AI Cultural victory on Emperor

[Gudhjem]

Hello, question about cultural. I win pretty consistently on Monarch, and so have been playing on emperor. In 3 games, I have been winning (in score and getting ready to execute my victory plan) when suddenly an AI civ gets a cultural victory. There is no warning, that I know of. It's pretty frustrating to lose that way after spending 8 hours carefully working toward victory. It seems to be in effect a time limit on winning. If you don't win early enough (this last one occured in about 1930) it doesn' matter if you had a lead and were in control.

So my question is, do you Emperor+ players turn off cultural victory? Do you win early enough so it's not an issue? Is there a way to monitor it and, if so, slow down the AIs culture (short of nuking them)?

I guess that's several questions. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Verge]

Is there a way to monitor it and, if so, slow down the AIs culture (short of nuking them)?

Yep! Go to the Victory Screen. Under "Culture Victory," it will name the AI closest to achieving said victory and the amount of culture in each of his/her top 3 cities, so you'll know how close they are to achieving Legendary status.

If I see an AI gunning for a culture win, I just work the diplomacy screen to get as many of the other AI civs to go to war with the culture-monger in question. At the least, it slows down the opponent in question, and at best, your opponent may lose one to all of their top-3 culture cities.

 

[Bushface]

Amass enough EPs to be able to investigate the cities of whoever you most strongly suspect is going for a cultural victory by the 3-cities route. Then send in Spies to sabotage the cathedrals (and any other high-culture buildings) in the worst of those cities, putting it further behind. And it may prove beneficial to close your borders to that civ, because the AI makes more commerce from trading with your nice big cities than you do from his, usually smaller, ones: "base trade" values are higher for the AI than for you. Reducing his commerce reduces his options.
If there's a risk of losing to an AP or UN vote, you'll have to try to make good friends with enough AI civs either to win yourself or, at worst, block anybody else. This, I need hardly say, can be tricky, awkward to predict, and requires much attention to the Foreign Advisor screens. If there's a way to provoke dislike among the AI civs, I haven't yet found it; there is no spy mission to "cause dissension with XXXX".
Personally, if I've decided at the outset to go for Space or Conquest then it is indeed easier to turn diplomatic victory off, as I always turn off Domination. Pity there's no option after getting a Domination win (comes earlier, but you've less land, population, techs and Wonders, so gives relatively low scores) allowing you to go on for a Conquest win.
P.S. I've tried Verge's scheme of inciting war, but have always found the option "declare war" against my target civ to be redded out.

 

[The Rook]

As Verge says, the info is in the victory screen. If you see an AI with over 20000 culture points in three cities, it's very likely they are pursuing a culture win. Keep an eye on the rate that they are accumulating culture between turns too. Sometimes bribing the AI to adopt less favourable culture accumulating civics can massively slow them down (if war isn't a good option). In one of my Emperor games, Justinian was clearly going the cultural route, so I kept bribing him to adopt Bureaucracy to prevent him using the Free Speech civic. Every 10 turns he would switch back, but bribing him with old techs was easy, as he had switched off research . This bought me enough time to win the Space Race. I would estimate it cost his culture cities the best part of 10000 culture points each (his #3 city had well over 40000 points in the end, and 50000 was the target).

 

[Refar]

"Working carefully towards victory" and "beeing in control" usually includes knowing what your opposition is up to.

Culture wins do not come from nothing, as legendary cities do not just pop form nowhere. There are allways signs. This is basicly true for all victories - with the possible exception of those Cheesy AP wins - but even then - you usually know who has the AP, how witespread the religion is...

Build up enought Espionage to at least be able to see they demographics - its really cheap. Cheach the power, gnp, culture, etc graphs, to get a good picture of what and how your enemies are doing. Check foreighn advisor screens to see what oportunities you have there. And check the Victory screen regulary. And "Top 5 Cities/Wonders".

To prevent a culture win, you need to single out early, which civ is probaly going to try it. When the enemy already has 3 cities close to Legendary culture, there is not much you can do - other than to declare on him and to try to burn at least one.

But if you can see it coming early, you have lots of possibilities. Reducing the enemies commerce: Privateers Blocades, Bribing others to stop trading with them. Using diplomacy/spy's to switch the opponents civics to something less usefull for culture. And last but not least - forcing them to focus on something else: If you declare on them, or bring other civs to declare, they will have to build up military, perhaps reasearch techs and hopefully neglect the culture for a while.

 

[Infantry#14]

if they are going for cultural, just invade and raze one of those three cultural cities and the ai will never be a threat anymore since he is so behind in tech.

 

[Arms Longfellow]

Be careful of seeing the AI's last required city in the 40,000s and saying, "Okay, I still have some time", because he can create great works and increase it by 4,000 instantly. I was burned by this once before. If it hits 40,000 you have to go NOW. I was getting a fleet ready to invade his island civ and raze one of the cities when he had 44,000, and the very next turn he won. He must have used two great artists in that same turn.

 

[Gudhjem]

Thanks for all the tips. one more thing to keep track of...

 

[IronCrown]

As has been said, the victory screen will always tell you which opponent is closest to a cultural victory. And if you suspect there could be more than one AI pursuing a culture win, just check the graphs. Civs that are going for culture always have a significantly higher culture graph than everyone else.