Optimizing Cultural Victories?

[Evie94]

Any hints for getting CVs down below 400 odd turns?

 

[Plumfairy]

Any hints for getting CVs down below 400 odd turns?

Unfortunately it seems like the best approach to CVs is to play them almost identically to science victories. You want to focus on research & get to the Internet as quickly as possible. I wouldn't even prioritize getting your guilds running. Obviously you do eventually want to have fully staffed guilds in a city that has both a gardens & the National Epic, but research is much more important than the guilds. I often try to pick up some of the cultural-oriented wonders along the way such as the Louvre & the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but that's just to make the endgame easier & quicker. They're not really the driving force in getting a quick CV; research is.

 

[Evie94]

Unfortunately it seems like the best approach to CVs is to play them almost identically to science victories. You want to focus on research & get to the Internet as quickly as possible. I wouldn't even prioritize getting your guilds running. Obviously you do eventually want to have fully staffed guilds in a city that has both a gardens & the National Epic, but research is much more important than the guilds. I often try to pick up some of the cultural-oriented wonders along the way such as the Louvre & the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but that's just to make the endgame easier & quicker. They're not really the driving force in getting a quick CV; research is.

that makes a lot of sense. I had my guilds fully up and running by about 160, got up to 300 tourism, was on 520 after international games but the predictor for Japan and the Zulu still read another 340 turns, after turn 400.......

 

[GhostSalsa]

that makes a lot of sense. I had my guilds fully up and running by about 160, got up to 300 tourism, was on 520 after international games but the predictor for Japan and the Zulu still read another 340 turns, after turn 400.......

CVs are basically about shock and awe - get to modern and pump up your tourism bars before the AI adopts ideologies. So research is priority as mentioned. Remember that your enemy in CV is the purple bars, the AI's generated culture - and those are really very short before modern era. So get to modern era first. If things go well then CV by turn 300 is easy, because the AI is generating so little culture per turn.

But that's your window. If the AI gets too far into ideology then they can run away with their purple bars. For example a continent-spanning empire that adopts Order can become immune to any tourism output. At that point (well, before that point obviously) the best thing to do is completely conquer them.

 

[Plumfairy]

CVs are basically about shock and awe - get to modern and pump up your tourism bars before the AI adopts ideologies. So research is priority as mentioned. Remember that your enemy in CV is the purple bars, the AI's generated culture - and those are really very short before modern era. So get to modern era first. If things go well then CV by turn 300 is easy, because the AI is generating so little culture per turn.

This might work on the lower levels. (Yes, I'm aware that the OP plays on King, so it might work for him/her.) However, it doesn't seem to work on the higher levels. I play on Immortal, and I've never been able to culturally overwhelm the world before ideologies hit.* Cultural wonders, early guilds, sacred sites.... all to no avail. As such, I find the Sacred Sites reformation belief to be kinda useless. It does make the CV endgame a little quicker/easier, but it's nothing to write home about.

*The tipping point isn't the arrival of ideologies, by the way. It's the advent of archaeology, along with the archaeological dig sites that arrive with it.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This might work on the lower levels. (Yes, I'm aware that the OP plays on King, so it might work for him/her.) However, it doesn't seem to work on the higher levels. I play on Immortal, and I've never been able to culturally overwhelm the world before ideologies hit.* Cultural wonders, early guilds, sacred sites.... all to no avail. As such, I find the Sacred Sites reformation belief to be kinda useless. It does make the CV endgame a little quicker/easier, but it's nothing to write home about.

*The tipping point isn't the arrival of ideologies, by the way. It's the advent of archaeology, along with the archaeological dig sites that arrive with it.

It works on Immortal with a really strong Petra city, you end up owning all the best mid-game wonders so the AI doesn't snowball culturally. On a recent Assyria Immortal game I won CV on accident after conquering the Huns, before even getting Internet haha - though the AI was really sleepy and disorganized in that one.

But yeah without Petra I don't even bother with CV. Archeology? Hm. The AI really likes to beeline Industrialization first and get those factories out. I guess it ends up being simultaneous in most of my games. Usually I see AI archeologists stealing stuff the same time they are adopting ideology.

 

[phillipwyllie]

I find building my guilds in the Renaissance era and filling each guild with 2 specialists constantly allows me to rush through Aesthetics and complete Tradition in a timely manner. If you win the World Fair then this is expedited even quicker. Also I beeline Education before this and build/rush buy universities asap and put 2 specialists in each university constantly. This will require you to grow your cities as quick as possible so internal trade routes early on are a must and keep out of wars. Grabbing all/most of the cultural wonders is another must do(even if you can't fill them) as you will deny any other civ those tourism bonuses. Failing all this war is always an option.

Just remember a CV is not just about tourism it's about science, and culture as well.

 

[joshua43214]

/sigh
Where is Deau when we need him?

The important thing to remember about CV's is that it is not about trickling out tourism, it is about late game concert tours. If you are winning at T400, then you are trying to overwhelm the AI through raw tourism, which only will work on low difficulty.

So here is the more or less "optimal" method;
3 city growth/science focused tradition start. You need an extremely tall capitol, and you need respectable beakers (700 -1100 is fine). You are going to need a lot of policies, so 3 cities is often better than 4, but you should build 4 if possible. Keep in mind that you need more hammers for CV than any other victory, so do not settle more than 1 low hammer city - you need to get culture buildings up asap to overcome the policy penalty for the extra city.

Play more or less like a typical science victory. Bee line to scientific theory - then right to Radio (bulb with Oxford) and take Freedom (Freedom is usually best for 3 city CV). Then bee line to Plastics, and right up to Internet (you can detour to biology before plastics, but usually better to get it after plastics), then back track to Radar (yes, Radar last).

Your build order is the same as for an SV, except you want to get the Hermitage, the Writers guild, and the Artists guild up as quickly as possible. Do not build the Musicians guild til very late, and do not waste hammers on wonders that use musicians. On Immortal/Deity, the AI will out-spam your archeologists with no trouble, park a unit on all digs outside your territory until you can go dig them up - you can steal one dig per enemy with no diplomatic hit. On high level, you will have trouble filling 4 cities + wonders from digs, but you should be able to fill 3 cities with artifacts.

On Immortal, you can reliably enter renaissance with printing press, build Pisa, then the Sistine, then Uffizi. On Deity, you will have to decide based on who is on the map, but it is sometimes worth faith buying a GE, entering renaissance with acoustics and bulbing Sistine.

Policies: Full tradition, aesthetics opener, Exploration opener (for Uffizi), Rationalism/secularism, Freedom to tier 2 (New Deal).
The rest is map dependent. If there are plenty of cultural CS's and you have a lot of cpt, you will want to finish rationalism next and bulb the finisher on Plastics or Internet. Otherwise finish aesthetics, and then take the tier 3 Freedom tenet Media Culture - this should time out nicely with getting your towers up.

Use your GW's for bulbing policies, though making great works with the 1st two is fine. Collect GA's and make great works in batches to get theming bonus, you will spend most of your time in Modern, so you should be able to easily get same era theming easily.

It takes ~18 turns to make your first musician after you build the musicians guild if you do not staff it. Time the finish of the musicians guild so it finishes ~19 turns before get Radar and rush buy airports. This timing is critical, you do not want any musicians before you have airports.

If the cultural leader is not next door, settle a new city close by and gift it to them. Now just generate and faith buy as many musicians as possible and send them in for concert tours. You might need to DoW if they will not grant open borders.

General tips:
Never, ever, under any circumstances, give open borders to the AI (never!)
always buy open borders from all civs
send a TR to every civ even if you get less gold for it
send your spys as a diplomats into civs with differing ideologies.
The Inca (by far the strongest civ for hammers/growth) are probably the best for CV, Poland and the Shoshone are also extremely good, and the Aztecs are very good choice (growth).
Do not neglect faith. On high difficulty it is better to plant your prophets and let the AI give you religion.
On Deity and sometimes Immortal, there will be a runaway culture civ. You will have to just go conquer them. You should never have this problem on Emperor or below.

 

[GoStu]

I'm playing a game as Indonesia right now and am crushing it Culturally, simply by devouring Venice and Siam. It's an Epic speed game on Continents and my only surviving neighbor is the Aztecs. Now I've discovered the other civs on the map and I have six times the tourism anyone else does, simply from plundering all the Great Works and Wonders, and due to my continent-spanning size I'll probably have most of the antiquity sites too.

Culture by the sword, es.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Joshua -- excellent guide. One thing I wrestle with on Deity is when to hit Archaeology. If I wait until Plastics, I often have nothing except what's within my borders. On the other hand, if I hit Archaeology sooner, then that delays getting to Eiffel, and the turns I spend building archaeologists means I'm not building something else I need (like units, to dissuade neighbors ...)

The other problem with the beeline to Plastics is that it's not always good if I manage to pick the first Ideology -- if I am generating zero tourism and pick Freedom, nobody else will, and there will be a huge happiness penalty soon (of the -20 to -40 range).

Though, as you said, on Deity it is almost always the case that you're not winning the CV without knocking out another Civ, so building your own archaeologists, not as important.

 

[joshua43214]

Joshua -- excellent guide. One thing I wrestle with on Deity is when to hit Archaeology. If I wait until Plastics, I often have nothing except what's within my borders. On the other hand, if I hit Archaeology sooner, then that delays getting to Eiffel, and the turns I spend building archaeologists means I'm not building something else I need (like units, to dissuade neighbors ...)

The other problem with the beeline to Plastics is that it's not always good if I manage to pick the first Ideology -- if I am generating zero tourism and pick Freedom, nobody else will, and there will be a huge happiness penalty soon (of the -20 to -40 range).

Though, as you said, on Deity it is almost always the case that you're not winning the CV without knocking out another Civ, so building your own archaeologists, not as important.

Ya, Sometimes I feel like I might as well flip a coin when deciding on Plastics or Archeology first, I just kinda follow my gut. I think Deau gave a definitive answer on which is better, but I forget what it was lol.

3 cities + Freedom is pretty much always fine in my experience for happiness. 4 cities certainly gets you to Internet faster and makes Order very attractive, I just find giving up Culture Media painful, especially if there is 2 culture powerhouses, but happiness is an issue

 

[Mesix]

Early culture victories are had through the Piety policy tree. With the ability to get +2 per religious building you should be able to do it easily by the early modern era. No Internet required, and hotels are optional. Crank out the religious building(s) of your choice (Pagodas/Cathedrals/Mosques/Monasteries) and watch the roll in. Explore quickly to find all you opponents, and plan a war or two to take out the / leader(s). Use musicians to get the next highest civ to buy your blue jeans.

 

[chazzycat]

most of the key points have been addressed already but I'd like to add a bit about the world congress. On any difficulty lower than deity, it really pays off to be the host. (I assume if OP is talking about 400 turn games he's not playing deity).

The reason you want to be host is so you can make sure the resolutions are passed in the correct order. My personal preference is 1)arts funding 2)world fair 3) world religion 4) international games.

The reasoning:
1) arts funding first, because it jump starts all the culture/tourism effects of writers and artists. Also, this tends to be very popular with the AI and will get you some DOFs.

2) world fair, because the 2nd vote comes at a time where you should have enough production to win it, and enough culture such that doubling it actually makes a huge difference. Too early, and your culture will be too small so it won't do much. Too late, and you will have missed the critical timings on key policies already. I have found the 2nd vote to be the sweet spot. This gives you enough time to get factories up for production, as well as ensure a healthy CPT (generally a combination of city states, wonders, and hermitage should be completed as well). When you win the world fair, you should power through the important policies you need at the time at a ridiculous pace (probably rationalism).

3) world religion. This one is not a "must have" in every game. It's also the only resolution that is unpopular, so you will have to secure enough votes yourself to win it. 3rd vote gives you enough time to ally a lot of city states, and also this is around the time when tourism will be shooting upward. Getting it earlier doesn't really help much since tourism will still be very low.

4) international games as the 4th vote should basically win you the game. Sometimes it's not even necessary. The only reason not to do this, is if there is a huge runaway with massive production. Sometimes even in that case if you bribe them to war, they won't focus on building the games. Usually it's winnable on immortal with only 4 cities.

Then the trick is to get as many musician concert tours in that 20 turns as possible (assuming you maxed out already with internet, hotels/airports, and visitor center). This is where religion really helps out massively....having enough faith to buy like 3 musicians is game changing. Plus the couple that you can pop the normal way, this should be enough to end the game.

 

[joshua43214]

Early culture victories are had through the Piety policy tree. With the ability to get +2 per religious building you should be able to do it easily by the early modern era. No Internet required, and hotels are optional. Crank out the religious building(s) of your choice (Pagodas/Cathedrals/Mosques/Monasteries) and watch the roll in. Explore quickly to find all you opponents, and plan a war or two to take out the / leader(s). Use musicians to get the next highest civ to buy your blue jeans.

yes, with Sacred Sites you can pull down weirdly fast win times.
It only works on lower difficulty, and scales extremely well with map size. It is a bit of a gimpy win though, does not really require any strategy, just spam cities and pagodas. There is a thread somewhere giving the "strat." It was one of the many things Firaxis failed to fix in the Fall Balance Patch

 

[Erelich]

most of the key points have been addressed already but I'd like to add a bit about the world congress. On any difficulty lower than deity, it really pays off to be the host. (I assume if OP is talking about 400 turn games he's not playing deity).

The reason you want to be host is so you can make sure the resolutions are passed in the correct order. My personal preference is 1)arts funding 2)world fair 3) world religion 4) international games.

So when should you head for Printing Press? After Education? Assuming you have a city or two next to a moutain, you slow down your science by delaying Astronomy.

 

[chazzycat]

yeah if i'm going for culture I open with Printing Press every time, right after education. Those wonders are pretty good, especially LT which the AI can get pretty early sometimes. If my capital is next to a mountain I probably will be going for science instead. Other cities don't matter as much for the obs.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

On Immortal, you can reliably enter renaissance with printing press, build Pisa, then the Sistine, then Uffizi. On Deity, you will have to decide based on who is on the map, but it is sometimes worth faith buying a GE, entering renaissance with acoustics and bulbing Sistine.

Wait, how do you faith buy a GE pre-industrial?

My latest attempt at CV was Immortal Byzantium on small islands. I easily got Pisa, but Sistine and Uffizi flew before my eyes, so I bulbed Globe Theater with Pisa's GE. It was just bad luck that I chose small islands, and all of the civs there went Tradition+Piety and Tradition+Aesthetics asap, and wars weren't happening. It also didn't help that they were Ethiopia, Incas, Mayas, Celts, Siam (went Tradition+Aesthetics+Patronage), and only lonely warmonger Attila. Moreover, ALL of my neighbors rushed religion, so I had some religious wars converting CS's back and forth (I had Great Mosque of Djenne which AI seems to ignore), until I just sent my religion to faraway places.

All in all, one runaway cultural Civ seems ok, but when half of them do that, you basically have to go diplo or science.

 

[joncnunn]

Any hints for getting CVs down below 400 odd turns?

When I go after cultural vicotory at all; I always achieve it below turn 400.

But this one is much more game specific than the others. (If you go scientific, you'll pretty much always win within a twenty or thirty turns after you've learned all the tricks) But in cultural victory, it depends upon how much the AI is going after it themselves. (The more culture the most advanced AI has gotten, the more tourism you need)

The following tends to work best for me if thinking about Culture in early game:

1. Standard Tradition 4 city start

2. For filler policies while waiting for Rationalism, open Aesthetics and choose first left side which will combine to increase number of great people produced by guilds and increase production speed of cultural buildings.

3. Standard start and complete Rationalism. Science is King even going for Cultural victories.

4. Open Exploration if it looks like you have a decent shot of building and completing the Louvre

5. Finish Aesthetics

6. For whatever ideology you choose, get the tourism boosting tenets.

7. Standard science is king techs up to and including Education. After this, you'll make techs allowing a wonder with theming bonuses a higher priority than you would in games are going for science. In addition, note the location of the techs allowing Hotels, Airports, and National Vistor Center.

8. Optional: To reduce turn count to victory, you can capture the major cities of the player with the most culture.

 

[joncnunn]

3) world religion. This one is not a "must have" in every game. It's also the only resolution that is unpopular, so you will have to secure enough votes yourself to win it. 3rd vote gives you enough time to ally a lot of city states, and also this is around the time when tourism will be shooting upward. Getting it earlier doesn't really help much since tourism will still be very low.

I personally wouldn't bother with this; you'd have to single handily have a majority of the votes in the world council to get it to pass; and even then it would result in them closing the borders and re routing their trade away from you which eliminates some of the tourism bonuses.

 

[chazzycat]

yeah that one is kinda optional. If I have the votes I've found it to be worth it, though. I wouldn't say it makes the AI close borders on a consistent basis. And the effect is pretty big, especially if you are France.