Culture

[Xenos]

I got to civ 4 recently and am playing at the Warlord, despite winning with Louis XIV but cannot do it consistently, I have close to winning with 3 times Hatshepsut. I need help and note I plsy on small maps (time)

problems:
1) usually the first 2 cities needed for a cultural victory, the 3rd is the hardest and last to come around

2)I gain extra maintenance it seems 'cos of cultural flipping

Any tips to help especially on city placements and the opening turns?
Where would you put the cities according to the map below

 

[Bradlius]

If you're trying for a Cultural Victory, I find that religions and wonders are hugely helpful, more important than city placement.
And even though you only need three Legendary cities for the win, I find that an empire of at least six and maybe nine cities is necessary. I rely heavily on the Cathedral-type buildings to 100% boost my culture rate, and you need three Temples for every Cathedral you build. I build Cathedrals for my own religion in each of my three Legendary cities, and if I am lucky enough to have another religion spread, I build more Cathedrals (Confucian Academy, Hindu Stupa, whatever they are called) in those same cities.
If possible I build the World and National wonders in those cities as well. Most of them will at least add base cultural points, and some of them multiply culture points.
Great Artists can help if one of your three cities is dragging along and not earning enough points. You can either produce a Great Work in that city (adding an instant 4000-6000 culture points) or settle the GA there and earn an extra 12 pts per turn.
Hope that helps?

 

[Cam_H]

Xenos,

Further to Bradlius's good points ...

Any leader can win any victory, but Tokugawa is generally not regarded as a great choice for cultural wins! He's a lean, mean, fighting machine! ... but as before, it's not to say that a Japanese cultural win isn't do-able, but Philosophical, Financial, Spiritual, and Industrious are the traits that lend better to this victory type. On the 'plus' side, Tokugawa does get quick access to Pottery, which is an important technology for both Cottages and Granaries.

More info? Hit The War Academy.

As for your game, my inclination would be to race down to the Clam-Stone-Wine-Banana spot and try to snatch it from Montezuma. He'll probably get a religion soon, and you could consider adopting it and working co-operatively with him. Then look at back-filling cities such as Cows-Silk and Incense-Silk. In time you might have to him. You could always take the other path and just Axe-rush him and take him out of the game once and for all!

 

[Xenos]

Xenos,

Further to Bradlius's good points ...

Any leader can win any victory, but Tokugawa is generally not regarded as a great choice for cultural wins! He's a lean, mean, fighting machine! ... but as before, it's not to say that a Japanese cultural win isn't do-able, but Philosophical, Financial, Spiritual, and Industrious are the traits that lend better to this victory type. On the 'plus' side, Tokugawa does get quick access to Pottery, which is an important technology for both Cottages and Granaries.

More info? Hit The War Academy.

As for your game, my inclination would be to race down to the Clam-Stone-Wine-Banana spot and try to snatch it from Montezuma. He'll probably get a religion soon, and you could consider adopting it and working co-operatively with him. Then look at back-filling cities such as Cows-Silk and Incense-Silk. In time you might have to him. You could always take the other path and just Axe-rush him and take him out of the game once and for all!

I know about Tokugawa just using this from a previous game, personally Louis is my favorite,
There is one question what are you looking for in gaining cultural victories, one city have all the military wonders while another has all the science wonders?

 

[Kennigit]

Bradlius did well describing the basics. For culture, I prefer the commerce approach, where one cranks up their culture slider to 80-100% and slide their research to 0% around Democracy. If you want to pump out a few extra great artists than you already have had, you might consider waiting until Biology to lower your research down, so that a farmed city can run lots of specialists.

For cities, you need a good balance of
1. food
2. commerce
3 production.

River cities tend to be the best, as they generate extra commerce from the river and can farm acouple squares easily. Your capital tends to always be 1 of the three cities. For production in your target cities, you need maybe 2-3 mines. Use the mines to build those temples/cathedrals etc, and also use Universal suffrage to get more production from towns and to pay your way. Later, when you feel you've had enough, you can remove them from the mines and assign them as artists.

Cultural victories fair a bit better when you have only acouple really close-by neighbors. Have good relations with them (or conquer 1 early) and becomes allies with them. Make a couple of defensive pacts- if you get declared war on, they'll go off and do the fighting and you can typically sit back and relax.

Financial civilizations tend to fair well for cultural victories, as well as philosophical. 1 of your 3 major cities should be a bit foodier, and your main artist maker. The first artists that you get should become specialists in the city, as once you crank the culture slider up it will even out to the bomb quickly. Later artists should bomb, as you'll get more bang for your buck.

Finally, I think the Chinese can be particularly good for cultural victories as Qin Shi Huang is industrius if you want some wonders and the Chinese Pavillion suits well.

Your game above doesn't look too particularly favorable, but you can get a good city out of cow/silk with grassland for cottages, and the banana stone clam wine city. Since you have a lot of coast, the Colossus would greatly help (and you can decide to not get astronomy). Monty's capital would also look pretty nice........

 

[Xenos]

Well if anyone wants to try it out, here is a saved game of my most recent attempt, using Germany and Fredreck

 

[Preacherman]

Ok, I just took a look at the saves and a few things came to mind:

Use the workers better. You have them hooking up fur despite the fact that you're nowhere near the max happiness. Instead, chop down some of those forests and cottage away.
Of course, that kind of prioritizing wouldn't be necessary if you had 6 workers instead of two. Two isn't nearly enough and it shows. In 1590 AD you still have loads of unimproved land. Remember, improvements can easily double the output of a tile. Unimproved land is a ball and chain.

Speaking of balls, you must really trust Roosevelt. You're way below him in power, yet you're trading him iron. Even if he is friendly with you that's a big no-no. Never trade military resources to a neighbor, especially one more powerful than you. You don't know how friendly he's going to be in a hundred years.
For that matter, why is Roosevelt still in the game? He should have been wiped out centuries ago. That would have given you more room to expand and also put an ocean between you and any potential enemy.

That's just a few things that popped out at me. Hope it's useful.

 

[Xenos]

Ok, I just took a look at the saves and a few things came to mind:

Use the workers better. You have them hooking up fur despite the fact that you're nowhere near the max happiness. Instead, chop down some of those forests and cottage away.
Of course, that kind of prioritizing wouldn't be necessary if you had 6 workers instead of two. Two isn't nearly enough and it shows. In 1590 AD you still have loads of unimproved land. Remember, improvements can easily double the output of a tile. Unimproved land is a ball and chain.

Speaking of balls, you must really trust Roosevelt. You're way below him in power, yet you're trading him iron. Even if he is friendly with you that's a big no-no. Never trade military resources to a neighbor, especially one more powerful than you. You don't know how friendly he's going to be in a hundred years.
For that matter, why is Roosevelt still in the game? He should have been wiped out centuries ago. That would have given you more room to expand and also put an ocean between you and any potential enemy.

That's just a few things that popped out at me. Hope it's useful.

your not for peace are you? about the workers yeah I lost them in a war with china until I made a navy- the galleries you see, Roosevelt he helped me the last time with China, the thing I worry about with Military campaigns is having to spend so much time on units and less time on culture

 

[Preacherman]

Peace is for suckers. I understand where you're coming from, but face the facts: You will have to fight. Then it's just a matter of who, how and when. If you make those decisions, you stand a much better chance than if you let others make them for you.

If you strike early and hard, you can make sure you get the peace and quiet you need later. E.g. if you had eliminated Roosevelt, you would have had the island for yourself. No need to worry about land invasions ever again.
An alternative, if you don't want to go to war yourself, is to make sure everyone else is busy. The Chinese is your enemy? Bribe someone to attack them.

Last point, regarding the balance of military and culture, if you had a few more cities, you could afford to make one dedicated production city with the sole task of cranking out units. You maintain an up-to-date military and the rest of your cities do the culture mambo.

 

[Xenos]

Thanks for the tips I will apply to my next game, but I got to give it a rest , for a while (Lets face facts civ games = crack)

 

[KMadCandy]

Cultural victories fair a bit better when you have only acouple really close-by neighbors. Have good relations with them (or conquer 1 early) and becomes allies with them. Make a couple of defensive pacts- if you get declared war on, they'll go off and do the fighting and you can typically sit back and relax.

be very careful about "a couple of defensive pacts". the more defensive pacts you have, the more DP partners you have that might get war declared on them. if that happens, you're not sitting back and relaxing. you automatically declare war on whoever the meanie was.

what i look for when i sign DPs is someone to protect me, i don't really intend to defend them. naturally, i don't mention that during negotiations. i want someone high in power, and that isn't say 95% of the world's worst enemy, so most folks aren't likely to attack him. because if somebody starts a war with them while i have a DP i automatically declare on them and earn a permanent -3 you declared war on us! if i'm going to get stuck with that -3 i want it to be because i decided it was time for the guy to lose cities and/or die, not because i got caught in the middle of somebody else's mess.

i never sign DPs with two nearby neighbors that aren't best friends forever because of that. if one DoWs the other, that permanent -3 i earn is with someone who by definition i had good enough relations with to sign a DP with before that. that is very very not good in my way of thinking.

in addition, the act of signing multiple DPs gets you negative modifiers with the ones you don't sign with. if you sign a single DP, nobody minds. if you sign 2, you get a -1 modifier with everybody who didn't sign one with you. sign 3, still just the -1, sign 4 or 5 you get total of -2 with the people you don't have one with, for 6 i got -3. the most angry anyone ever got with me about them was when i signed DPs with all seven leaders the map except for Churchill. he was jealous i suppose, and gave me a -4. that was only a test, after i'd won a game where everyone loved me. i've never actually had that many during a game. that test was a standard map, 8 AIs and me, i'm not sure whether those numbers change with the total number of civs in the game or whether they change if some civs die. but i do know that having more than one DP does get you a negative with the other leaders.

Peace is for suckers. I understand where you're coming from, but face the facts: You will have to fight. Then it's just a matter of who, how and when. If you make those decisions, you stand a much better chance than if you let others make them for you.

i agree completely that if i'm going to fight, i want to be in control of who, how and when. it is definitely good advice to try to control that aspect. that's part of why i concentrate on diplomacy, to manipulate people that i'm afraid will kill me, or people i consider future victims, until i'm ready to deal with them. and you did mention part of what i do sometimes, bribes and keeping people busy. so you know that type of stuff, cool!

but "You will have to fight" is not a "face the facts" guarantee. i have won plenty of games without every facing a single battle except for barbarians. it is probably more fun for the most sane people to do axe rushes and get two capital locations early and go conquer the world from there. i'm a total oddball and am far from typical. but i see people say things like "you have to go to war to have any chance to win" and that has not been the case for me. there's always an exception, right?

 

[Xenos]

Just one more thing I want to know, how would you deal with China? How many cities should I have at the beginning (I usually let culture flipping gain me cities)?

 

[Kennigit]

@Kmad- you're exactly right. Defensive pacts can be very risky to undertake, but if you successfully manipulate them then it will come out in your favor.

Defensive pact work better for smaller maps, such as maybe a standard/large continents. Your continent might have 3-7 ish people, and its good to have defense against the 1 or 2 AIs you are mainly worried about. Pangaea it is much tougher, since everyone has access to everyone else.

For the people on the other continent, its a bit easier to maintain better relations, atleast when you first meet them. There aren't little diplomatic penalties such as "close borders spark tension". Acouple of them will start to hate you more and more, but if you can bribe your way into making a war on the other continent, they probably won't be sending galleons full of stuff.

When war is declared and your defensive pact is enabled, you need to hang on enough for the 10 turns or so until peace. Having some up-to-date units around help greatly, as I think the AI's are more willing to make peace if you kill some of their units. Send some of your units to the battlefront, where the AI's units will be weakened from the fights with your DP buddies. Kill acouple, stay on the defensive, and wait out for peace talks.

@Xenos- I think for anybody you play as you want to make sure you have atleast 4 cities. This lets you have the production for an early war, where you can get maybe 2-5 more. This gives you 8ish in general, and remember, you don't need a huge empire but just 3 solid cities with some decent others. You don't need to be tech leader and all, just enough to scrape by until democracy and keep up with the weaker AI's. Often times you can easily expand past 4 cities, which will help boost production/science.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

There are a lot of great suggestions posted so far. Also:

The Beginners Crash Guide To Cultural Victory

your not for peace are you? about the workers yeah I lost them in a war with china until I made a navy- the galleries you see, Roosevelt he helped me the last time with China, the thing I worry about with Military campaigns is having to spend so much time on units and less time on culture

It's not so much that we're not for peace as much as it is most of us tend to play on Prince & Monarch -- levels where destroying your nearest neighbor (typically before 1 AD) is basically a requirement for victory.

At Noble difficulty and below, though, you can achieve victory without ever going to war, so at least for now, you can be a Peacemonger.

Just one more thing I want to know, how would you deal with China? How many cities should I have at the beginning (I usually let culture flipping gain me cities)?

Check out Sisiutil's guide in my signature ... it explains a great deal about expansion.

My rules of thumb are:

• Have Pottery and/or Writing before city #4. Usually, around city #3 or #4, you'll have to drop the science slider to 60% ... you need Pottery or Writing before that time comes.
  
  
• Expand to 4 or 5 cities before Code of Laws. After you have Code of Laws, try to double or triple that number -- ensuring to build Courthouses in the most distant cities.
  
  
• Contrary to the numbers, don't focus on building more cities, concentrate on building better cities.
  
  
• Where cultural victories are concerned, 9 & 3 are the magic numbers: 9 cities with 3 religions each.

 

[pooshka]

It's not so much that we're not for peace as much as it is most of us tend to play on Prince & Monarch -- levels where destroying your nearest neighbor (typically before 1 AD) is basically a requirement for victory.

my first ever Prince victory, and my first ever Monarch victories were both cultural victories and with no war (except one defensive war in each game).

I simply cannot win this game if I fight.

my 'basic requirement' for victory is converting my nearest neighbour to my religion (typically before 1AD), not destroying them.

 

[Xenos]

here is another saved game for you all to look, you will need more workers, Vicky is almost out for the count, just rebuilding for one full battle in London then turning on Cyrus

 

[Cam_H]

Xenos,

OK ... the big ... you've built The Pyramids, but are sitting in Despotism. I'd suggest Representation is your best choice at the moment.

Your Workers are doing some pretty peculiar things, like building Mines on resourceless tiles outside of city fat-Xs while your capital has some brilliant undeveloped tiles such as riverside Grasslands. Speaking of Beijing - work that Gold tile!

Nottingham will struggle because of lack of food-rich tiles. I know it's not your fault that the AI planted the city in such a food-poor spot though! I would plan to run irrigation from the Rice tile below Shanghai up towards the north east, and over the Wine tile and back up to the Grasslands to Nottingham's north to support at least one of the Gold mines.

Drop the 20% - you're after for now - and you will look at later on in the game ...

... 'Wise Man' once said ... 100%, then 100% then 100% (refer The War Academy articles).

You technically have enough cities to build a 'Cathedral' of each religion in each of your target cities, but I would continue to expand. I'd certainly look at the Iron-Clams in the west. Look at other expansion opportunities - hopefully one of your new cities will pick up Persia's Confucianism so you can leverage that ... or then again ... you can, as planned, just attack Cyrus and pick up a city with Confucianism that way.

While you're in Organised Religion, you should also try to spread religion into cities that already have one. When Hastings comes out of revolt - try to get Christianity into other cities. Likewise Judaism is only in Shanghai and Beijing - so when you can, spread Judaism about.

I hope this is of help, and best of luck with it!