How do you survive long enough to win a cultural victory?

[Razzlesnaff]

Well, I almost won. Got 5 Social Policy trees completed, but didn't have enough time to build it before I lost my capital. I do have to say it's really fun to defend against a much larger military and more advanced military with only knights and crossbowmen. But, I suppose I'll come back to a culture victory later. Took me a bunch of trial and error to win my first domination victory, so I imagine I'll fail a few times here as well.

 

[stormerne]

First off, don't even try and make the other civs like you. They never will! Trust every single one of them, even Gandhi, about as far as you could throw them in person.

Ally, however, with a bunch of city states. By contrast with normal civs, city states are trustworthy and they can feed you, arm you (a little) and can contribute to around half your culture points. Do their quests for barbarian eradication but NOT conquest of another city state! Build up the gold and buy their influence. Get the Patronage social policy tree early (saving up your points if necessary).

Regarding being attacked, I use the adage "Attack is the best form of defence". Go get them before they get you! Get a bunch of horsemen and (controversially) a few chariot archers. Horsemen are one of the best units in the game: they're available early and are a mix of power and mobility - and they can move after attacking! Careful use of chariot archers, keeping them out of direct contact but using them only for ranged attacks to soften up targets for the horsemen to come in on the same turn, earns them lots of promotions and a lot more power than they would seem to have. Get them EARLY and take out the other civs' cities before they're too strong. However, do NOT erase an entire civ. Leave one pathetic city for each and keep an eye on them. (The AI really dislikes civ eradication.) And don't annex or raze the cities but puppet them, at least at first.

There's a lot of basic info in the civ manual, for example about knowing your culture multipliers (Sistine Chapel, Hermitage, Broadcast Towers and Constitution social policy having slingshotted and beelined to Acoustics). However, overall, I concur with erajah's advice: do read the (long) HOF thread. People are getting full cultural victories in this first monthly HOF Gauntlet challenge using Arabia (not the obvious or best choice) at Prince level (good for beginners) and Continents, and some are getting home with victories as early as 1700! You could be next.

 

[Tiphereth]

Briefly, you don't need to go very far up the tech tree to have a powerful capturing army. Horseman and Greek's CC come to mind.

Indeed, Horsemen are very (too much?) powerful in this game. With them, I could win all my military games in Divinity. (And I’m not a very good Civ player.)

So what’s you priorities? First the cultural/science techs for the wonders like Great Library, Oracle or Stonehenge, and after that the Horsemen? Or you sacrifice these wonders to first rush Horsemen and pupetting the AI near you?

Second, your large cities should specialize - one to build military buildings and units (production city) and the other would be your cultural city (high growth).

So you have two cities, even if the cost of policies increases? Another question of me is the cultural city : doesn’t it need to be a production city too ? To build wonders like Ermitage, Sixtine…

Although focusing on culture from the start is important in the choice of techs, wonders and policies, try putting culture on the back burner and focus on military first. Once the AI has been broken you can focus on culture at your leisure.

Like I said, rush the Horsemen means sacrifice the first cultural wonders? It sounds a bit harsh to me.

Get them EARLY and take out the other civs' cities before they're too strong.

This is not an easy task for the Civs beyond the sea. I could easily beat the civs of my continent, but for the others, it’s difficult (and it’s worse if one AI take out the others, like it is more of the time).

 

[Taquitos]

I have recently won my second cultural, this time on King.

First of all, no, don't build more cities, 3 is enough, 4 is pushing it.

When you fond your cities thou you have to make sure that at least one of them is going to be founded in a terrain that offers the possibility of converting it into a power-horse for military production.

Regardless, my trick to win both times (specially the second time) was the combination of military units.

Early on I focused in adquiring 3 archers and 2 warrior/spearman/swordman. As soon as you are able to make cats, make one. In my opinion the most important unit are the ranged ones when comes down to cultural victories.

Now, you will be able to hold anything with 3 archers 2 melee units and a cat. Archers obviously upgrade to crossbows.

Eventually however, those crossbowman are going to become rifle man. Always make provisions of gold in advance for when upgrade time comes. When those archers become rifleman, keep only 4-5 tops. Now you have to upgrade ur cat to treb and cannon, and here comes the second "military arming" time, where you are going to use all 3 cities and a golden age to build cannons. Build 4-5 cannos total, a little more a little less depending your situation.

Later on you upgrade cannons to artillery and rifleman to infantery man and you will be set. The most important thing is having ranged units, specially artillery. With enough artillery around your city and the bonuses of fighting in your own territory (hopefully you getting those) you will be fine. Many times those artillery will take down a unit in one hit, sometimes will cause enough dmg that the computer will try pull him back and make a mess of his offensive line.

So in short:
a) make few 2-3 melee units
b) make 4-5 archers
c) make gold provisions for upgrading, you don't want to be producing units.
d) once cannons are available throw a golden age and build 4-6.
e) Crossbows will be upgraded to infantery, keep only 3-4
f) 2-3 rifleman/infantery and 5-6 cannon/artillery will stop anything.
g) don't bother with navy.
h) Get all the social policies and if possible the wonder that increases combat strg inside your territory.
i) Always fight around your city, you need that buffer and extra bombarment.
j) Only use you melee units or infantery to clean up units that made it close enough of your city, never engage directly. Let your artillery and AI stupidty do most of the job.

This is of course assuming you are using a scenario challenging enough, to the point you are always behind in tech/military size to at least couple of civs. Archipielago is too easy, don't use that there is not point nor fun in that.

In my last game China had all my continent and as I unlocked my 5th policy tree she attacked even thou we were best friends forever, this is always going to happen. HOWEVER, in my last game Bismarck had the entirety of the map and the other continent (much bigger) and was ridiculously ahead in tech. Me and Wu were fighting with infantery and artillery when he had mech, panzers, gunships and who knows what else, surprinsingly he didn't attack me, he attacked Wu, maybe because her power rating was high enough to made her a treath, rather than myself. Clearly both AIs were going for domination, but then again I was able to hold Wu long enough to build the Utopia project.

 

[Anastomosis]

Also, it may be useful to have a try as Montezuma, since you gain culture the more you conquer.

 

[Ozle]

I found it easy with Ghandi on Prince, I only built 2 huge cities, went for the full on culture policies and wonders.

Get friendly early on with all the culture/maritime city states.

I think I got declared war on a couple of times, but had enough gold to rush some higher tech units to beat off the hordes.

And im by no means a decent player, generally didnt get above Warlord in previous versions.

(Obviously dont think this would go down so well on higher levels because you wont have the tech lead)

 

[Celevin]

Also, it may be useful to have a try as Montezuma, since you gain culture the more you conquer.

Nah, over the course of the game even being very warlike I'd be surprised if you beat out a couple monuments. Montezuma's ability needs a serious buff.

 

[tissue]

Nah, over the course of the game even being very warlike I'd be surprised if you beat out a couple monuments. Montezuma's ability needs a serious buff.

Noone tried to win cultural with monti? How much points do you get for each unit anyways?

 

[Toshiro126]

Noone tried to win cultural with monti? How much points do you get for each unit anyways?

I played for a half hour or so last night as Monty because I wanted to test the culture gained from winning battles. Every time I killed off a barbarian with a Jaquar warrior, I got 3 whole points!

I'm not sure what you get from killing off the soldiers of city-states or other civs though.

 

[MaXimillionZero]

I played for a half hour or so last night as Monty because I wanted to test the culture gained from winning battles. Every time I killed off a barbarian with a Jaquar warrior, I got 3 whole points!

I'm not sure what you get from killing off the soldiers of city-states or other civs though.

Seems to be half of the unit's melee strength.

 

[Celevin]

That seems accurate. I found it weird that archers were only giving me 2.

 

[Toshiro126]

Seems to be half of the unit's melee strength.

Ah, good point. That makes sense. Glad someone is paying attention these things.

 

[wizzlestick]

I've tried twice to win a cultural victory and both times I got my ass roflstomped towards around 1600-1800. I usually start out on a continent with 2-3 civs. One wipes out the other two and then comes for me. No matter how much I try and make them like me they still try and take my three cities.

It's infuriating because I know I would have won a cultural victory.

Am I supposed to have more cities? Devote more time to military and less time to wonders and culture? I think if I do either of these things I'll lose out on the cultural victory.

I have tried this myself, but I find personally it's best to monitor the diplomatic relations and growth of other civs and occassionaly get your hands dirty. If you have an overagressive AI that is dominating then it may be in your best interest to lend a helping hand to put them in check. You don't need a huge military or even tons of military related tech in order to accomplish this, and once stability is restored you can go back to minding your own business in your little corner and continue with your cultural victory

It's a little like being a world police but still trying to avoid conflict at all costs. Or to manipulate the aggressive civ over time to put them in a bad situation later. But I agree if you just sit and mind your own business eventually someone is likely to come after you. This was a ramble but hope it makes for any sense/help