Culture victory: too easy?

[bob_x]

With Sid's Sushi generating crazy culture, it's too easy to get a culture victory.

With BTS, Firaxis should have increased the amount of culture needed for a city to turn Legendary in order to make the game more challenging.

As far as I know, the AI never goes for culture victories, severely handicapping them against the human player.

 

[Dominico]

The Ai does go for Culture victories, Ghandi just won from nearly last place with 3 legendary cities in my game just as i was about to launch my spaceship

Was quite annoying but a clever victory!

 

[MrCynical]

The AI actually goes for culture victories with monotonous regularity in BtS. I've yet to see a game which hasn't had an AI focusing culture in three cities. None of them has yet succeeded, though in two games they got close enough for me to do a quick invade and raze job on one of their culture cities.

 

[Seras]

hum...so far my culture wins have occured long before corporations were discovered

i don't find them especially easy...in fact i'd say they need a more dedicated strategy early on to attain...whereas the other victory conditions can all be attained from simply building a mighty empire and then deciding which one you wanna go for in the later stages of the game.

it's also one of the easiest victories to counter...all your enemies need to do is take one of those cities.

 

[bob_x]

If you put 4 cathedrals in a city, plus free speech, that city will generate massive culture if it has sufficient culture generating building/people/corps.

I discovered this when I won a cultural victory by ACCIDENT. I was building my spaceships and all of a sudden I just won the game.

When you get the Hermitage, you build it in the city that's number three in order to give it a boost so it can catch up.

The only danger is thinking you can just sit there and watch your culture build up, because if the AI get a tech lead over you, you will find their tanks taking out your Riflemen, game over.

 

[Seras]

quick question...what speed/difficulty do you play at?

 

[bob_x]

Monarch/normal

It used to be Prince/normal, but I seem to have figured out how to beat Prince.

I should point out that a cultural victory doesn't require you to use your culture slider. You can keep it at 0% most of the game. Just move up when you are 20 turns or less from winning a cultural victory. (Like I said above, falling behind in science is death.)

 

[Shoot the Moon]

When you get the Hermitage, you build it in the city that's number three in order to give it a boost so it can catch up.

The only danger is thinking you can just sit there and watch your culture build up, because if the AI get a tech lead over you, you will find their tanks taking out your Riflemen, game over.

Two things:

First, it is usually more efficient to build the Hermitage in the highest city so that it produces the most raw culture (you should be almost completely GA bombing the third city up anyways, so it usually doesn't need many multipliers). You do use tons of GAs right?

Second, if you do good diplomacy, you shouldn't have to worry about being invaded. Either keep them friendly, keep them busy, or if they are far enough away, ignore them.

 

[Alakazen]

Once, on a two continent map, I managed to clear out the continent I was on before concentrating fully on culture. The only other civ on the map was on the other continent, so I stopped research altogether.

About 15 turns before winning, the sneaky AI came over and took one of my cities! There goes my win...

But I got a sudden diplomatic victory from my Apostolic Palace; he was now a member because he took a city with my religion! Those were good times.

 

[BriGuy20]

I got it totally by accident when I played as the Dutch. I was going for space race, and BAM! I get a cultural victory out of nowhere.

So I'd say yes.

 

[Lord_Zath]

yeah I always get culture victories at random, so I typically disable culture victory as an option.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The Sistine Chapel is a bit over the top and could be nerfed to +2 for state religion buildings but I don't see Sid's Sushi or Creative Construction to be relevant for culture victories because they simply come too late.
When I aim for culture victories I am usually finished before Railroas and Medicine even without BtS.

 

[PibbZ]

Im thinking about disabling the Cultural Victory option, to force myself to do more wars and backstabbing.

I always build up friendly, and if needed i fight defensive wars, then lay back and relax while waiting for the Cutulral Win. Might do an occasional invasion here and there for fun.

Imo, its too easy, even if you're not focusing on it. (might win earlier with focus, but its after the industrial era the warfare becomes interesting).

 

[Reggie]

As said Above the Company's are not a factor in aimed Culture Victorys. I play Monarch large Fractal maps on marathon, and it is not easy to get a culture Victory. Most of the Times you need to be lucky that Religion is not a factor of War on your Continent. And Keep up a decent Military, build enough Citys (9 are needed) and build some early Culture Buildings to get the Culture double is anything but easy... Normaly the last Tech i finish is steam Power. in the End i flip all Cottages to Workshops on none Culture City and adopt Caste + State Property and work what is needed, Money, Units, sometimes even Techs while the Culture Slider goes to 90 or 100%.

edit: If you got an Culture Victory by Accident, then you probably playing on a too low Level...

 

[Henrik]

I've had a cultural victory by misstake when playing as zara yakob and was going for modern domination

 

[Seras]

maybe it's more dependant on game speed...i also play on marathon as well and what reggie describes matches more the types of games i have when going for a culture win

 

[snipafist]

The Ai does go for Culture victories, Ghandi just won from nearly last place with 3 legendary cities in my game just as i was about to launch my spaceship

Was quite annoying but a clever victory!

I've had that happen to me as well. My ship was about 10 turns out from Alpha Centauri, and all of a sudden Pacal wins a cultural victory. Initially I was annoyed, but then I was glad that the AI goes for alternate victory conditions and snatched victory from me.

Re: the initial post, the corporations (Sid's Sushi, Creative Constructions, Civilized Jewelers, Aluminum Co to help with Creative Constructions) help a lot for cultural victory, but you've got to ensure that you get them. That means generating and retaining the right great people, getting those techs and corporations founded first, and controlling those resources to make them generate a lot of culture. This requires a good amount of diplomatic butt-kissing on one hand and ruthless conquering on the other. You will need to go to war against civs who have one of the corporations you want and aren't spreading it. Similarly, I find conquering nearer civs and vassalizing more distant civs for their resources is absolutely necessary. Basically, for a cultural victory to really work, you need a period of intense warmongering in the mid game, with a late game of consolidation and building. A lot like a space race victory.

 

[bob_x]

Re: the initial post, the corporations (Sid's Sushi, Creative Constructions, Civilized Jewelers, Aluminum Co to help with Creative Constructions) help a lot for cultural victory, but you've got to ensure that you get them. That means generating and retaining the right great people, getting those techs and corporations founded first, and controlling those resources to make them generate a lot of culture.

There's lots of fish and crabs and clams for Sid's Sushi, and you can get a Great Merchant by beelining to Economics and discovering it first.

Sid's Sushi is so overpowered.

 

[bob_x]

Two things:

First, it is usually more efficient to build the Hermitage in the highest city so that it produces the most raw culture (you should be almost completely GA bombing the third city up anyways, so it usually doesn't need many multipliers). You do use tons of GAs right?

Second, if you do good diplomacy, you shouldn't have to worry about being invaded. Either keep them friendly, keep them busy, or if they are far enough away, ignore them.

Nah, I got a culture victory without even using any GAs. But I'm still working on the strategy.

I don't see why you want to build the Hermitage in your highest city, which is usually the capital. There's no benefit I know of to getting your capital to Legendary earlier. Better to put Wall Street/Oxford there to maximize your economy and tech, because my capital usually generates the most commerce.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Nah, I got a culture victory without even using any GAs. But I'm still working on the strategy.

I don't see why you want to build the Hermitage in your highest city, which is usually the capital. There's no benefit I know of to getting your capital to Legendary earlier. Better to put Wall Street/Oxford there to maximize your economy and tech, because my capital usually generates the most commerce.

Usually, if you focus on a cultural victory, your capitol will be one of your legendary cities (usually with the highest cpt because it is developed sooner and guaranteed good land). If you focus on GAs, you can usually fully bomb your third city to legendary around the time your capitol finishes. This means that the third city doesn't really need the help from Hermitage (and in addition, because it is generating the least cpt, the hermitage gives the least culture there).