How to play a culture domination game

M

Maverick

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 6, 2002
Messages
21
Location
Theed Royal Palace, Naboo
Can you give me pointers on how to play civ3 in a peaceful way? Where you can win city by cultural domination? Not necessarily giving to other civ's demand, but by just having enough defense army, high culture value so I can gain more city. Is that possible? What city improvement, wonders I need to boost ng culture?
 
You can gain cities because you have an overwhelming culture and they yearn to join you. Cultural victories occur in two ways, having a great cultural city, or having a great cultural empire. The city culture victory is easier on a small map, whilst the cultural empire victory is easier on a huge map.

To win a city cultural victory it is best to build every wonder that you can. If you look in the manual you can see that different wonders have different culture levels, with the war-based wonders (like The Manhattan Project) having a lesser cultural impact than some of the other wonders (like Shakespeare's or Bach's). Building city improvements like Cathedrals and Universities also help, again, read the manual (pg 114 for me, I don't know about everyone else). Small wonders also help, but not as much as Great wonders.

If you are on a small map then build all of the above improvements in one city (preferably a city with a possibility for the Iron Works => increased production).

If on a huge map then spread it out in the hope that the sum of all the culture values in your cities will be enough for a victory.

You can, of course, win by being elected to the head of the UN, which I think is easier, particularly if you are on a small map. You do, however, need to get to the advance of Fusion before your time runs out. Just make sure that you are liked (if it says 'Polite' or another endearing term under the leader when you are talking to them) and if you are not, just give them some techs/$$$/luxuries as gifts and they'll soon love you. You can not hold UN elections if you are not ready for them at that particular moment. I won a diplomatic with two other civs even though I had been at war with both of them during my reign. Some last minute sucking up is a good tactic.

I hope that I have helped...
 
For a cultural victory, you must have a total of 100,000 culture points. Also, your total culture must be at least double every other civ. Your advisors can tell you if you have double their culture: "admirers of" = 2x, "in awe of" = 3x.

First step: play as the Babylonians (scientific, religious) to get the half-price temples, libraries, etc.

Build lots of cities early, using an "outside-in" method. Find your neighbors, and build cities right on their borders, then start builing back towards your capital. Concentrate on building as many settlers as possible, build defensive units while waiting for the population to get back to three, and then build another settler. This way you can grab a lot of land early. Your neighbor will probably put a few cities behind your line, but you will soon have them surrounded, so they will eventually culture-flip over to you.

Once you have your cities established, start building culture-enhancing improvements: temples and libraries, then cathedrals and univerisities once you have the tech. Each contributes culture points every turn. It helps to build these early, because when an improvement becomes 1000 years old, it cultural value doubles.

Building wonders also helps, but they take so long to build that you should concentrate on improvements first.

Since each cultural improvement/wonder in each city contributes to your overall culture, it helps to have a lot of cities (don't be afraid to overlap city radii). A lot of medium-sized cities with high culture will build points faster than only a few large ones. Your culture points are not dependent on population, but only on the number and age of certain improvements.

Culture-per-turn for new improvements:
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">Palace</font></td>
    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">1</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">Temple</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">3</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">Cathedral</font></td>
    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">3</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">University</font></td>
    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">4</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">Colosseum</font></td>
    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">2</font></td>
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    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">Research Lab</font></td>
    <td width="50%"><font face="Arial" size="2">2 (comes too late to help much</font></td>
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Wonders (great & small) also add culture points. One of the best early ones is the Great Library at 6 per turn. Also worth 6 are J.S Bach's Cath, Newton's Univ, and Sistine Chapel. Shakespeare's Theatre is worth 8 per turn, but it come kind of late--still helps, though. Hanging Gardens, Oracle, and Pyramids are pretty good early ones at 4 points each (remember, the earlier ones will double in value after 1000 years) For a complete list, check the Pedia or the info center on this website
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3infocenter.shtml#wonders
 
The challenge of a cultural or peaceful victory is that while you are building improvements which bump up your culture points, your war-like enemy is building military units and will pretty soon want to have a chat with you about the benefits of not being crushed like a bug. :eek:

I found this when the Iriquois were nice enough to cut off my silk and dyes supply by sending their 10 knights to take out my 4 or 5 Musketmen. I had a huge culture rating but sweet-FA defences.

Also, according to the manual the trick to being liked (despite the war) is to act honourably by not doing cheap things like using "right of passage" to invade a once ally, and not making peace with an enemy while allied within 20 turns etc. That probably had a little to do with the diplomatic victory as well as the last-minute bribes. I must try that some time. :)
 
That's an important point. If you can't defend your kingdom, all that great culture will only be some fond memories while you are chained to an oar in an enemy galley. The Greeks and Egyptians had beautiful temples, but even Zues and Ra couldn't save them from Roman legions.
 
Particularly on higher difficulty levels (> Regent).

Thing is, if you manage to get all this culture going, AND you make enough mil to keep another civ from wanting your ass on a platter, chances are, just as you are about to reach the 100k empire level (or the 20k city level), the AI will attack you, forcing you into a war, while another civ "cultures up" and gets at least half your culture score, neutering your victory by culture.

I have fallen for this twice. The giveaway is that the attack is usually hopeless (suicidal small force, usually annihilated by you in a single turn), another civ suddenly makes peace, etc.

This stuff is difficult to quantify, since the cultural score of another civ is not available to you. You can only estimate it from the histogram. But, generally speaking, when i win by spaceship victory on a huge map (usually mid 20th century, depending on how much war was going on and difficulty level), i have 145-150k cultural points, but another civ has at least half that. :cry:
 
I've found the best way to avoid a war is to have a punishing military force. The AI while aggressive, isn't usually suicidal.
 
Off-topic, but related to the last post - I've found that the enemy determines whether you are a soft target based on the size of your army rather than its actual power. That is, you have 10 Modern armour, he has 30 knights, he figures he can take you. Imagine his suprise when you steamroll his invading force in a single turn! That flaw in the AIs logic is not surprising, given the fact that your Military Advisor has the same blind spot.
In Regent games, the AI starts strong, but fizzles after the expansion phase (making it easy to get a tech advantage on the battlefield.) That may be because the expand-at-all costs strategy is flawed, or just because expanding is easier than running a finely tuned empire, I don't know.

Back on topic, one sure way to a cultural lead lies in your choice of Civ. Religious and Scientific civs have a tremendous advantage, because their cultural buildings are half price! Of course, that makes the Babylonians the ideal for a culture rush.
Religious civs start with the tech to build temples (and cheaply), so in theory you could build one right away while waiting for your city to grow large enough for a settler. In fact you can probably pop rush it as soon as your city gets to size 2. That will slow down production of your first settler, which is a big negative. But because each turn spans 50 years early in the game, a very early temple will be 1000 years old very quickly. That often means that you are producing culture 3 times as fast as your AI opponents, as they are building settlers rather than temples.
I've experimented with this strategy with mixed results. I did manage to get the Japanese second city to flip to me early on, in the January GOTM! The Religious (?!) Iroquois are a good candidate for an early temple build, as their expansionist ability means they don't need warriors for exploration and hut popping nearly as badly as other civs.

For one-city culture wins, an early temple, library and Cathedral are nice, but the key is probably the Ancient culture wonders. If you can beat the AIs to the Oracle and the Pyramids (and ideally the GL too) with the same city, getting it to 20000 culture is pretty much assured.
:egypt:
 
I have no trouble getting into a situation where my capital will surpass 20,000 culture points before the game ends (I usually play with spaceship victory turned off), but I generally don't have the patience to sit there and trudge through another 150 turns, when all I have to do is survive.

Another key to cultural victory is building cultural improvements very early. I try to have a temple and a library in every city by 500 AD. This means that by the time the industrial age comes around, you will get at least 10 points/turn in each city, and probably more. If you can build a university and a cathedral very early as well, this is another14 points per turn. Add the Great Library, another 12? Culture points/turn add up very quickly if the cultural improvements were built a thousand years earlier.:egypt:
 
All above coments are relavant. I have several in my bag, but am not sure I can say exactly how to do it.
They were chieftain and warlord. It is a delicate balancing act. 1. You have to be strong enough to fend off the AI. Since count is more important to AI than might, lots of wariors and spearmen is usually enough, at least in the early game.
2. you have to built culture items early and often--ie many cities, and the sooner the better. Culture totals stack.
3. You have to expand fast enough--while building temples and warriors -- to get enough cities to to build culture twice as fast as your opponents.

It is easier if you are a cultural type civ.

Not just one==all three.
In my first regent game, I fended off oponents -- 5 on one continent -- and came out on top, but did not find the other 2 until much later. There must have been three at the start--but only the French and Russians remain. Each had a major sub-continent to themselves, and by the time I found them they each had about 40 cities with everything up to university in each. Well, not all cities, but enough to matter. Both their cultures were twice mine, or more. I can catch up to this level--and did -- but since they have been accumulating culture points so long, there is no way to double them. IE--no way to win by culture, in a peaceful means.
There is a way--demolish their culture bildings in a war, leaving your with the most. However, even this may not work, since they have their accululated score.
The only way to cultural, peaceful, victory is to get an early cultural headstart, and keep it.
 
Some great advice there from the other posters. The key to culture victories is gte the points in EARLY! Not only will they have longer to accumulate but the points for buildings that stand for 1000 years double which makes a big difference. The link below is to a previous post which had some very handy tables for calculating when this will happen and when and whether you will win later, based on how many turns left in the game.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11260

20 or so cities is enough, but the more the merrier.
 
The cultural aspects have been well covered above.

The peaceful aspect seems to be pretty much about keeping a strong enough standing army so that the AI won't attack you. I finished a low level game recently where there were no wars at all.

Usually you get a little bit of advanced warning that they AI is thinking about attacking you. I have noticed there is increased military activity on your border (just exercises of course I am sure!). If that happens it is generally a hint that your cities in that section of your empire are not garrisoned adequately (at least the AI thinks that).

Each time this happened during this game I shipped or moved a bunch of extra units to those cities, usually 1 or 2 per city more. Presto the military exercises that were being conducted on my borders stopped.

It is preferable to have your cities grouped together, or bunches of them together if on different continents to make them less appealing. Also grabbing lots of luxuries and selling them to the AI to help pay for your standing army is good. Also remember ever 20 or so turns to look over those old trade deals and see if you can get a higher price.
 
Working at peace is just as hard as working at war. I guess that
s when you become a 'peacemaker'.

I just had a clue handed to me==Offered to sell Russia some furs... since she only has three native lux, and nobody has any except France and me... and France is on the verge of war: "No," she says, "I would not be prudent at this time." She has money and has no lux.. well three. Hmmm. ;)
 
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