Cultural Victory: 20K vs. 100K

[Captain_Jack]

I have achieved a few 20K victories, but I have never even come close to a 100K victory. It seems to me that the 100K would be harder in so many ways requiring more warfare, empire management, and expansion. I know there is more to it than just creating five 20K cities, but that is almost what it looks like from the outside. Any thoughts?

 

[tjs282]

It seems to me that the 100K would be harder in so many ways requiring more warfare, empire management, and expansion.

Going for 100K requires a much more brute-force approach, yes: but I would suggest that's not harder than 20K, it's just more tedious (and may/will also take longer in total hours played).

In terms of manipulating game-mechanics, and managing your research and builds, so you can beat the AI to all the most beneficial/ highest-Culture GWonders — especially as you move up the difficulty levels — (I would imagine that) 20K is probably 'harder' to win than a Civ-wide 100K.

I know there is more to it than just creating five 20K cities, but that is almost what it looks like from the outside.

The classic (CFC-endorsed!) recipe for a relatively fast 100K win doesn't require 5*20K towns (you'd win a one-city victory if you did this!), it requires dozens of (small) towns.

Spoiler Combine all ingredients in order, and simmer until done... :

— Choose a 60% Continents (or Archi) map (max. land, but still limits inter-AI contact early on, allowing tech-brokering between landmasses), 5 BYO (more heterogenous terrain), Wet (more vegetation), Cool-Temperate (more Forest [and Tundra], less Jungle and Desert)
— Choose a Religious Civ (Babs are a great choice, because almost all their Culture is cheap)
— Beeline to Republic, revolt and use that income and productivity to build/support a large military in the early stages, and later a substantial cash-reserve, as you expand aggressively (aim to own approximately 50-60% of the total land area, so you can't trigger a Domination-win)
— ICS and fully-irrigate captured territory (you'll need lots of Settlers/ Workers to do this: so in the initial stages you'll need a couple of pump-towns: later you can start rushing/ chopping/ whipping them out of captured AI towns)
— Acquire Temple of Artemis on your main landmass, preferably by capturing it (but don't learn Edu if you can avoid it: raze the GLib-town!); Pyramids is very nice to own too!
— Switch to Feudalism after your expansion is mostly done
— Forest-chop/ unit-disband/ whip (Temples,) Cathedrals, Colosseums and Libs in all those food-rich towns (1 whipped citizen = 20 shields, and also 20 turns of 1 citizen being unhappy at your oppression — which is why you ideally do the [Religious] happy-buildings first!)
— If Edu is learned 'accidentally' (e.g. because you captured but didn't/couldn't raze the GLib-town for some reason), whipping Unis (+4 Culture per town per turn) as well will help speed up your finish — but you may/will also need to replace all the ToA-provided FreeTemples
— In fully-Cultured (food-rich) towns, join Workers, build Wealth, and convert excess citz to Taxmen to pay the building maintenance-costs

Using roughly this method, we won an Emp-SG with Spain on a Large 60%(?) Archi-map

Once you have ~100 (ICS'd) towns (i.e Pop1-6) all putting out (2 + 3 + 2 + 3 =) 10 Culture per turn, 100K will be achieved ~100 turns later (on a Standard-size Map). To achieve the same result on larger (smaller) maps, you would need to capture proportionally more (less) total territory.

Micromanagement of Workers and chops/whips for maximum efficiency (minimal shield-wastage) is where all the tedium comes in.

 

[CKS]

The classic (CFC-endorsed!) recipe for a relatively fast 100K win doesn't require 5*20K towns (you'd win a one-city victory if you did this!)

You can actually win a 100k victory with 5 towns, each with 20k, if you are good at micromanaging. (See Bamspeedy here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/100k-with-a-5cc.56401/ and Bartleby here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/march-april-gauntlet.357153/page-2#post-9095821 ) I like the idea of doing it, but I'm probably to lazy to ever try.

In any case, 100k isn't hard, just tedious. Mostly follow tjs282's advice. On lower levels (say, regent and below), I would use pangaea so as to get the most out of the temple of Artemis and the pyramids. Also on low levels, don't wait for the AI to build ToA and pyramids for you, as it will take forever. Build them yourself, using an SGL if possible.

Do the buildings in this order: temple (freebie), library, cathedral, colosseum. The reason for doing library before cathedral is that the cathedral costs more maintenance, and you'll run out of cash later in the game. (If you are Babylon, then the library is cheaper, too.) If happiness is an issue, then do the cathedral first, though. Try not to learn theology (obsoletes the Oracle, which is a nice wonder to acquire) and definitely don't learn education. Learning gunpowder gives you a 60-shield unit for intermediate pop-rushing, so it is useful. Taking the Sistine Chapel and/or Bach's Cathedral can be great if the AI can build them for you, and the Sistine Chapel is worth building yourself if you end up learning theology.

 

[jarred!]

It's more difficult in so far as you have to manage tens of cities in a 100k game as opposed to potentially only a handful in a 20k attempt. Of course you can win a 100k game by building multiple 20k cities, but this would be way more work-intensive than the outline tjs282/CKS posted.

(I think our game was 30% landmass so we had quite a bit less total land than a big Pangaea would have)

Using F1 is an easy way to keep track of what towns need buildings rushed: just sort by build and rush in towns that have reached the 'correct' number of turns left in their build, ie multiples of 20 so you don't waste shields in the rush.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've achieved the 100K victory several times, but have yet to pull off the 20K victory in even one city. The challenge I have yet to surpass is winning the wonder race multiple times, *in the same city*. Using a palace prebuild, I can win a wonder race for a specific individual wonder but I find it harder to do it consistently / repetitively.

It is much easier to choose a Religious civ, build a dozen small towns (especially coastal), conquer another dozen AI towns, and cash-rush temples in all of them. Keep conquering, keep building roads and irrigation, pump out settlers to fill in the gaps that the AI leaves, and keep rush-building.

Flip that equation around -- it is not 5 cities with 20K culture each, but 20 cities with 5K culture each. Or 50 cities with a range of culture accumulation, some 2K, some 1K, some 500, some 100 (for the newest).