How do you get enough culture to build a contested 4-policy wonder when going Tradition?

[rkkn]

Unlike the other two trees, culture from Tradition is all passive per-turn, and it's just not enough to get that fourth policy in time. With the other two trees I'd finish building a wonder by the time I'd have enough culture to even start on one with Tradition.

I've felt like I have to take the progress or authority opener before going tradition if I want to have a shot at getting a hotly contested wonder.

 

[SpecifiedUsername]

Culture pantheon is what VP is about.

 

[looorg]

Don't recall that being a problem. Certainly not an early problem, 4th-5th pick if fairly early. So other sources. Which CIV you are, A pantheon that gives culture, A religion that gives culture, Put a higher value on buildings that give culture. Depending on which Tradition you open with you get a specialist that can be worked for Culture or an Engineer. Go for Terracotta Army if you are killing a lot of things. The eventual disparity in culture usually takes place a lot later then the fourth policy pick as that is when the AI culture machine has usually kicked in.

 

[Laz0r]

I think it pretty much boils down to gold focusing monuments in every city first and a culture-rich pantheon/UA, as well as growth in tradition's case. You usually have to sacrifice ever getting a religion to do it too so it's pretty risky. I've noticed with the wonder alert mod that AI's will sometimes not be working on a wonder, get immediate difficulty-related production boosts in one of their ciities, and switch to a wonder to complete it in a single turn (possibly with gold investment).

 

[Stalker0]

Unlike the other two trees, culture from Tradition is all passive per-turn, and it's just not enough to get that fourth policy in time. With the other two trees I'd finish building a wonder by the time I'd have enough culture to even start on one with Tradition.

I've felt like I have to take the progress or authority opener before going tradition if I want to have a shot at getting a hotly contested wonder.

This is generally not my experience, and I have done twin games (where I took the same exact start and went tradition with one/progress with the other). In every trial I did, while progress got its 2nd, maybe 3rd policy a bit quicker, by the 4th and 5th one Tradition had overtaken.

The key is this: You go Tradition 2 for artistry (the free great artist spot) and then you immediately start working it. That gives you a sizable culture right off the bat, and then once the Great Artist comes out...even more culture. While the progress bonuses look impressive they are a lot more intermittent than people think, while that +x culture churns round after round (and most importantly, gets affected by culture multipliers in the capital).

Now this does assume a 5, maybe 6 city scenario. If you are expanding more than that (aka pushing Wide over Tall), than I do think progress is a better culture generator, though frankly with that kind of expansion you are probably not competing for the wonders that you were discussing in the OP.

 

[Fluffball]

In my experience tradition provides a glut of resources including culture but it does rely you working the great specialist slots given to you by tradition or you will be missing a lot of it's strength. I try to work all specialists in my capital with tradition but if you can't work them all and going for a wonder you can work the culture specialist to get the policy requirement and then switch to engineer to actually build the wonder.