[GS] Going for Science, but always win Culture by accident

[Infantry#14]

This is on King difficulty. I find myself always winning culture before finishing all the space projects. The best science game I had so far was getting the last step building the projects for Lagrange lasers. I build the Royal Society and use Builders to rush projects every turn and I have 3 cities dedicated to Space Projects. Granted, I build theaters in 75% of my cities and build many wonders. I build campus and industrial zones in 90% of my cities. Declaring war is not an option sometimes since I play peacefully and lock in friendships and alliances with the AI for 30 turns. I usually win culture between turn 200-250.

Is the key build less theater districts? Or are there ways to improve the science game?

 

[sethjohnson]

The immediate thing would be to just turn culture victory off in the create game setup

It happens to me too - the monopolies mode has made it more severe, won a culture victory in 1700 in my last game thanks to getting +360% tourism from monopolies

I'm sometimes have an accidental diplo win too by researching seasteds, winning world congress projects etc

 

[Basajaun]

You are definitely building too many theatre squares. You dont really "need" those for SV, but they can help with a couple eurekas that are in your way to SV. You dont want to build more than 2, especially if you are building many wonders that are not directly influencing your SV progress.
If you are using monopolies and corporations game mode it can happen without a single theatre, because if you manage to get a monopoly on some luxury resource, you are getting such a massive tourism modifier that any small amount of tourism you are generating will rocket you to CV in most cases.
Until they fix that modifier you are most likely going to win CV accidentally, especially if you play small maps and/or settle/conquer a lot (upping your chances on getting more monopolies on luxuries.

If you were not using that game mode, you pretty much answered yourself, less theatres and more science, production and trade routes. With 90% of your cities having campuses Id say build more CH or Harbors for the extra trade route, nicely planned IZs to boost production on your spaceport cities and feed your main city all those trade routes so it grows big and productive (use extra production from trade routes from democracy and gov cards). Ideally have Reyna or Moksha upgraded (or recover Hrecules if you are also on heroes gamemode) so you can faith/gold buy the spaceport as soon as you unlock the tech and start the first project while the oher cities get their production and spaceports ready for the last project

 

[Aurelesk]

The whole thing could be: how to have a huge Culture game with the least Tourism / avoid a Tourism victory.

• Do not explore to quickly: the faster you encounter the other civilization, the quicker your Tourism applies to them.
• Taking out a civilization. For each civilization that disappear, the Tourism victory is made harder (due to having less civilization where to apply Tourism).
• Avoid Tourism modifier:
  • Do not ask for Open Borders with them. You can still trade your Open Border to them for positive Diplomatic.
  • Avoid to have Trade Route to them, or do Trade Route to the minimum of civilization (only Alliances)
  • Try to have different Government or different religion than everyone else. Do not try to expand your religion too much if you have Relics.
  • Do not build Cristo Redentor or Golden Gate Bridge. Try to avoid to build too much Wonders, and do only for the most useful one (it still has some Tourism output, up to 10 Tourism per ancient wonders if you unlocked future era tech/civic).
• Try to avoid Pasture / Plantations / Mines / Seasteads when a Wonder gives Culture to a tile, so it will not transform into Tourism. Like a Tundra Mine with St Basil's Cathedral, a Tropical Plantation with Chichen Itza, a Sheep Pasture next to the Païtiti, or a Seastead next to the Piopiotahi. You should also avoid Goddess of Festivals (+1 Culture to Plantation) or God of the Open Sky (+1 Culture to Pasture) for the same reason.
  • Avoid Tourism improvement like Seaside Resort, National Parks or Ski Resort, except if you do it for the Amenities. Same thing for Culture improvement from City-State (Moai, Alcazar, Batey...) and Colossal Heads, or erase them after Flight.
• Do not build the Theatre Square too soon, or you will swim in Great Works of Writing for the whole game. Fortunately, Theatre Square and their building do not generate Tourism.
  • Do not do the Theatre Square project.
• Do not build too much Entertainment Complex / Water Park: they give some Tourism.
• Do not build too much Walls (ancient / medieval / renaissance): they give some Tourism at Conservation.
• Monopolies & Corporations mode: Monopolies gives a huge chunk of Tourism, so try to play the mode, or avoid Monopolies.

I should probably write a Tourism recap somewhere. There are a lot of minor and counterintuitive things to know. For example: did you know that the Maori mines over a feature with a Marae generate 2 Tourism for 1 Culture output at Flight? It shows 1 Tourism with the lens, but the Tourism accumulation is generally twice as high than those with 1 Tourism.

 

[679x]

The whole thing could be: how to have a huge Culture game with the least Tourism / avoid a Tourism victory.

• Do not explore to quickly: the faster you encounter the other civilization, the quicker your Tourism applies to them.
• Taking out a civilization. For each civilization that disappear, the Tourism victory is made harder (due to having less civilization where to apply Tourism).
• Avoid Tourism modifier:
  • Do not ask for Open Borders with them. You can still trade your Open Border to them for positive Diplomatic.
  • Avoid to have Trade Route to them, or do Trade Route to the minimum of civilization (only Alliances)
  • Try to have different Government or different religion than everyone else. Do not try to expand your religion too much if you have Relics.
  • Do not build Cristo Redentor or Golden Gate Bridge. Try to avoid to build too much Wonders, and do only for the most useful one (it still has some Tourism output, up to 10 Tourism per ancient wonders if you unlocked future era tech/civic).
• Try to avoid Pasture / Plantations / Mines / Seasteads when a Wonder gives Culture to a tile, so it will not transform into Tourism. Like a Tundra Mine with St Basil's Cathedral, a Tropical Plantation with Chichen Itza, a Sheep Pasture next to the Païtiti, or a Seastead next to the Piopiotahi. You should also avoid Goddess of Festivals (+1 Culture to Plantation) or God of the Open Sky (+1 Culture to Pasture) for the same reason.
  • Avoid Tourism improvement like Seaside Resort, National Parks or Ski Resort, except if you do it for the Amenities. Same thing for Culture improvement from City-State (Moai, Alcazar, Batey...) and Colossal Heads, or erase them after Flight.
• Do not build the Theatre Square too soon, or you will swim in Great Works of Writing for the whole game. Fortunately, Theatre Square and their building do not generate Tourism.
  • Do not do the Theatre Square project.
• Do not build too much Entertainment Complex / Water Park: they give some Tourism.
• Do not build too much Walls (ancient / medieval / renaissance): they give some Tourism at Conservation.
• Monopolies & Corporations mode: Monopolies gives a huge chunk of Tourism, so try to play the mode, or avoid Monopolies.

I should probably write a Tourism recap somewhere. There are a lot of minor and counterintuitive things to know. For example: did you know that the Maori mines over a feature with a Marae generate 2 Tourism for 1 Culture output at Flight? It shows 1 Tourism with the lens, but the Tourism accumulation is generally twice as high than those with 1 Tourism.

It's tough to determine whether this information you've provided is more useful for winning culture or for NOT winning culture! Thanks for this recap. The Maori thing sounds interesting; does it work with lumber mills as well, or is that what you meant? I suppose it makes sense - the improvement's culture yield means it can give tourism with Flight, and the Marae itself gives tourism to these tiles, so you double-dip on the tourism. Still doesn't explain why the lens doesn't show that, though.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I usually don't build any theaters in science victory games until I unlock archaeology sites, and I just build how many theaters I need to get them off otherwise useful tiles

 

[Aurelesk]

It's tough to determine whether this information you've provided is more useful for winning culture or for NOT winning culture! Thanks for this recap. The Maori thing sounds interesting; does it work with lumber mills as well, or is that what you meant? I suppose it makes sense - the improvement's culture yield means it can give tourism with Flight, and the Marae itself gives tourism to these tiles, so you double-dip on the tourism.

I just wrote a segment for tile improvement right now. Here the lenghthy one:

Flight & Improvement:

Flight tells us that all improvements that provide Culture generates Tourism. This is true but misleading and incomplete. The game has a list of tile improvements that are allowed to generate Tourism at Flight. In this list they are all tile improvements that generate Culture (except the Nubian pyramids…), but also those that could generate Culture thanks to the tile improvement itself under circonstances, like a Pantheon or playing a peculiar civilization. It means that a tile improvement that gains Culture from an outside source like a natural wonder, a world wonder or leader ability but is not part of the list is not going to yield Tourism at Flight. Something to mention: you don’t need to work the tile for Tourism, but the tile has to be in a workable range (within 3 tiles of the City-Center) to produce Tourism. If you put an improvement further away, it will appear to produce Tourism on the Tourism lens, but the lifetime accumulation will always be 0.

They are also some tile improvements that yield Tourism at Flight but use Faith or Food instead of Culture. Here the list:

• Culture to Tourism
  • Base: City Park (Liang, governor), Mine, Pasture, Plantation, and Seastead.
  • City-States: Alcázar (Granada), Batey (Caguana), and Moai (Rapa Nui),
  • Unique: Château (France), Chemamull (Mapuche), Golf Course (Scotland), Great Wall (China), Ice Hockey Rink (Canada), Open-Air Museum (Sweden), Pairidaeza (Persia), Sphinx (Egypt), and Ziggurat (Sumeria)
  • Special: Features with the Marae building (need explanation).
    • No Tourism: Nubian Pyramid (Nubia), and Vampire Castle (Secret Societies game mode)
• Faith to Tourism: Colossal Heads (La Venta), and Rock-Hewn Church (Ethiopia)
• Food to Tourism: Kampung (Indonesia) (need explanation).

Pastures, Plantations and Mines are peculiar. They gain additional Culture with God of the Open Sky (Pantheon, +1 Culture to Pastures), Goddess of Festivals (Pantheon, +1 Culture to Plantations), or when playing as Gaul (+1 Culture to Mines). Therefore, those tile improvements generate Tourism at Flight because they can have Culture naturally: the game has set the “Culture to Tourism” on for those tile improvements. If the tile has Culture from the ressource, like Coffee & Silk for Plantations or from Amber & Jade for Mines, then that 1 Culture will not generate Tourism. A Gallic Mine over a Jade, yielding 2 Culture (1 from Jade and 1 from the Mine), will generate 1 Tourism at Flight.

But: the Pastures, Plantations and Mines are not locked to only work with the Pantheons or as Gaul: it can work with everyone. If you manage to have Culture on those tile improvements, then it will also yield Tourism at Flight. For example: the Chichen Itza gives +2 Culture to rainforest. A Banana plantation or a Diamonds mine over a rainforest will generate 2 Tourism each, with or without Pantheon or as or not as the Gallic. But other tile improvements on rainforest like Lumber Mills or Ivory camps will not generate at Flight with the Chichen Itza because the “Culture to Tourism'' for those tile improvements is set to off. It might be unfair to some extent, and I agree: this is just how the game works.


It also means it is exploitable in some extend::

• Have the improvement on natural Wonders that give Culture like the Eyjaflallajökull, Matterhorn, Mount Vesuvius (it gains Culture from eruption), Païtiti, Piopiotahi, Tsingy de Bemaraha or Uluru.
• Have the improvement (including: Pastures, Plantations and Mines) in the tundra when the city has the Saint Basil’s Cathedral wonder.
• Have Plantations and Mines in the rainforest when the city has the Chichen Itza wonder.
• Leading America as Theodore ‘Bull Moose’ Roosevelt, have the improvements with breathtaking Appeal next to Woods or world Wonders.
• Leading France as Catherine ‘Magnificent’ de Medici, have Plantations and Mines on luxury resources next to a Theatre Square or a Château.
• As the Maori, having the improvement (including: Pastures, Plantations or a Mines) on a passable feature in a city with the Marae.

Now, for the special cases:

• The Marae (unique Maori Amphitheatre) has the ability to give 1 Culture to features like Floodplain, Marsh, Oasis, Rainforest, Reef or Woods, including passable wonders like the Cliff of Dover. At Flight, each of those tiles will yield exactly 1 Tourism, even if it has more Culture than that. It is not all: the Culture can also be used with the tile improvement! If you have a Diamonds mine on a feature, you will end up having 2 Tourism for 1 Culture: 1 Tourism due to Marae, and 1 Tourism due to Mine.
• The Nubian Pyramid can have Culture if adjacent to a Theatre Square, but do not have the “Culture to Tourism '' at Flight. It might be an oversight.
• Colossal Heads and Rock-Hewn Church work the same way, instead it converts Faith into Tourism. As for the Culture one, you can enjoy the additional Faith input to increase the Tourism like those in Pantheon (Earth Goddess: +2 Faith from Breathtaking tiles, or Fire Goddess: +2 Faith on Volcanic Soil), improvement (Nazca Line (from Nazca city-state) that adds Faith to adjacent tiles (and Appeal)), or from natural Wonders (like: Delicate Arch, Mato Tipila, Mount Everest, Mount Roraima, or Uluru).
• Kampung is the same but with Food. As a Mine over a Jade, the base Food from Coast doesn’t count. But the Food from Lighthouse do count. The simple math is Food minus 1 is equal to the Tourism output of the Kampung.

In short: tile improvement has a "true/flase" flag at "Tourism at Flight". The developper turned it on for all tiles improvement that could generate Culture on their own like all unique / city-state tile improvement that have Culture (except the Nubians Pyramids), and also: the Plantations, the Pastures and the Mines.

The Plantations / Pastures, it is because there is a Pantheon that gives Culture to them. So they turned the "Tourism at Flight" to "true" for them. The Mines are a recent addition: it is because Gaul has Culture to Mine, so they turned it "true" for Mines. But it is not exclusive to Gaul: all civilizations that manages to have Culture* on a Mine will generate Tourism at Flight.

* : There is exception: only count the "additionnal yield", not the "base yield". Amber and Jade give Culture, but are considered "base yied", and a Mine over them will not generate Tourism. But if you have manage to have "additionnal yield" (natural wonder, Gaul, Maori with feature...), then those will generate Tourism.


Which means that all over tiles improvement like Lumber Mill would not generate Culture at Flight, even if you manage to have Culture on the tile (Chichen Itza, Theodore "Bull Moose" Roosevelt...).

Still doesn't explain why the lens doesn't show that, though.

The lens can only show one source. They get really confused from city-center: between the Walls (1, 3, 6 Tourism), Palace's Great Work, some Tourism from renewable energy with the Biosphère, including: Cardiff suzerain effect (2 Power per Harbor's building → 18 Power, so 18 Tourism) and Synthetic Technocracy (3 Power → 9 Power so 9 Tourism)... but the lifetime accumulation is right.

 

[UWHabs]

From the description in OP, if they are building "theatres in 75% of cities" and "campus and industrial zone" in 90%, that sounds like most of their district slots are going to those. I would suggest:
-Build more commerce hubs/harbors for gold and trade routes. Gold is great - pile up big cash, and use that to buy the great people or buildings you really want and care about, and that can help you focus your goal towards science. If you have a huge chunk of gold, you can buy factories and power plants, or research labs, the turn that the tech in unlocked, making sure your science stays way ahead of your culture game.
-Build more holy sites. Why not? Faith is a yield too, and like gold, can be used to buy great people.

The other key is that you don't necessarily need 3 cities on space projects. That could imply that you are taking a generalist approach. Sometimes it can be better to have basically one super city that can churn out space projects fast, and then maybe you keep a backup city around who can also help build some lasers once the last piece is out. Planning that focus also can make you think harder. So, instead of simply building basic +2 industrial zones in every city, find a nice floodable river where you can fit a dam and some aqueducts in an area, maybe the government plaza there too, and try to find that +7 or more industrial zone. That alone is now worth +7 (IZ) + 7 (running double IZ production card) + 3 (workshop) + 6 (factory) + 14 (coal plant) = 37 production, before even any other modifiers. Bonus points if that city can also fit Ruhr Valley in and have some mines, that city can truly be production powerhouse you need to make sure those ship components are outpacing your tourism outputs.

 

[Jaybe]

When you get a get a GA etc., do NOT put them into a great works slot. Let them hang out on the map, like Russia does with the majority of their great musicians before they have anyplace to put them. Save them for if you need them to not LOSE to someone else approaching a VC.

 

[Infantry#14]

The suggestions thus far are to build fewer Theaters districts or dont settle Writers, Artists and Musicians. I feel like that is playing the game sub optimally. One reason I have about 75% theater districts is to keep up the civic tree with the science tree and dig up the sites that block my land.

I feel like it's extremely easy to win Culture. I dont have Civ5, but back in Civ4, I had to work really hard to win a cultural game.

 

[jasper]

Its not playing sub optimally when you scale back what you dont need anymore for what you need more of.

Also i think people are helping however they can. No one can change the official civ code to make culture vic more difficult. But people can offer handmade handicaps that might solve your problem.

Also also if you winning culture victory too easy then boost the difficulty.

 

[UWHabs]

The suggestions thus far are to build fewer Theaters districts or dont settle Writers, Artists and Musicians. I feel like that is playing the game sub optimally. One reason I have about 75% theater districts is to keep up the civic tree with the science tree and dig up the sites that block my land.

I feel like it's extremely easy to win Culture. I dont have Civ5, but back in Civ4, I had to work really hard to win a cultural game.

I do think culture is one of the easier victory types overall. Mostly because as you kind of allude to, you can get most of the way there by simply building stuff and advancing, and especially if you go more builder and less war, it's essentially the most natural victory type.

I can only give hints from my experience, but I absolutely never wait to settle my great people, and other than the new Monopolies mode really turning tourism modifiers into overdrive, have never "accidentally" won by culture. Although usually that's just because I end up pushing hard towards whatever I play to - I have had a couple cases where I was going to space, but still ran some of those +tourism cards because I was kind of racing myself in that

 

[PiR]

I think it's time for you to play on a harder mode!
Otherwise a lot has been said, I could add sell your great works to your most competitive opponents in CV and get all the great engineers you can: late-game they can really boost a SV.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

• It's not enough to build campus. You want campus with 4 adjacencies and cities with 15 pop.
• You need as many cities as possible.
• You must take care of happiness of your cities. You'll need entertain complexes and water parks for that. And these district offer 2 adjacency to theater squares. Unhappy cities produces less science.
• You should build as few walls as possible. Walls are needed only for defense of key cities.
• Many wonders are waste of hammers. You will get more cities if you build fewer wonders. Kilwa and Oxford University are really important. Coliseum can be used to increase happiness and culture of nearby cities. Sometimes building science research projects is more important than building a wonder.
• Plan your cities. I use pins to place cities, districts and wonders, so I can try to maximize the wields. You don't need industrial zones in all cities.
• Your spaceport cities should have a harbor or encampment. There is a card that increases the space project production.
• You can buy spaceport with faith or money in cities with a lot of woods to chop.
• Faith is important and a religion is useful; you can use religion to increase your culture with the right set of believes.
• Corporation mode makes cultural win too easy....