By now, we all know the Culture Victory is pretty underwhelming (to it it mildly).
I have a few gripes with the culture victory:
My idea:
The NEW Culture VC: The Cultural Powerhouse victory condition.
To achieve the VC, you must spread your Cultural Influence. This will be achieved through Cultural Osmosis, Religious Spread, and (if you prefer) Force.
Once 51%+ of the total settlements in game have your Culture as their Majority Culture, you automatically receive a World Leader, a unique Great Person, in your capital. Your WL can move around the map, but has a limited range and CAN be attacked. Similar to Army Commanders, if they are killed, they will respawn after a certain number of turns, let's say 10, but your settlements receive a 10% negative modifier to Happiness in them for the duration.
You can then complete the Air Force One project, unlocked through the tech tree once you have an Aerodrome. Once complete, you can (similar to the Eco VC) teleport your WL to any settlement you own, and any foreign settlement which you have Open Borders with. The WL has an action called Enact Dominant Culture; this action will lead to a new type of Culture Bomb (nothing related to border expansion). Culture Bomb will solidify your culture as the Dominant Culture in settlements within 15 tiles of the WL (on a standard size map), as long as they already have it as the Majority Culture (think of this as essentially representing an official State Visit in real world terms), essentially stopping any effects of CO from other players having any influence on those settlements for the rest of the game.
When 51%+ of total settlements in the game have your culture as the Dominant Culture, congrats, you win!
So, how does it work in practice?
In the modern age, the amount of Culture a City produces will influence your cultural spread through Cultural Osmosis. Think of CO in similar terms to Loyalty/Religious pressure from Civ6, where it will radiate out from your Cities to other settlements, slowly turning them if the amount of CO is higher than an opponents. Only Connected Settlements within 15 tiles of a City will be able to acquire Cultural Osmosis at the start of the MA.
Building a Railway Station in a settlement will increase the rate it acquires CO by 50%, and add an extra 5 tiles of distance, as long as it is connected to the City (or Cities). So, the more connected cities, the more CO.
Once you research Flight, you will receive an additional 50% Cultural Osmosis rate, and your CO extends to 30 tiles.
World Wonders in settlements will add another 5% CO rate for the Majority Culture in that settlement, and Natural Wonders in settlements will add 10%. Yes, you will be incentivised to ensure these cities are ALWAYS culturally aligned to you; you don't want to accidently spread another player's pesky inferior culture, tsk!
Building the Radio Station will boost the amount of CO by another 10% for that city.
Researching the Mastery for Radio will unlock a new Endeavour called Media Collaboration, which costs more influence, and similar to Espionage, also has an influence cost per turn. If you have a Media Collaboration with another player, your CO will spread from any City that player has a Radio Station in, as if they were your own. You will receive +24 culture per turn for the Media Collaboration if supported, and the other player will receive +5% to yields in that city, but +10% gold. If accepted, you will only receive the CO benefit for that city, and the other player will receive +5% gold. If rejected, it will decrease your relationship by -30, HOWEVER it will unlock a new espionage action called Pirate Radio, which you can begin. Once completed, you will gain the same CO benefit as if the player had supported the MC endeavour, but no additional culture per turn.
When the MC endeavour is active, you will also have a new agreement available called Support Media Infrastructure. This will cost some influence, but if accepted it will reduce the production cost for that player to produce radio stations by 100% (half), and will give ALL Radio stations produced by them double adjacency, and a free specialist in that district once the RS is complete. You'll want to ensure you have a fairly strong cultural hold on settlements before choosing this to pursue.
Still with me?
Okay, so Religion. Your cities which follow your religion will gain a 5% multiplier to CO to any other settlements following your religion, in line with the above criteria.
When transitioning into the MA, there is a new Golden Age option: Religious Harmony. RH will add an additional 0.5% CO for each Relic you displayed during the Exploration Age. I feel like this keeps Religion extremely relevant and powerful during the MA for a cultural victory.
Explorers and Artifacts... I guess we can keep them? But now the benefit of Artifacts will draw upon Great Works mechanics in Civ6. Each artifact on it's own will do the same, gives you a bit of culture. When you have a full Museum, you simply get a +5% CO for that city.
Okay, so finally, Cultural Osmosis through Force! YOU WILL ALL LEARN OUR LANGUAGE AND WAYS BY WATCHING FRIENDS! Jk
For any player who does not share the same Ideology as you in the MA, you have the option to begin a sanction called Culture War with them. This will cost a great amount of influence, but will also cost a significant amount to reject. This will be slightly different to a regular war though, and for all intents and purposes you are not officially at war with that player. Your units and the opposing player units will be able to engage in combat in neutral territory. If a unit is killed, this will spread that player's CO to nearby settlements (similar to how the religious unit combat worked in Civ6). It will also force Open Borders with that player. You will be able to move an Army Commander or Naval Commander onto the Palace/City Halls and have a new option available: Cultural Liberation. Doing so will permanently add a +10% acquisition rate for CO in that settlement, at the cost of some gold and a -30 relationship penalty each time you do it.
I think the rest is already explained. Once you complete the Legacy Path in the MA, and unlock Cultural Powerhouse, send your World Leader across the map to solidify your culture as the Dominant Culture. Yay, you win!
I think this VC, though obviously a lot more complex, is still much simpler to understand than Tourism was in Civ6, and utilises all elements of the game, while also addressing the issue of your previous Legacy paths not really being meaningful in the MA.
But what are your thoughts? Let me know if there's anything you'd want to add/remove from this, any considerations I haven't made, or if you just want to tell me you like the idea!
Thanks for reading,
Umbra
I have a few gripes with the culture victory:
- It's way too easy to win, and there's little incentive to pursue another victory condition
- It's boring, it's essentially just "make unit, move here, click this button, click that button (x15), build the thing, win GG"
- All the previous legacy paths and culture based mechanics become irrelevant in the modern age
- Culture is very easy to acquire. I am often playing games at higher difficulties where I have 5 - 10 x the amount of culture the AI has
- It dissuades you from actually playing the game; I get to close to winning and just force end turns until the World's Fair is finished
My idea:
The NEW Culture VC: The Cultural Powerhouse victory condition.
To achieve the VC, you must spread your Cultural Influence. This will be achieved through Cultural Osmosis, Religious Spread, and (if you prefer) Force.
Once 51%+ of the total settlements in game have your Culture as their Majority Culture, you automatically receive a World Leader, a unique Great Person, in your capital. Your WL can move around the map, but has a limited range and CAN be attacked. Similar to Army Commanders, if they are killed, they will respawn after a certain number of turns, let's say 10, but your settlements receive a 10% negative modifier to Happiness in them for the duration.
You can then complete the Air Force One project, unlocked through the tech tree once you have an Aerodrome. Once complete, you can (similar to the Eco VC) teleport your WL to any settlement you own, and any foreign settlement which you have Open Borders with. The WL has an action called Enact Dominant Culture; this action will lead to a new type of Culture Bomb (nothing related to border expansion). Culture Bomb will solidify your culture as the Dominant Culture in settlements within 15 tiles of the WL (on a standard size map), as long as they already have it as the Majority Culture (think of this as essentially representing an official State Visit in real world terms), essentially stopping any effects of CO from other players having any influence on those settlements for the rest of the game.
When 51%+ of total settlements in the game have your culture as the Dominant Culture, congrats, you win!
So, how does it work in practice?
In the modern age, the amount of Culture a City produces will influence your cultural spread through Cultural Osmosis. Think of CO in similar terms to Loyalty/Religious pressure from Civ6, where it will radiate out from your Cities to other settlements, slowly turning them if the amount of CO is higher than an opponents. Only Connected Settlements within 15 tiles of a City will be able to acquire Cultural Osmosis at the start of the MA.
Building a Railway Station in a settlement will increase the rate it acquires CO by 50%, and add an extra 5 tiles of distance, as long as it is connected to the City (or Cities). So, the more connected cities, the more CO.
Once you research Flight, you will receive an additional 50% Cultural Osmosis rate, and your CO extends to 30 tiles.
World Wonders in settlements will add another 5% CO rate for the Majority Culture in that settlement, and Natural Wonders in settlements will add 10%. Yes, you will be incentivised to ensure these cities are ALWAYS culturally aligned to you; you don't want to accidently spread another player's pesky inferior culture, tsk!
Building the Radio Station will boost the amount of CO by another 10% for that city.
Researching the Mastery for Radio will unlock a new Endeavour called Media Collaboration, which costs more influence, and similar to Espionage, also has an influence cost per turn. If you have a Media Collaboration with another player, your CO will spread from any City that player has a Radio Station in, as if they were your own. You will receive +24 culture per turn for the Media Collaboration if supported, and the other player will receive +5% to yields in that city, but +10% gold. If accepted, you will only receive the CO benefit for that city, and the other player will receive +5% gold. If rejected, it will decrease your relationship by -30, HOWEVER it will unlock a new espionage action called Pirate Radio, which you can begin. Once completed, you will gain the same CO benefit as if the player had supported the MC endeavour, but no additional culture per turn.
When the MC endeavour is active, you will also have a new agreement available called Support Media Infrastructure. This will cost some influence, but if accepted it will reduce the production cost for that player to produce radio stations by 100% (half), and will give ALL Radio stations produced by them double adjacency, and a free specialist in that district once the RS is complete. You'll want to ensure you have a fairly strong cultural hold on settlements before choosing this to pursue.
Still with me?
Okay, so Religion. Your cities which follow your religion will gain a 5% multiplier to CO to any other settlements following your religion, in line with the above criteria.
When transitioning into the MA, there is a new Golden Age option: Religious Harmony. RH will add an additional 0.5% CO for each Relic you displayed during the Exploration Age. I feel like this keeps Religion extremely relevant and powerful during the MA for a cultural victory.
Explorers and Artifacts... I guess we can keep them? But now the benefit of Artifacts will draw upon Great Works mechanics in Civ6. Each artifact on it's own will do the same, gives you a bit of culture. When you have a full Museum, you simply get a +5% CO for that city.
Okay, so finally, Cultural Osmosis through Force! YOU WILL ALL LEARN OUR LANGUAGE AND WAYS BY WATCHING FRIENDS! Jk
For any player who does not share the same Ideology as you in the MA, you have the option to begin a sanction called Culture War with them. This will cost a great amount of influence, but will also cost a significant amount to reject. This will be slightly different to a regular war though, and for all intents and purposes you are not officially at war with that player. Your units and the opposing player units will be able to engage in combat in neutral territory. If a unit is killed, this will spread that player's CO to nearby settlements (similar to how the religious unit combat worked in Civ6). It will also force Open Borders with that player. You will be able to move an Army Commander or Naval Commander onto the Palace/City Halls and have a new option available: Cultural Liberation. Doing so will permanently add a +10% acquisition rate for CO in that settlement, at the cost of some gold and a -30 relationship penalty each time you do it.
I think the rest is already explained. Once you complete the Legacy Path in the MA, and unlock Cultural Powerhouse, send your World Leader across the map to solidify your culture as the Dominant Culture. Yay, you win!
I think this VC, though obviously a lot more complex, is still much simpler to understand than Tourism was in Civ6, and utilises all elements of the game, while also addressing the issue of your previous Legacy paths not really being meaningful in the MA.
But what are your thoughts? Let me know if there's anything you'd want to add/remove from this, any considerations I haven't made, or if you just want to tell me you like the idea!
Thanks for reading,
Umbra
