How wide do you think is ideal as Brazil for cultural victory?

[YoungEldritch]

Brazil's Carnival is both an excellent way to manage happiness in a big empire, and a way to generate tourism that's affected by your number of cities much less than generating great people. This theoretically makes them pretty great at going wide, but I've had fairly little luck with the strategy in King difficulty, and I can't tell if it's an issue of Brazil not being effective in wide gameplay, or simply that my particular strategy for achieving it doesn't work well. I usually open Authority, go to Artistry, then the plan is to go into Imperialism, but I usually stagnate and eventually get squashed by an opponent with five to seven techs more than me around the time I enter the Industrial era.

If you've ever played Brazil wide before, what generally strategy have you used?

 

[HeroOfTheSword]

It's been awhile since I played with Brazil, but I used to go progress because progress is great for going wide, but you could go with Tradition too. Not sure I'd ever go Authority to begin with since they're not an early military civ.

 

[detroitrex]

yeah, why authority?

 

[Dmitri Mishkin]

Yeah Authority seems like it probably is the worst choice out of the three starting ones, especially if you are going for a cultural victory

 

[redrum68]

Well I mean often the safest way to ensure a cultural victory is just conquer or vassal any major competitors then just get enough tourism on those that are left...

 

[HeroOfTheSword]

Well I mean often the safest way to ensure a cultural victory is just conquer or vassal any major competitors then just get enough tourism on those that are left...

Isn't that just a bit bland though? Like you could do that with every civ really no matter what their kit is. Brazil to me is fun because you can win without purely warmongering.

 

[redrum68]

Isn't that just a bit bland though? Like you could do that with every civ really no matter what their kit is. Brazil to me is fun because you can win without purely warmongering.

Sure but the title of the post includes "ideal" which would seem to indicate they aren't talking about what would be the most fun or most aligned to Brazil's kit. They want to know from an ideal or optimal gameplay perspective how wide you should consider going.

 

[hokath]

Probably as wide as there is jungle on the map, really.

If there's some pesky holdout with 4 cities that has a -80% modifier against you in the Industrial Era, use the Amazonas on them. Blitz is nice for taking Cities.

 

[Captain Carrot]

As others have said, Authority isn't really a good pick for Brazil - it almost uniquely lacks any military-adjacent bonuses until Industrial and Authority requires a very high tempo early game, with aggressive barb hunting, CS tributing and opportune wars, to make use of its yields on kill and conquest. Don't be fooled by the bonus on settle and 10 city strength - they're there more as an extra addition and are far weaker than the passive bonuses of the other two ancient trees - the real engine of Authority is in the combat triggers.

With Brazil's extra resource placement, Progress's worker buffs seem an obvious choice, so I also suggest to try opening with that. The unhappiness reduction might seem like an anti-synergy with the UA, but in the early game, there's hardly such a thing as too much happiness. The earlier you get your permanent GA, the better, you have more of a window to build settlers and wonders instead of buildings to keep up with needs, more flexibility in your tech path, and staying at peace means you have easier access to the luxuries you need to trigger Carnival. If a situation does arise where a prime city spot is stolen by a neighbour, you can still fight a quick war, except you only have to take one city to achieve your goals, and not keep conquering just to keep up in culture and science.