Anyone other than Brazil for culture victory?

[arand86]

The thing with the brazilians is that jungle start often makes it a little difficult to snag wonders from lack of production, unless you waste massive amounts of worker labor time chopping down jungles. In addition, the earliest golden age is useless in terms of tourism

 

[lindsay40k]

I like a culture game with most civs. Going tall seems good, especially if HG feeds your Guilds. Keep tech high and focus on production to keep spitting out the key Wonders - Culture multipliers, Great Work slots and Engineer generators in particular. Let someone else build Parthenon and then take if off them; if they've moved Phidias, find the city it's in and take it. If your capital isn't coastal, get a coastal city for the trade routes. On higher difficulties, forget about aggressively spreading your religion but consider diplo to make it the world faith. Carthage can be interesting, because your UA leads you to settle on the coast, which leads you to go through Exploration and find loads of artefacts the AI usually ignores for most of the game.

France are great at a 'pure' culture win, but for most civs it's a viable hybrid victory when conquering cultural civs or massing CS allies. It's entirely possible to walk into a culture win by conquering and spending a little time organising displays of looted treasure.

 

[RedRalph]

The thing with the brazilians is that jungle start often makes it a little difficult to snag wonders from lack of production, unless you waste massive amounts of worker labor time chopping down jungles. In addition, the earliest golden age is useless in terms of tourism

True, but the later ones can give an insane boost. I'm still really unclear on management of great works, anyone recommend a guide to them?

 

[Camikaze]

Hi RR.

France is pretty deadly for cultural victory, but it relies on a super-strong capital.

What are you unclear on with great work management?

 

[RedRalph]

Hi RR.

France is pretty deadly for cultural victory, but it relies on a super-strong capital.

What are you unclear on with great work management?

Hey man. Basically where and how to place great works. I don't understand how theming works.

I was thinking of trying Egypt next. Expand to three cities, then try and capture a capital. I'm not sure why, but I've been getting really, really crappy starts so far in bnw on continents plus (whatever is called), no production at all.

 

[arand86]

Hey man. Basically where and how to place great works. I don't understand how theming works.

I was thinking of trying Egypt next. Expand to three cities, then try and capture a capital. I'm not sure why, but I've been getting really, really crappy starts so far in bnw on continents plus (whatever is called), no production at all.

I know what you mean, I was there for a while.

Basically, depending on the wonder you're putting works in, you can theme them differently, and it'll tell you if you mouse over the building in the culture overview. For example, the Sistine Chapel has 2 slots, and you need to fill it with 2 works of art from the same civilization and same era. If you do so, since there were 2 slots to fill, you get a 2 tourism theming bonus. If you have the aesthetics finisher, it'll double to 4. If you're France, it'll double again to 8. That's basically the reason anybody would use France, for the bigger wonders, you can actually theme a pretty big bonus, like on the Louvre, where 2 works of art and 2 artifacts from different civs and eras will buy you 4 tourism normally, 8 with France and 16 with the Aesthetics boost.
If you need reference, here's a link
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Theming_bonus_(Civ5)

You can get works from other civs by swapping works in the culture page.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yes, I believe monastery cost 150 faith, while the others cost 200.

The thing is, with this strategy, you will most likely end up with too much faith even with all 3 buildings in all of your cities. And then, monastery doesn't give happiness (unlike the other 3) and with this ICS strategy, happiness will be an issue.

Well, I didn't ICS. I had a two-tiered expansion. I built maybe four or five cities first, then I expanded after I finished the piety and aesthetics trees. The excess faith would let me buy GAWM anyway, so it was still useful.

 

[rattlejaw]

I think Brazil are in a slightly weird place. On easier difficulties, where the culture game isn't challenging, all you see is the jungle start--why bother playing Brazil when you could play France, get a much better starting position, and build a super-capital? Hell, if you're playing on Prince, why not go Sacred Sites and win by turn 200?

On Immortal and Deity, where tourism is arguably the most difficult victory condition to satisfy because the AI civs prioritize it so highly, Brazil takes a huge lead over the other culture civs (though the jungle start is even more painful). In fact, it's likely easier to go for a culture victory with a non-specialized civ that gets strong benefits elsewhere than to try for one with France or Polynesia or India.

Also, has anyone tried out a Korean CV, out of curiosity? I would imagine that their UA should apply to guilds, which would be quite strong, but guilds do weird things sometimes--the Statue of Liberty, for instance, was giving me an extra hammer from every specialist except artists in one game I played.

 

[RedRalph]

What's sacred sites?

 

[rattlejaw]

It's a Reformation belief (from the Piety tree) that allows all of your faith-bought religious buildings (i.e. Pagoda etc.) to grant 2 tourism. The idea is to get buildings with all of the belief picks that allow them (2 normally, possibly 3 for Byzantium), expand a lot, and spam religious buildings everywhere you can.

It's a bit of an all-in gimmick, and tends to work out only at lower difficulties, where you're likely to found a religion quickly enough to get your pick of beliefs.

 

[joshua43214]

Korea and the Inca are my favorites for CV. Brazils jungle bias means you will miss the important wonders. On high difficulty it is more important to focus on science.

 

[rattlejaw]

The reason why Brazil is good at winning culture victories on higher difficulties is that it doesn't need any wonders to do it. A jungle-start Brazil can win through tiles alone.

Besides (ed: maaaaybe*) the Inca, who are always going to be a production powerhouse, who's building Renaissance-era wonders on Immortal or Deity? Wonder culture victories are perfectly viable, but they rely on engineers.


* On Deity, at least, you're not going to be at tech parity by the early Renaissance unless perhaps you're playing Babylon. That means the important wonders are still out of reach unless, for instance, you know you're the only civ who's gone aesthetics and can build the Uffizi untouched. That virtually never happens.

 

[whyidie]

How many cities is optimum for CV? I have always tried to stick to 4 or 5 and play peacefully, but as it's obviously not working I must be doing something wrong.

Any other general tips for this victory? Could stroll to it before BNW, but the new system, while much more fun, is pretty baffling to me.

4/5 usually works pretty well for most victory conditions. Go tradition, utilize internal trade routes for growth and tech to the key tourism wonders.

I've been pushing wide with for culture VC's. The only thing neutered by going wide is your social policy acquisition, but since you're going culture, that shouldn't be a problem as wonders should offset the policy acquisition. More cities, more culture buildings, more places for artifacts, more hotels converting culture to tourism.

World Congress I'll put in spoilers due to length of ramble. It boils down to getting your religion, idealogy, and winning the projects.

Spoiler :

World Congress resolutions are pretty important. You'll want your religion, Worlds Fair, Ideology, and the international games. This is where playing wide makes these things easier. If you're wide enough you can have your main production cities continue to build wonders while you devote all your other cities to world congress projects. Once your production cities have finished whatever wonder you were working on, you can switch them over to the project for the boost.

To get your religion to pass you'll need to spam religion early. Consider using your second great prophet to convert AI's that don't have religions yet. Need to do it early.

Ideology will be completely dependent upon strength. If there is a clear runaway on the board, the other Civs will follow. I've had some games where nobody chose a different ideology than the leader because it would have meant flipping right off the bat. On Prince this is quite possible as AI does not get massive happiness boosts.

The projects will always get AI support so no need to worry about those. Only thing I'll mention is don't be afraid to vote against them if the timing isn't right for you, especially if you proposed it

If you can't get your religion to enough Civs and you are in a minority Idealogy, you can try to buy AI votes with dimplomats (must have diplomat in cap instead of spy) or get enough CS allies to bully your resolution through.

Getting open borders helps. Ideally you want theirs open and yours closed. Later in the game you'll find some of the AI not so willing to open up their borders. This means you're doing well

Challenge with wide will be getting hotels built so you can get National Visitor Center. Kind of a chore, but if you start early enough you ought to be within range once you get the tech for NVC. Oh, on that note NVC is critical! Airports in your culture cities is also critical.

Don't forget to save musicians. Once you've got your theming bonuses filled out, start saving them instead of creating great works. You'll use them to win over the last cultural holdouts by going on a concert tour.

 

[Bad Wolf]

You'll want your religion, Worlds Fair, Ideology, and the international games.

Careful with Worlds Fair - if the AI wins host, it can act as a buffer against your culture victory. If you have to choose between Worlds Fair or International Games, always go with IG. And unless you're absolutely sure of winning host for Worlds Fair, probably best to vote it down if you can. I had a game where both were proposed in the same session, and I used my city-state allies to veto the Fair, since I wasn't confident I'd be able to win hosting rights for both the fair AND IG at the same time.

 

[whyidie]

Careful with Worlds Fair - if the AI wins host, it can act as a buffer against your culture victory. If you have to choose between Worlds Fair or International Games, always go with IG. And unless you're absolutely sure of winning host for Worlds Fair, probably best to vote it down if you can. I had a game where both were proposed in the same session, and I used my city-state allies to veto the Fair, since I wasn't confident I'd be able to win hosting rights for both the fair AND IG at the same time.

Games over the Fair for sure as it has more of a direct impact on Tourism. This is why I love wide play, get enough cities going and you can have the minor cities contributing while your main cities finish off whatever they were building. Watching the % completion gives a good sense of when you need to shift production on the cap. If your minor cities just aren't ready, then absolutely vote it down until you are ready.

 

[lindsay40k]

Musicians: Should only be held in reserve if you're France and want to fill out Broadway. Otherwise, avoid building their Guild until you're producing plenty of Tourism and want to spam the last bastion against your cultural hegemony with tours. Their strength is based on your tourism output at the moment of their birth.

Ideology: this is a tricky one. Three factories will get it early, leaving them til Radio will let you see what the AI adopts and target them appropriately.

If you can quickly get four policies (Poland and Aztec are obvious, also Egypt for wonderspam) and have a mountain of happiness, getting Order early is great.

If you're producing a lot of Tourism, then Futurism is pretty good, now - it fits in with the last push of musicians. Can support a late game Mussolini as well, which is quite appropriate. And you can always invite a cultured rival to join your war for a massive boost on them. I enjoy an early Autocracy to send in special forces to conquer the best capital, then bombard the other mountains with modern art.

Freedom's mainly good if you're having to take it to the late game. Or need to buy out loads of city states to control the Congress.

 

[Memoryjar]

Poland : Liberty, Piety, Aesthetics (sometimes, enough for exploration).

Hammers and Policy.

 

[chazzycat]

France is great on any level. The higher you go, the less wonders you get, but you can make up for it with Chateaus. And even if you don't get ANY world wonders, 2x theming bonus just from hermitage oxford and museum can be significant once aesthetics/internet are done. And you should be able to get at least a couple wonders on any level below deity anyway.

 

[Karmah]

ATm I m always winning with cultural victory. I find it the most immersive and relaxed way to win.
I m used to play deity but i play immortal huge random maps no mods standart speed.Immortal allows you some freedom early game
Since it is a huge map it makes domination a bit tedious....so that leaves the spaceship and the CV to end the game...since basically at the end of the game , I usually don t feel like getting those last science for a spaceship and building parts , I just end up going cultural and have fun with a war or two.
Last week ,I played with early warring new germany , a rather peacefull archipelago game with the new japan , a early warring pangea with the shoshone , a mixed game with poland and finally I tried brazil for the first time.All of them ended up being a cultural victory.
Every game follows a kind of pattern.
An original early strat (do i want to wage an early war , do I want to be the god amongs the men and go full religion , whatever the combination of the randomized map/civ gives me after a bit of scouting) ...then around renaissance I get back to the serious game and I start to catch up fast on science and get the lead , rush radio to get my ideologie and then I m leading in science so I get to finish the game anyway I want , would it be warring autocrat , freedom austistic ,or builder order...at radio I have two minor cities getting frozen for like 40 turns building broadway and eiffel tower and that s enough to finish the game with cultural victory using the tools given by the three ideologies -I m a huge tradition/order fan btw but I also enjoy autocratic cultural victory for a change.

My basic setting is tradition filled , commerce or patronage cherry picked : one or two policies , rationalism opened ASAP and then filled until ideologies (usually the world fair triggers aroudn that time) ...go order , pick production + science boost combined with the two rationalism policies that really matters imo (free tough and secularism) , build momentum to enter modern/atomic with a huge tech advance ...fast forward to sattelite for the fun of it , get the wonder ...then go on the top of the tree to get the cultural wonders and internet while policy wise i go aesthetic + cultural ideological tenets...and then my hands are free I can enjoy the end of the game by punishing the bullies or trampling the weaks while my tourism builds up to the victory.

They can be some variations -with tradition/order germany I had 12 cities and 17 units entering renaissance when I decided to stop warring and go building , so I had honor pushed to to military castle using great writers 's treatise ,while rationalism was a bit delayed

I can be building peacefully or warring it does not make much a difference , except the feeling you get while playing. I can play immersively having the feeling of role playing my civ interactions with its neighbour since I have a rather solid science/policy build order that will get me to the end.

It s basically easy to do with every civs...and it works wonder @immortal since you can always snatch some wonder. Of course you need to be quite good at maneuvring IAs with diplomatic moves , especially bribing for wars when needed and getting a supply of research agreement really helps so you need friends.

The only civ i find horrible for cultural victory is ....brazil .... I tried it yesterday and won like 150 years after what i m used to , in 1974 ! ! It was a long and painfull game....one you are proud to win , even so you ve been bored of waiting for your tiles to become decent ...and now 14 turns of jungle improvement , yipee ! I swear to god , my capital entered the renaissance with like 11 production ! Still dont know how i managed to win the fair during renaissance....so Brazil ? never again , never ever!