[R&F] How to beat AI science victory with culture victory?

[nD.reDie]

Hi

I am wondering.... "How to beat AI science victory with culture victory?"

I lost several games "almost" winning by culture victory, to AI getting the science victory.
I think its boring to win by "brute force", because its often so easy to outplay the AI in combat - so in that regard, you can obviously make any victory condition work if you just squash the enemy.

I have been following this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/7svcux/winning_a_culture_victory_an_in_depth_guide/
Here they share many useful ideas about culture victory. But if its "only" possible to win CV after you get radio and computers, then you have to be vastly ahead of everyone else, for them to not catch up with SV?

Please help

Thanks!

 

[nD.reDie]

Oh yea... I tried spies! They keep dying and dying.... having 28% chance to sabotage space operations...

 

[Mesix]

While I agree that winning the game by brute force alone an be boring, I also find it equally boring to play without any strategic wars. When going for a Cultural VC, I like to take out my close neighbor(s) in the early game and the tourism leaders in the late game. This is how you beat the AI Science VC. If you are allowing one or two AI players to run up their tourism only to have another AI beat you to a Science VC, then this is your problem.

The icing on the cake with this approach is that the AI players with the most tourism are generally the wonder hogs, so taking over their empire will liberate their wonders as well!

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Level up your spies earlier - use one on defense at home and use one (or more) on the AI using higher probability operations to get promotions.

The easiest way to set-up for a peaceful CV (to me) is to go much harder on culture than science early. This will make Eurekas easier - and you will have plenty of time to get to Computers after you've covered the globe with your Archeologists, Resorts, etc. Getting as many early GWs as you can, for instance, will really help you move through the Civics Tree, and keep the AIs culture (defense) lower.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The earlier you focus on Culture the quicker you will unlock the Culture buildings and polcies which will help you alot in winning the Culture victory. Do not forget about great people because great works can be a huge boost to how quickly you can progress througth the Culture tree. So rushing to the theater Square and spam it in all cities and Maybe produce a few Projects to get the great people quicker.

Faith is also very nice for Culture victories as faith is the only way you can get national parks which give a nice boost to tourism, religious buildings are so cheap and can get a huge boost from policies rather early in a Culture Heavy strategy.

It is quite easy to stay ahead in science if you go Heavy on Culture as you get the rationalism policy which is a huge boost if you have large amount of science buildings.

I don't really Agree with the reddit post. Spamming wonders is something that I would not recommend, only build the wonders you need and make sure to use exploit the adjacenency bonus theater Squares gain from wonders. Im not sure I like the district order, my order would be something like religious site/theater Square, campus and Commerce hub. Im not completely sure why the post recommend industry zones so much. A few industry zones are good to have for adjacency and ability to pick up great engineers.

I can Agree about forest, try to save them and other production resources. If you harvest them early your cities are likely going to have production issues in the midgame because the only major production sources would be mines which is generally not enough. Try to only harvest production resources whenever you truly feel you need the production such as getting an important wonder.

Science should not be forgotten as many late game Techs greatly help a Culture victory so unlocking these quickly is important. Furthermore stuff such as apprenticeship or just better military will help as well.

 

[Victoria]

That guide is a pile of c r a p

What really annoys me in the world is when people do not explain things and just say do this or do that. You need to understand and then you can play.

The KEY thing about culture victories is it is a race and the faster you can go the faster you can win. A monument = 2 culture, a great writer = 8 culture & tourism. a wonder is just utter rubbish in comparison, unless it is something awesome like the Oracle, pyramids, Coliseum or great library. Its all about taking all the great writers and therefore about having enough space to hold them. It is so much about maximizing everything, so not only trade routes and open borders but changing government. Being a Monarch may give you too many red cards but if it gives you 18% tourism hell that's pretty good, add that to open borders and trade route and you are getting near computers but much much earlier.

Religion.... really?... I mean really? Sure the record win at T58 for CV is religious but when you see the best players winning at around T100 a lot with the "salted fish" it makes you realize that religion just slows you down. Religion can be fun and different but not as fast. because the AI is now much slower at getting tourism the "salted fish" or pure theatre thrash to put it another way, is by far the most efficient way.

If you get the GS Mary Leakey your CV is too slow or your science too high.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yes the easiest way is to spam as many theater Squares as possible as quickly as possible but that strategy quickly gets boring and the important thing is you do not need to play like that to win. It is very possible to win while having large cities with several districts each.

 

[Victoria]

Yes the easiest way is to spam as many theater Squares as possible as quickly as possible but that strategy quickly gets boring and the important thing is you do not need to play like that to win. It is very possible to win while having large cities with several districts each

Indeedy, I quite like the resort game. Harbours and campi, quite novel and challenging.
The religious game is just so naff and not needed and yet this guy on reddit seems to think its the be-all.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Why people recommend religion at all is really beyond me lol.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yes the easiest way is to spam as many theater Squares as possible as quickly as possible but that strategy quickly gets boring and the important thing is you do not need to play like that to win. It is very possible to win while having large cities with several districts each.

There's a lot of ways to play that lead to a cultural victory fairly easy. There's only a few that give you a shot at a sub T200 victory, but pretty much any strategy that picks a source of tourism and runs with it can get you a sub T300 victory, which is good enough to beat an AI science victory. (Times based on Standard speed).

What's impressive is that someone managed to write a cultural victory guide that figured out a way to slow your tourism down enough to make an AI victory feasible.

@nD.reDie : it's not quite as simple as do the exact opposite of that guide, but it's close. The focus on Theatre Squares strategy noted by @Victoria may indeed be boring as @Denkt suggests, but boring's in the eye of the beholder and it's a good place to start if you haven't won a cultural victory before.

 

[Morino1914]

In a peaceful game, only stealing cities forward settled or by loyalty, would the best strategy for a CV outsmart say Russia, Persia, Pericles and Gorgo playing as say Georgia on emperor (standard/Pangea) or above?