Are culture victories always nerve-wracking?

[Point13]

I won my first cultural victory today as Catherine. When I started out I didn't really plan on doing so, but I soon found I had pigeonholed myself into four cities and that everybody has easily outexpanded me. For awhile my tech lead held on but eventually my beakers couldn't keep up. I said screw it. I went and beelined for MM and managed to grab Broadway and Hollywood, I was beaten to ET and R&R

Does the computer normally not notice culture? The entire time I was mortally afraid that Mansa or Cyrus would stab me in the back and wipe me off the face of the Earth. Monty declared (my only war the entire game) but his two cavalry and one cannon weren't enough to do anything besides pillage a town. So with the culture slider pumped all the way and Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novogord converting hammers to culture I'd say I had over 500 culture points a turn. I had made A TON of super specialists in my cities. So in 1994 I finally won.

Apparently Civ thought I was weak though because my leadership abilities were rather low. Was my situation normal for culture victories? Should I normally expect to be dragging behind in power and score charts?

 

[Frank327]

I think the main reason for the low score was so few cities. Most people going for a culture win will probably want at least 6 or 9 cities. Also because science stagnates later on, you'll lose lots of points there. It's normal to be lower on the power graph, but I would recommend keeping up with power. It won't only defend you, but also keep enemies from attacking you in the first place.

If you want lots of points with a culture win, you should play it like a domination win, and barely not get it, then wait it out. With true culture wins low scores are very normal.

 

[tycoonist]

i've always found them deadly boring

 

[tycoonist]

oh and you never have anything to fear from mansa

 

[Point13]

oh and you never have anything to fear from mansa

Yea, I took that into consideration as well. The fact that him AND Cyrus were both friendly with me once I ditched Christianity for FR probably saved me since they were my neighbors on the continent and we had Defensive Pacts.

 

[Negator_UK]

I once one a cultural victory while being attacked by Monte (noble or monarch) - He took one of my cities (with a stack of a zillion cavalry), and marched on my capital, which was one of my 3 winning cites. The turn before he took it my 3rd city hit 50,000, thank you...

Nerve-wracking.... yeah I'll say....

 

[ParadigmShifter]

My first BtS game was a culture win with Hatty. Just at the end Zara invaded me with cavalry, airships and rifles and all I had were musketmen and Knights. He took two cities (none of the legebndary ones) and then I gifted him another city for peace for 10 turns, 6 turns before I would win a cultural victory

 

[Gliese 581]

Basically the computer cuts you some slack if you manage diplomacy, AIs will even vote for you in diplomatic victories, imagine doing that to an AI.

Bravo Monty old boy, well played, well played indeed, have a vote.

 

[carl corey]

oh and you never have anything to fear from mansa

In IMC I Mansa was brought into war with me by Gilgamesh. Both were Pleased with me. You do have to fear Mansa from time to time.

And yeah, most cultural victories will be nerve-wracking.

By the way, the reasons for which people want 9 cities for a cultural victory is that (on standard maps) you need 3 temples for each cathedral. If you have several religions cathedrals (and the equivalent buildings for non-Christian religions) can give you quite a boost.

One more thing: you said you had a good tech lead before losing it due to not having enough land. Well, good tech lead = better units; just take more land before your tech lead expires!

 

[carl corey]

Bravo Monty old boy, well played, well played indeed, have a vote.

I'd do it to spite Mansa or Gandhi for example. Imagine a diplomatic win for the warmonger eXtreme!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Basically the computer cuts you some slack if you manage diplomacy, AIs will even vote for you in diplomatic victories, imagine doing that to an AI.

Bravo Monty old boy, well played, well played indeed, have a vote.

I DID lose that way by accident once. I forget how I managed - I either hit enter by accident or voted for diplo points not thinking I'd push them over. Either way...really smooth, eh?

 

[Iranon]

My cultural victories tend to come in two flavours:

Race towards liberalism with a compact but well-developed empire (I still go for at least 6 cities on normal, often 9 - because of the cathedral issue.), kill research in favour of culture.
This is fast but often nerve-wracking and usuall requires good diplomacy since I'll be tiny, weak and backwards.


For a late cultural victory, I don't make any early-game sacrifices - I play as if shooting for domination. With the modern entertainment wonders and corporations, culture is often faster than space and safer than continued warring.

 

[Roxlimn]

My experience is similar to Iranon. Most of my wins on BTS are cultural because it's faster and easier to lock than Space. With Sushi and Jewellers online, you could be producing upwards of 700 culture per turn without using the production queue OR the slider.

I play like I'm shooting for domination - then switch to Culture mid-Renaissance. I do this mostly because I'll have conquered my Continent by Marines at the latest, and I don't like launching inter-continental invasions on Hemispheres, particularly not if the entire other continent is an allied bloc.

Of course, there are some concessions made in the early game to make the Culture win more possible. Sometimes I do Space or Dom if it seems more viable, but I like keeping the Culture line open. These are the things I watch out for:

9 cities and religions - key for the Cathedral multipliers.
GP Farm, Wonder City, Culture City - one of each is ideal so you can top off the culture easily after Sistine.
Early Improvements - improvements that add culture add more later when you build them early, so Creative for early Libs and Charismatic to give Monuments more benefits is something I consider.
Culture events - if you play with Culture events on, you might want to choose the Culture option if the non-Culture option is a nonissue anyway.

 

[Point13]

I'm also pretty pleased with the way I micromanaged my cities. When I'm playing a domination victory or conquest I usually don't micro my cities too much, but I found myself really focusing on getting as many specialists as I could (I had Sistine naturally) while keeping the city growing. Was actually a really satisfying experience.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Late culture is much more fun. There is no reason you can't stay in the game, warring and defending. My favorite paths to culture are:

- Industrial leader wonderspamming in three cities. You run representation, settle your great people and build every wonder you can. Keep researching throughout the game - but the killer wonders for you are the radio / mass media line. You don't have to fall behind in tech and don't need to commit to a culture win at all.

- Beeline Sids Sushi and go for the 1000 culture per turn cities. I won Immortal with Mansa in the 1700s and got a respectable score - not Hall of Fame good and certainly not up with the early culture times, but comparable to a space win at the same level. I didn't go 100% culture until Medicine which meant that I was able to trade for techs like steel and rifling - and still tech on with representation. I had infantry not far behind the AI and was never in a position where I was afraid of being attacked. In fact I declared on Hatty to support my friends and took a couple of cities.

One funny thing that happened in this game was that Hatty landed troops next to one of my island cities and was about to take it as I couldn't get reinforcements across the sea in time. I was pretty sure I would lose the city. But on my turn one of Suri's cities flipped to me. I got a couple of free infantry in the city. I checked it out and it had an Airport! (I didn't have flight). I was able to airdrop in one of my free infantry and queue up more units to fly in the next turn and was able to save the city.

 

[Killroyan]

I love the culture coorperations like mad. Creative cons, sids sushi, civ jewelers. If you get these you are pumping out so much culture per turn. Always in the end I start taking over cities culture flipping to me. I always laugh when that happens

And yes sometimes culture victories can be very nerf wrecking. I once experienced a full scale attack from an agressive AI with something like 45 cavalry attacking one of my legendary cities with 100% defense and 6 infantry or something. I was something like 10 turns short of a victory. Even though I killed half the stack with reinforcements the outcome was clear All I can say is that with an agressive AI or an AI that is also going culture you sure have to watch out and make sure you keep your numbers up. Always have 1 city devoted as a military pump.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My experience is similar to Iranon. Most of my wins on BTS are cultural because it's faster and easier to lock than Space. With Sushi and Jewellers online, you could be producing upwards of 700 culture per turn without using the production queue OR the slider.

I play like I'm shooting for domination - then switch to Culture mid-Renaissance. I do this mostly because I'll have conquered my Continent by Marines at the latest, and I don't like launching inter-continental invasions on Hemispheres, particularly not if the entire other continent is an allied bloc.

Of course, there are some concessions made in the early game to make the Culture win more possible. Sometimes I do Space or Dom if it seems more viable, but I like keeping the Culture line open. These are the things I watch out for:

9 cities and religions - key for the Cathedral multipliers.
GP Farm, Wonder City, Culture City - one of each is ideal so you can top off the culture easily after Sistine.
Early Improvements - improvements that add culture add more later when you build them early, so Creative for early Libs and Charismatic to give Monuments more benefits is something I consider.
Culture events - if you play with Culture events on, you might want to choose the Culture option if the non-Culture option is a nonissue anyway.

If you are going to conquer an entire hemisphere continent, don't rule out the UN.

Usually continent control = #1 in pop. Very frequently without major war declare diplo penalties to the other continent.

What you do then is tech mass media as if going for late culture, and trade/gift/etc a smaller civ the tech but not anybody else. Run as many non-un builder favorite civics as possible (you should be able to tell if you can do this ahead of time, although it's very frequently possible).

Intercontinental warfare vs non-religious bloc targets is pretty easy though. You can just relentlessly capture every coastal city they have with marines, take capitulation, and force UN. On some maps you can get domination or conquest doing this, and the AI doesn't know how to handle it if you protect your transports.

 

[r_rolo1]

My best score cultural win so far was while pwning in all military terms and with minimal resource to the cultural slider. It was a slightly engineered map by a third party and had lots of sushies though.... If someone is interested, you can give it a look here

 

[Roxlimn]

TheMeInTeam:

I don't often find myself #1 in pop unless I expand and conquer my neighbors like crazy. I don't like doing that because I don't like micromanaging cities and units. I just like building up my Big 3 and having nice shiny core cities.

Yeah, I'm an unrepentant builder type.

I can usually swing the UN vote if I can pull up the pop of all my vassals through tech gifts, but I prefer Culture. I don't need to control countless cities for that, and I can usually get my hands on every fish and crab and rice I can use in my own continent. That, and I get prettier cities when I focus on the Culture win.

Intercontinental warfare is no fun for me. I only do that if I have Paras, because the wars go much faster then. Unhappy, unhealthy, culture-deprived cities depress me. I don't like owning stuff like that, especially when it's costing me an arm and a leg in maintenance.

Yes, I like and play Sim City, too.

 

[hal08]

My closest cultural win was Nappy and Toku DoWing me when I was about 50 turns from winning. I spammed mass longbows, fending off their knights and grens--good thing neither really assembled a massive stack with siege.