Culture win without building Wonders?

[Bilko]

Ever since I started playing Civ 3, I've always been addicted to wonders, and almost always tried for a cultural victory. Even on Regent, I could usually get all of them except for a couple in the ancient age.

But now, I'm moving up to Monarch, and I've decided to give the game a shot without building any wonders, and it feels good to be freed of the burden of them.

This is also my first game on a standard map, and my first on continents: I've always found Huge Archipelago to be the funnest for me, but I wanted the added challenge of continents this time.

So it's a lot of firsts for me. But, I do still want to try for a cultural victory. All of the other ones are a little too boring for me. I'm playing, for the second time, with the DyP mod. So far I've been doing fairly well, keeping up with the AIs in techs by trading. I'm China and sharing my continent with Japan and Polynesia. My cities are pumping out settlers as fast as I can get them to, but I'm still way behind in number of cities. I shouldn't have too much trouble catching up, though.

Anyway, my question was: If I can't build wonders, and I'm now on such a smaller map, both the 20k city and 100k civ victories are a lot more difficult. Which one am I most likely to achieve, and how should I go about doing it? I don't want a big walthrough spoiling everything though, just a few suggestions. Thanks.

 

[viper275]

A culture victory without wonders will be difficult. My advice is to spread it out. Even if you only have a few cities, make sure that they have built everything that gives them a cultural bonus and make sure nothing happens to them, so avoid war. As soon as anything that gives culture (besides wonders, of course) comes along, build it in all of your cities. Also try to plan your researching that way. Good luck!

 

[rychan]

Originally posted by viper275
Even if you only have a few cities, make sure that they have built everything that gives them a cultural bonus ...

with only a few cities, that means that one of them would 20k before you 100k, most likely. And 20k'ing without any wonders is pretty difficult. I won't say impossible, but it's likely that an AI city would be able to out culture you. I think your best bet would be to build lots of cities, even if they have to be a bit sprawled/sleazed together.

 

[Xerol]

Well, if you think about it, most of the non-ancient wonders play a minor role in a 100k win. Ancient wonders sit around for so long that they do play a major role(GL can contribute well over 4-5K alone).

 

[davidcrazy]

i don't think you can get a 20k city without any wonder in it.
so your only choice is 100k.. this means you have to build a lot of temples librarys universities in those completely corrupted cities.. so you need a lot of money to rush build them or need a lot of producing-units-in-core-cities-and-change-them-to-shields.

 

[Bilko]

I'm not ruling out capturing wonders, just building them.
It's 260AD right now, and my neighbor, Japan, has built the Pyramids and the Sphinx already, and Stonehenge will be done in 300AD. They may even build another one after that's finished, too. If I can capture the city around 750 AD, it will have at least 3, maybe 4 or 5 wonders, and there will be 350 turns left for them to generate culture (200 of which with the 1000-year-old bonus.) So if I can defeat Japan in the next 50 turns, I may be able to get a 20k city with Kyoto. And if I can't get the 20k, I'll have captured the Pyramids anyway, which gives me a free monument in every city and will help a lot toward the 100k.

The only problem is, like I said, I need to conquer Japan within 50 turns. We're the same tech level, I have horses, and neither of us have iron (unless I can get my settler to the deposit just outside of Polynesia's influence before they do.) Plus, the expansion phase still isn't over. It is for Japan, but not me, because there's still all kinds of open land just south of Polynesia that I'd have to give up in exchange for attacking Japan.

 

[the mormegil]

Getting a 20K Culture victory with no wondors is damn near impossible I think. Best go for 100K victory by just building as many cities as possible and build as many improvements that give culture as you can.

 

[loco-newf]

Capturing wonders won't really do much for your cultural win, since captured wonders don't produce any culture! They only produce culture for the civ that builds them (unless you use a mod that permits it).

 

[Bilko]

You're right. I've just taken Kyoto, and the wonders aren't giving me any culture. This game is going to be tough.

 

[loco-newf]

You can still use the 100K option to win. Build up your culture as normal, and kick some butt around the world! If you can keep everybody else below 50K culture points before you get to 100K, you'll pull it off (although I think you produce half culture in times of war which could be a problem).

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Since your China, try to capture or destroy your neighbors cities. Toi get more and more cities. Build bunches of cultural improvements in them so that your able to get 100 K victory easier.

 

[Bilko]

I'm starting to think it might not be possible. It's already 690 AD, the expansion phase still isn't over, and I'm at war with Japan right now (they declared in 620 while I was building up.) I'm winning the war, and will have defeated them in a few more turns, but corruption is starting to be a big problem, and while the war has netted me tons of elites, I haven't gotten one GL to rush the forbidden palace with yet. I think the only way I'll be able to do it is by taking Polynesia as soon as I finish with Japan, so I'll have the entire continent to myself and will be able to have tons of cities.

 

[rychan]

a) switch to communism if you have too many completely corrupt cities. It will also make it easier to build forbidden palace and secret police HQ

or

b) use engineers (citizen specialists) to build temples, libraries, universities, cathedrals, etc... in your completely corrupt cities. if you have irrigated grassland around your completely corrupt cities, you can have 6 people working the grasslands and 6 people as engineers, and that gives you 12 shields a turn. + the one shield that corruption never takes.

 

[Bilko]

I'd love to use communism, except that I'm still in the early middle-ages, and I won't be getting that until late industrial. And, I've never heard of Engineers. It must be something new to C3C, so it is unavailable to me, too.
But, I did end up getting a GL that I used to rush-build the FP, so I think I should be okay until I can switch to Federal Republic and get rid of most of this damn corruption