How to Culture?

[BuzWeaverCiv]

No disrespect to the guy that made the video, but I would find a different LP'er. Most of the comments in this thread are from people getting faster win times on standard, 302 on quick is pretty slow. Not to mention that I doubt this would even work on Emper, and would a total fail on Immortal

I wasn't necessarily looking for a LP at the time, just some pointers for a Cultural Victory and this video helped. You're correct, this particular outline may not work on certain game modes. I'm still a semi-noobie, so Warlord is typically the level I play on.

I've tried to get a Cultural victory with Siam, but ended up getting a Diplomatic victory. Playing with Brazil and following Fox's instruction I was able to get the win. Since the fall patch I've had a harder time getting a Cultural or Diplomatic victory (none so far). I've not applied the suggestions in the video either since the fall patch, but I liked that FourEarFox got straight to the point.

 

[joshua43214]

... but I liked that FourEarFox got straight to the point.

Ya, he did an excellent job of post production and narration. If he played Deity, he would have a huge following because of the way he describes and details important points. He actually would have won a lot faster doing the sacred sites gimp win, you can knock out sub 200 victories in your sleep with it

 

[InDubioProReo]

I don't see how you can win a CV without strong faith growth...You need faith for so many things, with Tradition finisher you need faith to buy Great Engineers, which you need to grab key wonders..Which you need to fill art slots/get needed bonuses.

It's turn 240 and brazil has 230 TPT and I only have 80..I got 500 BPT and 350 CPT but no tourism at all.

 

[joshua43214]

I don't see how you can win a CV without strong faith growth...You need faith for so many things, with Tradition finisher you need faith to buy Great Engineers, which you need to grab key wonders..Which you need to fill art slots/get needed bonuses.

It's turn 240 and brazil has 230 TPT and I only have 80..I got 500 BPT and 350 CPT but no tourism at all.

two things;
at T240 (standard) you should be done with Plastics and your bpt should be between 900 and 1600. You have neglected science too much, CV requires the same science focus that an SV does.

on King and below, it is possible to just build wonders, get theming, and simply overpower the AI provided you use things like buying open borders, diplomats, trade routes, etc.
On Immortal/Deity, it is impossible to overcome the AI, and you must use concert bombs to win. Tourism before Internet is almost irrelevant, it is the tourism after researching Internet, then Radar that is important. This has all been detailed in this thread.

On lower difficulty, you do not need GE's for wonders, just get the tech first and build them. On high difficulty you might use 1 or 2 GE's, but you want to save the faith for GMus's, not GE's.

 

[InDubioProReo]

two things;
at T240 (standard) you should be done with Plastics and your bpt should be between 900 and 1600. You have neglected science too much, CV requires the same science focus that an SV does.

on King and below, it is possible to just build wonders, get theming, and simply overpower the AI provided you use things like buying open borders, diplomats, trade routes, etc.
On Immortal/Deity, it is impossible to overcome the AI, and you must use concert bombs to win. Tourism before Internet is almost irrelevant, it is the tourism after researching Internet, then Radar that is important. This has all been detailed in this thread.

On lower difficulty, you do not need GE's for wonders, just get the tech first and build them. On high difficulty you might use 1 or 2 GE's, but you want to save the faith for GMus's, not GE's.

I already have Plastics. And I'm only 6% behind at Literacy in Demographics Screen.

 

[teqofc]

Give Polynesia a try especially on tiny or large islands. It was my first and quite easy diety CV. And that was with two lousy expos with low food, pop and science. However I had an amazing capitol and was able to build Louvre, SC, Uffizi, ET and of course SoL since I was only one that went Freedom. It did take a while with the low science, 309 turns, but I had 822 tourism and hadn't even built airports yet.

Late game when you have internet + nvc + hotel + airport those moai pump out amazing amount of tourism. Here is a screenshot. Look at Tonga which is mostly tundra and snow but the Moai pumped out almost 100 tourism just from that.

Spoiler :

With the Poly UA you get so many ruins on island maps it is nuts. Very easy to get a religion this way. I had so much culture that I had full rati + exploration + aesethics and 2 into pat until consulates. I had 21 votes to inact world religion.

I have another Polynesia game going where I have 4 cities this time and way more science. Should be a nice 250-270 CV if I don't screw it up.

 

[goodolarchie]

A few general tips for any difficulty:

• GA's are generally best served for golden ages, especially with chichen, and even moreso if AI beats you to uffizi, louvre etc. France may be the one exception to this, but I don't play them on Deity.
• There are basically 3 "viable" ways to get tourism en masse: early game through sacred sites (going all piety + ics), spamming arch's midgame and taking artifacts from foreign sites, or beelining for hotels and airports late game.
• As with anything that can incur a diplo penalty, if you make all of your "offenses" on the same turn, i.e. position your archaeologists to start on the same turn within an AI's open borders, you can simply apologize for a single small diplo hit. This strategy also works for settling cities, buying tiles, spreading religion, etc.
• As the above poster mentioned, wonders become less and less viable as you move up from Emperor. The ones I usually try to get are Oracle, Petra (map dep), Chichen, Porcelain, Louvre, and Uffizi.

Specific responses for OP:

1. How do you maintain a decent cultural presence and still be ahead tech-wise?

You can't do both of those. That would require too many wonders, and much time spent building amphi's and opera houses (which are borderline awful as of BNW with only +1CPT). Focus on tech like a SV as others mentioned.

2. How do you find the time to build everything that's required? The guilds and caravans/caravan-related buildings add about 500 hammers to the early build strats. I don't see how I can produce these things: before BNW (in G+K) I wasn't building everything I want, but now I don't even have time to build the things I need.

This is tough to answer, but city placement is really key, as is ensuring that no city will lack hammers. Trade routes are amazing, both for early science and midgame food funneling. The hardest aspect is the possibility of an early DOW; having a neighbor like shaka or rome means you can kiss oracle or chichen goodbye and say hello to spamming composite bowmen. If you can stave off enemy DOW until at least crossbowmen, you should have no problem getting your guilds and caravans/ships online. If there's one thing worth investing in your improvement for any civ game, for any strategy, it's diplomacy and understanding the AI. Very few games are *impossible* to stay 100% peaceful.

3. How do you grow your cities after early warmongering and maintain happiness? The aforementioned is often looked down on in BNW since it sucks more resources than it gives, but I had to do it here with the jungle cities' potential for culture and...

Coliseums, Stone works, circus, and most importantly - lots of gold for CS gifts via trade routes, market/caravanasary. But who and why are you early warmongering? I can't look at your saves at the moment.

sidenotes:
Culture wins can be really tricky on Imm/Deity even when you do everything right, all it takes is one culture whore(who is also likely the resident wonder whore) to turn a T300 win into a T320 win, even with concert bombs. Diplo can break down at this era due to ideologies, congress, nukes, etc. Siam, Polynesia, Brazil have a track record of doing this to me.
This translates to CV being a risky path to take unless you hedge your bet with some good science BPT + plenty of RA's. It's a shame because CVs are pretty fun to pursue on King or Emperor.