Culture VC

[yanner39]

I couldn't find the thread where I could post my win-loss info but I figure I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

I've played 2 games so far, trying to go for a Culture V. Both times, I've lost very early. The first game war Emperor and I lost to Brazil - Culture. For the 2nd game I decided to bump it down to King. Lost to Egypt, again culture, on turn 209!!

In Vanilla, I can win on Immortal consistently.

I don't think the game is broken and I know the CP/CBP is supposed to be harder but I was wondering if some of you had any tips or strategies. It seems that with the new mechanics, the AI racks up tourism very fast.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Here is a strategy that will give you a very good shot on a CV:
It requires very little commitment to that CV, so you can concentrate on other things (teching, getting Congress votes without interfering with your main plan).
You play as Byzanz. (Other religious civs work too, but require more dedication to gain quick faith, and have stil the opportunity to fail).
Since you are guaranteed a religion and your preferred believes, you don`t have to rush to a pantheon. Pick the one that you figure will provide you with the most faith over the whole game - you will need it.
Once you have founded, you want the following believes:
- Stupas
- second faith building
- third faith building (those two are not fixed, pick whatever suits you situation/playstyle best)
Also, found as many cities as you can - I aim for 20-30 on huge maps, on smaller maps less will do.
Pick piety. Once you have unlocked the 25% discount policy, start building every faith building in every city (starting with stupas). It seems daunting at first, but since every purchased building provides faith again, it is very doable.
Now comes the only part that is tricky: Get a reformation belief. Most of the times, you can grab Basilika (save a GE for it). If this fails, you need to go the hard route and get to 20% worldwide followers. It is possible, since your faith output is high, but you want to put the faith in buildings, not in missionaries. Of course you reformation belief is sacred sites.
Once you have assembled this, every city will provide 10 tourism (3x2 from sacred sites, +4 from stupas). Add colloseums everywhere and you are at 12 per city.
That doesn`t sound like terribly much, but you can have this tourism output from Renaissance on, where it easily overpowers contemporary culture output of AIs.
From there on, it is just a matter of watching your culture slowly but steadily overcome the AI.

General hints:
You are not in a rush to found a pantheon or a religion, but once you have set up, hurry to get your buildings up. The power of this strategy lies in the fact that you get your tourism so early.
Get Basilika. Did I say this already?
Meet all civs as soon as possible. You can only influence those which you know.
Be kind. You want to be friends with everybody, so you can open your borders (mind that you have to open your borders for the boost).
Your religious building will provide the bulk of your tourism, but don`t neglect other sources completely.
Try to have weight in the congress. There are very helpful resolutions.

 

[Novntis]

I've played 2 games so far, trying to go for a Culture V. Both times, I've lost very early. The first game war Emperor and I lost to Brazil - Culture.

Nuking Brazil typically helps. I nearly lost to them on my last emperor game as Indonesia. I think my high boredom and my large size (lots of conquering) really made it easy for them to push the tourism bonuses (I think they were at +370% or so at the highest). Keeping your empire smaller and controlling the pace of culture through the world congress seems to work fairly well. If that doesn't work though, conquering your highly cultured rivals never fails.

 

[Gazebo]

I couldn't find the thread where I could post my win-loss info but I figure I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

I've played 2 games so far, trying to go for a Culture V. Both times, I've lost very early. The first game war Emperor and I lost to Brazil - Culture. For the 2nd game I decided to bump it down to King. Lost to Egypt, again culture, on turn 209!!

In Vanilla, I can win on Immortal consistently.

I don't think the game is broken and I know the CP/CBP is supposed to be harder but I was wondering if some of you had any tips or strategies. It seems that with the new mechanics, the AI racks up tourism very fast.

The new system plays to the AI's strengths, and I've done a ton of work on the grand strategy AI to get them to really hone in on VC like culture. Glad it is working!

G

 

[yanner39]

*Update*. Yesterday I won a culture victory on Turn 146 on King. I was only producing like 6 tourism by the time I won. Is this normal?

I'm trying to get to corporations to try them out but no success so far.

 

[Gazebo]

*Update*. Yesterday I won a culture victory on Turn 146 on King. I was only producing like 6 tourism by the time I won. Is this normal?

I'm trying to get to corporations to try them out but no success so far.

No. What civ? I haven't seen this much recently (at all, actually, since the early beta of the culture rework).

G

 

[yanner39]

No. What civ? I haven't seen this much recently (at all, actually, since the early beta of the culture rework).

G

It's a custom civ by Sukritact. It yielded a lot of faith and culture. So I tried to generate as much faith and culture. For my religion, one of the beliefs was the one where when I would spread my religion to a foreign city, I would generate tourism. With the massive faith I was generating and going piety as my second tree, I was spitting out missionaries ever 2 or 3 turns.

 

[Wario Mario]

It's likely not what Sid Meier nor Gazebo were intending for a clutural victory, but...

If you are influential over every civilization except one, and there's no way you'll catch them, then simply wipe that civ from the face of the earth. You will be declared the winner the moment their last city is taken.

Kinda weird that the most peaceful victory condition is the only one where eliminating someone can directly cause a win.

 

[Funak]

It's likely not what Sid Meier nor Gazebo were intending for a clutural victory, but...

If you are influential over every civilization except one, and there's no way you'll catch them, then simply wipe that civ from the face of the earth. You will be declared the winner the moment their last city is taken.

Kinda weird that the most peaceful victory condition is the only one where eliminating someone can directly cause a win.

That goes for Diplo-victory as well really. Eliminating a rival is usually easier than beating them at their own game.

 

[Gazebo]

It's a custom civ by Sukritact. It yielded a lot of faith and culture. So I tried to generate as much faith and culture. For my religion, one of the beliefs was the one where when I would spread my religion to a foreign city, I would generate tourism. With the massive faith I was generating and going piety as my second tree, I was spitting out missionaries ever 2 or 3 turns.

I can't balance the game around a custom civ, sorry.

G

 

[yanner39]

I can't balance the game around a custom civ, sorry.

G

No need to be sorry. I rarely use customs civs anyways. The only reason I used it was because I got smoked by 3 vanilla civs with very early culture victories previous to that and tried to even my chances.

 

[Cfuku]

Disclaimer: was using 1/20 Multiplayer Modpack version because I don't like loading mods / like getting achievements; probably makes a difference since the AI got reworked

A different religion based strategy I have had with pretty decent successes on Immortal on small or standard if you can get Stonehenge is great person spam. I build a scout, then Stonehenge, then Pyramids while going tradition, and pick up whatever wonders you can. And just mass as much culture per turn as you can. I get both "spend great people for a boost" beliefs, the specialists +2 to yields belief and then mandirs so that my great people cannot get assassinated. Because you take goddess of beauty as your pantheon, you start with 8 faith per turn as soon as Stonehenge finishes, and it only gets better as you get wonders that you know that you can get.

I don't generally work my culture specialists at the beginning of the game because I want to get my basic infrastructure and wonders down as much as possible.
Depending on how well your cities are growing, if you think you can research writing and finish your first GE around the same time before the AI finishes it, you can snag Great Library and take mathematics as your free tech and try to grab Hanging Gardens if your production is good. If not, just go for Hanging Gardens and GE that.

If you have gotten 2-3 wonders you should have the first religion pretty far before anyone else. I prefer building the national wonder for reformation belief so I can save time on not having to build Cathedral/Hagia Sophia. Take the Great Person reformation belief that lets you buy anyone in Industrial.

At this point, I save up faith and buy Great People as I need them, with them also spawning pretty frequently from my 3-4 cities. The usage of your Great People gives you significant amounts of faith back, so you can buy new Great People at a reduced rate. If you have enough trade routes going out that you have some decent influence on some civs, you can just save up to buy a bunch of musicians at once; one time when I did this, I apparently had waited longer than I needed to, as buying the 4 great musicians, and 2 great people spawning that turn naturally as well / finishing 3 city state quests that turn actually caused me to win from people just being born.

The earliest I have won a culture victory is turn 185 on Small Immortal as the Inca; I settled on a mountain with 3 salt in my borders for my capital (the extra production from mountains is awesome), sent my warrior west for ruin hunting, and ended up finding Uluru and a ruin that funded a worker. I then went Stonehenge (mountains/natural wonder pantheon) Pyramids and Mausoleum (for the free stone works/great people culture) and just sat in my mountains having fun, producing huge amounts of faith while working a bunch of specialists. I saved the turn 1 save for that game because it was fuuuuuuun.

tl;dr
alternative strategy for culture victory is to amass decent faith gain and Great Person Production, and make your religion about buffing specialists and giving bonuses on Great Person Usage, as producing great people gives tourism

 

[IcyAngel]

If you play on Immortal and consistently get to finish Stonehenge, you must either have superpowers or be reloading a lot, because the AI always always rushes it.

 

[Cfuku]

Fair point, I can't say I 'consistently' get it, but when I do attempt to get it, it usually works out unless the AI had even more optimal situations than me. I only go for it if I have 2-3 Production luxury / settle on a hill / settle on marble / clear a forest / get a culture ruin which means I get my tradition engineer faster. It's doable without Stonehenge, but it certainly does accelerate things. The Inca being on a mountain also means your city is already going to have 3 production which is definitely helpful. It's certainly not always doable, but if it seems like you have a better than average shot to get it, I like to go for the gamble.