First attempt at a Culture victory

[rockhpi]

I was trying out Vietnam on King, huge map, 10 civs. I've only ever won Science or Diplomatic victories.

I started on a large continent with only Mansa Musa. When he foolishly attacked me very early on, I took over his civ and had a continent to myself.

As I met other civs, I saw I was pretty far ahead of them in Culture and decided to go for that victory, even though it has always been a bit hazy. I prioritized buildings that generate culture and tourism, adopted policy cards that boosted culture and tourism. Pretty quickly, I started becoming Dominant over the other civs. Then I met Japan. I was still ahead of them in culture production and tourism but they were up in the stratosphere with me. So I bombarded them with Rock Bands (one of which played between 20 and 30 shows, it was ridiculous) but whereas being a bit ahead in science can still get you a victory, in Culture you've got to be way ahead in order to win. I remained ahead but could never widen the gap enough to get close to winning. So for a culture win, if you see halfway through that there's someone still in your league, do you just abandon it? The only thing I could think of was declaring war and destroying their civ but they were a continent away and it doesn't really seem like winning with culture if I annihilate them. Is there any way to widen the gap in that situation?

 

[InsidiousMage]

First, eliminating Musa is making it hard to win to since you are earning less tourists overall. Second, the late game policy cards that increase tourism are a big help but you don't say if you are running them or not. Third, National Parks are key to winning a culture and you probably need at least three to four, if not more, but by the sound of it the game is far along to make a difference as they take a while to really kick in. Entertainment Complexes, Water Parks, Walls, and Shopping Malls all generate tourism and winning a culture victory is about grinding out small increases of tourism when and where you can. I don't think you are going to get a culture victory at this point.

Also, how many Thanhs did you build?

EDIT: This a great primer on tourism, Naturalists and Rock Bands.

 

[CoconutTank]

Besides Rock Bands, if Japan has any Great Works, you could try taking them away, which would reduce some of their tourism and culture and boost yours. You could do this either by trading for the Great Works (which would probably get really expensive), or you could send Spies to go steal them.

National Parks also provide tourism, but uh, admittedly I've never built many of those.

Otherwise, yeah, you basically have to squeeze out every available tourism modifier that you can apply.

 

[Vargas1]

When there’s one other civ that you’re working on, the key is to make sure you have as many modifiers targeting that civ as you can. Open borders, a trade route, the same government, and the same religion (if you have religious tourism) are all modifiers that affect your tourism. Make sure you get as many of those as you can with the hold-out civ.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Winning CV requires you to obtain as many Great Works as possible, so build Theater Squares early.

In the endgame, spam Wind Farms and Solar Panels everywhere you can and build the Biosphère wonder.

Finally, maximize you tourism by using policy cards. There are some really good tools out there, but one of the best ways to directly boost tourism is by having Open Borders and sending them trade routes.

If this fails because they make too much Culture per turn, invade them and reduce them to one city

 

[InsidiousMage]

Winning CV requires you to obtain as many Great Works as possible, so build Theater Squares early.

Not really. There are tons of ways to get tourism and you even win without a single district nowadays. See here.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Not really. There are tons of ways to get tourism and you even win without a single district nowadays. See here.

True, but McWhiskey is using Ethiopia here. Ethiopia can get ridiculous tourism from their spammable rock-hewn churches. Doesn't apply to every Civ though. Any Civ can win via Great Works.

 

[Timberdoodle]

Sounds like a fun one! One thing to note is that having high culture per turn will help defend against other civs winning a culture victory, but won't actually lead you to culture victory in of itself. With Japan being up there in terms of culture, that's going to make it harder for you to win a Culture Victory for sure.

You want to focus on maxing out your tourism, and there is so many different ways in which you can do that, even outside of the civic tree. While high culture per turn is still really important, having lots of faith allows you to buy tons of Rock Bands and Naturalists. Good science allows you to get to Computers tech (which has a 25% modifier to tourism), Flight tech (which unlocks tourism from improvements that generate culture), and Radio tech (which unlocks seaside resorts). Commercial hubs / Harbors allow you to get a trade route to each player for the 25% tourism modifier too. As Vietnam your Thanh unique district generates tourism equal to it's culture adjacency once you've unlocked flight.

If you're in the late game, and have access to any city state that gives you a tile improvement that generates tourism, that's a really good option, especially as you have a lot of land by the sounds of it. Seaside resorts are also good along any flat land on the coast that has high appeal. They generate tourism based on the appeal of the tile, so planting wood next to them and removing any nearby mines, marsh or rainforest for the appeal boost.

It's also worth mentioning that the Theatre Square buildings generate culture, but not tourism by themselves. They do however give you great work slots, and the great works then give you tourism. Great works of art, and artifacts can be themed and when themed they will generate more tourism and culture. More info here - https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Theming_bonus_(Civ6).

There is a ton of information over on the wiki here too - https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Tourism_(Civ6)

 

[InsidiousMage]

True, but McWhiskey is using Ethiopia here. Ethiopia can get ridiculous tourism from their spammable rock-hewn churches. Doesn't apply to every Civ though. Any Civ can win via Great Works.

I've been moving away from Theater Squares in my culture victory play throughs because, honestly, I never have them completely filled, either missing GW of Writing or Music. In fact, the only buildings I usually have filled are Archeology Museums and maybe some Art Museums depending on how many I've built.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Depends on your opponents though. I won two Great Work victories in a row recently, and in both cases I succesfully recruited most GWAMs. Writers especially are important. If that isn't an option (because Russia or Greece are in the game), and you're not specialized in Tourism Improvements, then it's best to try National Parks instead, but that requires careful planning at the start.

(You can attempt to steal Great Works with a spy but that won't work on Russia, because Russia is a type A (a for "arsewipe") hoarder and won't ever pop their GWAMs.)

Biosphère is insanely good though for a clutch end-game culture victory though. Pity it comes so late because free tourism from solar panels (that you can place on tundra, snow and desert) is hilariously abusive.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Depends on your opponents though

Eh, there are so many ways to get tourism now that Great Works mostly feel like tedious micromanagement but that just kind of my opinion about the culture victory overall.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Who says you have to micro? Theming bonuses are a trap. Great Merchants, like Melitta Benz, are much more useful than any theming bonus. Owning the Great Work is good enough.

At least we're agreed on one thing (I assume because neither of us mentioned it yet): Wonders are generally garbage at procuring Tourism. For the love of God, do not attempt a CV by spamming every wonder in the game. Biosphère, the Eiffel Tower and, amusingly enough, the Terracotta Army are the only gamechangers here. The ones that can hold Great Works are niche (Broadway being the 'best' one) at best, and often not worth the effort beyond the extra TS adjacency. Big Ben is a better CV wonder than they are.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Who says you have to micro? Theming bonuses are a trap.

Considering the fact you get double tourism it would be weird not to. Plus, you get reduced tourism from Art Museums for not theming. The only wonder you missed on your list is Cristo Redentor which doubles tourism from Seaside Resorts.

The micromanagement also refers to "landscaping" your empire to make use of National Parks and Seaside Resorts. Just feels like a lot of busywork.

 

[Lord Lakely]

oh I wasn't aware Cristo Redentor doubled Seaside Resort Tourism I thought that was Golden Gate Bridge (an infernally difficult wonder to build).

Cristo is pretty good too, but I thought it only applied to Civs win inherent relic bonuses (so: Kongo, Khmer, Poland and anyone who has Mont St. Michel). If It applies to Seaside Resorts as well, it's pretty grand.

 

[Baigan]

Yes, Cristo doubles Seaside Resorts in addition to its effect on Religious tourism. It's probably top-2 alongside Eiffel Tower. I don't know that Terracotta Army is a game-changer. You still get the negative diplo modifier for using Archaeologists in foreign lands even with TA. All it does is let your Archaeologists enter with Closed Borders. But... you should absolutely have Open Borders with all civs for the Tourism modifiers anyway.

A GWAM-based CV is fine, and definitely a great way to learn the ropes of a CV, but over time I've reduced the priority of Theater Squares in my CVs. There are several reasons for that, in rough order:

• District efficiency. You want Holy Sites to purchase Naturalists and Rock Bands. You want Campuses to get Printing, Radio, Flight, Steel, and Computers ASAP (bear in mind they're on opposite sides of the tech tree). You want CHs/Harbors for trade routes to other civs. Adding Theater Squares to the mix make juggling more difficult.
• The increased availability of other Tourism sources. Voidsingers & Heroes make relics easier to acquire. Ski Resorts and Rock Bands were new in GS and are available to every civ. You have decent odds of finding any of the Tourism-granting City States on a random map. Naturalists are cheaper. More civs get Tourism at Flight from their improvements.
  
• The nerf to Great Works of Writing.
• You have to compete for GWAMs and some civs can effectively lock you out. You don't have to compete for six-charge Builders.
• Oracle is harder to get, which weakens the synergy with Grants Pingala.
  
• There are more wonders. Yes, making wonders the backbone of your CV is a terrible idea (unless you're China or maybe France/Egypt, in which case it's merely bad.) But wonders do give increasing tourism as the game progresses, and more of them in the pool means more chances to snag one from the AI.

Of course I still build Theater Squares. There's just not as much pressure to spam them as compared to the base game.

 

[rockhpi]

Thanks for all the responses. For the most part I did most of everything here (I do see that I was ignoring open borders, didn't even consider it). But I had one spot on the continent suitable for a National Parks and I built one. But I had tons of theater squares next to Thanhs and I think 3 or 4 fully themed museums. I was getting great people faster than I had room to put their works.

I guess my big question is though, if you've done all this and around the time that computers come in, if there's another civ still keeping pace with you, is there any hope? I do see where I could have gone after his great works.

 

[Baigan]

Thanks for all the responses. For the most part I did most of everything here (I do see that I was ignoring open borders, didn't even consider it). But I had one spot on the continent suitable for a National Parks and I built one. But I had tons of theater squares next to Thanhs and I think 3 or 4 fully themed museums. I was getting great people faster than I had room to put their works.

I guess my big question is though, if you've done all this and around the time that computers come in, if there's another civ still keeping pace with you, is there any hope? I do see where I could have gone after his great works.

What was your Tourism per turn?

 

[InsidiousMage]

I guess my big question is though, if you've done all this and around the time that computers come in, if there's another civ still keeping pace with you, is there any hope? I do see where I could have gone after his great works.

There's another boost when unlocking Environmentalism so if you haven't unlocked that yet I would go until you unlock your first Future Era civic unless you really want to grind it out.

 

[Dotsworthy]

One thing not mentioned so far is spies. Spies can steal great works which makes them incredibly useful when a GWAM obsessed civ is providing competition.

 

[enKage]

So many advices...

Anyway ifyou haven't won tourism before, go with Teddy Roosevelt. Whatever condition victory you aim, you would win tourism anyway.