Beating Deity: A Peaceful Cultural Victory

[Silverfuturist]

I used the "luckystart.Civ5Save" file to try it out, and later in the game I discovered... Singapore had 2 extra cities, Rome and Neapolis! I have only seen a CS capture and then raze a city. It looks like it couldn't raze a capital, and then when it took Neapolis that didn't get razed either - interesting!

 

[Camikaze]

Thanks for the article! I found it most useful, using it as a guide to win my first King and Emperor wins consecutively (as Genghis (what a waste of unique abilities/units) and Napoleon respectively), although I went for two cities in both. I managed to get the Oracle both times; is this simply not nearly as possible on Immortal or Deity? And I got the Sydney Opera House both times with only one or two policies remaining (RA beeline after Telegraph and Radio). Is the fact that I got this indicative of being too slow wrt culture (I ended up winning both games about turn 320)?

Also, in the Napoleon game, I had a bit of a hiccup with my neighbour, Julius, declaring war on me having been Friendly the whole game, without any warning. I managed to see the attack off by upgrading my warrior to swordsman and rush buying a knight (extra benefit of the Chivalry slingshot, I guess). He was underdeveloped, so it was easy enough and I got gold and resources out of the peace. But it strikes me that there was nothing I could've done to prevent this attack, and the only reason I saw it off was that Julius was still with warriors, spearmen and an archer. Is there a more foolproof method of preventing such greed attacks that I'm missing?

 

[vexing]

Also, in the Napoleon game, I had a bit of a hiccup with my neighbour, Julius, declaring war on me having been Friendly the whole game, without any warning.

diplomacy is murky at best, i'd guess you built wonders he coveted and your second city ended up in an area he wanted. did you hover over his name to see his grudges?
if you don't expand and don't end up next to a warmonger like genghis or alexander or montezuma you can usually have a peaceful game.

for a culture victory everything will go quicker with one city, and quicker still with one city + puppets.

 

[Camikaze]

diplomacy is murky at best, i'd guess you built wonders he coveted and your second city ended up in an area he wanted. did you hover over his name to see his grudges?
if you don't expand and don't end up next to a warmonger like genghis or alexander or montezuma you can usually have a peaceful game.

Our borders were adjacent, so I'd been checking to see if there was any red text, but there wasn't. I may just have not checked often enough and missed what it was, though. Adjacent borders would suggest he coveted my land, I guess.

for a culture victory everything will go quicker with one city, and quicker still with one city + puppets.

Is this so? Shouldn't a good second city be able to pay itself off? SP costs are 33% higher, but if you can increase your cultural output by more than 33%, the city should be a net positive, shouldn't it?

 

[vexing]

Is this so? Shouldn't a good second city be able to pay itself off? SP costs are 33% higher, but if you can increase your cultural output by more than 33%, the city should be a net positive, shouldn't it?

you generally won't be increasing your total culture output by 33%, you can only build one stonehenge and one hermitage, and a good portion of your total culture can be gained from city states/puppets.

if you're going for the quickest culture win the easiest way by far is one city with a massive puppet empire. you get enough gold to buy all cultural city states, buy RAs, rush buy all normal buildings so your capital can build nothing but wonders.

 

[maltz]

Thanks so much for this guide. I am now trying my first Culture game, too.

The first 30 - 40 turns are all about netting Stonehenge (SH). ...you'll finish it around turn 32. But if you're on track to finish it by turn 40, you have a good shot at it.

In my game as Egypt, I could complete it at Turn 36. I too was confident, until I saw Iroquois completing Stonehenge at Turn 30.
I guess he got lucky in ruin techs. (I got nothing related to the Stonehenge from ruins.)

 

[ChuckVader]

I just won a OCC cultural victory on Immortal using this guide. I actually failed to get the Louvre in time, but then was able to use two GEs to build Cristo Rendentor in one turn. By running artist specialists I was eventually able to build 3 landmarks.

I'd say the weakest part of this strategy is that you can't always count on RAs to give you the techs you need in time. Especially when you're targeting electronics - telegraph - radio, there are 4 or 5 other techs an RA could select. Tech blocking helps but isn't reliable - at least twice I reloaded the game to get the right tech so I wouldn't fall behind.

I agree with posts about getting a GS and getting the two free techs from the Rationalism branch - anything that gives you the ability to select a tech makes this strategy much more doable.

 

[vexing]

Tech blocking helps but isn't reliable - at least twice I reloaded the game to get the right tech so I wouldn't fall behind.

blocking always works, you just have to time everything so you have enough turns to block.

my policy order for occ culture is now this:
tradition, aristocracy, beeline to medieval, left side of patronage, beeline renaissance, freedom to free speech, get the patronage science boost if you haven't, then rationalism. going down the right side will net you more beakers from the +15%, but depending on how many policies you've already gotten and your tech rate you might want to go directly to the two free policies, if you'll be able to open telegraph up.

 

[Rahsun]

Got on a occ deity win using this on turn 272 (early 1800s), took a couple tries though before I got the right start to pull this off. Arabia I felt was the best for this. I had enough of an economy going from the double luxuries that I was able to buy half the buildings I needed along with keeping up with RAs.

A kind of dirty tactic that I found to add power to this strat, if you trade your resources for 269 gold and 1 gold per turn, and then a barbarian trashes your improvement, after you kill the barbarian and repair that improvement you can immediately retrade the resource with the same leader as before. I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to do this until 30 turns were up if I asked for 300 gold up front for the trade. You lose out on the 1 gold per turn obviously as long as the resource is untradeable, but as soon as it's repaired you get an extra 269 gold from it, somtimes less than 10 turns later. Since I had barbarian problems I bought a 2nd worker and turned this problem to my advantage repeating this process. Later on the AI handles these barb camps well enough, but it's good for getting an early boost on economy before the bazaar can be built.

I have a question on diplomacy though. How do you keep cool with aggressive AIs when you spawn close? When I first tried this I got pretty far peacefully by offering my luxeries for 200 and 250 gold instead of 300. This was before I realized they were worth 300.. I got through that whole game without getting attacked by anyone even with me starting in between Alexander and Montezuma. Then when Japan ended up at war with me due to a defensive pact he made peace with me quickly and for relatively cheap. Was this a coincidence or does giving the AI good deals make them soft on you? I lost that game though from getting the Cristo Redentor too slow.

 

[ChuckVader]

A kind of dirty tactic that I found to add power to this strat, if you trade your resources for 269 gold and 1 gold per turn, and then a barbarian trashes your improvement, after you kill the barbarian and repair that improvement you can immediately retrade the resource with the same leader as before.

I guess you could use your own military units to pillage the improvements instead of waiting for barbarians to do it. That's pretty gamey, though.

 

[ChuckVader]

blocking always works, you just have to time everything so you have enough turns to block.

Does this mean timing when you take RAs? I would just take an RA whenever possible, normally leaving at least 1 turn between them.

 

[vexing]

Does this mean timing when you take RAs? I would just take an RA whenever possible, normally leaving at least 1 turn between them.

personally i just keep a note of when RAs are going to fire as i sign them,
always have one or two research paths "open" and most blocked, and make sure i am not finishing a tech before the RA fires. it keeps things pretty easy.

i prefer to have a bunch of RAs clumped together, and open paths that go deep... for example education and compass complete means 3 ras can fire and open up astronomy, navigation, and archaelogy, or physics and steel complete can have 5 ras open up gunpowder, chemistry, metullurgy, fertilizer, rifling.

 

[Rahsun]

I guess you could use your own military units to pillage the improvements instead of waiting for barbarians to do it. That's pretty gamey, though.

That would cost a little extra since I usually have my first warrior scouting for the entire game. Might be worth the investment in something like a scout though and keep the warrior at home, but it's definitly an exploit. I figured since we're already exploiting with RAs..

 

[Horserush]

Just a quick question on this, in your opening you state that popping pottery from a hut is ideal. However you aren't building a scout, or any units. How do you intend to find that hut? Or how do you intend to find any CS's without any units?

 

[snarzberry]

Just a quick question on this, in your opening you state that popping pottery from a hut is ideal. However you aren't building a scout, or any units. How do you intend to find that hut? Or how do you intend to find any CS's without any units?

You explore with your initial warrior. Getting pottery from a ruin is really good, but getting calendar gifted to you on the turn you finish pottery is even better! Of course that all just comes down to luck. In many games you don't need to get help from ruins to build SH, in other games no matter how much help you get you won't win the race.

 

[MarauderFH]

If you started into Piety and then switch to rationalism, does progress in piety count toward the utopia project? Do you lose everything in Piety?

 

[snarzberry]

If you started into Piety and then switch to rationalism, does progress in piety count toward the utopia project? Do you lose everything in Piety?

Well thanks to someones suggestion about this idea, this is the way I think is the best way to do social policies. When you take the first Rationalism policy you will enter into anarchy for one turn, then on the next turn you can just open Piety up again and take another turn of anarchy. If you do this for all of the Rationalism policies, which is so worth it because of the two free techs you get from SRev, you are only without the benefits of Piety for 12 turns. The main thing you're losing out on is the extra culture from Mandate of Heaven, but this is amply made up for by getting Cristo Redentor and the broadcast tower built significantly earlier.

It's fine to complete Piety and Rationalism as two of your SP branches, they don't cancel each other out or anything.

 

[MarauderFH]

That makes perfect sense, thanks for the description.

 

[vexing]

you are only without the benefits of Piety for 12 turns.

losing 12 turns of gold and production is pretty rough, i expect the extra gold and turns of production more than make up for the culture from happiness.

avoiding piety until after rationalism works well for me.

 

[Rahsun]

losing 12 turns of gold and production is pretty rough, i expect the extra gold and turns of production more than make up for the culture from happiness.

avoiding piety until after rationalism works well for me.

This would be my thoughts too but I'm usually on the brink of unhappiness with this strategy by selling all my luxeries. Peity gives that 2 happiness buffer. Also factoring in that you get gold and production from the golden ages being more frequent with peity, the decision gets a little harder. I'd still probably agree with you though on avoiding switching back and forth as much as you can. The mandate of heaven I feel like doesn't have much effect until I start buying city states and get happiness from their luxeries. That's a while after my last techs are researched.

Has anyone been able to rush Sydney opera house? I got there relatively fast with research agreements after the CR but someone had already built it I guess. It didn't give me the option to make it, only UN. It would be useful though for shaving off some turns. Oracle too but that's tougher to squeeze in.