Brainstorming Thread: Cultural Victory vs Other Victories

[CrazyG]

Hello all,

This is a thread to discuss why cultural victories happen earlier than other victory conditions and what changes could alleviate this condition. Please share your thoughts!

 

[CrazyG]

A feature that throws the balance here I want to highlight is: The quest to coup a city state.

This is causing massive increases in the number of great people born throughout a game, making them born earlier, generating a lot of historic events and culture. It also indirectly boosts culture by allowing you to work culture specialists forever (even if you never touch a merchant specialist, you can have 6 or 7 in a game). There is already a proposal to nerf this by 75%, and I considering a counter proposal to nerf it more (I would change the reward to something other than great people points)

 

[Stalker0]

So a big part of the CV swinginess is your enemy players, moreso than any other VC.

In my games I've noticed, if I have a high culture enemy, CV doesn't always feel too quick, it takes a lot of effort to overcome them. But get a world of science civs, and a CV can be lightning quick.

That is always going to be a problem with CV the way its designed, because it depends on your enemies as much as your own efforts, there will always be games where a CV is just stupidly fast.

 

[Stalker0]

Btw, anticipating this very discussion I made a thread a little bit ago that lists out all of the tourism in the game.

Adjusting CV Part 1: Sources of Tourism

There has been discussion around changing CV to make it difficult, as community assessment (now backed by raw AI data) does suggest CV wins are the predominant victory. Also just to highlight it a bit more, I'll leave a little screenshot of my current game (that is Korea on turn 263 on a...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[CrazyG]

In my games I've noticed, if I have a high culture enemy, CV doesn't always feel too quick, it takes a lot of effort to overcome them. But get a world of science civs, and a CV can be lightning quick.

So you have to meet two goals:
1. Tourism is influential over everyone
2. You have 2 tier 3 ideological tenets, meaning you have 27 total social policies.

Which do players typically reach first? I'll note that the 2nd goal can be reached a lot earlier than all techs, (or even the tech to unlock the UN), can be reached in my experience.

 

[pineappledan]

One thing I found interesting is that @L. Vern also ran test games using 4UC. In comparison to those games, the share of CVs came out slightly lower compared to the regular VP games, but the timing of CVs relative to the other victory types moved back substantially. Even though all civs were stronger with more components the victory times actually slowed down slightly. The most likely culprit is that is the most common yield given by unique components. This makes sense, because culture is the defense that tourism has to work against. Therefore, if we can't to reduce the number of CVs in a game, adding more to the game might be an easy place to start.

 

[Stalker0]

So you have to meet two goals:
1. Tourism is influential over everyone
2. You have 2 tier 3 ideological tenets, meaning you have 27 total social policies.

Which do players typically reach first? I'll note that the 2nd goal can be reached a lot earlier than all techs, (or even the tech to unlock the UN), can be reached in my experience.

In a "typical" CV, I hit number 2 first. In my "super speedy CV" games, number 1.

 

[youngsteve]

The problem is to gain science victory you have to research virtually every tech, to gain Diplomacy, pass UN & win vote, taking awhile, domination, obtain all capitals except vassals, & then you have CV. I always start going for another victory, but eventually the game drags on & go for the easy Culture one. For AI it is the same. CV is far to early & easy. Rush towards Reformation beliefs & gain Sacred Sites, whereby all wonders give 4 Tourism & buildings bought with faith 3 tourism, & you can soon gain towards 100 tourism, depending how many cites you have, Gives you a really strong head staart in tourism. Usually the biggest excitement in CV victory is counting down the time to get ideological tenets.

 

[Voremonger]

Perhaps the state of CV could be improved by allowing diplomatic units to be used on major civs? So instead of influence they would be granting tourism with said major civ. As of right now CV is very passive but if becoming influential with another civ were to require the use of units there would need to be an active effort to actually achieve a CV.

 

[Zuizgond]

Should we reduce tourism output more? If you focus on GWAM and go artistry, the tourism output is rapidly out of control. Maybe slightly reduce tourism from GW?

Also I've never really paid attention to how much tourism you get from historic events but as it is based on your culture/tourism output (iirc) I suspect it can snowball very fast.

 

[CppMaster]

So a big part of the CV swinginess is your enemy players, moreso than any other VC.

In my games I've noticed, if I have a high culture enemy, CV doesn't always feel too quick, it takes a lot of effort to overcome them. But get a world of science civs, and a CV can be lightning quick.

That is always going to be a problem with CV the way its designed, because it depends on your enemies as much as your own efforts, there will always be games where a CV is just stupidly fast.

IMHO it's fine that CV is swingy (Domination and Diplomatic are probably swingy too, because depends on other players) as long as the average win time is not too early compared to other victories. It's fine if it's earlier than Science Victory or Time Victory, because those are SimCiy wins if other, enemy defendant wins don't happen earlier.

 

[besset]

What about making it so you need 3/3 tier 3 tenets in your ideology to being able to build the wonder? This is quite a quick fix, wouldn't fix the CV problem completely but it would probably add 10-20 turns on average longer time to get a CV, bringing it more in line with SV

 

[Stalker0]

What about making it so you need 3/3 tier 3 tenets in your ideology to being able to build the wonder? This is quite a quick fix, wouldn't fix the CV problem completely but it would probably add 10-20 turns on average longer time to get a CV, bringing it more in line with SV

I can say that filling out my entire ideology nowadays is not all that hard, this could be a way to go.

Another option is a mandatory tech for the wonder, so it’s somewhat science constrained just like DV is

 

[CrazyG]

What about making it so you need 3/3 tier 3 tenets in your ideology to being able to build the wonder? This is quite a quick fix, wouldn't fix the CV problem completely but it would probably add 10-20 turns on average longer time to get a CV, bringing it more in line with SV

I can say that filling out my entire ideology nowadays is not all that hard, this could be a way to go.

Another option is a mandatory tech for the wonder, so it’s somewhat science constrained just like DV is

I feel like a tech requirement, as well as the existing limits on tier 2 tenets, an expansion to needing 3, and the citizen earth protocol, are all bandages to avoid acknowledging that there just too much tourism.

 

[Stalker0]

are all bandages to avoid acknowledging that there just too much tourism.

No, I think unfortunately the problem is more fundamental than that. Because CV is a comparative VC, the strength of its power lies directly with the culture power of your enemies.

If I adjust tourism numbers so that CV is "reasonable" most of the time....you will still have games with low culture civs where you blow them away with a CV much earlier than normal. Likewise you will have games with high CV civs where a CV feels untenable.

That swinginess is the problem because it means your line in the dirt is actually quicksand.

Putting a more "hard coded" requirement like a tech prereq ensures that CV always requires a minimum number of turns, even in situations where your enemy's culture numbers are anemic. Another option would be to require a minimum amount of tourism generated against each civ, regardless of their culture. As an example (the number is not actual just to showcase the concept):

• You must be influential and have at least 100k tourism with each civ.
• 2 tier 3 tenents
• build the wonder.

 

[Legen]

I think it is all about how much culture the AI civs generate. I've noticed that their great works score is always lower than mine, even when I play civs and builds with no bonuses toward great work generation. My impression is that the AI simply doesn't value cultural buildings and specialists enough to set a proper defense against CVs. It is even that you have to manually lock your cultural specialist slots, as the governor will sometimes leave them empty.

Ironically, I suspect that the best way to reduce the frequency of CVs is to buff cultural specialists and buildings (more culture), so that the AI give higher priority to them. Nerfing cultural buildings and specialists may actually leave the AI with even lower cultural defense against a tourism dedicated civ, as they notice how undesirable cultural sources have become and lower their priority.

 

[pineappledan]

Some low points over the fence:
- Lower sources of direct per turn from policies (Artistry's 4 to universities, Cultural Expression's 12 to amphitheater/opera house/broadcast tower/museum)
- Switch the Arena from per to... literally anything else
- Further weaken late game % modifiers. Stuff like the 50% boost vs less happy civs in Order
- Add +1 to Writer and Artist specialists (at 5, musicians are probably fine)

 

[CrazyG]

Some low points over the fence:
- Lower sources of direct per turn from policies (Artistry's 4 to universities, Cultural Expression's 12 to amphitheater/opera house/broadcast tower/museum)
- Switch the Arena from per to... literally anything else
- Further weaken late game % modifiers. Stuff like the 50% boost vs less happy civs in Order
- Add +1 to Writer and Artist specialists (at 5, musicians are probably fine)

1. Strong agree
2. Strong agree, don't think it even needs to be replaced, people love the arena
3. Strong agree
4. Will this help offense or defense more? To legen's point:

I think it is all about how much culture the AI civs generate. I've noticed that their great works score is always lower than mine, even when I play civs and builds with no bonuses toward great work generation. My impression is that the AI simply doesn't value cultural buildings and specialists enough to set a proper defense against CVs. It is even that you have to manually lock your cultural specialist slots, as the governor will sometimes leave them empty.

I very much agree. Based on my what my spies sees, its common for an AI to be working 0 cultural specialists (and 0 scientists) in a 30+ pop tradition capital. An implication of this is that buffing those specialists probably helps humans over AI.

AI behavior is well outside my comfort zone, but I think they consistently undervalue culture (especially relative to growth). The city manager certainly does, even with a culture focus.

 

[CrazyG]

Putting a more "hard coded" requirement like a tech prereq ensures that CV always requires a minimum number of turns, even in situations where your enemy's culture numbers are anemic. Another option would be to require a minimum amount of tourism generated against each civ, regardless of their culture. As an example (the number is not actual just to showcase the concept):

• You must be influential and have at least 100k tourism with each civ.
• 2 tier 3 tenents
• build the wonder.

Just my experience, but the requirements for tenets or building the wonder haven't changed or even come close to changing the outcome of a single game I've ever played. It probably affects some of the AI games though.

Something I'd change is the "+% tourism for boredom in their empire". I think it could be delted, while the flavor is there, this would increase the swings you are talking about substantially.

 

[pineappledan]

- Add +1 to Writer and Artist specialists (at 5, musicians are probably fine)

4. Will this help offense or defense more? To legen's point:

This is part of Legen's point. If you sweeten the deal on the cultural specialists the governor will work them more. Also with the side benefit of more raw defensive culture