Culture victory changes - thoughts?

[Siptah]

I could get behind a victory mini-game for the atomic era. I suspect the modern age would need a few tweaks to turn it into a normal age, but I think it'd be for the best. As long as no new civs are added in any other age as it would probably bring back problem #3.

Ideally, such a victory mini-game era would exist for all three ages, so that you can also properly win an antiquity-only game or exploration-only game. It's not as if FXS have some other things to do and fix ...

 

[stealth_nsk]

I am saying this with full love for Civ7, I am very addicted and love it... but thus far I think for me it has the worst late game I've played in a Civ game. It's still just clicking till you win, but...

1) You are very pigeonholed into how you play down specific routes, and those routes are nowhere near equal. Millitary is much worse. Culture and Economy are quicker than Science (usually).
2) While in theory what you did before matters to how fast your projects complete, in practice just get more production for the same effect - the game to that point just depends on how well you set up your snowball.
3) You play almost every civ the same way in the modern era, beelining X, and usually ignoring their unique features because it's a race. This would be less bad, but civ switching means we've effectively got 1/3 less civs than advertised.

Antiquity is almost perfect, exploration is way better than I expected, but modern is bad, and if I wasn't trying to unlock momentos I'd probably stop every game at exploration.

While I agree that Modern requires a lot of work, I disagree with this critique in comparison to previous civs. Even though victory conditions looked less defined, I'd say in Civ6 you was much more pigeonholed into specific strategy for gaining specific victory once you know how to play the game.

In Civ7 I, as a peaceful player, almost always try to target all 3 peaceful victories in modern and while they don't have equal pacing yet, it's fun thing to do.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

Yes. In my game before last, I was dawdling after having conquered the requisite cities because I wanted to play more before the end and I accidentally let time run out before completing Operation Ivy, but I still won because I had acquired the most legacy points.

That's great. So you can even play around it and do various objectives while preventing the others of finishing one of the victories.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

I find the Natural Wonder artifact and associated text to be quite nice. It explains the digging as Paleontology but also sample collection and the like. I think this is a nice improvement and the pacing is better but more aspects of culture need to be incorporated into the victory. I cannot believe I’m missing Great Works of Art/Music etc but I am

On the other hand if other things that aren't cultural play a part in the cultural victory path, I think it's good also. For example, science matters for military or economic victory. So you're not funneled into a specific path when you want to try and go for a victory, and you can still play a strategy game of options for several victory paths through modern.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Just finished my deity game and I really like the changes in cultural victory. Feels much more in line with the rest of victories. Economic victory being more expensive is also great.

EDIT: Also, a civilization with deep specialization in cultural could actually use future civics for artifacts. I just did it.

 

[Yzman]

I would love for theming to come back. Keep what we have, but make it better by adding theming. If done correctly I think it could make it more interesting.

 

[Siptah]

Hm... in my second game with the changes now, it felt less good. Granted, I was well prepared and it was a cultural game previously as well (went Majapahit into Mexico). In the end, I had enough artifacts by turn 35. I prolonged the game to see what the maximum is that I can get, and when I won on turn 74, I had 26 artifacts. This was sovereign difficulty, and it may differ on immortal or deity. But it means that on mid levels, there still is an abundance of artifacts to get, and victory can still be very fast (turn 47 would have been possible).

 

[evonannoredars]

I think 1) and 3) is why it would be nice to change the third era to a 'normal' one, i.e., one that is played until you reach 100% age progress and has a crisis (World wars, Spanish flue, Stock market crash) at 70%. Then, you switch to the Atomic Age, which isn't a fully fledged age (no new civs and just one tier of buildings and units), but basically a ~ 30 turn race to victory in which you try to finish quickly while you have options to hinder the others.

Been thinking exactly this too. Take what the modern era currently unintentionally is, and then make an atomic era that does it on purpose.
With increasing globalisation it'd be thematic anyway imo for atomic age civs to have no uniques/only a few that are directly tied to victory paths.

 

[Leucarum]

Been thinking exactly this too. Take what the modern era currently unintentionally is, and then make an atomic era that does it on purpose.
With increasing globalisation it'd be thematic anyway imo for atomic age civs to have no uniques/only a few that are directly tied to victory paths.

Maybe just let the players pick any of their previous civs as the flavour for the atomic age?

 

[evonannoredars]

Maybe just let the players pick any of their previous civs as the flavour for the atomic age?

Aye perhaps - I also think it could be neat to explore the idea of a cultural heritage that traditions currently only touch on, with some ability or unique that can be 'brought back' in a modern form to assist with the victory, reflecting how irl people are increasingly looking to the past for historical solutions to modern problems.

 

[pjotroos]

It's still the fastest victory available, and it still doesn't really require hegemony.

I just finished 8 player immortal game where I was working on all peaceful objectives evenly in modern, prioritising economy. Got explorers around turn 15, bought 6 of them in total over the next 10 turns, each managed to grab an artifact. Got another 2 from events, at least three from overbuilding. I've researched rank 2 exploration and nabbed the last few from nautral wonders by turn 49. I had 3/6 culture legacy points from previous eras, and the World Fair still only needed 6 turns to build in my 140 production capital. Even with rush buying factories on the turn I've completed the research - and I bee-lined the research and got tons of extras from city states and spying - I was only at my 3rd capital visited when the fair completed. I was also just about to finish the project for the 1st of the three science objectives, so nowhere near the end.

The civ choices were Harriet with Carthage -> Spain -> Qing, so nothing that would speed up culture, and clear economy focus. 6/6 on legacy points, but they really don't matter for economic victory since you will always have enough gold.

I think it's better, though, and modern era has a very different problem. Only warmongering actually feels different. If you go peaceful, the three legacies don't force any trade offs. You can easily progress culture, economy and science alongside each other. They're often synergetic. So it will always be lots of artifacts, lots of factories, lots of research, and feeling very samey, regardless of which victory you end up going for. Earlier eras are not like that.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm not sure how I feel about culture, but still doesn't feel right. I don't really like winning this way. I only collect artifacts for fear the AI will get enough. The mad rush to artifacts I find very amusing. Is this an Indiana Jones game?

 

[99-percent-sure]

I'm playing on marathon, and am 120 turns into Modern for the first time since the update (using Ada). So far, I think that the changes to the explorers and relic collecting have been very positive. Last time I played (before the patch), I snagged 14 of the 15 needed artifacts during the first wave, because I was able to buy/build 6 or 7 explorers right off the bat and pretty much sweep the entire board with a pair of explorer stacks before any other civ got going with a competent explorer team. I think I missed out on maybe three or four artifacts total, so the outcome was obvious. 30-40 turns later, within 5 turns of finishing my research on hegemony, the game was over. Not one point had been scored on any of the other victory conditions, and I didn't even have a factory yet.

This time out, even with a few added relics from (passable) natural wonders in the game, I only have five so far, and the game feels much better-paced. Explorers are expensive now (the first one cost 4000, the next 8000) and take a long time to produce, so you can't really stack them unless you ignore nearly everything else and try to beeline for hegemony, which has been kicked back one level further in the civics tree. And even if you did that, there may not be enough relics left to win just with your explorer team, so it's a dangerous gamble. There's no question that the other victory conditions will come into play this game, and there will be plenty of time to engage in diplomacy, combat, wonder building, strategic choice of research trees, etc. This is a better balance -- it's forcing me to play honest.

 

[Navelgazer]

Maybe it's because I played it through with Great Britain, but I honestly didn't notice any changes to Culture Victory. It seemed about as rushable as it was before. Explorers are way more expensive, but I was able to finish World's Fair by around turn 100 with just having three of them running around. Which, like, I guess earlier games I've finished it closer to turn 75, but it still felt rushable. (For contrast, I had just completed the Railroad Tycoon track and gotten the Great Trader the turn before finishing World's Fair, so it probably would have been around Turn 125 at least before that one completed.)

 

[aelf]

I think how fast culture victory can be achieved depends partly on luck (the spread of artifacts in the first wave) and how you've built your empire. In all my games so far, economic victory has been faster because factory resources and gold are quite plentiful and easy to get. Now that Explorers are more costly, it's probably even less likely to be faster in a typical game I play.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yes, for peaceful game now in most cases I found economic to be fastest, culture now second and science still the latest. But they became much closer and depending on your leader and civs could actually shuffle.

But cultural victory is still mostly a race against AI, so it's much more dependent on difficulty level than other victories.

 

[99-percent-sure]

Maybe it's because I played it through with Great Britain, but I honestly didn't notice any changes to Culture Victory. It seemed about as rushable as it was before. Explorers are way more expensive, but I was able to finish World's Fair by around turn 100 with just having three of them running around. Which, like, I guess earlier games I've finished it closer to turn 75, but it still felt rushable. (For contrast, I had just completed the Railroad Tycoon track and gotten the Great Trader the turn before finishing World's Fair, so it probably would have been around Turn 125 at least before that one completed.)

Were you playing on Marathon speed? I'm playing at immortal level and using Great Britain, and the culture bombs I get from unearthing relics aren't that massive (about 2 turns worth of civic research). Turn 100 seems really fast. I got two antiquarians (explorers) out there as soon as I could, but by the time I got beyond my home continent, no dig sites were left. I'm also nowhere near getting hegemony right now, though I did detour in my research for two of the Great Britain-specific civics.

I also got hit with a government change crisis two turns before the age transition that forced me to spend half of my saved gold on repairs to buildings, because my cities were all in unrest.

 

[Navelgazer]

Were you playing on Marathon speed? I'm playing at immortal level and using Great Britain, and the culture bombs I get from unearthing relics aren't that massive (about 2 turns worth of civic research). Turn 100 seems really fast. I got two antiquarians (explorers) out there as soon as I could, but by the time I got beyond my home continent, no dig sites were left. I'm also nowhere near getting hegemony right now, though I did detour in my research for two of the Great Britain-specific civics.

This was on standard speed. And I might have just been getting lucky, with little competition for dig sites early on, good city placement both at home and in distant lands for running out to grab them, and natural wonders being conveniently placed to grab those when there were no other dig sites nearby. I had twelve before unlocking hegemony, and then the last three were quick work after that. I'd grabbed one or two GB-specific Civics before realizing that rushing Cultural was still doable, then went back to grab the others after Hegemony.

 

[enKage]

You still can buy final wonder as Mughals for 1 turn income, so I think culture victory this one is still easy enough

 

[Siptah]

You still can buy final wonder as Mughals for 1 turn income, so I think culture victory this one is still easy enough

You can, but it requires to have a very strong culture output. Otherwise, you won’t get to that civic long/at all before building the world’s fair. And Mughals have -25% culture. I guess they can finish around turn 45 if everything goes well. Which isn‘t much shorter than the 47 that I had in my second to last game.