What's best when it comes to playing cultural?

[Frossa]

When it comes to play cultural, is it best to have few cities to decrease cost of policies, (not too few, as that would not produce enough with culture) or to have a large empire to produce a lot of culture, but with high policy costs?
The game itself recommends to not expand too much, but I find myself getting policies too slow that way.
What has worked best for any of you? Can you give any other tips on playing cultural?

 

[tommynt]

use search function

 

[ense7en]

Some topics relating to cultural games.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=481632
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=467105
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=477707
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=475858

 

[chazzycat]

its ok to have more cities if they can pull their weight culture-wise. but you don't want to found too many, it's better to take them from the Ai. That way the turn they start counting towards your cost (when you annex) it already can contribute because it's a bigger built-up city with decent production. it might already even have some culture buildings...fill the artist slots ASAP or even rush buy some more culture building. found too many of your own cities, and all those turns early in the game where cities are still developing really hurts the cost curve.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

Many people prefer one. I am not the greatest cultural player but usually I have 1 city and another coastal city. sometimes 3 cities seems OK, any more than that hmm probably not.

 

[Frossa]

Many people prefer one. I am not the greatest cultural player but usually I have 1 city and another coastal city. sometimes 3 cities seems OK, any more than that hmm probably not.

Okay, thanks. I will try that out. Also conquering cities and puppeting them like the guy above you said sounded like a good idea...
I will probably do that. Thanks for the tips

 

[Atlas627]

Ok I'm pretty sure you can win a cultural victory with any number of cities, but there are 2 good reasons to stay small:

1.) If you stay small, each of your cities is already developed. This means you get to build other things and don't have to waste time setting up cities to pump out more culture than they cost. You also don't have to find happiness sources to make up for the base city unhappiness

2.) Many of the social policies that boost your culture are more effective for small empires.

But if you build every cultural building and fill every artist slot, I'm sure you could produce more than enough culture to make up for the increasing costs. You would just be wasting a lot of time you should probably be using to build a defense, science buildings, and growing your population.


As for conquering opponents, in the sense that each city you capture only helps your culture (if you puppet, not annex), then yeah that's a good idea. However, conquering opponents also means you have to spend time building a military and finding happiness sources to cover your puppets, so I think it is still optimal to play peacefully and tall.


Ok, now for some specific recommendations.

There are times when you shouldn't play cultural. These are when you have a civ that has no bonuses towards that style or your starting territory is not good enough to support 3-4 very good cities. If you both have a civ that is good for going tall/culture AND your starting territory is good, then you should consider a cultural victory.

At this point, think about which 5 policy branches you would want to choose. You always want Tradition, Piety, and Freedom. If you do not choose these, you may still win, but probably not culturally... So other options are Liberty, Honor, Patronage, and Commerce.

Even if you pick Liberty and/or Honor, I would recommend filling out Tradition ASAP. And most if not all of Piety immediately after. By then you should unlock Freedom, and again you should fill that out. Note this is only a recommendation, I think there are a few extremely unique situations that would suggest mixing and matching. Most of these involve holding out on Legalism (the 4 free culture building policy) until you have cities up and running with base culture buildings. As the Aztecs, for example, Honor will help you utilize an early defensive army, and your aqueducts from the Tradition finisher (the main reason to finish Tradition ASAP) may in fact be overkill when you have Floating Gardens. Now you can hold off on Legalism until you set up 3-4 cities and get Drama for Amphitheaters.

Always fill out every artist slot you can, and use Great Artists for Landmarks. Try not to fall behind in tech or military, though obviously you can't have it all. I usually find Libraries and the National College to be enough science to stay just behind the pack, and several early Archers or Composite Bowmen and a few Spearmen can be enough to hold off armies.

 

[Matthew.]

It is tricky. As far as raw culture, you only need your capital, but if you don't have enough science your game will suffer once you get past T150ish. Strong science Civs like Babylon and Korea can compensate, but for others you will actually benefit from a couple of additional cities. The path from there seems to be either to rely on mass RA's, or puppet like crazy.

The added benefit from more science is defense becomes significantly easier: you have a bit of extra time to hit some of the lower military techs in between rushing culture techs.

 

[bison21]

I have just lost a game on immortal trying to win culturally, which I personally find by far the hardest to achieve. A few notes on why I lost:

1. I started off religion too late, and got beaten to the Hagia Sophia and was then spammed by 2 foreign Great Prophets, and my Capital never managed to adopt my own religion. In the end I sat on 5k faith I couldn't spend. Just painful.
2. I had, of all people, Mr. Seilassie on my borders- I should have taken his capital, but I decided to play peacefully all the way. That was a BIG mistake. Hiawatha and Genghis had swallowed the dutch by turn 80 and were peaceful for most of the game- which meant that they signed RA's like stupid. I put so much into research and was the leader mid-game, but the amount of RA's I couldn't keep up with. Seriously, it was too peaceful. At the end, I was 10 techs behind.
3. Who won? Genghis launched the spaceship. Why? After Hiawatha amassed Atomic Bombs near my border, I paid Genghis to war against Hiawatha. I had hoped, as my last resort, they would weaken each other sufficiently as they were both going for science. Well, Genghis nuked 8 cities in one turn and surged ahead.

I know I'm not a very good player and other people find Culture victories easy, but I have always found it better to have a base of 3-4 cities for culture, and take out annoying opponents by puppeting a few cities. I find no-war completely contradictory to the game.

 

[Matthew.]

I know I'm not a very good player and other people find Culture victories easy, but I have always found it better to have a base of 3-4 cities for culture, and take out annoying opponents by puppeting a few cities. I find no-war completely contradictory to the game.

Same here. Science/Domination games are a snooze fest for me, even on immortal, but I can still struggle with CV's on Emperor. My attempts at complete peace seem to always result in stagnation after ~T125-T150, and nothing is more frustrating than watching runaway civs growing exponentially, while you wait for policies to slowly tick by. Not to mention there is little you can do about the runaways at that point, because you invested everything into culture.

My best results seem to be with aggressive starts, establishing map control within the first third of the game.

 

[drac313]

My one only cultural victory was with Babylon in the one-city challenge. To answer your questions, you want 3 huge cities for a culture victory. Culture victory with one city is really hard because without Babylon (IMO) because you wind up loosing scientifically (which you need for defense and culture buildings) near the end of the game. Having a bunch of cities is pointless because the culture needed goes up ridiculously compared to culture produced. Simply:
Small Empire for Culture
Large Empire for science/domination.

 

[bison21]

nothing is more frustrating than watching runaway civs growing exponentially, while you wait for policies to slowly tick by. Not to mention there is little you can do about the runaways at that point, because you invested everything into culture.

My best results seem to be with aggressive starts, establishing map control within the first third of the game.

This.
I understand that the few deity-culture VC guides that exist out there, even the OCC ones, promote an aggressive (=/ expansive) playstyle. Afaik, MadDjinn only played (as in, streamed) Cultural VC in vanilla (see video here) but that wasn't exactly peaceful either!

 

[tommynt]

agressive in OCC?

What you should do and whats important is build a bunch of early units to not get attacked by ai and to clear barb camps for CS quests

If not planing occ its often good to only build about 3 cities self and capture and annex 1-2 good/big ai caps

I am atm doing GOTm49 which is cultural - it might give u an idea what to do.

But basicly u play a cult game early on (untill like turn 70) just like going for any other win type - grow, build, tech and once you reach late medival u go straight for sitstine and opera houses and u go deep into peity and later freedom instead rati and order.

Whats important is not too try too hard to get early culture but boost it kind of sudden once your cities have grown big allready. U need to be able to go onto freedom early ..

Having a bunch of cities is pointless because the culture needed goes up ridiculously compared to culture produced.

wrong

understand that the few deity-culture VC guides that exist out there, even the OCC ones, promote an aggressive (=/ expansive) playstyle.

wrong

Not to mention there is little you can do about the runaways at that point, because you invested everything into culture.

u r doing it wrong

Ok I'm pretty sure you can win a cultural victory with any number of cities, but there are 2 good reasons to stay small:

1.) If you stay small, each of your cities is already developed. This means you get to build other things and don't have to waste time setting up cities to pump out more culture than they cost. You also don't have to find happiness sources to make up for the base city unhappiness

2.) Many of the social policies that boost your culture are more effective for small empires.

wrong, more cities = more religion more science, more culture = faster win

 

[sqdtnz]

For survival I prefer to keep wars going forever on Immortal or Deity. Two very simple reasons:
1) When you have peace the AI will build up an enormous military and, even when they are friendly, they will attack you.
Coming from peace, they can fill every tile of your empire with units in one or two turns, and overwhelm you completely. While if you are already at war, they will keep sending small armies that are easy to destroy, they won't have the patience to slowly generate a huge army.

2) During peace negotiations they will always demand the highest possible tribute. If you want to make peace, then at least make sure you have already spent all your gold

 

[Atlas627]

agressive in OCC?

What you should do and whats important is build a bunch of early units to not get attacked by ai and to clear barb camps for CS quests

If not planing occ its often good to only build about 3 cities self and capture and annex 1-2 good/big ai caps

I am atm doing GOTm49 which is cultural - it might give u an idea what to do.

But basicly u play a cult game early on (untill like turn 70) just like going for any other win type - grow, build, tech and once you reach late medival u go straight for sitstine and opera houses and u go deep into peity and later freedom instead rati and order.

Whats important is not too try too hard to get early culture but boost it kind of sudden once your cities have grown big allready. U need to be able to go onto freedom early ..


wrong

wrong

u r doing it wrong


wrong, more cities = more religion more science, more culture = faster win

Once again you do both a wonderful job of explaining yourself AND find a way to do it with tact.

Well the first part is well explained and sounds like excellent advice. The rest of your post is just you telling people they are wrong. Is it possible for you to not be rude?

Edit: By the way, to make myself clear. When I said small, I didn't mean 1 city. I just mean don't go wide.

 

[Maxym]

I used to play CV a lot and did it with 1or2 cities, then I saw the way it was done in gotm and switched to 3-4 cities, getting puppets helps too and with religion you can get more happy to support it. More cities > Faster tech> more wonders, production and culture .