Culture Wins

[Polonius]

I would certainly agree with Flynn that The Great Library is likely to be a good Wonder to get because it is available early. (For either a 20,000 or a 100,000 point attempt, even though they generally call for a very different approach).

I’ve got it in every game I’ve played so far, along with Pyramids and a number of others. How much help it will give you in the tech race will of course depend on how many civs you are playing against and a bit of luck. The rules are that you get a free tech that you don’t have but that at least 2 other known civs do. Also, early in the Middle Ages when you acquire Theology, followed by Education they render first The Oracle and then The Great Library benefits obsolete (although not of course their culture points). When playing relatively low civ games I have had experience of no GL tech gains at all because of those rules, so it will vary. But I’d certainly agree that 6 points early on is not to be sneezed at.

Whether it is always a preferable option to putting the production into quicker items is open to debate and might depend on your circumstances. The 400 shields you need to build it is set against the cost of a Colosseum, Library and Temple (260 shields for a combined points score of 7). Then fairly early in the Middle Ages 300 shields will get you Cathedral and University for another 7. It probably depends on how powerful a shield pump your best city is (or cities are) and if it’s competing with a desire to build other early Wonders. So far (for me at least) it has looked worthwhile fitting Great Library in the middle of that run (even for no other reason that if you wait too long you’ll lose your chance to build it, but you can delay the others). So I’ve always done just that.

I am not in any way “Anti-Wonder” – I love building them. My only point is to suggest that it’s worth being selective about them if you are going for a 100,000 point Culture victory. I certainly take Flynn’s point about the early 6 gain but I’ll stick with “modest points”. My intention there was to point out that Wonders are not automatic culture engines and that their points are in the same general ballpark as the other improvements. I.e no 50 point Wonders, and also none that double your Libraries’ culture points or anything nifty like that.

And while we are clarifying the points situation, there are several errors in the manual with regard to Wonder scores. It lists the Sistine Chapel as providing 4 (but the Civilopedia and in-city tally both record 6). Similarly the manual awards 5 each to Great Library, Shakespeare’s Theatre and Newton’s Great University whereas the Civilopedia and in-city tally give all of them 6 as well. So they would be worth some consideration when the opportunity arose. On the other hand the manual’s 5 for Cancer Cure is downgraded to 4 in the Civilopedia. I assume that the game listed points are the ones that are actually used in the calculations.

The funny thing about all this is that while in some posts (on this and other forums), people are wailing about how hard a Culture victory is – I have also seen posters indignantly complaining that an unexpected Culture victory mucked up their plans in another direction!

The great thing about this game is that there is never a perfect one-size-fits-all solution and improvising and adapting is always called for. I love it!

 

[pilferman]

The best way to get a 100,000 culture point victory requires you to throw out everything you've been told you should do in an ordinary game. What I mean is you will need to build as many cities as you can in the area of land given. Forget about the city radius and build cities as close as you can to each other, provided they will be able to grow at least a little. Keep building cities as fast as you can until all of the available land is used up to your satisfaction. As soon as you have done this, exclusively build culture improvements. Don't waste time with wonders until you have no other culture improvements to build. Don't research any technology until after you've got all of your improvements built. This method of cramming all of your cities together gives a small population but, surprisingly, production is through the roof. I was able to produce a gargantuan army in no time when the time came. Your economy will also reap the benefits of an immense number of cities. Corruption is still a pain with the default rules, but your city spread isn't as great, so it doesn't play that large a role. The best civ to do this with is easily the Babylonians. I used the Babylonians in my last game and won with 100,000 in about 1680. I wasn't at all agressive at the begining which is why it took me so long to win. Had I been more aggressive, I would have had more land and therefore more cities. In my last few turns, I was getting about 1050 culture points per turn. There you have it.

If I can figure out how to zip a file, I'll post my last turn. Otherwise, it'll have to remain in its 2mb glory on my hard drive.

 

[Polonius]

Thanks for the post pilferman - I'd love to see that end save! But I guess it's still going to be huge, even zipped. When you say "Don't research any technology until after you've got all of your improvements built. " how far do you take this? Most of the improvements need techs first don't they? Or are you referring mainly to Temples which Babylon can build right from the start?

Did you put much early effort into roads to link cities and other types of improvements or was it just build build build and tidy up later?

And what sort of world setting/terrain type were you on to get a good shield pump from small cities? And how small - basic 9 squares, no expansion?

Thanks for an interesting insight into how it can be done.

Cheers. Polonius.

 

[Polonius]

I PROMISE that I'll shut up soon and get off this thread, but it's just getting interesting and I'm learning heaps, so.....

It looks as if WHAT you need to do is pretty straightforward really, the real questions are HOW, WHEN and WHERE?

The “WHAT” seems to boil down to:

20,000 point city –
Build every points scoring item you can. This means the basic 14 points Library, Temple, Colosseum, Cathedral, University set + every Wonder that comes your way.

100,000 point overall –
Build a whole lot of cities with as many full sets as possible.

Bit of a no-brainer really. Obviously in both cases you need speed to get in as early as possible so that the points can accumulate, and as many as possible can get the 1000 year doubling bonus. And speed means shield pumping power, growth, manoeuvrability, etc.

So it’s on to HOW, WHEN and WHERE. As Flynn pointed out, you only have 540 turns to do it in (thanks for that info, I posted that question elsewhere and got no replies).

HOW?
How do you maximise a city’s power to pump out improvements? Picking the right sites is sure to make a difference – in fact it’s probably the single biggest factor in setting up a 20,000 point super city (Flynn??).

WHEN?
When do you go for a 20,000 pointer, when a 100,000 pointer, and when do you just say “After x turns I can see that this situation is not suitable for a Culture victory at all, so I need to switch to another victory style.

WHERE?
Some map types and map sizes appear to be unsuitable for easy growth to multiple cities. You will either need to build a fleet or conquer some territory. This may still be achievable – but are there optimum game start settings? (Smaller maps sizes seem to get a bad rep on culture threads, but are there also good and bad world types?)

Can anybody recommend any good threads that address these issues, particularly the best way to build solid power pumping cities?

 

[Polonius]

Re the above:

I just started a basic game and after the initial set up phase it looked a very bad bet for either sort of Culture win – no good productive spots for a super-city and my close neighbours on a smallish piece of land were Shaka and Xerxes. Shaka’s first searcher found me in exactly 10 turns, despite his eventual capital site being more than ten squares away via a zigzag route round some obstacles. Even worse, Xerxes was cornered and soon needed to blast through me to expand. This one would end in tears unless I switched to a different game plan!

I restarted on a bigger map size and the position looked much better. I’ve got a lot more room to expand and got well under way quickly. Unfortunately I was too dim (and build focused) to spot my very best chance at victory – an absolute dream spot for a super city, totally dripping with goodies on every square. I should have shifted the focus there immediately my searcher saw it and “Flynned” my way to victory. Instead I built a perfect base for a Histographic victory (which nearly all mine have been so far). A neat bunch of well resourced cities with good infrastructure, a handy military for attack or defence, etc. Doh!

By the time I got around to the “dream spot” I’d blown away too many valuable early years and as soon as I founded the city Bismark arrived in 2 turns and attacked it! (And I again drew Shaka and Xerxes for neighbours - both the other side of me).

My guess is that there’s a good solid way to start, no matter what, and an optimum point (which will vary in each game – such is the beauty and design of Civ3) at which you need to decide which kind of victory best suits the emerging situation. Any tips please?

(Keep all your fingers crossed Polonius, you've probably bored evrybody away long before this post)

 

[pilferman]

As I said before, I wasn't very aggressive in this game, so it ended pretty late. I think the end date is around 1680, I don't remember. The difficulty is Regent. I attached the last turn, if you want to check it out. I was getting bored, so I went on a late game rampage to rid the world of the filthy English and Zulus.

 

[pilferman]

PS--If you watch the replay (Its probably long) you should take note that I didn't conquer a single city until the end of the game, nor did anybody else conquer any of my cities. All of the cities I took control of during the game was a result of cultural defection in my favor.

 

[pilferman]

Another PS--To answer your question about researching techs, set your economy for maximum cash. You'll be making a lot of money this way and you can do a lot of things with money. Use it to speed build your buildings once you get Republic. Use it to buy techs from other civs. If you're alone on an island, research enough to allow for exploration so you can meet someone. Buying techs will keep you up in the tech race. Once you have most of your cities established, start to research techs so you can pull away, if you want to.

 

[Polonius]

Originally posted by pilferman
As I said before, I wasn't very aggressive in this game, so it ended pretty late. I think the end date is around 1680, I don't remember. The difficulty is Regent. I attached the last turn, if you want to check it out. I was getting bored, so I went on a late game rampage to rid the world of the filthy English and Zulus.

Wow! Many thanks for posting your fascinating saved game Pilferman – that was an astonishing sight! It makes me realise just how far I have to go yet before I have mastered this amazing game (something that I relish, as learning how to play is about 90% of the fun for me. Once games get down to “kill bad guy, kill bad guy, kill bad guy, move into next room and repeat” it palls pretty quickly). At this rate of progress I may still be playing Civ 3 in 2050 real time. Unfortunately, as I’m already 55, I think that the “Big Sid” will have called “game over” for me before then!

I only discovered Civ games eleven days ago, so am still pretty wide eyed about it all. How long have you been playing them?

You also did a great job of zipping the file and compressing 2132k down to 278k. I must check out my WinZip and read up on compression. The only thing that puzzled me was that the date on the game save said 580 AD, whereas the date in the game was actually 1715. When I first saw the file, I thought “He won by WHEN!!!”

My Hall of Fame has now undergone a dramatic upswing with my two looks at your game now heading the chart by about a zillion points!!

 

[Polonius]

Originally posted by pilferman
PS--If you watch the replay (Its probably long) you should take note that I didn't conquer a single city until the end of the game, nor did anybody else conquer any of my cities. All of the cities I took control of during the game was a result of cultural defection in my favor.

That's very useful information as it made it much clearer for me to "read" what was happening. Both Nippur and Tugela changed hands a couple of times and although it was pretty clear that you'd originally lost Nippur (which was isolated) by the Zulus absorbing it, it wasn't easy to tell how the other changes had happened.

Thanks again for your interesting posts and a fascinating (and humbling) saved game for a Newbie to look at.

I doff my helmet in admiration!

 

[pilferman]

Wow, you've only just started playing civ? I guess you're evidence that its never too late to start playing. I started way back in the early 90's with the original. I've been hooked since. You probably picked the most difficult version to start with, but you also picked the best by far. Regarding the name of my saved game; I try to limit the number of saved games so I don't have to scroll down to load/save. I just overwrite the same file again and again.

If you think this file was impressive, take a look at some of the others' games. They make me look like a newbie. I can only win part of the time on Monarch, once on Emperor (I had luck on my side), and never on Deity (net even close). If you really want to be humbled, play the December "game of the month." Find the GOTM thread for more info. Not only did I lose, I got conquered quickly. That's another story.

 

[Polonius]

Thanks again pilferman, I'll follow up your suggestions soon. I'm off the net for a few days due to storm damage on the phone lines (at a friend's today).

The intriguing thing about all this is that the game I referred to further back in this thread (which I thought I'd blown due to getting distracted by some early fights when I'd only put in 15 cities) turned out to be a winner! Inspired by your culture absorptions I hung in there and kept banging in improvements. I eventually won in 1973 with 16 cities settled by me, 2 more taken by force and another 6 swallowed by cultural defection (from memory). On the last turn a 25th (irrelevant) city defected.

This was much less cities than I'd thought necessary, but it did take until 1973 and the end game was stupefyingly boring as I hung on and everybody else fought - with untold troop movements!

 

[Angmar]

The first real serious game I played of Civ III ended in a culture win. And what I mean by serious is a game that lasted more than one night of playing ( this one was 8 days! )

I was playing on the 2nd level of skill, as the Chinese on the largest map with a pangeaic contient with the most land / sea ratio.

As this was my first experiment with such a game and playing the chinese it was a bit muddled as to what my goals were going to be. I was aiming for conquest but then realized that this was hopeless and started to aim for the Space Race. Once I got through a couple of components for the ship, all of a sudden POP I win with Culture .. cant complain about that. Now if Ihad been paying attention I would be able to say 100% that I won with the 100k points, but there is a chance that Bejing hit 20k.

My methodology in winning was this. To win the military war I need technology, the best tech around, so libraries and universities were very high on my list to make sure all my cities had. Next was happiness of my people, unhappy people wont crank out tanks to run over the neighbours.

As this game was played on with a MASSIVE amount of land it took a while for us to bump into each other and when we did we all had large empires. I manage to engulf Russia with a few wars, a large portion of India and most of Japan. Since I had such a massive productive empire ( nothing like Chinese workers in a Democracy to build those railways! ) I always had bucket loads of cash around to rush build key improvements.

As tech came slow as there were only 6 civs and on the largest land mass. This allowed me to slowly climb up the tech ladder building the improvements as I went. When I conquered cities I brought culture with me!

I would have to say that the key to win this game was the land mass size however this game did take me 8 nights of playing to win ( minus friday and saturday night + lots of sunday ) .. had to go out and chase the girls

Good luck in your conquests!

 

[Polonius]

Thanks Angmar, that sounds interesting too - I must have a go at the bigger maps. Playing at the lower end of the scale, as I am, it tends to get crowded pretty quickly unless I get a lucky draw.

 

[Moulton]

My first win was cultural--American in 1960.
On chieftain level, for what that is worth.
I have had one city nearly reach the 20000, but unfortunately, my space ship finished first, and I don't think I had enough game time left anyway. I had over 100,000 total points.
The cultural victory is complicated by the need to have twice as much culture as your next rival.
I am currently working toward that with England. It looks doable at this point, but it takes days for me to finish.

Build as many wonders as I can.
Build as many cultural building as possible,as soon as possible.
Avoid war.
I have 30 cities, huge world. Forbidden palace to allow farflung cities to build, as well as its own culture.
About ready to push the French off my continent into the sea.

 

[Clutch-3]

Hey all,

For whoever was looking for threads about cultural victories: I posted a culture rushing strat about three weeks ago. The thread may be gone, but someone posted my strategy on the war academy or whatever it's called. The heading of the strat is "New Strat: Culture Rush" I think. It's got a llink of the first game I used the strat. Basically it amounts to what some others have mentioned: cities as close as possible, stick to peace. I assimilated about 15 cities in that game as I recall... check the strat if you are interested.

cheers
clutch

 

[Polonius]

Clutch's thread is well worth reading.

It should be at the link below, if I've got it right (about a 50% chance as I seem to be suffering from Civ3 overdose brain-fade!)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10064