Culture Question

[rf9381]

I'm playing on Regent level (3 or 4 games so far at the same time) and am having problems keeping up in culture with maybe 1 or 2 civs each time. I play on a huge panagea/large continent map with 16 civs. I feel I'm building decent culture infrastructure (temple, library, etc.) before the ancient age is over in most cities. Also, I usually build cities ASAP, then expand by conquest.
Here then is my basic question: How does 2 or 3 of the AI get such a large amount of culture early on? I know they go for the Wonders et all and I am concentrating on settlers and cities, but Wonders alone only give a small boost to culture/turn, correct? It is more diffecult for me to keep up in research, so Wonders are hard for me to aquire.
Right now at each game I'm at or nearing the Industrial Age and I can't seem to narrow the culture gap! Also, none of these Civs are within range for conquest. I am #1 in power/score in all these games, but I'm afraid I'll suffer a "culture" loss.
I have nearly twice as many cities, but will my culture buildup in them cities eventually overtake my rivals?
Sorry for such a long-winded post.

 

[Laertus]

In my experience, a culture victory is one of the most difficult to achieve from the player's perspective. Typically, the AI civ's all outpace a player in culture early on, sometimes by vast amounts. However, if you are using a tactic of a large civilization you will eventually beat them simply because of the limiting factor on an AI civilization's size. Once they reach a certain number of cities, the AI's stop expanding except by conquest. There is a maximum optimal number of cities built into the AI logic.

From a player perspective I rarely achieve a culturual victory and am often surprised when I do. The cases where the AI wins a cultural victory most often occur when you are using victory point locations, sacrifices for VP's or other situations like that, that can significantly add to the culture of a single city, to the point where it reaches the single-city cultural win threshold.

Not sure if this helps, just my experience.

 

[rf9381]

Thanks for your quick reply. Do you know how some of the AI gets out to such an early lead in culture? I'm new to Regent level and didn't experience this culture problem on Warlord. Does the AI have an easier time acquiring culture on higher levels?

 

[nullspace]

Being behind in culture is't that bad. Really, don't worry about a culture loss becaue it won't happen for a long time (1800s or 1900s at the very earlierst). And the only thing you have to do to prevent a culture win is to make sure that one civ, perhaps you, has more than half as much culture as the culture leader. A culture win requires that you get a certian amount of cuture (depends and map size) and have twice as much culture as the next civ.

Religious AI civs tend to be the culture leaders, because they get temples for cheap, and those civs usually have a preference for building temples often. For those temples that are build real early, 1000 years passes in only a few turns, and they double in culture. So those civs get an early lead and hang on to it. As you said, wonders really don't make much difference in the total culture for a civ. The only thing you can really do is build more cities than the AIs and build culture in each. That might not even be ennough because your new culture buildings will be competing against the 1000-year-old ones. If you have too, capture and raze enemy cities to stop them for making culture.

 

[Zandrew]

It could be that religious civs are getting ahead of you by building lots of cheap temples, or scientific civs are getting ahead with cheap libraries, or maybe you're competing against a religious/scientific civ. The AI tends to expand quickly. If they're also building cheap cultural improvements they'll get ahead on culture too.

 

[rf9381]

Thanks nullspace for the reply and info. When playing on a huge map, I believe the rules for a culture victory is 160,000 pts. and the first one to amass that total would win, regardless of how close #2 is? Are you sure that there must be a margin of victory of 2-to -1 also?
Another question: A couple of the Wonders double the effects of culture improvements, but does that mean that the culture pt. value for each improvement doubles in addition to the number of citizens made happy by the improvement?
All replies appreciated!

 

[Theoden]

Are you sure that there must be a margin of victory of 2-to -1 also?

Yes, you have to have twice as much culture as number 2 for a culture victory. That doesn't count for a 20k victory though

Another question: A couple of the Wonders double the effects of culture improvements, but does that mean that the culture pt. value for each improvement doubles in addition to the number of citizens made happy by the improvement?

No. If you build sistines then cathedrals will only double happiness, not culture.

 

[kb2tvl]

There are some tatics you can use to be very solid with culture. First is to get a temple early. Religious civs can get massive amounts of culture due to 1000 year bonsus. A temple built from turn one and built before 3000 BC can get 5 - 1000 year bonsus... and there are many turns spent settling when an early temple can blow the civs away in the culture department.

 

[JazzToucan]

As has been said, don't worry too much about losing the game based on an AI cultural win. I've played hundreds of games and have never once lost due to culture.

Although building temples very early will certainly help you, I think you are better off forgoing that and just spitting out settlers to acquire land early on. As many have said in other threads, the land grab phase it the most crucial.

 

[Roi du Culture]

i would reccomend chosing the egyptians if you find you need a cultural boost. Obviously religious makes cheap temples, but roads to capital will help reduce corruption.

 

[Fanny Brice]

Great points all around.

In terms of your expansionist strategy... it is always a good idea to let your capital grow after you kick out one or two settlers. Your capital experiences minimal corruption and waste. If you are one a river, you can grow quickly beyond "6". Build mines on hills and make your capital a major production center and build one or two of the early wonders.

Some of those early wonders have significant culture points. Plus they will help your overall strategy. One early wonder in C3C gives you a temple in ever city (can't think of the name right now). That one will give you a big boost in culture and expand your territory borders quickly. This one does become obsolete in the early middle ages, so build it ASAP if you go for it.

If you have a well placed capital with good terrain, you can easily win a cultural victory based on points for one city. I often turn off cultural victory because it is too easy to win (sometimes). (Monarch level is what I play most often).

Concentrate on roads and mines as well in order to build quickly and maximize commerce. Especially early on for core cities.

 

[rf9381]

Thanks to all for your helpful ideas & info. In particular, the criteria about a culture victory requiring a 2-to-1 ratio in addition to a mimimum point total isn't mentioned in the manual or civilopedia, as far as I could tell.
Thanks again.

 

[kb2tvl]

Funny how game makers leave out the important parts, huh rf9381.

 

[anarres]

The easiest and quicked (by far) way to get a 100k (or equivalent) culture victory is as follows:

- IGNORE culture at the start, at least treat it no differently from normal

- Play the game until you have your empire fully developed

- Take over an AI neighbour or two

- Build an ICS empire OUTSIDE your productive cities

- Amass gold (turn off research, etc)

- Rush cultural buildings in every corrupt city (REMEMBER NOT TO RUSH FROM EMPTY - HAVE AT LEAST 1 SHIELD IN THE BOX)

If you can get enough space (take as much as you can, up to the domination limit) then ONLY rush the 'cheap' culture buildings. To work out the "base culture cost" take the shield cost and divide by the number of culture points it gives:

Temple: 60/2 = 30 shields per culture (spc), 15 spc if religous
Library: 80/3 = 26.6~ spc, 13.3~ if scientific
Colleseum: 120/3 (?) = 40 spc (the 3 culture per turn may be wrong, but i fit's 2 then the cost just gets worse)
Cathedral: 160/3 = 53.3~ spc, 26.6~ if religous
University: 200/4 = 50 spc, 25 is scientific.

As you can see, unless you are religous or sci the cheapest way to get culture is to rush temples and libraries. If you can place more cities down then do so, and wait 1 turn between rushing to get a shield in the box.

Of course, one would ask why you want to do this when you can walk all over the AI well before then. I have used this in tournaments to get fast 100k culture wins and it works like a dream.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That's the primary problem with the Culture win, too dependent on Number of cities.

I'd suggest making it less dependent (perhaps your Civ's culture is the culture of the highest city.. or my favorite.. Your Civ's culture is equal to the Culture of your highest Culture value buildings .. so Your Civ's culture is equal to that of all your wonders plus the amount of ONE (your highest) Temple, Cathedral, etc... That would lower Civilization Cultures to the same range as that of single cities. (although higher)