I continue to be mystified by the purpose behind Cultural Victory. *Three* cities with 50000 culture? It's so hard to achieve, it seems totally impractical.
To make a long story short and not bore you with details, I'm Rome, it's Noble level, and it's about 1880 AD. I have three cities with high enough culture output that I could *probably* eke out a cultural victory sometime around 1970. But to get to that point, I had to expand my empire (mostly by warmongering) so that my gold and science income could support a 40% science/60% culture split at a point where I'm about 8-10 techs ahead of the other opponents (and thus can afford to slip a little). But now that I'm at this point, it'd actually be easier to simply go for the conquest victory, or even to stop worrying about culture in the three main cities, go back to a 90%science/10% gold split, and go for the space race victory...
Has anyone ever gotten a cultural victory that went in that direction because it was the easiest path to winning? Because in my limited experience, there's almost no chance you can pull it off unless you dominate every aspect of the game, from technology (to be the 1st to grab religions) to production (to grab the wonders) to military (to have cities that can generate extra commerce and military might so your 3 cities can concentrate on culture). And if you're dominating the game to that degree, when is it not just easier to stick a fork in your opponents and call them done?
Enlighten me. Please.
To make a long story short and not bore you with details, I'm Rome, it's Noble level, and it's about 1880 AD. I have three cities with high enough culture output that I could *probably* eke out a cultural victory sometime around 1970. But to get to that point, I had to expand my empire (mostly by warmongering) so that my gold and science income could support a 40% science/60% culture split at a point where I'm about 8-10 techs ahead of the other opponents (and thus can afford to slip a little). But now that I'm at this point, it'd actually be easier to simply go for the conquest victory, or even to stop worrying about culture in the three main cities, go back to a 90%science/10% gold split, and go for the space race victory...
Has anyone ever gotten a cultural victory that went in that direction because it was the easiest path to winning? Because in my limited experience, there's almost no chance you can pull it off unless you dominate every aspect of the game, from technology (to be the 1st to grab religions) to production (to grab the wonders) to military (to have cities that can generate extra commerce and military might so your 3 cities can concentrate on culture). And if you're dominating the game to that degree, when is it not just easier to stick a fork in your opponents and call them done?
Enlighten me. Please.