Victory by Culture Crawl!

[Polonius]

In some ways this is the opposite of Clutch-3’s fascinating “Culture Rush” strategy in which he won (much earlier in the game) by founding or capturing huge numbers of small cities.

I am posting this not because it was an example of great management, military skill, or diplomatic cunning (it wasn’t on any of those counts) but because it was achieved with a fairly modest number of starting cities. It was also played on the simple setting, so more experienced high-level players will doubtless need to use more skills to keep the foes at bay. But it should give some insights into the mechanics of the maths, as it took a fairly big chunk of the allowed 2050 years to complete (I won in 1973,so I guess that means 77 out of 540 turns to spare).

It was played as Babylon (which gives the best bonuses for a Culture attempt) on a Large map with 8 civs at least 4 of which got noticeably more starting room than I did (I was squeezed between 4 other civs). The basics are that I founded 14 cities in my initial settlement phase (which I didn’t think would be enough) and banged in the 5 basic culture points scoring improvements as fast as I could. I then got caught up in some niggling battles and other issues that diverted my attention.

By 1465AD (a few turns past the mid point of a full game turn-wise) I had all my original 14 cities, plus 3 that had defected to me by “cultural absorption” and another 2 that I’d captured militarily . I had continued to construct all the basic culture point scoring buildings as soon as possible, as I like to do that anyway.

I decided to do a calculation to get a rough idea of how much I was going to fail by – to help plan my next attempt – and to my great surprise it showed that I was already in a winning position if I hung on till close to 2050. Even more surprising, given that I hadn’t planned for it, was that my best city would score over 15,000 points by the end of the game (at this stage it was getting 42 points per turn).

From then on I built all the Wonders that I could in my best city, also founded 1 more city to fill a gap, and had 4 more cities defect to me (total 24 cities - plus 1 more defection on the last turn of the game, which of course had no effect!)

Towards the finish I was reaping over 500 points per turn (521 by the very end) and my best city reached 74 per turn. It was a stunningly boring end game (I simply hung on and avoided fights, although my surplus shield power had by now built a very good army) but I finally won in 1973. At that point my best city had 9 Wonders and would also have won me a 20,000 points victory by 2037, even if it built no more Wonders (it apparently had the power and speed to build probably at least 2 more).

In total I had 17 major and 3 minor Wonders (Out of a possible maximum of 34 in a full game) . I would imagine it pretty unlikely that such a grab of Wonders would be achievable on higher difficulty settings unless a deliberate super-city approach had been emphasised from the start (any expert guesses on achievable numbers here please??) so a realistic approach might be to balance this out by upping the 14 starting cities a bit. For most difficulty settings 20+ might be more realistic, but it would depend somewhat on how many Wonders you could or couldn’t get. Points for Major and Minor Wonders range from 1 to 6, so they take longer to build per point than Libraries etc. To balance this they of course give other benefits.

 

[Polonius]

Also (mostly courtesy of the manual & Strat Guide), here are some general pointers I’ve collected about Culture Victories (nothing new here for you veterans!):

Best civs:
Scientific and/or Religious (These civs get handy bonuses such as cheaper key buildings plus quicker tech path to getting them). Babylon is both. I believe that Industrious civs also get production bonuses if you prefer that style.

Best Governments:
Republic and Democracy

Get your points in early:
The earlier they’re built the faster they get to the vital 1,000 year doubling bonus. Temples, Libraries & Colosseums in the Ancient Era, Cathedrals, & Universities in the Middle Ages, (Research labs in the Modern Era are far less important as points scorers due to their late arrival). Plus any Wonders you can comfortably grab (some are more valuable than others, both for points and for your overall Culture strategy, so pick and choose if you can’t grab ‘em all).

What to emphasise:
Shield production for faster building until your point scorers are in place. Don’t unbalance your overall picture, (or you might fall in the hole that you just dug to build your shield mountain from!) but short term tactics include maximising shields by shifting your city workers around on the city map, clearing forest for the shield bonus, etc. Plus always try to keep waste under control (which costs shields) etc.

Don’t use the Mobilize for war option:
Apparently this will halve your per-turn culture score gains. If you get involved in fights stay in normal mode.

Absorb cities from other civs:
Cuddling right up against others civs when you have a powerful culture and cities with strong scores is a great way to absorb “free” cities. So it might be worth putting your early cities in likely spots and fill in your middle spaces with later (weaker) ones (?) “Culture traps” can also work – i.e. leaving tempting little holes in your map, or 3-sided indentations in your borders. (They’ve worked for me).

It seems that the captured cities will have their Temples etc. automatically wiped by the game, but you can still inherit flourishing cities that can rebuild quickly. I have even been able to build Wonders with cities “captured” this way. And if you play as Greece (Scientific and Commercial) you may even get to be “Abzorber the Greek”! (Groan….)

For 100,000 points:
Whack in a good solid swag of cities with all possible speed. I’ve seen 20 –24 recommended, but (as above) I have won with a starting bunch of only 14. Or you can push on to a full blown Culture rush and end with 100+.

And of course, just be lucky and start on a good spot with plenty of shield pumping potential!

If you know of any good past threads on Culture victories that have now dropped from view, rather than repeating all the points raised it might help new arrivals if you could you please just post a link to them below. Thanks.

Hope this is helpful to somebody.

 

[Polonius]

And here's another one...

20,000 points super-city tip:

If your super city is also your capital and you founded it in the first 5 turns its Palace (1 point) will double to 2 points in the next 20 turns. So if you don’t move your palace (sometimes used as a corruption management strategy) it will generate over 1,000 points by itself if the game goes close to 2050. In practise it’s unlikely to get that far, but it might be worth remembering if shifting the Palace looks tempting.

 

[Airness]

In one of my games(Deity), I used Japan(high culture/high probability for GLs)

I was fighting early, took over as many cities from 2 weaker civs as possible, and rushed build all those religious buildings, while reaping in the CPs and made people happy. I built Heroric Epics, and kept fighting.

By 730AD, I had 50+ cities, more than 16650 CPs, and my capital is generating more than 70 CPs per turn(I rush build 6 Great wonders with leaders). I kept one Russian city left just for "Leader Milking", got 4 leaders that way alone.

I always focus on Culture accmulation while playing militaristic style, non of my captured cities defected in this game. I am sure a culture victory would be achievable soon in this game, but I think a combo of Militaristc/(religious or scientific) is the way to go.

If you'd like to see my game go to the thread "An interesting Deity Game" , and you can download it.

Airness

 

[Polonius]

Great - thanks Airness. I was just beginning to think "geez, what a chatty crowd round here - all those views and not a single post." Usually someone will pop in (even if only to point out my errors!)

I'm off now to download your game. It will look great on my Hall of Fame list after I've viewed it

It's fascinating for a Civ newbie like me to view other people's games. Just as I think I'm getting the knack of it all, I look at a game that has been played by someone who really knows the wrinkles and I realise how much more this superb game has to offer if you're prepared to study for a while.