Help Needed: Cultural Victory on Prince

[hvevo]

Hello, I've played Civ 4 for quite a while now, and I recently got my first domination victory on Monarch. While I don't have problems with aggressive strategies on Prince, I would certainly like to win with a non-aggressive victory type, i.e. with a cultural victory.

So, without any further delay, here comes the problem: how on earth am I supposed to win the game with culture? If I start building my culture from the very beginning, I am not able to concentrate on my army, and AI usually conquers my empire by Industrial Age. OTOH, if I begin improving my culture during the later phases of the game, I run out of time, and I think this is very annoying.

I usually play with Romans, and researh BW-The Wheel-Agriculture-IW-Writing-Alphabet. When I'm aming for domination/conquest/space race, I usually declare war on my neighbours by the time of writing and conquer their lands with my praetorians and axemen. However, I hardly ever build any wonders aside from the Oracle (for Code of Laws slingshot) and The Great Library. Also, I usually don't convert religion unless I find Confucianism or if the rest of the world has the same religion.

What would be the best strategy for a cultural victory? Should I try to build Stonehenge in my capitol for early culture boost? What about other wonders? Hermitage and cathedrals should be useful during the later phases of the game but I haven't been able to utilize them well enough. Furthermore, how should I be able to keep the AI from attacking me?

Thanks.

 

[Kietharr]

I'm in the process of winning my second ever cultural victory and first on prince right now, I picked Hapsepsut. I started on a continent with Washington and made quick work of him with war chariots, continent was mine by 300bc. It was fractal, and the other civs were Mao, Mehmed, Hannibal, Asoka, and Mansa. Mao, Hannibal, and Mansa shared a long continent, while Mehmed and Asoka both had their own islands. Mao founded budism and converted hanibal and mehmed, I also converted for the religion bonus. At the begening I didn't know if I was going for a domination, conquest or culture win. Once I hit music I decided on culture and started focusing my 3 best culture cities towards even more culture. Some stuff I learned:

Hammers to culture is less effective than gold to culture, if you can afford to turn down the science slider a couple of notches without getting too far behind, you can raise culture which makes cottage spam citys prime culture centers. My capital and second city were both almost all cottages while my third, Washington, was mostly hammers. At the moment at 90% culture 0% science (I'm in the home stretch now, kicking culture into high gear to beat the space race) Thebes produces 621 culture (I put Rock and Roll, 3 cathedrals, globe theatre, and NE in this city, along with about 6 artists), Memphis produces 653 (Hermitage and 3 cathedrals, works every tile and every tile is a grassland town except for two grassland gem mines) and Washington is at 385 (Broadway, HE, and 3 cathedrals).

No wonder is essential, but Sistine Chapel helps a TON. I didn't manage it in this game because half of the fricking AIs switched to pacifism and pumped out a ton of great engineers, they got hollywood that way too . It mainly helps because you want big cities running as your main culture centers, and big cities can use lots of specialists. Stonehenge is measily really, +1 culture is nothing when you need 150,000. Even if you managed it on the first turn of a marathon game, that's less than 1,000 culture per city and only 6,000 or so in your capital by the final turn. Most of your culture will come from artist specialists, great artists, culture slider and cathedrals.

You want as many religions as possible and nine cities MINIMUM. Spread every religion to every city and make a temple in every one (makes spiritual handy) so you can put one cathedral of each religion in your culture cities. With all 7, thats 350% extra culture. I only managed to get Confucism, Budism, and Christianity in my cities, hinduism recently came to one of them, but monestaries are obsolete so I can't build missionaries unless I take a giant gpt hit and switch to OR. Founding religions also helps a ton, If I was playing this game from the start going for a culture victory, I would have focused more on founding religions and saved a GE for the sistine chapel.

 

[Cam_H]

Hvevo,

Welcome to CivFanatics!

There are a few Cultural Victory Strategies laid out in The War Academy.

One approach is 'Full On Research' followed by 'Full On Cash Accumulation' followed by 'Full On Culture Building'. You will benefit from key technologies such as Nationalism (Hermitage) and Liberalism (Free Speech) and if you miss The Pyramids, then Democracy (Universal Suffrage) - so you'll typically be chasing technologies about two thirds of the way through the technology tree. From there you buy Temples and Cathedrals (e.g. Pagodas, Mandirs, etc.) and I've found a farm (National Epic + Globe Theatre) popping out Great Artists to be of huge value. The concern is that when technology is halted, you're not going to have much in the way of military strength, and this is where nurturing excellent relations with the A.I. is very important. Lots of Cottaging is a cornerstone here.

Stonehenge is surprisingly not a great Wonder for two of the three cities, because your free Monuments/Obelisks go once the wonder has expired. If you can get The Sistine Chapel, it's handy. The Parthenon is good if you can afford the at that point of the game, and The Great Library, The Oracle, and The Pyramids are typically good WoWs if you can secure any of them without punishing your development too much in other areas.

Hope this, and the link to the War Academy helps.

(Edit: Cross Post with Kietharr!)

 

[Legba]

When I try for a cultural victory it's nice to pick a civ that starts with Mysticism, because getting as many religions as you can is key. Spiritual trait is nice because you'll be building tons of temples and the reduced cost means you can get cathedrals up that much faster. I usually have at least five of the seven religions if I'm going for culture. You can probably win with less. You also don't need to build as many of the wonders as you can, just when you're certain you'll build it first.

You want to get to Music as fast as you can and get Cathedrals up as soon as you can build them. You also need your first three cities up as soon as possible. One of those cities needs to be a Great Artist Farm and the other needs to have pretty good production potential in order to build some wonders and some early military if the need arises.

I usually try to build Stonehenge and the Oracle in my capital in order to get a Great Prophet or two, and build those shrines to keep my economy afloat. I also try to get at least the Parthenon in my Great Artist farm. Settle the great artist, if you get them early-to-mid game, in one of your three culture cities with the least amount of culture per turn. If it's a late game Great Artist, using it for a Great Work may get you over the cultural mark faster.

Your fourth city also needs to have production potential because it will need to build units to protect your three main cities for they will be building cultural buildings and missionaries mostly. You're only going to need 9 cities total (on a large map, maybe less for other settings). I usually only need to build 5 to 6 cities myself, and I will undoubtedly culture flip the rest from my neighbors. So you don't need to worry so much about building toward your neighbors. You actually may want them to settle near one of your three culture cities because it will probably flip and you won't have to spend the time building that settler and improving the ground around it. You also get a free military unit when a city flips.

You will need to play diplomat in the early game converting your neighbors to your chosen religion. I usually run Organized Religion until I've spread all my religions around and then switch to Pacifism. You're going to want to keep border civs as close allies, so that they can act as a buffer. You could probably even have them fight a few wars with other civs in order to keep the attention off you. Keep a small but, up to date army when you can. Give gifts to strong civs that are across the ocean, because in most culture games I play, even if none of them hate, one civ will try to send a fleet over to attack me when I'm close to winning.

Your main priority is to spread all the religions you can to every one of your cities. Those cities need to focus on building temples to each religion so that you can then build Cathedrals in the three culture cities. I usally tech up just enough to get to Liberalism for free speech, and gunpowder for muskets before I drop out of the tech race and move the culture slider to 100%. Once the three main cities have built all the buildings that give culture, I have them just produce culture until they past the mark, or have them build units if more protection is needed. Then you just wait it out and try to ward off any attacks.

 

[KMadCandy]

diplomacy is critical for the way i do cultural games. when i was learning them, i handpicked peaceful opponents, so that i could get a feel for the buildings/techs/wonders i'd want, and not go crazy absorbing the war/power thing too. i'm more of a builder than a warmonger anyway, so i had to ease into it. now i go random sometimes and it's more exciting *giggle*.

my research path isn't very military focused, and i turn tech off fairly early, so i look like a juicy target on the power graph. i have my non-big-three cities make me military units, quantity depending on how well i get along with the neighbors. in games where we're friendly, i've ended up with my only units higher than longbowman being the units i got free when i flipped a city. in those first games where i picked very peaceful opponents, i even traded away my iron/bronze (until i wanted it for cathedrals) so that i could make warriors as cheap garrison troops . i generally don't use a state religion, both for politics and to get the culture from every religion i have.

some people don't like to start out artificially peaceful like i did, they want to jump in headfirst, and i respect that. rule #1 for me, it's your game, have fun, play it how you want! for me it helped, i got to focus on the "this culture concept is bizarre" part. the guides are good, i recommend reading the deity one even if you never ever plan to play deity, good tips in there i never thought of. good luck, and most of all, have fun

 

[Helmling]

This may not be helpful, but I FINALLY got a culture victory on Monarch as Alexander.

Key things I did:

I did warrior,worker,worker,settler,settler.

Picked up mysticism early to put monuments up in my other two cities pronto. Laying down your other two cities early and getting their culture going quickly is important.

My capital had stone, so I made a break for Great Wall and then Pyramids while my other two cities expanded a little more to seal off the island I was on from AI settler boats. That expansion actually hurt my economy but I decided it was worth it to have territorial integrity.

With Great Wall and Pyramids (I missed my bids for Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sophia) I turned my capital into a Great Engineer factory early on. I used those engineers to turn one of my other cities--the one with the greatest population growth potential--into a Great Artist factory. I used Great Engineers to rush the Parthenon and Notre Dame in this city, and supplemented it with the Globe Theater and National Epic later on. Eventually I managed to snag the Taj Mahal for this city too.

I filled my island with 8 cities--enough on a huge map to get all the national wonders once I built forges, courthouses, theaters, and universities.

My research goals were dynamic as I pursued potentially useful wonders. I lost out on Sistine Chapel--which is a great one to dash for in Culture games. I went for Statue of Liberty to have free artists and after democracy I mad-dashed--even switching most of my other cities to research--to the holy trinity: Electricity, Radio, and Mass Media.

I had each of my three culture cities build one of the three, and as soon as I got Mass Media I dropped science to 0% to raise the cash to buy the wonders before the AI could snag one of them. Got those and the Eifel Tower.

I missed all the religions and none spread to my island until late in the game. Eventually I got Taoism, in my least productive city no less. It took time to spread it to all my cities, but eventually I was able to put in temples and build cathedrals in my other two cities, while my capital had put up the Hermitage long before.

With hit singles, movies, and plays selling on the market I could turn my culture up to 100%, assign six artists in my Great Artist city and wait.

I got very lucky in that I was able to avoid war throughout the entire game. I was prepared to defend myself, but a war would've ******** all my efforts to grow the culture and snag key wonders. I did have to swallow my pride, accepting crappy civics and cutting off relations with civs--remember, if a civ is another civ's vassal, you don't have to worry about them attacking and can piss them off all you want--to keep the aggressive civs happy and off my back, but it paid off.

This was an unusual game, with some advantages, like the geographical isolation, and some disadvantages, like not having religion until late in the game, so I don't know how useful this might be.

 

[hvevo]

Thanks for the tips, now I'm on my way to my first ever cultural victory.

I started playing as Hatty (because I thought Creative and Spiritual might prove useful), and with a litte luck popped Mysticism from a tribal hut. Then I concentrated my research on Meditation and found Buddhism and converted immmediately. Also, I was able to build the Oracle to get Code of Laws and to find Confucianism. I didn't go for the Stonehenge, but instead built individual monuments in my cities as you guys suggested.

After I had found my sixth city, Montezuma declared war on me. My army was way weaker than his, but my Combat II & Woodsman II promoted axeman stationed at a forested hill next to the border was able to take care of the two major stacks of jaguars and archers and a couple of axes he sent towards my capital (I really think Monty should revise his military tactics, attacking my axe was just plain stupidity...). I whipped a couple of fresh axes in my capital and I was able to capture one of his cities (and also finally got iron in my cultural border). After this I decided it was not a good idea to concentrate my efforts on military, so I made peace with Monty and got Sailing from him.

In my second city, I was able to chop the Hanging Gardens. This was a pretty good consolation, since I lost the race for The Great Library thanks to the war with Monty. Then I realised no one had built the Pyramids yet and tried to pop a GE from the city in order to get them. However, I didn't succeed as Alexander completed them, so I used the GE to rush Parthenon in the city. After a while I popped my second GE and rushed Notre Dame in my capital. Furthermore, I was able to get the Sistine Chapel thanks to another GE, but failed to snag The Taj Mahal. I am currently building the Hagia Sophia in my GE factory city, but I doubt it will complete in time. However, I am running -15gpt at 70% research so failing to get it might be a good thing. In addition, I hope that I will be able to chop The Great Lighthouse in my best coastal city to get some GPP for a possible GM to fund my research.

This is basically where I am at the moment. I have one of the weakest armies in the game but my status is Friendly with two of my neighbours, Wang Kon and Mansa Musa (both are Buddhists with me). Togugawa started to put pressure on me at one point but I bribed Roosevelt to attack him. Monty is annoyed with me but he is lagging behind in the tech race so he won't be any trouble if he decides to declare war on me. Alexander, the ultimate military power in the game is cautious but he is on the other side of the world so I think he will not attack me anytime soon (probably once he gets transports he might, but then I hope I'll be able to bribe someone to attack him before he declares on me). All in all, I think I am doing pretty well at the moment, and will next try to rush for Democracy and the Statue of Liberty and then focus on getting Electricity, Radio and Mass Media as soon as possible.

 

[Cam_H]

All in all, I think I am doing pretty well at the moment, and will next try to rush for Democracy and the Statue of Liberty and then focus on getting Electricity, Radio and Mass Media as soon as possible.

Sounds as though you are!

It is possible to stop research at Democracy and just redirect all of your available commerce to culture, ensuring that you have your religions spread around optimally and don't need to rush-buy any more Temples and Cathedrals. You'll probably win sooner, but it's riskier (esp. with Tokugawa, Montezuma, and Alexander all alive!), as you can't trade backwards for more advanced military technologies (e.g. Assembly Line, Industrialism, Artillery) if you forgo pursuing advanced technologies.

I think in this case you're probably right in pushing ahead with the modern culture WoWs as this is your first shot at this win-type (why risk it with three Aggressive leaders floating around?) but as before, it's fairly common practice to not go down the Electricity-Radio-Mass Media path if you think you can pull off a quicker win by focussing instead on your commerce going to culture.

Best of luck with it.

 

[tycoonist]

yeah. stuck in the same boat as you...

 

[ecskipone]

whats up dude,
i play a lot but don't really post, here are a few key things you can do do slam you're culture

first off i play as Qin Shi Huang, Ind and Pro so you can build all your wonders and not have a hard time defending (also huge bonus in warlords, the pavillion is 25% culture instead of 3+

*pick your 3 cities as early as possible and build at least 3 more in case you need to build a military (these also offer a buffer between enemies and your culture cities)

*have at least 1 gp farm for great artists (use scientists until you get to code of laws)

*you should make one of these your commerce city so you can turn up your culture slider late in the game, and a production city is nice for wonders

*build temples, libraries, monastaries, and any small early culture buildings BEFORE 1 AD!!!! the culture values for most of these buildings doubles at the turn of the millenium

*get parthenon and national wonder for your gp farm

*only use these as great artist specialists, and keep in mind you will eventually build hermitage (+100% culture) in one of them so it's ok if one city is trailing

*go for music and get a free artist specialist

*after music your priority should be liberalism, if you set it up right you can use the free tech to get nationhood and have free speech (100% culture in all cities) and build hermitage

+++++++++++END GAME

you will need to pick your end game strategy based on the game settings

if I play on quick speed (25k culture per city) i will stop all research at nationhood and put my culture slider up to 100

at standard speed you will prob need to keep your military research going as it will take a little longer to get 50k (haven't yet tried culture on an epic game)

if you are playing against ai, only use great artists as specialists, i know the 2500 culture sounds good but with all the multipliers you win faster trust me

mp is tricky because if i see someone with 20k culture (or 40k) i'll launch an all out attack on one of those cities to screw my friend over, my technique is to use great specialists until 15k, then stockpile them so you have 3 in each city and when no one expects it, 7500 in each city and bang culture victory

++++++++++

if anyone else out there has a good culture game let me know, i'd love to get some more tricks up my sleeve

 

[hvevo]

Thanks everyone, I managed to pull it off

Once I got Democracy, I rushed the Statue of Liberty with a GE. Then I went for Electricity-Radio-Mass Media and afterwards turned off my research. I built the Eiffel Tower, Broadway, Rock and Roll and Hollywood and I was sure that I am going to win. However, Monty declared war on me again and soon Alex joined him in the battle. I had to turn of my culture slider for cash and bought a decent army to counter their attacks. Also, I needed the money in order to bribe Wang and Mansa to join me. Soon the world was devastated by a true world war: me, Wang & Mansa against Monty and Alex. The good news was that Wang and Mansa fought their battles at Alex's front and I could focus on Monty. In 1858 the Aztec civilization was destroyed by the glorious Egyptian empire.

Meanwhile, Alex was busy killing Mansa and Wang. He had soon captured/razed their border cities and I was getting concerned if he might reach my empire before my cultural victory. I tried to bribe Roosevelt to join the war with us but he refused. Well, I took a risk and turned my culture slider to 100% while building troops in my cities to defend. In 1885 Mansa capitulized to Alex and he had a direct access to my empire. His army was a big one even after he had conquered 70% of Mansa's lands but he faced stong resistance at my border. In 1906, after my troops had suffered terrible casualties to Alex's cavalries and he was still not willing to make peace, a very nice message popped on the screen: I had won a culture victory!

It was a very close call. In a couple of years I probably would have lost my first city to Alex because his cavalry reserve seemed limitless. I hate it when the map generator puts three aggressive civs (Monty, Alex, Toku) on the continent with me but I was extremely happy that I could still pull this one off.

 

[Cam_H]

Congratulations!

Good job on engineering some dogpiles - it sounds as though you handled the diplomatic side of things well.

 

[tycoonist]

that was my problem in my last attempt. i stopped at rifling, but when i was only about 5 turns away i was declared war on by monty and mao who thought it would be fun to bring tanks and gunships... i lost all my cities

 

[cabert]

that was my problem in my last attempt. i stopped at rifling, but when i was only about 5 turns away i was declared war on by monty and mao who thought it would be fun to bring tanks and gunships... i lost all my cities

that's bad luck!
I usually stop research at liberalism (taking nationalism for free, trading for whatever I can to make some defensive troops).
It's amazing what a little diplomacy can do .
A defensive pact with a big shot can really save you in those situations .
At emperor level, I got declared on by Huyna capac when I was only halfway done. My buddhist buddies took care of the guy (I still had to kill a bunch of cavalries with muskets and catapults ). I had just signed a defensive pact with Alexander .

To the OP on the win.
I have the feeling you did well except on 2 things maybe :
- early diplomacy : monte needs someone to bash. If you bribe him on someone, he leaves you alone. If you manage to bribe him on someone who threatens you, you kill 2 birds with one stone.
- research : going all the way to mass media is good for a diplo win, but useless for a culture win. you could have won 100 years earlier and avoided a war altogether.