Cultural wins at higher difficulty - possible?

[Deathspawner]

Hi all:

Just a forewarning - I'm a bit of a Civ n00b (Civ V is my first).

Is it possible, without skewing the match settings to deliberately work in my favor, to get a cultural victory at a higher difficulty level (Emperor+)? I have failed three matches so far where I was trying to go for such a win, only to lose all three for the same reason - another Civ managed a successful UN Vote. I play on the Standard setting, and the first match involved 6 Civs while the latter two involved 4.

In the last match, that happened around turn 360, at which point I still had 4 Social Policies to acquire prior to building the Utopia project. For the entire round, I tried to focus on gaining as much Culture as I could (I owned two cities for about the first 150 turns, then three for the rest), though I did screw up a bit by failing to build the Sydney Opera House first.

Still, given I had four policies left to acquire, I'm confused as to how I could have done much better. If I focus even more on generating culture, then I am going to be left prone to being warred against - but again, if I focused on culture anymore, I still have no idea how I could have had a chance at winning.

Is the only way to win such a victory to build culture and attack every possible Civ so that they are too consumed with you that they can't work on their own victories?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[vexing]

absolutely.
there are plenty of threads in the strategy subforum about cultural victories that'll provide guidance, if you don't mind some searching.

 

[wannabewarlord]

There are examples of perfectly peaceful cutlure wins (OCC or not) up to Deity. I myself have managed one with Egypt, although with slightly skewed settings: Archipelago

War is not the answer. If you set your game up for culture from the start and manage a proper build queue and hit crucial wonders first (i.e. Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Christo Redentor; Sydney is NOT needed, but ofc helpful), you are good for it.

If you need advise, look up the various threads as vexing suggested. You could also let us know how you priotirize your builds and what wonders you aim for. Also, SP selection is important.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

My current game is on Emperor and my first serious attempt winning. I'm playing as Germany on Standard/Epic/Continents and going for the culture win. I built the National College first thing and then expanded to four cities w/ the help of Liberty. On my continent there is a run-away Hiawatha that owns half or more of the continent. Nearby city-states owned by Hiawatha keep most all of his expansion out of my territory. To the east is Gandhi.

My biggest issue has been gold as I'm keeping a decent military so Hiawatha doesn't decide I'm that easy of a target. So I've not had enough gold to buy up many city-states, and even so Hiawatha has them allied. My other major issue is the severe technology gap Hiawatha has over me. I have several strong wonders such as Porcelain Tower and Sistine Chapel but I've missed two I really needed (The Oracle, Cristo Redentor), not to mention a few that would have been great (Statue of Liberty & Eiffel Tower). Since I'm still a few techs away from being able to build the Sydney Opera House, I feel I'm not going to be able to pull in the Culture win. Most of my excess gold (from selling Open Borders/excess luxuries & strats) goes to Research Agreements when possible. Even w/ Porcelain Tower I'm still way behind Hiawatha and a couple other Civs.

Since Gandhi is my closest neighbour and at roughly my technological equal, I declared war on him with some help from Hiawatha and I've taken one of his cities. I'll have Combustion researched soon and I hope the combination of Artillery & Panzers will allow me to puppet most of Gandhi's territory. My only hope so far might be the extra culture from these cities. I don't expect to win and Hiawatha could easily wipe me out if he wanted, but we're luckily friends. I doubt it'll be what turns the game around for me, but I'll find out soon enough.

 

[TPQ]

I just won a culture game with Darius. Immortal/Epic/Pangea/Large. Warred from as soon as I had enough Immortals. Built three cities, annexed a forth as it was an excellent production city, but left it at that.

Ended up puppeting something like 25 cities or so. Had loads of cash for buying up cultural city states and my puppets built a lot of cultural buildings. Was pushing something like 700 culture, 1500 science, 1400 gold (2k in a golden age), and +120 happiness per turn at the end.

The key, imo, is aggression. Build only three or four cities (if not just one or two) and then war until you have a massive puppet empire. It's the same formula for basically any victory condition.

If you want to do it peacefully, only defending, that requires a lot more micromanagement and a fair bit more skill.

 

[Few]

It is fairly easy to achieve on anything other than Deity without building any military at all. I won a culture victory on immortal yesterday as the Chinese on duel size map on continents. I was against the germans who built the usual massive cheat army and I only built 2 warriors and an archer for the whole game to deal with barbarians early on. Focused everything on production. Built 2 cities, only the sistine chapel I failed to build in time but spent all my gold on allying with city states to gamble on this making the germans not attack me. They must have had at least 40 units on my borders but my city state friends put them off.

When you get to Deity though the AI are given so much tech, money and happiness it does make it very hard though I'm sure its possible.

 

[headcase]

I won a culture victory on immortal yesterday as the Chinese on duel size map on continents. I was against the germans who built the usual massive cheat army and I only built 2 warriors and an archer for the whole game to deal with barbarians early on. [...] They must have had at least 40 units on my borders but my city state friends put them off.

Wow, never would have thought that works Good story

 

[Andoo]

Check MadDjinn's deity Korea OCC videos here

http://www.youtube.com/user/SBFMadDjinn#p/c/FB680AE4B196AB7C

 

[Few]

Another update, just won a cultural victory on Deity as the siamese. Only built one city, surrounded my continent with battleships as they became by end game. I was against the arabians and they couldn't get near me. I had 3 city states as allies for the culture benefits, on a duel map again.

 

[CultureManiac]

I've bagged lots of cultural wins on Immortal, and with different civs, so there's no one secret method. You do have to keep focused on getting culture from turn one, though. It isn't like thinking of a domination victory then realizing you can grab a diplo win, or slogging it out until you have to send a ship into space.

The bigger variation is a peaceful vs warring culture win. Getting a bunch of puppets is the easiest way, as it doesn't rely on hoping neighbors don't jump you, plus you'll have some military in case they try. Doing a peaceful cultural on a high level on pangea is possible, but not easy.