101625 Culture Points = Embarassing Defeat

[Igmod]

I just finished a game as Babylonians on a small map on Regent (Hangs head in shame) where I was woefully behind in tech, my military was weak/average agains 5 opponents.

I traded, beguiled, sucked up as much as possible to catch up to my foes but always stayed multiple techs behind so I decided to go for a culture win. I managed to keep the peace and sort of did an ICS type sprawl on my continent building cultural improvements.

Net result was a 101k+ culture score but I still lost!! I know that I needed double the culture of my nearest opponent and by the histograph it was DAMN close but my question is this:

What could I have done to impede his culture without affecting mine? I tried to keep her (England) in a war as much as possible but I really had nothing to bribe with.

I don't mind losing. I am just trying to improve my skills.

 

[DaveMcW]

The best way to slow down enemy culture is to capture (or raze) their cities yourself. The top cultural civ is often the most powerful too, so wars with other AIs might make him/her even stronger.

It's not that hard to siege an AI city with a small army, given enough time and some allies to take the heat off your units. Send 10 defensive units, 20 offensive and 20 artillery to the city you want to take, fortify the offensive and defensive next to the city, and start bombarding. Take out the roads first so they can't get reinforcements, and kill any reinforcements that try to walk over the unroaded land. After several turns the city will be size 6 or smaller (no defense bonus), and hopefully you got their barracks and wounded the defenders. Then overrun the weakened defenders with your offensive units.

I have no problems with war weariness doing a long siege in republic, since I don't lose any of my own units. Democracy might not work though.

 

[RufRydyr]

The newest version of Apollo will tell you the exact culture points. Once culture points are earned they can't be taken away, but you can use your spy to see which cities are bringing in the most per turn culture for a civ. F7 helps too, cause cities with wonders tend to have lots of culture/turn. Raze those cities and their culture growth will slow.
I like Monarchy for long wars.

 

[Hades]

The most effective mean is to destory the top culture AI. It doesn't matter whether you keep the cities or raze them. Also, It is important to check the culture graph frequently to prevent any one AI from become the cultural or military superpower in the late game.

 

[Perfection]

Launch an all out invasion on the civs core, razing all the older cities

 

[Lynx]

But if you raze the world will hate you, and probably declare war soon after, I think that capturing is better because you get more people, and cash... ( more problems...)

 

[royfurr]

Originally posted by Lynx
But if you raze the world will hate you, and probably declare war soon after, I think that capturing is better because you get more people, and cash... ( more problems...)

Don't care so much that they hate you ... MAKE SURE that they fear you. If this fear is well founded, do not be afraid of them trying a kamikaze attack in the endgame, as it will fail.

The problem here, Igmod is that you don't have the military to knock down their culture generation. In this case, you have to be very selective about your target, and attack early enough so that enough time will pass for you to build up enough culture (and they will have "lost" enough that they would have generated). Liike Hades said, check the culture/power graphs throughout play to know if you need to pre-empt someone well before the end. The mid game is the time to set up this kind of thing, if your not winning directly.

If you've got saves, go back to the start of the Industrial era (or a little before) and try again from there. This may help you learn how to look out for this kind of thing, it helped/is helping(!) me.

Good luck!

 

[Perfection]

Wait till the end than blow up the opposing civ so that you can come in raze all important cities, since its the endgame the other civs won't have time to launch a successful counter-attack, the razing should take about 1500 culture points away each city. Take out the beasts heart and the limbs will die too

 

[joycem10]

you dont need to raze or capture cities. just drop about 20 arty near the AI's capital and begin bombarding. within 4-5 turns you should destroy the majority of the AI's culture buildings. the AI can rebuild them later but will lose the ongevity bonus. do this to 2-3 of theAI's oldest cities and you should begin pulling ahead of the AI in culture.

 

[jeffelammar]

I've actually played a game at Emporer on a Huge map where I lost to a Space Race when I havd about 146000 culture.

I couldn't believe that it was happening. For many many turns, I was sure that this would be the one where I finally exceeded the Persians by 2X, but it never happened.

I have in the past used the same advise given by joycem10. It works wonders. Not only does it slow their culture, it reduces their power significantly due to the incedental loss of population in their core cities.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

Looks like everyone beat me to it, you should go in and raze their core cities. I remember I did this on my first deity victory when I was still learning basic tactics. It was on a tiny map, and I was actually only trying to cripple my single remaining opponent. But it also had a major effect on culture, which I'd expected but not counted on it having such a big effect. It's funny to see the cultural advisor telling you that 'the Aztecs are disdainful of our culture' and 300 years later, after you've burned and destroyed their homeland 'the Aztecs are in awe of our culture'.

 

[Zcylen]

Originally posted by JuicyCivNewbie
It's funny to see the cultural advisor telling you that 'the Aztecs are disdainful of our culture' and 300 years later, after you've burned and destroyed their homeland 'the Aztecs are in awe of our culture'.

remember what they say:
"wise men change their mind"

 

[Chieftess]

Razing doesn't take away their culture, but only slows it down. Say a city was producing 50 cpt (culture per turn), and the civ overall had 1000 cpt. Raze it, and the civ only gets 950 cpt now.

If you conquer a city, it loses all improvements (but not wonders), that will lower its' cpt if it flips back.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

Exactly. Their culture per turn rate was so much lowered by my indiscriminate razing that I quickly overtook them and became the cultural powerhouse of the world.