Culture Wins

[RagnarD]

There are some obvious things one must do to achieve a culture victory:

1) Build as many wonders (even ones you don't need or want) and culture improvements as possible.
2) Put as much of the above in a single city, prolly the capitol, to increase the odds of a single city win.
3) Never move your palace, lest you lose it's accumulated culture (see above).
4) Grow your empire large enough to support your cultural expenses, but not so large that you're always at war.

Most of this involves trade offs. Spend too much on culture, and have your underprotected cities invaded. Keep your palace in place and watch corruption explode in the hinterlands. According to what I've read so far, it's not even possible to go for a cultural win on the higher levels, because of the need to aggressively keep your adversaries down.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on how to pull this off? I'm fairly tired of what seems to be the inevitablility of a space race at the end of every game.

 

[eyrei]

If you are sick of the space race, turn it off as a victory option. I did and I am much happier for it.

 

[RagnarD]

Ok. True. That's an obvious solution.

But, what I'm really after hear is a strat for winning culturally. The goal here, at least for me, is to win at every level with every strategy.

I have one more to add to my own list:

5) Minimize scientific and entertainment spending. With all the happiness and science your wonders are providing, you should be able to save all your gold for cultural production and defence (or defensive offence). Whatever science the GL can't get you can be brokered for with all the cash you're saving.

 

[eyrei]

Everytime I played with Space race as a victory option that was how the game ended. The only cultural victories I have ever had have always been won by having my capital breaking 20,000 culture points. This strategy seems like it would be feasible even of Diety if you somehow managed to get 3 or four of the early wonders that generate a lot of culture. As long as you can defend yourself, and noone else goes on a rampage, and you turn of space race. This way even if you fall behind in tech, you should have a good chance of winning. I have only played Diety once though, and was getting slaughtered from the outset. I did manage to build a couple of wonders thanks to great leaders though. Maybe on higher levels cultural victory is most likely with a militaristic civ. Currently, I am still honing my skills on Monarch level, and winning always with culture or diplomatic victory.

 

[RagnarD]

I won my first game on Chieftan with a cultural victory, but I suppose that doesn't count for much.

Militaristic civ for culture victory? That's interesting. I can see that - you want the great leaders to hurry wonders. Does that also suggest the you need to have at least a certain amount of warfare, in order to generate Great Leaders, as part of the overall strategy?

I think Religious civs would have a leg up, too, because of the cheapness of cultural improvements, most of which are religious. I think Scientific would not be important, since you'r trading for most of that, and Expansionistic would not be particularly helpful, either.

 

[eyrei]

I have recently taken to playing either the Japanese or the Germans to use this strategy. One key strategy is to make sure you build temples and libraries very early. I think the cultural value of an improvement doubles when it is a thousand years old, so these can potentially pump out huge amounts of culture very early if you build them in the BC years. On higher levels, you will likely only get one, maybe two wonders in each age if you do not generate a leader or two. To get a city over 20,000 culture points, you need a large number of great wonders in it.

 

[Ferd]

Theoretically, if you get them early enough, you could get 20,000 in a city with only two wonders.

1 - Palace
2 - Temple
3 - Library
2 - Colosseum
3 - Cathedral
4 - University

6 - Great Library
4 - Oracle

That will give you 25 culture per turn, which will double to 50 after 1000 years.

Get them all before750 BC and all you gotta do is wait it out for the next 450 turns. (I know. *ALL* you gotta do is make sure nobody else wins. That means building the UN, sabotaging anyone that is making a spaceship, and making sure nobody conquors two thirds of the land mass... Oh yeah, and make sure nobody takes your capital.) And that's also assuming you can pretty much avoid war after that, since I hear it halves your cultural accumulation.

I haven't been able to accomplish it yet. Rush building the improvements is easy enough under Despotism, but there's no WAY I can build even only those two wonders that quickly without great leaders. Especially since this won't work in the lowest difficulty levels. I haven't even been able to arrange for Education (for the University) to be researched that early at Chieftain level. At the higher diff levels that shouldn't be a problem--the other civs can do research much quicker than I can. But then I have to compete with the other civs building the wonders. The only way I can hope to do it is with great leaders. Which might be a problem since I need lots of war early to get my great leaders, and then as little war as possible later to avoid cutting my culture gain in half.

 

[RagnarD]

War culture production levels: that one's important enough to be no. 6.

6) War should be avoided as much as possible, and kept short when not avoided.

Of course, this cuts into your ability get Great Leaders, but as the man said, if you get your GWs in fast enough, you just need to make friends and be patient.

And, of course, sabatage the AI as much as possible without starting a fight.

 

[ironfang]

Here is my experience.

I played a game of conquest. However, I didnt do it in the traditional "Blitzkreig" style. Instead I used Cultural borders to swallow up the lesser advanced civs, to move my borders onto better resources and luxuries.

When I declared war, every city I conquored I tried as best I could to rush temple, library, and temples, to overwhelm my uncultured enemy, to better increase my manueverability and reduce the enemies.

So when all was said and done, I achieved a cultural victory. Even though I was at war at least half of my game. I finished in 1912.

I believe that you have a better chance at a cultural victory if you play a larger map.

ironfang

 

[jc011]

soooo, you could pretty much do a OCC with a culture win right??

 

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Ferd
And that's also assuming you can pretty much avoid war after that, since I hear it halves your cultural accumulation.

It's not simply being in a diplomatic state of war. It's when you've mobilized your economy into wartime mode. As long as your mobilization is normalcy, you're getting regular cultural accumulation, even if you're fighting pitched battles all over the planet every turn.

I have a tough time believing any difficulty level and any amount of luck is going to allow you to reach Education within the first 90 turns of the game. (750 BC is the 90th turn.) That's just too fast.

 

[Polonius]

My very first game of Civ (which was still only a few days ago) was on the smallest map against 1 other civ, and I went all out for Culture. But I never even got close to a culture win because I didn't understand the rules. I eventually won by conquest late in the game when it became obvious that I would fail dismally with culture.

So here's one way that I reckon would work: Culture Seeds.

Basically, get as many small culture improvements in as soon as possible. The whole 100,000 points race is a matter of slow accumulation rather than quick big grabs, so you MUST get those seeds in early.

After all, 20 cities x 10 points x 500 turns = 100,000 and victory! In practise it won't be that simple, but you must get many small improvements like temples and libraries in early to seed your victory.

And after 1000 years all those 2s and 3s will double, providing a big boost from then on. So:

1. Check your tech tree and head your research directly towards what’s needed to build Temples (2 points), Libraries (3), Cathedrals (3), Colosseums (2) and Universities (4) - all useful improvements anyway.

2. Play as Babylon (ever watched their Culture graph?). They are Religious, so start immediately with the ability to build Temples, plus their Temples and Cathedrals are cheaper. They are also Scientific so get cheap Libraries and Universities, plus a bonus civilisation advance at the start of each era. Gee, what more could you want!

3. Don’t get too carried away with Wonders as they take a lot more time to build for the same points gain (My failed attempt was big on Wonders, light on improvements). You can often score more points by using the time to build modest improvements, so try and balance when and where you do your Wonder building. Definitely build early Wonders while you are waiting to climb the tech tree, but from then on they are probably more use strategically – to boost your position generally or block other civs

4. This is an untested newbie theory, but if it works for you, don’t forget to say “Good old Polonius”! (Of course if it doesn’t, feel free to say “Stupid old fart, what did HE know…”)

 

[Flynn]

Unless you want to use the "build 100 cities and rush temples/libraries" approach, Wonders are critical for cultural victories.

You can only secure temples and libraries as fast cultural improvements for a city, and together, they're only 5 CP. Even with millenial doubling, that's only 10 CP. It's impossible to get that 10 CP in one city for 500 turns, much less 20 cities. A complete game of Civ3 is only 540 turns! You'd have to have a temple and library build in the first 40 turns. Even with despot rushing, having sufficient population and tech in that timeframe is unlikely in the extreme. Alphabet - Writing - Literature is going to be a minimum of the first 50 turns, even if you get lucky on trades and goody huts.

Even once you have a library, getting the Pyramids is critical in a culture rush game. You're going to need the granary in your new cities so you can proceed to the temple/library combination faster. You need to population growth so that you can then move on to the Cathedral/Colleseum/University improvements quickly in your growth cities. Less population = less workers = longer build time = lost culture points.

Interestingly, *once you have the improvements* it doesn't matter how many people live in the city -- the culture accumulates just as fast. So you can build your basic 5 culture improvements, then churn a city into settlers to go cook up a new one.

Actually, that's kind of an interesting thought. You could theoretically get a couple of settler/worker factories going, crank out population that you add to new cities, which you then despot-rush to your cultural improvements.

It would be like having slave cities. There's something diabolically Egyptian about it. You have cities which are churning out slaves that you send off to newly formed temple-cities, where you kill those slaves building fast cultural improvements, then move on to the next city.

I wonder how that would work out?

 

[Polonius]

Hi Flynn,

I think you are taking my 20x10x500 example a bit too literally . It was meant only as an example that small numbers need to accumulate (as I said "In practice it won't be that simple").

The basic Library and Temple, set will add a firm base to your Culture growth and accumulate nicely as the time goes by and the doubling cuts in. I also did say to build the early Wonders (of which Pyramids is obviously one). Colosseums can also be obtained in the Ancient era, plus Cathedrals and Universities can be built very early in the Middle ages.

My point about Wonders is that they only score fairly low points towards your culture score so they should not become a major distraction from getting a good spread of basic points.

Those 100,000 points have to come from somewhere - so what alternative are you suggesting, and in what way will Wonders provide them - apart from the obvious need to get the early general bonuses from them and keep an overall stategic balance with them (again, as I said in my previous post).

What's your formula for getting those points?

Cheers, Polonius.

 

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Polonius
Those 100,000 points have to come from somewhere - so what alternative are you suggesting, and in what way will Wonders provide them - apart from the obvious need to get the early general bonuses from them and keep an overall stategic balance with them (again, as I said in my previous post).

What's your formula for getting those points?

Actually, you can also go for the single-city 20,000 point victory. You'll never do it as fast, but you can also do it with a lot less resources.

I currently have a city that, at about 1550 AD, is producing 71 culture/turn. It's already got 5500 culture, so it'll have no problem reaching the 20,000 mark. I call it the "megapolis strategy."

It's not inherently better or worse than any other strategy, except that you can pursue it without a sprawling set of cities. As long as you can get your techs fast enough, you can nail down the early cultural improvements, and create a city that can build Wonders fast enough to stay ahead of the competition. That same city also produces about 180 shields/turn without a power plant (it'll build the Hoover Dam shortly), so I'm adding Wonders in about 3-4 turns at this point. Nice approach when you don't have any Great Leaders. (Speaking of which, I've had at least 50 Elite units victorious, and still no GLs. It's the one thing I hate about the French!)

What's also interesting is that it has no corruption, since I built the Forbidden Palace there, not for corruption control but for the 3 CP/turn.

I'm not trying to suggest that what you're proposing is *wrong* or anything. I just wanted to add that when you're in the early stages of the game, you aren't likely to have the tech to get past those first two buildings quickly. If you want a cultural win, I think it's wise to go for *both* the sprawling empire at 100K points, and the single 20K city. So for the 20K city, stack up the Wonders.

 

[Polonius]

Thanks Flynn - I thought you might be indulging in a bit of newbie bashing there, so glad to find you weren't.

Yes, I know about the 20,000 point side of things too, but haven't had a chance to try that out yet. Your game sound interesting, so I'll try out what you suggest. I've also been assembling some more info about the 100,000 method so will post that below.

Cheers. Polonius.

 

[Polonius]

Since first posting on this thread two things have happened to me. Firstly, my copy of the Official Strategy Guide arrived (and for you suspicious types – NO I didn’t read it before I posted!). Secondly, I finally captured a neighbouring city through culture induced defection (they took their time – it was 2044).

The city defection confirmed that a city’s existing culture points are wiped when you capture it, whether by military action or cultural absorption (Anybody know just where to find the rules about that?). In 2043 they had a Temple, a Library, a University, a Barracks and a Market. In 2044 when they defected it was all wiped and replaced by improvements (all non-cultural) that were bestowed by my existing wonders.

Captured cities can still be useful as they may already have a population whose potential you can harness to rebuild Libraries etc, fairly quickly. However, as capturing pre-stocked high yield cities is unlikely until later in the game (and the cost of capturing and stabilising cities can be pretty high) it looks as if this would probably be more of a fringe benefit if the opportunity occurs rather than a core strategy to actively pursue (?).

And here are the four headings from the Strategy Guide about Culture victory:

1. Choose a culture friendly civilisation. (They specifically mention Religion & Science).
2. Build everything that generates culture.
3. Spread your culture over many cities.
4. Protect your assets.

So there you have it folks. It seems that if you want a 100,000 point culture victory (rather than a 20,000 point city one) you will need a bunch of cities generating lots of little points that build up. Obviously the earlier you get in, and the more culture improvements per city, the better it is. This is not just one way of doing it – it’s the only way to 100,000, as there are no other available strategies that will lead to a single grab of a large bunch of points in one hit.

As far as I can see, there are also no Wonders that directly generate any Culture point gains (apart from their own modest points). Their value in the culture race is undeniably useful but indirect (i.e. bolstering your capability to grow and build, helping your cities prosper, keeping your people happy etc ). So build the ones you think you can beat the other civs to, but only if they are useful to your overall culture goal (e.g. particularly ones like Pyramids and Oracle, which give global benefits to your empire and not just one city or continent, etc.).

In practise this probably means not fretting too much about getting some of the ones that give military bonuses etc (unless of course you have already completed your basic culture set in a particular city and it’s powerful enough for the Wonder race – which may well be the case).

Good luck!

 

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Polonius
As far as I can see, there are also no Wonders that directly generate any Culture point gains (apart from their own modest points).

Just for clarity, I would hesitate to describe the culture point gains by Wonders as "modest." Perhaps the absolute best Wonder for the culture race is the Great Library. It's available and fairly easily completed in the Ancient Age, which means you'll get millenial doubling out of it. Since it's worth *6* culture base, when it double's, you're talking 12, or the equivalent of 4 cathedrals built after 900 A.D. That's pretty powerful, I think.

The Sistine Chapel and Bach's Cathedral are also good. Personally, I think the cultural value is the only reason to bother with Shakespeare's Theater (if you've bothered to build it in some city where you actually needed it to keep people happy, that city is pretty badly wrecked.)

It's been covered on this board before that the only way to rush to the 100K culture mark is to build a 100+ city empire. By "rush", I mean winning the game before the 19th century.

Unfortunately, I'm disappointed in a few aspects of the cultural approach to the game. For instance, I really think that you should get cultural accumulation based in part on the level of happiness in your cities. That is, a city in WLKD should accumulate culture 50% faster. You've created a utopian city, after all, and if all they're going to do is reproduce faster, then it should be recognized as a cultural boon. We associate most of our cultural relics with positive events (though it is true that the Holocaust museum and the Hiroshima memorial can be considered cultural symbols -- they don't generate the kind of appreciation that does, say, Notre-Dame or the New York Public Library.

My core culture city in my current game has 18 people who are *all* happy. It's been that way for the last 150 years. I would think that the cultural memories of a time when everyone was living in paradise would be pretty good, don't you?

(All happy people is what happens when you have the Sistine Chapel, the Forbidden Palace, J.S. Bach's Cathedral and Shakespeare's Theater all in the same city. Oh, and Universal Sufferage, too. It's also producing nearly 200 shields per turn. I love New York!)

 

[Ferd]

Yeah, when you capture a city, the civilization that owned it keeps all the culture that city has accumulated. You don't lose culture when one of your cities is captured, but you don't gain any more, either.

Once you re-capture a city, it starts generating culture for you again, but the manual says any millenium bonuses are lost. I imagine this might only apply to wonders, since I have never had a temple or library survive being captured twice.

Still, capturing cities and building your OWN libraries and temples works great. Especially at higher difficulty levels.

Also, I've noticed that wonders that I didn't build myself don't generate any culture for me. Capturing wonders for their effects works great, but I don't get any cultural benefits.

As far as wonders go for a 100,000 culture win, I'm with Polonius on this one. It just seems a lot easier to me to build two new cities with libraries than the Great Library. I get to thinking how many settlers I could pump out instead of building up 400 shields, and I just can't do it.

 

[Flynn]

Motivations for the megapolis strategy...

1) Size of your overall empire doesn't matter. You only need one serious city. The only critical component is to keep up in technology, but this is possible through the science broker strategy (or by simply building the aforementioned Great Library.)

2) Losing a city in a battle doesn't matter.

3) Corruption is irrelevant.

4) Because you don't need to build a far-flung empire, it doesn't matter what form of government you have.

5) Possible on a small island, possible on a giant continent. The only critical component is that the megapolis have a good location. My recommendation: Lots of grasslands and hills, furnished almost entirely with mines (and railroads once you can.) If it's eligible for Iron Works, that will be very useful. Doubling your shield output will make a big different in Industrial and Modern wonders.

6) Micromanagement is a no-brainer. All other cities serve no purpose but the service of your megapolis. You must protect it, but that's all you need to do. Proximity to your capital and your overall culture value will prevent your cities from flipping if you keep your empire condensed.

7) Wonder races are all about having at least one super-high production city, so you're positioning yourself to outstrip in Wonder races. It's critical that you win them, because getting them will be the primary method for you late-game accumulation of culture.