Culture Victories - Under 200 Turns - Deity (Any tips? Faves?)

[Pengwin7]

I'm currently extending my enjoyment of Civ 6 by trying to knock out as many culture victories as possible, on Deity, in 200 Turns or less (/500 standard).
Does anybody have any favourite Civs for doing this? And any key tips for that civ? Or in general for FAST culture victories?
[I play GS, standard pace, 7 Seas, standard size (8 civs)... no extra features - HATE the extras like Secret Societies, Heroes, Monopolies, etc.]

Thus far, I've knocked out 5 victories:
1. Russia (198 turns). Lavras / Dance of the Aurora / Work Ethic - get to golden ages.
2. Canada (199 turns). Work the high early farm/mines/lumber-mills in the tundra. I got absolutely god-spawn for this, T3 settle within a tile of Paititi.
3. Ethiopia (182 turns). My best run. Lots of faith from well-placed Rock Hewn Churches.
4. Catherine Magnificence (190-something). Didn't really love trying to pace out a good mass-finish/chopping of Court Festivals.
5. Sweden (200 turns, yesterday - Apr.14). Set-up an incredible capital with Apadana, Mont.St.Michel, St.Basil's, Queens Bib - filled them completely with relics (using the Triple Relic religious).

Typically my runs involve:
*3-4 of these I won with getting Paititi close enough for my 1st or 2nd city.
*Timely/late chopping-out of key A/C wonders.
*Pretty sure ALL of them I needed to get Oracle, bc I love faith-buying Great People - especially wonder-charge Great Engineers.
*Pretty sure all of them I got a religion to go with Oracle
*All but the Canada one (with Paititi near capital), I got Mauseleum. (*Somebody built Maus on turn 90-something that game... WTH.)
*I'd say each of these Civs... 19/20 starts were deemed 'not gonna get it done' within 50 turns... and each was probably 100-150 starts to get one that felt like I could run it.


I'm getting a bit better at the "National Park" vs "Rock Band" choice of late-game faith spending.
I hate the randomness of Rock Bands... but it usually seems like the best way to reel in (reel.. 'down') the tourism of highest culture competitive CIV.


I tried & failed on using culture-Teddy... great early culture/science... which can lead to good chopping production around turns 40-60 for those key wonders.
But my production with him was just awful. Probably bc I avoided creating mines/quarries...

I'm currently trying with Babylon - as a culture civ - but this seems to really hinge on getting a great river start, quick Palgum(s) up, and maybe I'll need a wonder settle for culture.



My biggest challenge - it feels like... if I miss out on early culture, I miss out getting the 15% wonder & 10%wonder-gov... and then on all the key early wonders (esp Oracle, my fave).
Oracle is typically going 45-55 turn in all the games I play... 10% or less it extends beyond turn 55.

*I've watched many of the YouTube sub200 runs out there... there's a couple that do well with that - that I really like - and then there's others where the luck seems to be... exceptional.


Any culture-win experts out there that played Deity without special settings?
Who do you like?
What tips do you have

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

There are several things you can do here to cut down time drastically, but a lot of it depends on "micro" that I won't be going to deep into.
Examples of "micro" are things that optimize your turn (make sure you work the best tiles in each city, usually food/production), slot the best cards when possible, skip turns to pool science/culture until you triggered the eureka/inspiration, etc., there are tons of examples of this).

More broadly however, I would change your opener.
Oracle is not a particularly important wonder on Deity, because its too hotly contested by the AI, and it doesnt give you enough benefit to be worth it when you factor in the risk versus the guaranteed payoff from expanding.
Generally I would focus hard on expanding early on, and a religion is almost mandatory because you need to pool tons of faith for the late game (unless you can gain it easy otherwise, such as playing Spain/Ethiopia).
This is another reason why Oracle isnt that good, as faith buying GPs costs faith that you want to pool for the late game tourism push.

You ideally want to try to get back to back golden ages for at least the Classical and Medieval era (often also Renaissance), and use the faith from your high adjacency holy sites to faith buy more settlers.
These settlers should immediately be sent to locations where you can get more high yield holy sites, as the combination of high faith and high production (from work ethic) is about as hard of a snowball that you can get early on.
Personally I like to rush 4x Moksha, because that allows you to faith buy more holy sites, which creates a feedback loop where you can instabuy holy sites in your newest city, which gives more faith which you can use for more settlers and more faith buying districts.
Moksha is also great in that he allows you to cheese early domination against the AI in the classical era, because of his first promotion that insta-heals your units.
When you get work ethic and crusade (both mandatory imo), you get a strong timing window where you can leverage the +10 combat strength from crusade to absolutely dumpster the nearest AI, while using Moksha to instaheal damaged units if/when you run into trouble (ideally in a neighbouring city).
Meanwhile work ethic allows you to pump out units, units that are much stronger than usually because of crusade.
Also do not skip out on Monuments in cities that already have holy sites, you need culture in order to rush Theology for the +100% holy site adjacency card as quick as possible.

Once I take out the nearest neighbour I usually play peacefully from there on out (unless I can continue the domination against another weak neighbour), as that usually secures me enough space to settle, as well as the free cities that the AI has developed for me.
Doing it this way can easily get you to 15 cities or so by the medieval era, at which point you will start surpassing the AI in science and culture if you played your cards right.
At that stage you can decide whether settling more cities is worth it to you or not (great settle spots in the medieval era usually are worth it).
Do remember to juggle Moksha around every 5 turns unless you need his healing though, as insta-buying districts for faith is obscenely strong because of how much time it saves your newest cities to start being productive.

As for wonders I would ignore the early ones, including the Oracle.
Mausoleum is often good because of the extra engineer charge, but by no means mandatory, so I wouldnt go out of my way to get it (its not really contested though, so its often a good choice).
Kilwa Kisiwani however is just too good to pass up, and thats by far the most important wonder that I will rush around the classical/medieval era.
If you can get suzerainty over two religious or cultural city states, this wonder shoots you extremely far ahead for the rest of the game due to the raw faith and culture you get from it.

As for theatre squares, those are built in cities that do no have good holy site spots, or as the second or third district (commercial hubs are important) in those cities where you do get a holy site.
You want plenty of these as well, as themed museums (either type) are a great source of tourism and culture.
The archaeology museums are the best ones for raw culture and tourism, but do build some art museums as well because you will be raking in enough GWAM points to fill up those museums as well.

Once you reach the medieval/renaissance (where you no longer faith buy settlers, and the importance of faith buying more holy sites falls off as a consequence of fewer settlers) you should start pooling faith for the early modern era.
The goal here is to rush the Conservation civic for naturalists, and use that pooled faith to get as many natural parks down as possible.
Plant forests if needed to get more adjacency, but do not stop using your faith for more naturalists, even when the cost goes up.
Since they cost faith, staying in the Theocracy government for the faith discount is heavily advised, as it will save you thousands of faith.
Then at some stage you start investing into rock bands, as well as the occasional seaside resorts.
Rock band timing is kinda hard to judge, but I usually build them when my raw tourism is so big that I can win off of it eventually, and where the rock bands are just a way to cut down on the remaining turns.
Usually this is when there is little remaining space for natural parks, and/or I have something like 70% of the tourists needed for the victory (where rock bands obviously target the leader(s) in domestic tourists).

Tip: Try to be on friendly terms with every civ to always have open borders traded (gives +25% tourism), as well as have a trade route to them (another +25%).
Settling in odd spots around the map just for a trade route is absolutely worth it, as 25% is huge when it comes to raw tourism.
If you are gonna blow faith on a great person at this stage (and assuming the GP is available), get great Merchants such as Sarah Breedlove (boosts tourism from trade routes another +25%).

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Also you can win a CV with nearly every start, so in case you need 19/20 restarts then your opener is probably off and can be optimized.
You do not need to start near Paititi or optimal landscape to win a CV, as long as you make sure to expand as fast as possible and (ideally) subdue your nearest neighbour for more space and infrastructure, something the religion rush opener (work ethic and crusade) should have covered for you.
After that the game basically plays itself.

 

[Pengwin7]

Also you can win a CV with nearly every start, so in case you need 19/20 restarts then your opener is probably off and can be optimized.
You do not need to start near Paititi or optimal landscape to win a CV, as long as you make sure to expand as fast as possible and (ideally) subdue your nearest neighbour for more space and infrastructure, something the religion rush opener (work ethic and crusade) should have covered for you.
After that the game basically plays itself.

Honestly - you sound like you have got this down b/c I just... well... can't believe that anybody can win Deity culture in sub-200 "every start".
That's a bit bonkers to me.

A lot of good tips - tough for me to stomach because I just have never been able to take another AI's cities in Deity, especially early.
They are just sooooo powerful early on. I quit even trying.


So... I play full peaceful/culture deity.
Though - that said - what maybe you are getting at... is that there are some Dom/Culture civs where they have early units strong enough to beat 'certain' AIs.
True?

(btw #1 - Breedlove is modern era Merchant... if I get to turn200, I've lost my own challenge - and so she doesn't come into play here.)
(btw #2 - Assuming your user name is mix of Oberyn Martell and Inspector Deck... I'm a fan of both!!! asoiaf and wu are two of my fave things of all-time)

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

More or less every start, there are those 1/20 games where I start on flat terrain with terrible yields, boxed in by an aggressive AI that is looking to invade by turn 10.
But those are fortunately rather rare, and most games can be won if you optimize your play.

I'll link my preferred religious rush opener that I play whenever I have a good shot at high adjacency holy sites.
The build is very flexible and can be used for both domination, science and culture victories alike, and is very consistent in that it rarely fails to work.
Usually you can wipe out your neigbhour early that way, which means that you get 3-5 developed cities for "free" from the AI, while still being able to settle behind it yourself (through faith buying settlers and juggling Moksha).

The build below was initially tailored for Basil, but it works on any leader/civ really.

1. Build a Warrior or Slinger first. You need to get your army value up, and a Scout is just too risky. The only thing you need to scout for is your nearest neighbour and what he's up to, and your Warrior can handle that.
2. Tech towards Astrology as your first pick. You need your religion up asap, don't delay it.
3. Get a Settler out once your Warrior/Slinger is done, and once you reach pop 2 in your capital (should be roughly at the same time).
4. Settle a decent city with decent food/production. You need all the production you can get to get the religion and (after) units out as fast as possible, because right now is the point where you're at your weakest.
5. Start building a Holy Site in both cities once Astrology is teched.
6. Depending on how close and aggressive your neighbour is:
   1. If your neighbour is close, has a big army and you feel threatened, build another one or two Warriors to buy you time. The AI will generally not attack you if you have a decent army value.
   2. If you have no close neighbours and/or they don't seem interested in you, finish the Holy Site in both cities, and follow up with a Shrine for the city with the most production (usually your capital).
   3. Check great prophet points. If they are heavily contested, swap to holy site prayers to make sure you get the prophet before the second to last one go to the AI.
7. Build either another Settler, or units. The Settler if you want to delay your timing push a little to get a third city. or units if you want do the rush faster (AI high on science). Both are good choices.
8. Start teching towards Archery, Masonry, and eventually Iron Working.
9. This is roughly the time where your Great Prophet should be popping (assuming you finished two Holy Sites). Pop your Prophet immediately, and choose Crusade (100% required!). Then either Work Ethic if you managed to get at least two +3 adjacency holy sites or better (ideally +4 or more), otherwise choose whatever you like. But Crusade is very important.
10. Start saving faith for a Missionary.
11. Start spamming out a mix of warriors and archers from your 2-3 cities, non stop. You want at least 4 warriors just to have the manpower to siege a city, but feel free to add more as it lets you rotate units in and out. 2 or more archers are needed to gun down units and help whittle down walls.
12. Get a battering ram as soon as possible, its just a matter of time before the AI gets its first walls anyway.
13. Once you teched Iron Working, spam upgrade your warriors to Swordsmen.
14. Spend your faith on a Missionary as soon as you can afford one. If you still haven't teched Swordsmen at this point, just stick to your warriors and archers with battering ram support.
15. Send the Missionary towards your target that you want to invade. Bring your army of units along to their city border.
16. Once the city as flipped to your religion (through the Missionary), declare war and take the city. Your warriors have 30 base combat strength within the city borders now due to your religion (Crusade), your Archers 35 ranged combat strength. You are essentially using Classical era melee units against someone who is defending with ancient era units, classical era units at best (which you can compete with due to Crusade, and a good tactical sense)
17. From there on out, just wipe out the rest of the AIs cities if you can. Science will take care of itself, as you take over more and more cities to the point where you just snowball way past the AI.
    1. At this stage you can transition into whatever playstyle you want. Since you secured developed cities from the AI, removed the threat of that AI, and have plenty of space to settle now, you can do whatever you like from here on out essentially. Science, culture or further domination are all viable now from this strong early position.

This is a pretty advanced strategy that does rely on you optimizing your play to cut corners though.
If you do not cut corners (reduce the number of turns spent), the AI is more and more likely to get a tech lead and unit lead, to the point where your warriors and archers are insufficient to take out the AI.

For this reason I recommend practicing this by using an OP civ, ideally one that can rush the religion out fast (and ties well with a culture victory), or one who has an early ancient/classical era power spike.
Leaders such as Peter (Russia), Theodora (Byzantium), Ambiorix (Gaul), Philip II (Spain), Amanitore (Nubia) and Montezuma (Aztec) are good civs to use.
Peter because he can get the Lavra up faster than anybody else (which means work ethic and crusade comes sooner, and building units to rush the enemy happens sooner) while being near guaranteed a golden age.
Theodora and Ambiorix have very strong rush potentials and also tie in nicely with a culture victory (although Gaul's mine spam reduces your appeal for later natural parks), while Spain essentially gets a stronger version of Crusade if the target has their own religion in place.
Amanitore and Montezuma are good for their early unique units, especially Amanitore as Pitati Archers are broken, especially when you produce them fast with work ethic and have crusade in place.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

(btw #1 - Breedlove is modern era Merchant... if I get to turn200, I've lost my own challenge - and so she doesn't come into play here.)

It depends.
Sometimes I'm so far ahead of the AI in the renaissance era (20+ cities), that I got a near monopoly on great merchants anyway, and cranking out tons of GM points.
If she then happens to be available, I'll get her.
But that's a big if of course, as the AI doesnt really prioritize GMs.
Either way I wouldnt buy GPs unless they are extremely important (I am late to getting Kilwa and I can afford a wonder engineer), but most of them really aren't.

 

[Pengwin7]

Awesome reply. Thank you.
I've spent the last year working my first 50 turn culture games, peacefully...
My domination game sucks - I just haven't learned it.

For example, I tried one last night w/Babylon.
Pumped out 9-10 units (3 archers, 5 UU spearman, even a battering ram).
Took them against Dido - who had threatened me and who lost SEVEN units to my capital & nearby barbs.
So I thought I had weakened her.
Took everything over to nearest city, took one... but it flipped for loyalty in 5 turns.
I surrounded another city, on coast, but it wasn't hearted... and btw the other units she brought and the two from the city that went black... well, it was over.

So... I hear you... I know some people have really mastered the faith/dom to culture path.
I haven't. I'm so so soooooo far from it.
I'd have to re-work my entire domination skills and practice on new leaders.
It's a great tactic.. I want to try it some day.

I've tried Basil. People love him. I know the crusade works for some people.
I think it's a pretty advanced strategy though.
Like... one's domination game has to be 95/100 skill level...
Otherwise - you send the troops, they get wiped out... and at turn 60 (like last night), you've got a holy site and TWO units in enemy territory. Hard stop.
I'm so far from being able to pull this off - but I appreciate it.
Some day.

*****
Do you ever go just... peaceful culture route?
*****


My fave on YouTube that I found is "Soger".
I like his runs.
I studied one of his runs with Mali.

It is pretty awesome and more 'my style' - but he got lucky with early city state, almost whole protected continent to himself.
He won his culture victory at turn 174.
This is the kind of style of game I'm aiming for...
And I hate that some of these YouTubers don't show it...
But this... is a 1/100 spawn.
Which is what I'm going for too... since I don't have the domination skills at taking AI cities.


Anyways - major thanks for all the time & effort in your reply!!!!
Someday... when I'm ready... I'm going to give this faith/domination route another try.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

So... I hear you... I know some people have really mastered the faith/dom to culture path.
I haven't. I'm so so soooooo far from it.
I'd have to re-work my entire domination skills and practice on new leaders.
It's a great tactic.. I want to try it some day.

You will limit yourself if you do not try to improve in this area, because taking out an AI early (which I will admit is not the easiest, since you are generally at your weakest then) creates a huge snowball.
The snowball not only consists in you getting free cities (that the deity AI have improved for you with their insane production), but also in that you generally get access to all the settle spots that you need in your general area.
The best way to practice the aggressive religious opener is to do it with Basil or Theodora (or Peter, since you get such a huge head start), if needed by going down a difficulty level.
Your goal is generally to knock down cities as fast as possible before the AI outtechs you (meaning they get stronger units and stronger city defences that you cant reliably take down), and abuse fortification on rough terrain to get favourable trades against AI units due to how combat strength modifiers are added.

Do you ever go just... peaceful culture route?

Occasionally, but that really depends on the map.
I will try to take out a vulnerable AI if I see an opportunity for it just due to the snowball potential, but if they are rather far away I will obviously settle the hell out of my general area.
Usually this applies the most if I get a tundra spawn, since I am by definition in the corner of a map, and thus down have to worry about an AI above the tundra area, meaning I get most of it to myself.
Desert starts can work in the same way, but its a lot more iffy.
If I get a huge area to myself, I usually go fully into settler spam and just try to get as many cities up as fast as possible, where having good faith income and a golden age monumentality dedication obviously helps a ton.
That being said, getting starts such as these (a huge area to settle relatively uncontested) is quite rare, and thus I heavily recommend working on being able to rush the AI down, as that means you can play almost any map and still do well, without having to restart for an isolated spot that you can play fully uncontested.

It's also fair game to take out city states early if their territory is worth it, you can get the battering ram up fast enough and their terrain/tech level favours an attack.

 

[Pengwin7]

Do you have any fave videos that show early example of taking out AI or city-state?
I'm just completely overwhelmed by doing this on Deity.
I feel like, if I try to work on my military for the first 50 turns, then I'm likely not doing enough or having enough general scouting/infrastructure to hit a golden age.
And the golden age is pretty important for the 30% faith-buying of settlers/builders.

I played 15-20 starts with Babylon this past weekend.
Lucked into one amazing two-city, great Palgum (river-bonus) start in Ancient Era.

I got Oracle on turn60 (I know you don't advocate this - but most 'peaceful' Culture runners... they like this and support it).
I ran my usual peaceful way... but was only at 190/250 tourism (vs Pericles) at turn200... so I had to pack-it-up and admit defeat.
[Had - what I thought - was an absolutely great set-up, with 8 relics in my Pingala-capital incl. Apadana/MSM/St.Basil and the relic-boost... and used 3-charge greatEng to build Cristo... psh, not enough]

Pericles was my nearest neighbor too, the only Civ I had to culture-top.
It didn't help that my Rock Bands sucked. I saved most of my faith (6000+) for Rock Bands since Pericles was so far ahead of everybody else in faith.
(I did have 6+ natural parks).
Sent 12-15 Rock Bands during turns 188-200... but my Rock Bands just got bad promotions and then failed close to half their first tries. [I hate the randomness of Rock Bands... hate.]
Only got one for the Theater, one for Campus, one for Wonder... the rest were garbage options.

I suppose... re:Early AI war... Pericles would have been the ideal neighbor to have tried to 'take out' early game.
But then... when an AI is 20 tiles away with their 3 cities and 5-6 armies... I just don't feel I have a chance to win a city off him.
We both forward-settled each other btw turns 40-50, but he brought most of his army - he had like 6 units to my 2 nearby.
[That is probably the path-choice you would've done different... to just spam out an army and try to take his cities - whereas I've tried this... and just don't have the skill, yet, to do it...
Pumping out 5-6 units and failing to take the city you are efforting to take... is just such a fun buzz-kill for me. Which is why I haven't tried to get better at it.]

 

[Pengwin7]

Here's one game as a 'talking point'.
What would you have done/do here?

[See photos in spoiler section]

The start seemed like it had potential - three mine locations - which (for Babylon) trigger ability to build IZ.
And I lucked into an Irrigation boost - which allowed me to build the Palgum. (normally you need a wheat/corn/etc to improve).
And a +4 Harbor location.

Went to crap from there.
No good CS meets... I think Kabul was only first meet.
Nearest neighbor to the North is MagCathy... 25 tiles away, over hills and around mountains. She showed up on her own around turn 30. (Scout in this direction got surprised/swarmed and eaten at Barb camp).
Nearest neighbor to the East is Gitarja.... 40+ tiles away. (UU: Sab, got dead-ended here. She's pretty much got her own continent - unless I pushed a settler that way to pinch-off the 3/4 tile wide connector).
I mean... nobody is going to war with them this far away... right?

EVERYBODY went for a religion. Everybody. All seven! Four were claimed by turn 40!!! 5th by turn50. Not sure I could've pulled one off unless I chopped 2+ trees.
I did get a 'golden age', but had to make a crap City2 settle up by desert wonder. I'm paying for that one with minimal production.

It's turn 80 (/500) now.
I'm as far back in 'score' as I like to be at the point. Usually I throw a 135-last vs 263-first game in the trash can.
(I aim for being tied in 'score' by turn 100 to feel like I have a shot at sub200 Culture).

I think this game is... toast. Could it have been salvaged with a different start???
The BAD: I'm headed into a dark age (8 turns to go, 41/47). My meets on 2/5 civs [Jadwiga, Ramses] was so late [turn 60+] they didn't have cheap DiploFavor - tough map.
The GOOD: I've got a great capital for production with the IZ and the river mines/palgum.
The MAYBE: Still don't have the culture to unlock the Great Library... it's probably gone... but I set up some builders to chop 3 trees... in the case it's there. With Hammurabi - sometimes that's the play. (Other people can throw darts for Hamm, at random Techs, with GreatScientists)



Anyways - how would you have played this?
Is there really a path on this map to a sub200 culture win???

(Crappy phone photos - bc I play on a PS4 - below spoiler)

Spoiler :

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

You have a start that is very isolated, so its a good choice to play peaceful in this case, like you did.

I see several things that I would have done differently, but the main one is that I would have settled a ton of cities.
By turn 80ish you are at 2 cities, and your capital has 8 population.
This is way too little settling, and you should have prioritized a lot more settlers to settle at least 4-5 cities by this stage.

What pantheon did you get?

I also see that your second city is bad, but has very good potential, but potential that you did not exploit.
The reason the city is bad is that its settled on floodplains, and thus only has food to work early on (at least until you get some production tiles or get your palgum up).
This makes the city more or less useless, since it doesnt produce anything fast enough that you need at this stage.
What could have made your second city good though, would be a holy site adjacent to the natural wonder.
Thats a very easy 4+ holy site, which is even more important to have because you have close to zero production there.
With work ethic you would have gotten a city that was perhaps low on production initially, but it would have gotten a very strong production boost through the holy site, which would let you catch up.
The wonder is also good in its shape, as it supports up to 4 cities that can place strong holy sites there, so its definitely a spot you might want to settle extensively.

Its hard though to tell where you could improve without seeing the entire gameplay, but in general I would be much more aggressive about settling.
Early cities take a while to pay off before they become productive, and the sooner you can settle them (and in more productive terrain, meaning produciton tiles), the shorter before they start paying off the invement.

Also skip on the campus.
You really don't need much if any campuses when playing for culture, as you can get the science from other sources.
The main source where you can get "free" science is by settling a lot (every citizen adds some science, and the more cities you have, the more citizens you get).
After that you can get the belief Cross-cultural dialogue for +1 science for every 4 citizens (iirc), which means that you get several campuses worth of science just from the belief alone, which frees you up to get other districts (holy sites, commercial hubs/harbours and theatre squares).
Finally try to get eurekas, as thats essentially a +80% science boost if you plan around the reasonable ones that you can get.
And if you do try to subjugate a neighbour, thats usually tons of free science from their developed cities (that often have campuses in them).

What you need to do if all AIs go for religion, is to do a very specific 2 city religion rush, otherwise you wont have time to secure it.
The way to set this up is usually by rushing out a second city (first thing you build in your capital is one random item, then immediately a second settler once you finish that item and reach population 2).
Then as soon as you unlock Astrology, both cities should get holy sites up, chopping them out in the second city if needed (since that one usually takes a while to set up).
Then depending on whether or not the AI goes for religions, you either get a shrine in the first city to finish the holy site, or run holy site prayers.
In your game for instance, it sounds like both cities would have to run holy sites prayers (possibly even chopping them out).
As long as you watch the GPP generation, you can then decide if you want to faith buy the prophet or not.

Generally speaking, a lot of players make the mistake of not looking far enough ahead into the future when planning out their game.
I have a friend who I play with often for instance, and he usually resorts to skipping out on settlers as well and get up some high adjacency campus instead or similar.
I have asked him a few times what his thought process was (he was far behind me in the game and complaining about being behind everyone, uncluding the AI), and the reason he placed his campus (or got a granary or whatever) is that he saw the AI pulling ahead in science, so his instinct was to get a campus to shore up the deficit.
This is the wrong approach, since the deity AI will naturally outscience a player early on, so the player needs to look further ahead for a snowball opportunity.
In this case (well, in almost all cases to be honest) the snowball opportunity comes from having more cities.
Yes it does cost you a bit of investment up front (producing a settler rather than getting a short term science boost from a +4 campus or similar), but in the long you get another city up that can start being productive as well, and the sooner you get these cities the sooner you can catch up to the AI.
Heck, I'd actually go so far as to say that the campus is the most overrated district in the entire game.
Even when I play a science game, I dont get too many campuses and rather prioritize commercial hubs, holy sites (if going religion), industrial zones (I need a ton of production for late game spaceport project spam) and a couple theatre squares (because culture boosts science indirectly in the late game, due to how strong the late game science civics are).

 

[Pengwin7]

Very good advice. Everything is always appreciated.
I am an engineer - so I like to talk in numbers.


If I were to 'score' myself - I'd say I'm at about an 85/100 in understanding/skill towards Culture Victories.
Knocking out 5-6 sub200 turn culture victories, on Deity, peacefully - that's pretty good.
I can tell a lot of the die-hards on here can do that... but this site is probably the top 10% of players anyways - and probably the top 10% of these (so top 1%) are the ones doing it.

Advice given to this point - I'd say - is more in the 50-75 range.
The best point, that I need to strive more for is... more cities.
Unfortunately, on lower levels - I thought 8-10 cities was enough - because that got it done.
And a lot of people who make videos are like "get your 10 cities".

Specific example: Babylon - Deity. This is my current leader to work on.
I just finished a game with 17 cities.
I didn't get it done in 200 turns.
And the reason... is because one other leader was running away with culture.
I know how to reel that Civ in... it's Rock Bands...
But - unlike in my other plays, I'm 8 turns away from even opening up Rock Bands, at turn 200.
So I did something wrong with generating enough culture during game - to this point.

There are a couple ways I've started to 'benchmark' numbers to pace myself.

1. Score.
By raw score - I want to be at top of leaderboard by turn100 to feel 'confident'. I have a save/screen shot at 106... and I don't think I took lead until 120. So my early game was 'behind pace'.

2. Tourism/Culture screen.
At turn 106... I was looking at two Civs that would be my focus. Pachacuti had a 46... Unmet was at 53.
The unmet turned out to be the problem - and when I met Harald Hadraga I thought "psh, no way - this won't be an issue. I've never had a game where he was a serious culture threat".
Wrong. Dude dominated. By turn 200, he was at 275 Domestic Tourists. That's a BIG score from rival Civ at turn 200.
It's a bit 'unlucky' - but also a bit "I should've monitored".
But the thing here... THIS... the 'defensive'/OTHER-CIV... I think it the ***elite-strategy & tips that I'm looking for.***

ELITE ADVICE WANTED:

i) When I read things like RockBands vs Naturalists... I read people explain it... and I feel like people take their best 'shot' without examining it by numbers.
Culture - unlike ALL other win conditions - is the most challenging thing in Civ6.
It requires an absolutely elite knowledge of the other Civs and where they are moving with their own culture.
I'm working on this.

ii) How to generate MORE culture - just to get through the Civics tree to Rock Bands.
Also - how/when to choose between the Civic path to Culture Heritage (and the 100% Art etc modifier) vs the Civic path to Rock Bands.
This usually goes with the item above.
I had to make a decision in my last game - I had a bunch of 'walls' from James St.George and I wanted to cash in on that - so I went towards Conservation - and had probably 20+ amazing National Parks (NP) set-up and ready to go... but I thought the RIGHT path was to hold all that faith for Rock Bands towards Norway. So I used a Golden Era choice of the Loyalty/4pop to plunk a city down right next to Norway... and... I just never had enough culture to get to Rock Bands. 7000+ faith at turn 190... ready to go... and at 200... and just didn't unlock Rock Bands.


re: Science
100% agree with you about Campuses and science builds being 'overrated'. 100% agree. I developed this 'feeling' on my own play. Typically I do 0 campuses. Holy/Comm/TheatreS is my typical city path, pushing to hit the 1/4/7 citizens needed. With Hammurabi I do ONE campus, in the capital, bc if you can land Great Library - with Hammurabi - in your capital - with Pingala... it is absolutely a great move. All dedication goes to Culture - and the science through other people's Great Scientists unlocks a TON of stuff. Even at just 70/80 science per turn, and the ONE university (via Newton), I had EVERY modern era tech by turn 200. That's pretty good, I think. (So - I think you saw my pic of a campus in city1 and thought 'This guy builds campuses' - I do NOT - but with Hammurabi... it IS a play - to build one, and build it early w/Great Library - and also, next to a Mountain, is tech-boost to knock one out.)

re: Still Learning
There's stuff I'm still learning as I go.

Example: "RELIC RUSH".
A lot of people love the "RELIC" choice when you get a religion, if you want a CV.
I'm starting to drift away from thinking that's a great move.
I had Kandy on this map... I thought "Here we go - people talk about this".
Found a wonder (turn 15 or so), but Kandy wasn't suz'd yet.
Found wonder2 (turn 30 or so), but Kandy wasn't suz'd yet.
Found wonder3, with Kandy suzed - got a relic for it around turn 100.
Did not find the other wonders... explored - what I thought was everywhere.
Found wonder4 only at turn 180 w/Missionary I sent simply to try to get a trade route path.
Was googling last night "How many wonders in 8-player standard map?".
It's 5.
Good lord. Five.
So - at best, there was only two others - and they just happened to be hidden.
(And I wasn't tanking Apostles for relics bc I knew I needed to hold as much faith as possible for Rock Bands towards Norway).


Example: "CITY STATES".
In this game, there ended up being ONLY ONE CULTURAL city-state, Vilnius - and it was beyond a walled-mountain range.
I don't yet have a firm grasp of things like the impact of this.
Sometimes I watch people do a speed culture victory and I think "Oh, that's convenient that you had THREE suz'd city-states at turn100... that's a 1/50 game for me."
(Only 1/5 games I probably even see 3-culture CS still around at turn100 on Deity... let alone suz them).



Anyways... gotta get out to work.
But this past game - for me - was such a brutal eye-opener.


So - a small-set of questions as a TLDR:
1. What things about the score/culture/tourism screens might hint at NationalParks vs RockBands?
2. How/why does one choose on the Civics tree to go towards Culture Heritage (w/NP on way) vs straight to Rock Bands?
3. Besides "lots of cities" - what is best way to generate 'mid-game' culture just to get down that path faster. In other games, I get to Rock Bands by turn 160-185 typically, this game... 208... and I wonder if it's bc I couldn't get envoys to suze the ONE culture CS.

I don't know.
Need to figure these kinds of things out to get my own Culture Skill from an 85 to a 95.


(Thanks for being a person to share some ideas... I'm really interested in this... and seems almost everybody has shifted to Civ VII... understandably.)

Photos at lunchtime from work.
(I have photos from my Babylon gameplay at turn 106... and turn 200 - as comparison to how Harald/Norway took off in Tourism/Culture.)

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

So - a small-set of questions as a TLDR:
1. What things about the score/culture/tourism screens might hint at NationalParks vs RockBands?
2. How/why does one choose on the Civics tree to go towards Culture Heritage (w/NP on way) vs straight to Rock Bands?
3. Besides "lots of cities" - what is best way to generate 'mid-game' culture just to get down that path faster. In other games, I get to Rock Bands by turn 160-185 typically, this game... 208... and I wonder if it's bc I couldn't get envoys to suze the ONE culture CS.

I'll give a more lengthy answer later, but this should suffice for now.

The choice of focusing on rockbands vs natural parks is really hard to pinpoint exactly, as it is a situation you need to get a feel for intuitively.
I say "intuitively", because the calculation here contains a lot of variables, some of them hidden from you, and thus its only possible to explain what I'm looking at personally when I make the choice.
The easiest way I get a feel for my relative strength in a culture game, is to see how much science and culture I have per turn vs the AI around the renaissance/early modern era, if I am ahead of them in tech and civics, and how much base tourism I have going at that stage.
I am usually ahead of the AI in the renaissance/modern era, and my culture/science can quickly grow from 300s/300c per turn in the renaissance, to something like 800s/800c in the modern era (my era, not the global era).
If the AI is still meddling around with 200s/200c at that stage, I know that I have a huge lead that will just get stronger, and at that stage natural parks and even faith purchasing archaeologists are more important.
The AI is behind at this stage, and thus getting high base tourism first is the most reliable way to crush them on tourism.
The sooner you get them, the sooner they also start paying off in tourism generation, as opposed to rock bands that, while giving high tourism bursts, are very lackluster for "tourism per turn" when you compare them to high base tourism and the risk of them disbanding.
Therefore I only recommend rock bands as something that pushes you across the finish line (when you are close to winning a CV), and rather focus on high base tourism.

The more general and important thing that applies in that choice, is again the principle of snowballing.
As you will see when you start doing lots of culture victories, is that the timing of your snowball (vs the AIs snowball) always contains one variable that you can do something about yourself, and that is to get your tourism snowball rolling faster than the AIs culture snowball.
As you have probably noticed by now, the in-game timer that tells you how many turns you have left before you win a CV, is completely off and not to be trusted, at all.
The reason for this is that it depends on your rate of generating tourism (foreign tourists) now, versus the AIs culture (which creates domestic tourists) now.
The problem here is that both of these values change over time, usually your tourism will only go up the more civics/techs you unlock (flight, globalization etc.), but that generally also applies to the AI.
However, there are different breakpoints where this starts applying.

Generally speaking, you can start snowballing hard on tourism around the modern era, where you start racking up a lot of themed museums and natural parks (followed by techs and civics that add further percentage increases to your base tourism).
These create a sharp curve upwards in a relatively short time frame, if you have the science and culture per turn to reach further key techs and civics shortly after.
Meanwhile for the target defending against a culture victory (generating domestic tourists), that culture per turn also (potentially) increases exponentially, but generally at a slower pace (and the AI is also generally terrible at exploiting the possibilities for exponential culture growth, which therefore looks more linear in terms of growth).
This means that as long as you hit the key timing earlier than you do today (key modern era civics, where you theme museums and start spamming natural parks), you set up a high base tourism, followed by exponential growth to that base tourism as you keep adding % modifiers from techs and civics shortly after.
The sooner you can reach this timing (early modern era and beyond), the sooner you can overcome the AIs increase in domestic tourists fom culture.
Therefore it is much more impactful that you snowball early to begin with, rather than deciding which order of civics you should go for first (as long as the order involves prioritizing sources of tourism).

Case in point:
If you ever get a CV at for example turn 160, try reloading the game and delaying your tourism increases by just 10-15 turns.
You will often see that the CV does not get delayed by 10-15 turns (the same amount you delayed the tourism push), but perhaps by 30 turns.
The reason is that the AI was allowed to grow their snowball more in culture in the meantime, and thus it made it much harder to "break" the AI with a fast CV, as the "finish line" got moved ahead as well.
This is why I advocate getting cities out much faster, because in the long term this is what allows you to shoot past the AI at a much earlier stage than you would have if you developed cities slower.
Yes it sets you back a bit in the beginning, but for the late game you are in a much stronger position to "break" the AI as you just have so much more going for you at that stage.

Generally I tend to spam natural parks and seaside resorts/archaeologists until the value of yet another one of these is low compared to my overall tourism per turn.
For instance, if I have 1200 tourism per turn, adding another natural park (even with modifiers) is perhaps "just" another 30 tourism per turn, and those take time to pay off in the long run.
At this stage rock bands are often worth more (assuming you are at something like 75% dominant over the leader, and also already have high base tourism) as this will then start giving you concrete chunks of tourism that can nudge you over the finish line.

Again this is very hard to model with a concrete answer as calculating the expected return of rock band spam is extremely hard, as it is subject to RNG (outcome in terms of surviving, disbanding or even promoting, as well as album sales), and is why I generally advocate for this TL;DR:

1. High base tourism (because base tourism is not subject to RNG like rock bands are).
2. Having high base tourism early (tourism starts paying off earlier, and at a stage where the AI is more vulnerable to it)
3. Start spamming rock bands when you are already getting close to the finish line (around the 70-80% mark of becoming dominant), as even some bad concerts that cause the band to disband, will not impact your upwards trajectory of winning the CV due to your already high base tourism.

 

[Pengwin7]

re: Your points #1 & #2 (High Base Tourism... early).
Kind of a 'general speak'. Yes, it's important... but the how/why - is the better talking point.

I looked at three of my past games, striving for <200 turn culture victory.

With Ethiopia, I was at 300s/650c at my winning turn 184. The culture (& s) comes from cities faith & hills, at 15%. So that's where their Culture is baked-in. 10 main cities, 5 tinies late (for NP)
With Sweden, I was at 160s/915c at my winning turn 199. The culture comes from their theming/ OpenAirMus/ Relic x3/-->very maxxed out capital w/Pingala. 9 main cities, 4 tinies late (for NP)
With Babylon, I'm only at 40s/325c at turn 200. 17 cities - and I triggered the Era Score from "largest civ by 3+ cities"... so I have a bunch.
My *score* (which I believe is tied to total POP) at these games - was highest with Babylon - 1087 at turn 200.

Point here... extra cities... isn't a lock to get enough culture to get you down the civic tree enough for either National Parks or... if you need to target highest-culture-CIV: Rock Bands.
Yes, you need culture & "High Base Tourism" (from that culture).
***But - (and this goes back to the thread OP) - maybe it's just possible that not all Civs can get a sub200 culture victory.***
The culture has to come from... *somewhere*...
And... for a non-Culture Civ like Babylon - then... from where does the culture come - if there is NO nearby civ to war in Ancient/Classical era?



In your reference to 800s/800c...
At what turn do you hit this?
And who is your chosen leader?
What settings do you play? (Deity, Map=?, Size=?... and no special game settings, right?)

Is this through:
i) Taking early cities thru war - and growing them yourself,
ii) Taking established cities thru war/loyalty - later,
iii) Using some 'buff' on a specific leader, or
iv) Other


Without war...
[Without cheese game options like heroes/monopolies, etc.\...
And without a culture-buff leader...
I don't see 800s/800c in the first 200 turns on Deity as a possibility.

But maybe I'm wrong.
I'd love to see a YouTube video or somebody that can pull off the sub200 CV with regular leader, peacefully (no war).
[Soger does a nice game with Mali and desert pantheon holy-sites. I like that. But he also got his own continent for land settle and some VERY fortunate CS nearby.]
Maybe sub200 CV is just not a reasonable possibility with Babylon. (?!?)
It IS... a very fun play. River Settles + Palgums + Aqueduct/Dam/IZ-->GreatEngineers-->Wonders.... it's at least FUN.
Trying to target anything/everything to get TechBoosts... (and there's some good GreatEngineers/GreatScientist for that - I got James Young - by luck - was an amazing feel to get Flight from that.)

There's a few things I am going to re-play and try differently:
*Need to find the wonders, smarter - given Kandy. Having only two relics at turn 150 was far short of generating early tourism from that Religion choice.
*Trade routes were not possible to 3/7 CIVs due to natural settling areas - so I'd have to push VERY differently to get those going - either settle an island in range or try to chain a 2nd 15-tile off a previous
*I missed Kilwa bc Norway rushed it faster than I'm used to... I'd need to try to chop that in.
*Generally - the scout that got Barb-killed heading to (what would be eventually found as) Norway - would've been key info/intel on what they were building. Didn't have that.

There were a few things I'm not sure I can overcome:
Mainly
*Norway running away in Culture... and exactly half-map away, from both directions
*He had a ton of great works - and I had nowhere to put them bc I was more focused on using prod to settle/holy/comm... didn't get Art Museums up until it was late
When I eventually did have the TS and bought all his GreatWorks late (turn 170-190)... depleted my gold and had all cities at "REVOLT" by turn 200.
That was issue - but I was pushing for the sub200 win.
Not my goal to just "win" a CV... but to win it in under 200 turns.
*Need to find Norway earlier and buy his great works earlier, I think.

But I'm resolved that getting down the culture tree faster - to get to Rock Bands - and steal his tourists - is the right path to victory for where he was as the RUNAWAY other CIV.
My understanding on National Parks is that it equally does tourism per civ...
But to target one CIV - it's gotta be through Rock Bands.

Still... I may try putting all my faith into National Parks - at Conservation... and just see how much better my own Tourism number would've been.
At least I would've spent it...

Spoiler :

 

[Pengwin7]

Separate post - for brevity -

Which is people's preferred / better / situational Civic Tree path when they are pursuing a Culture Victory (CV)?

 

[Pengwin7]

One more question:
*Art Museums vs
*Archeological

I typically prefer Art Museums - as I hope/wait for the Religious art to go.
I'll let others collect these - and when there's enough to *theme* (so, 3 diff) then I'll just 'buy' them from other CIVs.
Also - taking Great Works from competing Culture civs is something one wants to do anyways.

I usually avoid Archs bc of the cost of needing the Archaeologist.
Also - the era of your find is a bit *random* (though - I've always considered tacking a 'kill' with something that marks the era).
But my kills are typically only ME/Barbs... and to theme you need 3-different from same era... and since I don't *war" - hard to keep track of another AI kill, by era.
So - Arch Museums - that seems like a very hard thing to THEME...
With talking sub200 culture victories - seems like something that's a no-go.

And, typically, other AI don't do the Archaeologists until late.
For example - in my Babylon game - I did make one ArchMuseum - purely for boost - spent on an Arch't... got Anc/Class/Ren... no good.
It wasn't until turn 190 when Norway got some Archs... and he got Ren/Ren/M... and the two Rens were same.
So I couldn't theme an Arch Museum before 200 btw mine & Norways. And nobody else had any.

Seems like a bit of a waste - but maybe people have advanced strategy for how many and how to theme (before turn200)?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Separate post - for brevity -

Which is people's preferred / better / situational Civic Tree path when they are pursuing a Culture Victory (CV)?


View attachment 729894

Seeing this I remember how I havent played without shuffle tech for years, as I would go for natural history and convervation immediately, maybe 4 (cultural heritage) depending on how much I had spammed archaeologists with monumentality and/or the terrain was bad.

Rock bands cost a ton of time to grind out, and unless you run reliquaries, you dont gain too much from prioritizing a rush on Cristo Redentor.
You dont wanna rush the tier 3 governments yet either, because you wanna maximize the theocracy faith discount until you bleed dry your faith bank.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

A difference that I maybe not emphasized well enough is how the gameplay changes the faster your win times become.

An example below:
You can go for art museums, but it really depends on how much the AI has been contesting those.
If they do, you cant really contest the art too much early on since you should be prioritizing different stuff than theatre squares (personally I go holy site and comm hubs first, occasionally a TS when trade is looking strong or I struggle with culture income from other sources).
Also, the faster you get the win times down, the less time you have to start actually raking in great works from GWAM generation alone, and that actually starts becoming very noticeable if you get win times down to the 160+ range - you just cant pick up art pieces fast enough, because GWAM point generation is rather linear and even slowed by AI contesting them.
The second reason why I prefer archaeology is that they fill faster, and for more culture/tourism, with no risk.
Getting them themed is not really a big issue, especially when you get fast win times you wont have many regular works of art themed either.
And again, when you get down to faster win times, the AI making their own archaeologists to compete with you ceases to be a problem - they are nowhere near that culture level, while you essentially get much if not all of the dig sites to yourself.
And by having archaeologists unlocked in the renaissance era (world era), this means you have access to the monumentality golden age and can still insta faith purchase them to start collecting now - something the unit is not really balanced around with its high production cost.

So in essence, problems you might see as issues now just sort of disappear once you get comfortable in setting up an early and strong snowball.
(Which is why I really recommend trying to improve on the early game, and especially early warfare against the AI in the ancient/classical era to snowball faster).
Culture victory is by far the victory that is the most sensitive to such a feedback effect from snowballing.
The sooner you can pump out huge tourism the sooner (than expected) you win because you are also denying the AI the opportunity to build up their domestic tourists.
And vice versa, the slower your CV is the harder it actually is to pull off because of the same feedback - meaning that minor improvements in turns saved can give a win time with more turns saved on the win than you would initially expect.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Advice given to this point - I'd say - is more in the 50-75 range.
The best point, that I need to strive more for is... more cities.
Unfortunately, on lower levels - I thought 8-10 cities was enough - because that got it done.
And a lot of people who make videos are like "get your 10 cities".

Not sure what you mean about the advice I gave being in the "50-75 range", as learning to snowball faster is what will eventually get you down to those juicy win times at 150 turns (or faster).
The "have 10 cities by turn X" is a common advice given to weaker players that struggle below deity, which you are clearly not at this stage anymore since you are more than capable of playing for sub-200 deity (which is comparatively strong play, make no mistake).
Working on the early game to set up the snowball is thus the single most impactful thing you can do to really get the win times down, as the late game more or less plays itself anyway.

 

[planetfall]

Outstanding. Somehow I messed something up, and missionaries cannot go into foreign territory without war declaration. But I'm interesting in testing many of the ideas here. I had been playing with 3 cities and then go for military bump up; now I need to dial back and try with 2 cities. Most interesting, thank you all.