Tourism help?

[Gboss7]

Im having trouble winning a cultural victory. I play on prince, standard, quick, and usually pangea.

I go Byzantine and try to be the first to get a religion and get the faith buildings. This is followed by 3-4 cities. Then I get the reformation belief for tourism. The problem is though that by the time im churning out my temples, an aggressive civ declares war on me and usually manages to take one of my cities. This puts me behind because then im forced to focus on an army to defend more. By the time I take back my city or defend them off, someone like the Celts or France are already so far ahead with 15+ religious cities that I know I lost.

Also, how do you deal with a hard to target enemy city? I just played a game where the Songhai built a city not more than 8 tiles from my capital. Only problem was that it was right next to the ocean and a mountain was right behind the city, so there were only two land tiles I could attack from. It really cut me off and put me in a tight space.

Tips/help!

Thanks

Edit: Also, by the time I get 4 cities up my gold is like 200(-15) per turn and my happiness is usually between -2 and -6

 

[Enonwnn]

Firstly, while I believe the tourism reformation belief is amazing, you would do far better not relying on this unless you go super wide (And by this, I mean planting 15+ cities in the first 100 turns, standard speed - there's a thread on here about this strategy somewhere). This is the only method, as far as I am aware, that you can win a CV before the Modern era.

The most important thing for a CV is to have a good science start. Three cities is all you need, i.e. a fourth is not essential. The next thing you need is a lot of food. You cannot work those specialists in the guilds without sufficient food.

Make sure you play a normal science game, really there should be nothing different until you decide which later techs to beeline. If you are going for an SV, beeline for Hubble and spaceship parts, etc. For a CV, beeline for The Internet for the 100% boost to tourism. It's also important to beeline for hotels and airports before this.

I also find that control over the World Congress is indispensable. Make sure you get any cultural boosts (such as from Great Improvements and Wonders) before going for the race for 100% culture, and also reach the Modern era/build 3 factories, so to maximise the effect and to get into the high tier policies faster. I tend to time the International Games (+100% tourism) for when you get the Internet, although it can come a round earlier.

Don't forget religion. You will have a tourist boost with anyone who has your religion, so getting the Great Mosque of Djenne/Borobodur can be really helpful. Also, if you don't manage to get two/three faith buildings in your religion, the best reformation belief, in my opinion, is where your missionaries grind down opposing religions. This makes it very easy to get your religion into opposing cities as you have essentially made your missionaries into pseudo-Great Prophets.

Don't forget to get open borders into other people's territory, one for the tourism boost and two for the missionary spam, but make sure you don't allow them into your territory, otherwise they can do this back to you.

If you manage to keep open borders with, in particular, the civ(s) with the highest culture, try to time getting Great Musicians for when you have +100% tourism boosts (at end game) so to get a greater boost. Even if you can't get to your greatest rival, getting into another civ will give you a boost of 20% with all other civs.

A CV victor will not become apparent until the later stages. Whilst having +16 tourism in the Medieval era will give a nice boost, it means nothing if you cannot follow it up with fast hotels/airports/etc.

That's all I have to say for CV's at this moment, others will probably have more to say with their own tips and tricks.

As for that tricky city, wait till you get artillery/bombers, or get those frigates going.

Hope this helps!

 

[joncnunn]

Looks like OP problem is actually a military defense problem (losing a city to the AI) :

For that, build an Archer for every city and upgrade them to Composites and then Crossbows.

Also, for the border city; chop down any forest there to clear the line of sight.

Other than that; culture victory starts the same as standard science game (early NC; Education is a very high priority for Universities no matter what your intended victory condition is.) After education and some of the bypassed early techs; then go get the world wonders with theming bonuses.

 

[APCY]

At prince u can get any wonder.. Not sure where is ur problem and also you would need like one archer to defend, because they pretty stupid and suicidal at prince.

 

[chazzycat]

using piety for culture wins is highly gimmicky. if it doesn't win you the game you fall behind pretty far.

On prince it's much easier and safer to just wonder whore. Start with 4 cities, tradition into rationalism, etc. Aim for the important Renaissance wonders like Leaning Tower, Sistine, Globe, Uffizi, etc. If you can't get these on Prince consistently, then I would recommend focusing more on your general play, such as microing tiles and workers in the early game.

and get more workers. you should only have a very brief period of unhappiness while expanding, if any. You need to have enough workers to hook up luxes quickly to avoid stagnation.

 

[Gboss7]

Thanks for the help guys!

Currently in a game as Spain on standard speed Pangaea. Moved a couple tiles and found Uluru so I settled right next to it. Bought a scout, a worker, and the tile for Uluru so the CS couldn't expand to it. I got a religion in 645 BC while Assur was the second person who got it in 800 something AD. The game was incredibly peaceful as not a single civ was at war with anyone. I eventually had to DoW on Wu Zetian because she brought a settler up through my civ to go settle on the tundra, and there is no room up there. I bought a settler and settled before she did so she couldn't but she found a spot so I was in the process of destroying it before Siam DoW on me. I forced him to give me his second city and I took his capital after the peace treaty ended because I plan on taking Guangzho from Wu and his capital was in the perfect place for it. Now I am just worried about Elizabeth and Assur but neither have DoW on me yet or denounced me but I think the Shoshone will as he already told me that he and Siam were good friends. Oh well!

Even though I didn't go for a CV, I used the mass amount of faith to get the Pre Industrial and Post Industrial unit purchases. Plan on going for Domination