trying something different. I like to build a theater square with an art museum, get the great merchant who adds 2 bank slots that hold anything, build hermitage, build the National History Museum (with the government district), and if you can somehow manage it (it can be difficult to build all this) build Broadway as well. And then get Reyna with the promotion that gives tourism to great artists and writers and watch the tourist flock to your city. Might want to put a defensive spy though, AI likes to boot Reyna out a lot.

 

[Leathaface]

Culture became much more difficult to come by with Rise & Fall, making districts like Theater Squares (and Encampments!) much more essential. Before you could easily stay contemporary or even excel at Culture with just Monoliths and luxury benefits. You didn't need to build any Theater Squares in the first version of Civ6.

Culture producers can make you first to Feudalism, first to Mercenaries in a warring game. First to Theology in a Religious game. First to Guilds! If you are a tier, or even two, governments past your competition, it's no competition.

Then there's all the Era Score that comes from Cultural superiority..... Those pretty works of art add up to a lot of advantages.

Firaxis getting rid of Meritocracy in R&F took away a good bit of Culture. TBH i'm glad Meritocracy is gone because it was pretty much essential to use it Every.Single.Game. The same with Rationalism, you used it every game pre R&F but with R&F you have to work to get it's bonuses.

 

[UWHabs]

Firaxis getting rid of Meritocracy in R&F took away a good bit of Culture. TBH i'm glad Meritocracy is gone because it was pretty much essential to use it Every.Single.Game. The same with Rationalism, you used it every game pre R&F but with R&F you have to work to get it's bonuses.

Yep, agreed here. Pre R+F, I definitely had many games where I didn't worry much about culture, but meritocracy+monuments was basically enough to keep pace in the culture race.

There's still a few ways to stay high in culture without building theatre squares - Kumasi, Choral Music, Nan Madol (sometimes) can be enough. But otherwise, the game definitely forces you to at least get a base amount of theatres/amphitheatres built or else you will fall behind. I do think it's still a little too easy to get culture - I wonder what the game would look like without monuments, how hard culture would be to generate then.

But I would also agree with the original point that while tourism is kind of fun to manage, building up appeal and such, I wish it was more tied into the rest of the game. I find if I do run for a late culture victory, then it's kind of like I stop playing the regular civ game and start playing an entirely new game, it's so disjointed from the rest of things.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The biggest bottlenecks to almost every win will be based off of when you reach your first government, governors, and Feudalism.

I'd throw a Tier 3 government into that mix. You want to be able to finish building the National Society before you've completed the Mars techs. That way you aren't waiting to build a new component because you're still working on the prior one, which can happen if your Builders can't rush the Mars Space Projects along.

Personally, I rely on Monuments and Trade Routes for culture until I have Campus in every city and a yield district (Commercial Hub/Harbour/Holy Site) in almost every city (exceptions being a central city for an Entertainment District and an Industrial Zone, and an early Encampment somewhere). Then I start on Theatre Squares.

That's probably not the most efficient approach, though. A Theatre Square before a yield district in a couple of cities would likely be more efficient.