BNW: Possible to win cultural without key wonders and high cultured civs?

[Magil]

It's possible sure, but to call generating 10 artists "rather easy"? You won't be filling all of them with themed art until very late game.

Provided you start early, you can get +100% generation fairly easily, and they don't share a counter with any other great people. I guess it depends on what you mean by "very late game," granted my tech pace was fairly slow towards the end when I tried it so it did drag out a bit longer than I would've liked. 5 should be easy to get, 8 not so hard, and 10 is within reach. You might as well only put that you need 1 artist for Lourve since it provides 1 for free. If you manage to land the Parthenon you can swap out its work since it has no theming bonus.

 

[Rub'Rum]

My first game was an attempt at a cultural victory with Brazil... I ended up with a Time Victory, for the first time in my history with Civ. It was a weird game. On King by the way. Usually I have AIs winning tech victories before turn 400 on that difficulty level. I've seen turn 360. And now we made it to 500.

Golden Ages with Brazil are important, but it seems really hard to nurture golden ages with happiness in this games. Most of my golden ages came from policies, wonders or popped Great Artists later. I'd hoped the Pracinha (unique Brazilian infantry) would help with golden ages... This unit's special ability needs a MAJOR boost. It's supposed to give you points towards your next golden age when you kill stuff... I didn't really see much impact.

I think I focused too much on getting artifacts. Is it me or there are basically too many artifacts available? My museums were full of them.

Two civs were almost impossible to overtake in culture. I would have won in hundreds of turns eventually... I had to declare war on one of them. Then I noticed that on the other continent there was always way and nobody doing any progress. They were stalled and time was moving ahead. I was second in points. So basically I conquered my neighbour to get a few more points, then in the last 5 turns nuked the leader's 4 main cities with nukes I had bought before they enacted the nuclear proliferation ban treaty. That took him to 2nd place and put me in 1st just in time for turn 500.

I was doing well in culture... But everybody picked Order and I had picked Freedom. I should probably have switched to Order and made friends, I don't know. It seems they trolled me so hard. I expected at least 2-3 of them to pick Freedom like me since they were going for culture. But nope.

 

[Magil]

I was doing well in culture... But everybody picked Order and I had picked Freedom. I should probably have switched to Order and made friends, I don't know. It seems they trolled me so hard. I expected at least 2-3 of them to pick Freedom like me since they were going for culture. But nope.

Next time try to set your ideology to the world ideology via bribery/diplomats. I did this and revolutionary waves galore.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Next time try to set your ideology to the world ideology via bribery/diplomats. I did this and revolutionary waves galore.

They'll hate you after that. Also, I found that buying delegates to your side is very expensive (meanwhile you get techs stolen from you left and right). They want an arm and a leg for 3 of their 10 delegates... wow. Don't they ever offer more than a palsy 3 delegates?

 

[ahawk]

I won a cultural victory in BNW as Morocco, and I had built or used a GE on:

Uffizi
Louvre
Sistine Chapel

Those 3 are my core cultural wonders, with the Louvre being the most vital.

Even with those, my game as Morocco almost went into Information Era. The only thing that prevented that was winning the International Games, which is possibly the most important thing you can get as far as finishing a cultural victory, as +100% Tourism for 20 turns is almost as important as the Louvre, maybe even more important.

Unless you have a culture-oriented civ (Polynesia and their UI, France and their UI, and so on) I think it's only really possible to win a culture victory without major wonders if you end up being very wide and can simply fill up many Museums quickly via archaeology. I have yet to try that, but that might mitigate not having key wonders.

But yes, without certain wonders (or UI/UAs), I'd say your chances of a cultural victory are incredibly slim.

 

[Hpuk]

Remember that a landmark can produce 14+ tourism after a hotel and an airport, so you don't need to get all your tourism from great works. Also making sure that your highest culture opponent isn't getting any culture from CS.

Agreed about International Games with ahawk, they are more important than any wonder. Especially since Great Musician strength is calculated from the tourism after all the modifiers at the turn they are born, so timing all your faith bought musicians during this time can produce several thousand tourism concerts, probably tens of thousands on Brazil during their golden age.

 

[Magil]

They'll hate you after that. Also, I found that buying delegates to your side is very expensive (meanwhile you get techs stolen from you left and right). They want an arm and a leg for 3 of their 10 delegates... wow. Don't they ever offer more than a palsy 3 delegates?

The hate is temporary, only until the next measure. You're thinking about it the wrong way though, if you don't bribe them they'll probably spend all (or most) of their delegates to vote against the measure. If you bribe them then they're at least not voting against it. It's very hard to be friends with someone with a differing ideology anyway, in my experience, so having them hate you more for the proposal isn't really that bad. In any case try to get the measure approved early, before all the AIs have adopted an ideology, I find the best way to do this is to go through Electricity and use Oxford to grab Radio. Once you have Radio you can build broadcast towers and propose the world ideology.

 

[Buccaneer]

In my current immortal, I'm playing slowly and methodically to try out everything (except warfare apparently). Last night, I played a lot with theming which I did not have a grasp on, I finally got it, including how make better selections from archaeologists and why I should swap. Pretty fun even I still don't know why hermitage theme did not kick in.

Anyway, being at immortal, there are only a few world wonders I could get. But doing ok without them. My tourism is at 36, the leader and slowly rising against some cultural powerhouses. I got a good start in WC and have the most delegats, fwiw.

I'm just about at radio and then refrigeration and based on this thread, I should see some real progress. I don't know where my game will take me - cultural, diplomacy or space - they all seem to be related.

 

[malitano]

How do you guys deal with happiness when you have a tradition capital and no happiness wonder (other than national wonders).

I can only grow and expand 3-4 cities before I reach 0 happiness. Should I let my capital grow and stop growth on my other cities?

Is it even worth settling land that does not contains happiness resources?

 

[Buccaneer]

For me, I primarily settle cities for their luxuries - usually racing a neighbor to claim the sweet spots (mindful to have 2 of the 4 cities on the coast). That mean a couple of early workers if tradition.

 

[Justice1337]

Wonders are not that important, neither for their slots or their culture.

Your leading source of Tourism is from Great Works, and you just need enough slots across all your cities to put them all. Whether it's in the Louvre or Broadway rather than normal Museums and Opera Houses doesn't matter that much because theming bonuses are a small fraction of your overall tourism. Just invest in getting more Works and plan for enough slots overall. Not building these Wonders will cause you to run out of slots only if you only have 2-3 cities. If you have more cities rather than Wonders, you'll be fine.

Your second leading source of Tourism as any civ is probably from Cultural improvements enhanced by Hotels. You get Tourism from Landmarks, any cultural improvement your civ has such as the Moai or the Chateaux, Holy Sites if you filled Piety, and any other time an improvement gives you culture. So Panetheons like God of the Open Sky and Oral Tradition will work as they cause the improvements to add culture, but Goddess of Festivals and Religious Idols will not because it's the resource that's adding Culture rather than the Improvement. It's not intuitive how that works. Anyway on this, just select Landmark whenever you uncover a ruin in your own borders, and plant Landmarks with GP.

What gets you through the home-stretch on Tourism are the tours that the musicians perform in other civs, along with the Ideology bonuses you get to Tourism. You can pick whatever Ideology you want, because they all have pretty powerful perks. So if you haven't gotten to that point yet in the game, don't worry because the options available to all civs are enough to get to victory when focused. Also, remember to get bonuses from Trade Routes, Open Borders and Religious presence, and to focus down with these tours the civs who have the most culture. It would be really lame if there were a VC that all out required you to build a few wonders.

 

[SirPainsalot]

Trust me, Culture Victory depends on expanding and getting key wonders. I found it out the hard way as Poland.

I had a few good wonders, like the Broadway, Statue of Liberty, hell even Sydney Opera House. I got all the theming bonuses, had a diplomat everywhere, open borders, trade routes...

However, my failure came in the fact that I had only two cities. Huge mistake. Also, no Louvre... Which sucked.

I was up to Siam and Carthage influence-wise/
Carthage I manged to overcome, but Siam was somehow fending me off. It said "Rising", but I couldn't overcome it (it only rose by 1 percent per turn, in quick). He was pissed at me for choosing Freedom, so no more open borders which really screwed me. I shared a religion with him, it still wasn't enough.

In the end, Carthage won a Diplomatic Victory on King due the RIDICULOUS amount of influence she had on city states. (seriously had over 500 on one city state, over 400 on multiple)

Because I stuck to only two cities, I ended up losing frustratingly with no way of overcoming it.

 

[Scott Jegg]

I think at Immortal and higher you can forget about getting all culture wonders.

Parthenon is nice, but if it means ploughing 15-20 turns into it instead of developing your empire, its maybe not worth it in the early game. It's just a free piece of art really. Better off taking it by force from whoever else builds it.

Great Library - forget it. The only time it was worth going for in G&K was if it wasn't built by turn 50 and you could manage it in 10 turns or less at that point. Even then, you'd still not get it half of the time.

Writers Guild - Build it in your second city. It doesn't matter how quickly they are produced, you will be swapping them for other AI's works to get theming bonus in Oxford and Globe. GAs and GMs need to be same era for theming bonuses, so get these guilds in teh capital with national epic and garden if possible.

Sistine and Uffizi should be a lock for any culture civ. Gear your game towards hitting Acoustics ASAP.

Globe Theater is the other side of the tech map, so unless you get lucky, the likelihood is someone else getting it.

However, Stonehenge has become a godsend again in BNW now that GWAM points are separate from other GPs. Focus on geting Stonehenge early doors guarantees a religion (almost) and a GE around turn 100-150. Perfect for those desirable touristic wonders. Use Oxford to get Architecture and build Uffizi on the same turn, or save to get Globe Theatre if you can get Printing Press in time. If you built artist's guild at the right time, you will get the first two renaissance GA's from the guild quickly, and add another GA from the aesthetics SP. That's Uffizi bonus sorted. Get the Sistine GAs in the industrial era.

As for the others wonders... same as always. If you get to renaissance and are still struggling to tech and get the wonders you need, you need to rethink your early game strategy to get your capital/science bigger.

Going to war once you've built/bought universites and are waiting on Banking before building Oxford is a good idea, as you should have plenty of turns before Archaeology to get an army together and wipe out someone with good wonders. Once you've teched to banking and are waiting on Oxford being built, you can be filling down to physics/machinery on the way to printing press, giving good military options to take cities. There's nothing sweeter than getting 5-6 wonders from a capital, especially when you've paid off the continent to help.

That's turns 100-150 for me usually

 

[Liufeng]

Could someone guide a poor player for cultural victory, please ?

I just played with the Shoshone and lost. Something was weird : I know I'm far from being the greatest ciV player, but how could China be so ... powerful. To explain : They had half wonders of the game, including some cultural, had a gigantic culture (the same as me, who concentrated on it and had at least 40 great works), a huge and massive army (44000 points on info era), plenty of allied CS, building spaceship parts, all with 22 cities (including all of portuguese and iroquois and some CS). I mean, with so much cities, with most only having 5 or 6 citizens, and the 5% tech penalty, how could they be so far ? And more important, how come they reached industrial era, and 6 turns later reached modern era, while I was still in the renaissance ? First it ever happened !
I was playing on price.

 

[Yzman]

22 cities is a lot. They must have been cranking out science very fast. The penalty doesn't do very much as long as your cities are decently sized and have a few core buildings in them.

I have won 2 cultural victories on King. One as France and one as Shoshone. France was my first and I made a few mistakes that I fixed in the 2nd game. My tips

1. Make your capital a production powerhouse to build all of the key wonders. Stay along the top of the tech tree for the most part to get to these wonders.
2. Build the guilds in a second city that has high food. The reason for the separation is sometimes you need to focus on production and anytime you are focusing on production you are likely not focusing on generating great people. It is possible to do them all in the same city, but it made it harder for me. Build all of the great people generation bonuses in this city. With all bonuses you can get to something like 150% bonus to GWAM production.
3. Always go for theming bonuses. Use all of your GWAM for great works and make sure you have enough space to hold them.
4. Stay friendly with civs with strong culture and ideally spread your religion to them. You want as many multipliers as you can get.
5. Don't take the Parthenon for granted. Its the earliest source of tourism you can get and since the cumulative is what matters, the sooner you get tourism flowing the better. Also make sure to meet everyone as soon as possible. Your tourism only matters to civs that you have met. If you take too long to meet, it is that much longer you have to wait to have your tourism take hold.
6. Any time you find dig sites near your cities, make those landmarks. Outside of your city limits make them artifacts. Using the right social and religious policies those sites can be worth A LOT. Then once you get hotels or airports they significantly help.
7. Use great musicians for concert tours towards the end of the game during times of high tourism ( such as when you won the international games). The tourism they give is 10 times your produced amount per turn, so you want to plant them early, and tour with them late game when you are making a lot.

In both my games I stuck mostly to the top part of the tech tree. I didn't even need to build airports, tourism agency ( forget the actual name) or the internet. After I hit hotels and won the international games it was over. I stayed peaceful as much as possible so I always had the most multipliers I could get. Overall I LOVE this new cultural game compared to the old one. With the old victory I felt like I was fighting against the clock. This new one I am actually competing with the other players.

Hope that helps.

 

[Liufeng]

22 cities is a lot. They must have been cranking out science very fast. The penalty doesn't do very much as long as your cities are decently sized and have a few core buildings in them.

I realize that, but what I mean is that they super strong on everything !
Sometimes, you just have a smaller army to defend yourself, or enough science to keep up with the others, and so on ... you have to sacrifice some points to further develop others. But there ... they massive culture, great works, science, cities, gold, army, ... everything. I can't get it ... Am I that lame of a player ?

 

[Resipsa]

It's not just tech, you have to concentrate on the acquisition of great works - by means fair or foul.

The hotels and airports won't do much for you if your museums and opera houses are empty.

Well yeah, but it's a given that you'll be working specialists and digging artifacts.

 

[Falconiano]

Definitely.

Not even on deity you are required *any* cultural wonder at all, nor a cultural civ.
I won CV with Babylon and no culture wonders.
There are several ways to win cultural, it's not limited to generating culture and tourism.

 

[MadHaxxor]

tourism really picks up in the later game with archaeology, musicians concert tours, purchases of great people with faith, hotels, and the internet. Early tourism really doesn't matter and that's why I think the Parthenon is the worst early wonder

 

[Cyanfunk]

AS it turns out, the Celts are amazing at tourism.

Start a religion with Cathedrals. Add Pagodas for enhancement. Get shrines and temples up ASAP.

Fill out Piety and get the reformation belief that gives +2 tourism to every building bought with faith. Fill out Aesthetics and start setting your auto-buys to either artists or writers. Go very wide very quickly.

Watch the tourism just start pouring out of all of your orifices. Also, the Celtic UB now houses great works of music (did we even know about that change?) in addition to the happiness.