...cultural victory/strategies...

[soujourner]

Not enough is being discussed about this topic for my own satisfaction.

I tried to do the cultural victory thing during my first two games as the French. Got nowhere fast but ran off the board.

Since then I have adopted a more traditional expansionist war mode to achieve victory. I have been successful three of four times. All games I have played as the Americans.

How can techniques involving a cultural strategy be integrated with war expansionism to achieve victory?

 

[Spoonwood]

Empire-wide cultural or single city cultural?

 

[soujourner]

Empire-wide cultural or single city cultural?

I have tried to empire wide and it looks impossible to me, with the current game that I am playing I am seeking techniques to do a single city.

 

[TheOverseer714]

There are more than one guide to a single city 20K victory. To do a single city 100K, I'd say is impossible. A 5CC where each town hits 20K the same turn is remotely possible, if you are among the ultimate players. Even a tiny world(where its 60K, I think) and you build every cultural building possible is very doubtful, even at Cheiftan level.

 

[Spoonwood]

What level do you play at Sojourner? Can you post a save? What tribe do you want to play with? I can say a lot and might post some thoughts on such in a little bit. I think T-Hawk has the best article on this... although I think I disagree with him on some points. http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/singlecity20k.php

 

[Tone]

I agree that T-hawk's is a good guide to help get a 20K win. I also have some points that I disagree with though. In particular to get a really good date you need multiple SGLs (assuming that you are playing C3C) and so scientific is the top trait IMO.

@TheOverseer714: Yes, a single city 100K is impossible as you'd get to 20K first! I suspect that you were talking about if you ignore the 20K limit and play on in which case I also doubt if it were possible. It might be closer than you think though. Limited city 100K victories and dual culture simultaneous 20K/100k) victories are possible as I've done a few myself. I got interested in these through a post that Bartleby made. Bamspeedy posted a thread ages ago on this. Timing is the key as it can be all too easy to have a runaway capital and trigger a 20K victory with one city before the others are there. Bamspeedy showed that you can sell off culture improvements to help with this but I remember playing a small warlord 80K 4CC where all four cities got to 20K in 1906AD without me having to sell any improvements. I was pleased with that!

If you do want to try a 100K game at some point soujourner, then you may want to look at this thread. The current HOF gauntlet is a 100K game and some of the players have produced some useful write ups. 100K might suit your warring style, as the optimal strategy is to get close to the domination limit asap, packing in as many cities as you can on the way, and then whip them silly to get those culture buildings up.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

If you want to add war to a cultural game, I'd do one of two things:

1) Try for a 100K game at a mid-level. Expand until you run out of room, whack a few AI, then build cultural buildings.
2) Try a 20K game at a level lower than you are comfortable with. Find a good 20K site (food bonuses, rivers, shields), build warriors/scouts/settler/couple of workers and then culture. Get your 20K city up to size 12 then expand.

That makes for a very tough game, as you are behind the AI in expansion and have your best city not building units if you try it on a map with a lot of AI, you;ll run out of space and have to attack, which is fun, cause you get Heroic Epic fast

 

[soujourner]

I think that I might be misinterpreting something. When I say single city, I am speaking of causing a single key city to topple and convert to my empire. Usually, I play with the Americas, an ego thing I guess.

 

[Spoonwood]

Cultural flips? That partially depends on luck. When you move up levels it gets harder and harder until you basically can't do it. I doubt that trying to get cultural flips really has all that many uses for experienced players. If you play on a level low enough to get the city by a cultural flip, why not take the city by force instead since that's usually faster? If you play on a level where you won't get a cultural flip or the probabilities come out as too low to bother to try, why bother worrying about a cultural flip? I generally don't try to take cities by force, but I don't expect on cultural flips... it's usually not worth it to play the odds and wait for a flip.

 

[soujourner]

In real life, I prefer diplomatic solutions as opposed to military ones. When playing this game, I try to model my strategy accordingly.

 

[rysingsun]

the only way i know to make culture flipping a viable strategy is when you play by house rules that require no offensive military action and then you force yourself to build insane amounts of culture and try to get a domination victory through flips. to make it work you will have to play on a level probably at least two levels below what you normally play on. i did it once and i'll admit it was fun watching enemy cities flip to me for a change