Cultural Victory should definitely be refined; let's discuss some suggestions

[Taefin]

I just got up from Viceroy to Sovereign and suddenly, cultural victory is not as cheesy. I was totally focused on it, but AIs were able to unearth a lot of artifact before I got to the sites with their army of explorers. I managed to gather enough artifacts, but it was not so early and I actually managed to win economical victory before building World Fair.

I suspect higher difficulty levels are even more punishing, so any changes to cultural victory should not be just "let's make it longer". Something more nuanced is needed.

I only won culture on lower difficulties. Once I started playing on deity, I gave culture an honest go once (previously just built a few explorers to mess with AI) the same game as I was aiming for (and achieved) my first economic victory. I had 13 artifacts before all spots were excavated, missing a few by 1-2 turns, and I declined an artifact in an event after feeling like I wasn’t likely to get anywhere near 15. Game ended on turn ~55.

 

[Morgawr]

Haven’t read the full thread yet but 100% agree CV NEEDS URGENT ATTENTION; pasting my thoughts from another thread:

Just finished my first Civ 7 deity game by T57, CV. Assuming you have a good base from the Exploration age, it's way too easy to laser focus on buying explorers from turn 1 and hoarde 15 artifacts (I had 25+ by the end, and 16 explorers 4 per continent). The designers must make artifacts more scarce otherwise this assymetry makes other victories (and 70% of modern age) irreleavant.

(Exact same problem with missionaries and RV in Civ 6. Typically won RV during industrial - in my 1000s hours of Civ 6 play I rarely entered modern era lol)

History repeats itself - devs always make the cultural/religious path easiest and soonest, but the balance is WAY off this time. Like 10-20 turns sooner vs other victories would be OK but it just comes TOO QUICKLY atm

 

[sixty4half]

You should only get 1 continents worth of artifacts each time you study, not the entire worlds. Doesn't mean you need a Museum on each continent, but maybe that should increase/decrease the study time depending on how far away you are.

 

[theadder]

You should only get 1 continents worth of artifacts each time you study, not the entire worlds. Doesn't mean you need a Museum on each continent, but maybe that should increase/decrease the study time depending on how far away you are.

How does the studying work now? I find this entire mechanic mystifying.

 

[Morgawr]

As soon as one civ sends an explorer to a museum/library on a continent, ALL civs immediately know all artifact locations on that continent. This usually happens simultaneously for all 4 continents so everything is unlocked very early in the first 10-20 turns. Then the game turns into the Amazing Race, everyone rushing to all those locations with as many explorers as they can afford

 

[tman2000]

The explorer is thematically appropriate but the rat race as a cultural victory isn't. Thinking on my ideas yesterday, I have a better idea of how the progress will work.

Think of like an escape room or a puzzle, thematically the tomb traps that Indiana Jones would have to solve, the clues on a Stele leading to a map. The rivers which shifted over time and a namesake church that means "Place where the old rivers used to meet".

Rather than have an actual puzzle, just create obstacles for explorers that are narrative and thematically representative of them solving clues to get to the artifact. I'll show some steps here:

1. Obtain maps of exploration age civilizations, including their borders and where famous battles were fought (or cities were razed). This is a civic you have to unlock.
2. As a map layer, go to the zones which might contain relics from a battle. Dig around until you find a clue.
3. Clues point you to a city, giving you a list of leads. Go to a bank to pay money. An amphitheater to pay culture. City hall influence. Do 2/5 of any such payment in that city to randomly get enough leads.
4. A site is highlighted on the map. Based on which civics you have researched, a narrative event happens when you "open the tomb" (etc.)
5. Complete the narrative event, collect the artifact. Below is a list of these narrative events to show how they interface with gameplay. Researching up the civic tree gives access to options that fit your abilities better, and high up the civic tree you get a more involved/dramatic version of the minigame for antiquity relics. What I'll list below is for antiquity, the exploration age relics will be a bit less involved.
6. High high up the civics tree is a way to slot factory resources into a department store, then pay gold to run a radio ad campaign, which represents advertisers funding media. This will spawn special modern age artifacts like pop art or record albums. This is meant to pick up the 14th and 15th artifacts if you are just shy.
7. One leader will have the ability to do an archeological exchange diplomatic action, which lets you visit foreign universities to find sites directly.
8. You may always use your own universities to find sites within your own territory, including if you capture new settlements. This skips steps 1-4, and modifies step 5.

Narrative events once you "open the tomb"

• Stir up local patriots - partisan units spawn and your explorer can now be apprehended and expelled by that civ, so hopefully the partisans keep the civ's units busy before they can capture your explorer. This only works if the home civ has very few military units around OR if you're at war and can fend off their military units to protect your explorer. That civ can also use any unit to capture the artifact after you "open the tomb" while your explorer still has a dig countdown.
• Cultural exchange with peasants - Spend culture in a set of rural improvements nearby, and at the last one you'll be given the artifact.
• Cargo cult - Choose a factory working a resource and stop its yields for 10 turns.
• "It's a key" - Forfeit one artifact from that same ancient civ for a dice roll to get 0-2 new artifacts. If it's 0-1 artifacts, you at least get +1000 culture.
• Restore heritage, honor the gods - Decline to take the artifact, in exchange for a randomized boost at some point within 15 turns (things like +20 combat boost three attacks in a row, or receiving 1000 gold).

 

[pjotroos]

It feels like they had half a system in place, honestly, with the explorers running research in the universities and museums.

The key issue is that the artifacts are a limited, global resource, and that the process of discovering them is not linked to culture. The way I'd change it is - you need a museum to run the research. Once the museum is in place, you unlock a project to look for artifacts. The project costs culture, instead of production, and the cost scales, same as with settlers. If a city is using its culture that way, it's not contributing it to your totals used for civics. Once the research is done, it spawns one artifact somewhere on the map, that's only visible to you (don't mind if it's permanently, or for x turns). You still benefit from having explorers spread over the map - you grab them quicker - but the artifacts themselves are effectively infinite. You can then tune the culture costs so that discovering 15 is about as time-consuming as researching the full tech tree.

ETA: an alternative would be making it so a museum only finds an artifact on its own continent, and costs are separate per continent. That way, exploration age colonies are rewarded, and conquering colonies with museums is viable counterplay to slow things down.

 

[sixty4half]

I have been thinking about this and at first I was in the camp of "this will be fixed when we get the 4th Age" but now I'm thinking; Even if this is not the "real" CV, this Legacy Path is going to rush us thru the Modern Age due to the way it currently works.

So I hope they do make some adjustments that aren't just increasing the number of artifacts needed. It really does need more reliance on the Culture Yield than just "reach Hegemony"

 

[UWHabs]

It feels like they had half a system in place, honestly, with the explorers running research in the universities and museums.

The key issue is that the artifacts are a limited, global resource, and that the process of discovering them is not linked to culture. The way I'd change it is - you need a museum to run the research. Once the museum is in place, you unlock a project to look for artifacts. The project costs culture, instead of production, and the cost scales, same as with settlers. If a city is using its culture that way, it's not contributing it to your totals used for civics. Once the research is done, it spawns one artifact somewhere on the map, that's only visible to you (don't mind if it's permanently, or for x turns). You still benefit from having explorers spread over the map - you grab them quicker - but the artifacts themselves are effectively infinite. You can then tune the culture costs so that discovering 15 is about as time-consuming as researching the full tech tree.

ETA: an alternative would be making it so a museum only finds an artifact on its own continent, and costs are separate per continent. That way, exploration age colonies are rewarded, and conquering colonies with museums is viable counterplay to slow things down.

I feel like if you are doing it that way, you probably don't even need explorers, you may as well just be given the artifact once the research is complete. Or you could run it like the treasure fleets - when you complete the research, you are given an explorer unit somewhere on the map with a relic, and you have to bring it back to the museum to claim it, so at least someone else could intercept it.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

I sweeped on this discussion, and I agree there should be some tweekening of the cultural path. There are a few thing that should be changed:

• The system of unit (that can be bought...) toward either a project system to produce the explorers (easiest way to implement) or a spawn like the treasure fleets (but need overall of the relics windows...);
• Civics (and techs) effects could be added to increase the "create explorer project" effectiveness;
• Culture should still be a rush, with first arrive first served (kind of working at higher difficulties, but AI still need to improve...);
• AI must be taught not to spam explorers, or at least to spread them in case no target is available;
• The "reveal artifact" action should give you a fixed amount of turns of exclusivity of the artefact position;
• The "reveal artifact" action should be tweeked so as to require a previous age wonder or building, and reveal only close (15 tiles?) artefacts (range increased with civics/doctrines). Possibility to perform the action on rural districts with reduced range (ask for "oral traditions");
• As of now, the only way to stop an explorer to go into a tile is to be at war with its owner. We need something more, for example a decree that bans one player's explorer to enter (kind of like counterspy).

 

[stealth_nsk]

I sweeped on this discussion, and I agree there should be some tweekening of the cultural path. There are a few thing that should be changed:

• The system of unit (that can be bought...) toward either a project system to produce the explorers (easiest way to implement) or a spawn like the treasure fleets (but need overall of the relics windows...);

1. It's not only about units, you get some artifacts from other sources like overbuilding
2. I don't see how the system with units is connected with any of the problems with cultural victory.

• Civics (and techs) effects could be added to increase the "create explorer project" effectiveness;

That is expected result of this change, other than complicating the game?

• Culture should still be a rush, with first arrive first served (kind of working at higher difficulties, but AI still need to improve...);

There's a danger of AI become always winning by culture on higher levels, unless you just wipe them all out. I think the ability to rush culture victory is the first thing to be fixed - both for human players on low difficulty and for AIs on high ones.

• AI must be taught not to spam explorers, or at least to spread them in case no target is available;

Explorer spam is actually a solid strategy, allowing AI to get a lot of artifacts. I don't think it needs fixing by itself, only in regards to other mechanics.

• The "reveal artifact" action should give you a fixed amount of turns of exclusivity of the artefact position;

That would make the situation with rushing cultural victory even worse.

• The "reveal artifact" action should be tweeked so as to require a previous age wonder or building, and reveal only close (15 tiles?) artefacts (range increased with civics/doctrines). Possibility to perform the action on rural districts with reduced range (ask for "oral traditions");

I try to imagine UI for this to work, and it's kind of nightmare. I don't see any reason to overcomplicate it that much.

• As of now, the only way to stop an explorer to go into a tile is to be at war with its owner. We need something more, for example a decree that bans one player's explorer to enter (kind of like counterspy).

That would be really exploitable and results may range from victory being even easier (if only human players could exploit it) to unreachable, if AI could block other player explorers.

 

[DarthCycle]

I completely agree that culture victory needs serious attention. All the culture infrastructure you build for two ages in order to realize that it is for nothing. Very disappointed on this.

Lots of good ideas in this thread. I will add that explorer should be build with civic points and infratructure. Its number should be limited. Right now it’s just a race to popup explorer

 

[stealth_nsk]

After thinking a bit, I believe the main problem of cultural victory is that it's a race for exclusive resource. Let's say developers balance around some more or less average difficulty (sovereign) and put enough artifacts to dig even if AI steals significant amount of them. Now, if we play on lower difficulty, human player could get much more artifacts, turning cultural victory to easy walk, on the other hand, going up in difficulty makes cultural victory often unreachable.

The only other legacy path there resource is exclusive is cultural legacy path in antiquity, but wonders are so well spread through civic tree, that it doesn't have that big problems (although it still scales with difficulty in much more dramatic way than other legacy paths).

So, I believe the best solution for cultural victory is to remove or restrict the race component. For example, on each continent there could be artifacts visible for everyone and unlocked once any civ does the research, but there also could be artifacts visible only to specific civ and only when they do the research, so even if you lag behind in exploring, you could still find the necessary amount of artifacts, just slower. (and UI needs a way to differentiateglobal and personal artifacts, so you could prioritize right if you're the first to unlock)


The second and smaller problem is that cultural victory is not very tied to culture. To fix it, more unlocks need to be spread throughout civic tree. Maybe initially you could only get exploration artifacts on your home continent (the one with your capital) and with civic tree you could unlock exploration on other continents, antiquity on home, antiquity on all. Something like this.

 

[tman2000]

Explorer spam is actually a solid strategy, allowing AI to get a lot of artifacts. I don't think it needs fixing by itself, only in regards to other mechanics.

Think about how hard it is to get relics. There's no engine to create them. I wonder if at least explorers result from oblique events.

I like the idea in line with the World's Fair, of a globalizing culture. So, when an ancient Egyptian mummy is discovered, it's an international news story.

It would be cool if some player action unlocks these global narrative events that all players then have a chance to respond to. Which thematically makes the World's Fair make more sense as a culmination of a globalized culture that has taken an interest in its past.

 

[Tanel]

I have been thinking about this and at first I was in the camp of "this will be fixed when we get the 4th Age" but now I'm thinking; Even if this is not the "real" CV, this Legacy Path is going to rush us thru the Modern Age due to the way it currently works.

So I hope they do make some adjustments that aren't just increasing the number of artifacts needed. It really does need more reliance on the Culture Yield than just "reach Hegemony"

Yeah if they add a 4th age this will still feel bad like the Exploration Culture path does currently so those 2 both require fixing either way.

 

[CoconutTank]

I like the idea of restricting Explorers to being available from specific civics instead of being buildable at all. They're effectively invulnerable from my understanding so it's not like they need to be replaced. Natural History would grant 1 forever Explorer and Hegemony would grant 2 forever Explorers, as an example.

I kind of want civics to matter a little more though. To this end, there should be less artifacts immediately on the map, but narrative events generated from researching civ-specific civics and ideology civics would reveal artifact spots. Or maybe only Democracy civics would reveal artifact spots this way, to give it a stronger emphasis on cultural victory relative to the to the other ideologies. Artifacts revealed this way would still show up for everyone, but the current player basically gets first pick at these revealed artifacts anyway.

Maybe there could also be a social policy that specifically grants a Hired Explorer that starts at one's capital (which would be useful if Explorer count is going to be greatly restricted).

 

[Electric_Toxic]

I have some ideas.

1. Instead of a global reveal, how about revealing artifacts bases on civic progression and on a per-player basis, so your cultural yield actually means something.
2. Like many people have suggested, increasing the cost of spawning and usage of explorers will be a great idea. There are so many ways to do it.
3. Wonders should have an impact on cultural victory. For example, cities with more wonders should have a production boost in world fair.

 

[Melkus]

The artifact race should be refined, but almost nobody addresses the elephant (or the pergamon altar?) in the room: Why do we define modern culture by this silly treasure hunt ( that's not even winnable if players are at all competitive) and ONE World Fair (it's like winning a military victory by hosting the Olympics...) ?
This is Civilization! It's so weak narratively (not to mention clumsily imperialistic), even if (when) it gets relegated to a legacy later.

At least add a flavorful mechanic to create (or commission) great works fitting the era - paintings, sinfonies, novels, poems - and keep the archaelogy as an alternative path to fill your museums (like Civ6). Maybe add a competitive aspect - great talents are born somewhere in the world - but you could lure them away with infrastructure or money. It would fit the slightly more serious vibe of Civ7 so well. And poor Frederick may even get an ability that deserves the byname "Baroque".

 

[stealth_nsk]

The artifact race should be refined, but almost nobody addresses the elephant (or the pergamon altar?) in the room: Why do we define modern culture by this silly treasure hunt ( that's not even winnable if players are at all competitive) and ONE World Fair (it's like winning a military victory by hosting the Olympics...) ?
This is Civilization! It's so weak narratively (not to mention clumsily imperialistic), even if (when) it gets relegated to a legacy later.

One of the things here is that modern age was made with having atomic age added later in expansion, so instead of being the "final" victory, the modern age victories will become some rare things for those who specifically set modern as the last age in settings.

At least add a flavorful mechanic to create (or commission) great works fitting the era - paintings, sinfonies, novels, poems - and keep the archaelogy as an alternative path to fill your museums (like Civ6). Maybe add a competitive aspect - great talents are born somewhere in the world - but you could lure them away with infrastructure or money. It would fit the slightly more serious vibe of Civ7 so well. And poor Frederick may even get an ability that deserves the byname "Baroque".

Complicating the game just to model real-world things is a path in a wrong direction. There are historical simulators from Paradox, no need to go into this hole, Civilization need to stay a strategy game. So unless there are gameplay reason for those changes, I'd not do it.

P.S. However, as I wrote before, there are gameplay reasons to limit the artifact race. So, having great works of art could actually be the solution for the cultural victory issues. If we'll be able to fill museums from both shared resource (artifacts) and resource which each civ generates independently (great works without great person race), this could improve the cultural victory pacing.

 

[Melkus]

Complicating the game just to model real-world things is a path in a wrong direction

100% agree btw, I see it more like: the things that ARE in the game should be somewhat grounded in history.