Is the Cultural VC the hardest to achieve?

[GreedysMaximus]

I'm asking this, because i'm having a lot of problems with the optimization of my cities building priorities and some more generic(noobish) issues. I play almost exlusively on king.

Barbs are a constant nuisance, in my last game i actually built 2 warriors and an archer(after scout, monument),
just to clear the vicinity of my capital city and even then i was chronically surrounded by foes(i saw at least 3-4 barbs at one point near my capital, early on).

But the more important question is the AI(in another game i was attacked in turn 34 by 6-7 warriors). If my forces are negligible, will this fact incite my neighbours to be more aggressive?
This is actually my biggest problem in almost all of my games, which are aren't going in the warmonger route, i don't have enough forces to deal with the AI attacks, and eventually the peaceful route i chose, will become a bogged down mess,
where i'm forced to fight the enemy for a long-long time.
Maybe i should neglect the wonders/buildings early on and just take a neighbour(s) out for security and resources?

Which wonders should i prioritize? Is porcelain tower a must?
When should i start building my 1st wonder?
Are RA's a waste of gold or needed, since you also need the cultural citystates to start pumping you that ?
What policies do ppl usually use for a cultural win b4 they go into piety?

I think a cultural route is the most diverse and complex to achive, since you need to manage a lot of different aspects(science, units, culture, gold) at the same time,
while for example in a warmongering game, you can totally ignore most buildings and proceed with a fairly linear route to victory.

 

[prince_caspian]

A simple tip that I got from someone here: play cultural victories like playing space victories. Science is important - RAs, beakers. You want to defend or puppet whole empires, you need advanced units to overwhelm them. You want wonders, get to the tech and complete long before anyone else. You want huge culture, get to Radio 50 turns before the nearest competitor, mass build/buy broadcast towers. In vanilla this wasn't so easy but GAK (I believe) was made for cultural victories.

 

[Xile]

On king your first wonder probably should be GL; scout -> shrine -> monument -> settler -> GL(get free philosophy) -> buy library in 2nd city -> NC -> Oracle, if you start next to somebody aggressive don't go for GL just get library and some archers then proceed as normal. If you have a city with lots of desert hills, get petra there.

Personally, if going for culture I start my RA's just as I'm about to hit renaissance via acoustics, That way you have time to build Unis and such to get something out of them.

Also, I dunno about puppeting cities, unless it's an AI everybody else dislikes. It just makes signing RA's a lot harder and afaik the culture gain from puppets was nerfed by 1/4th in G&K.

 

[Tyxerxa]

I think the best approach is to go for 1-4 cities and play mostly defensive. I am trying to go for an agressive approach with Monterzuma and Authocracy instead of Freedom, but so far I did not succeed. The idea is still to go tall, as the exponential increase in culture cost gets too huge.

Still uncertain for the social policies, tough. Getting religion is basically impossible, which makes Piety lackluster and I would love to have liberty, honor and tradition. But going for culture without Piety and Freedom may be too much.

 

[Hambil]

I regularly get culture vics almost always playing OCC (though not checkboxed - I liked to keep the option open to drop a city by oil in late game or some such). As a general rule of thumb, if you can keep your turn to a new policy at 10 or less you will win.

 

[Hambil]

The big prize is still Stone Henge. It's almost always doable and your only chance at a religion on higher levels. Religions are great for culture - get Cathedrals, Pogadas, The Hermitage +8 culture, etc.

Pantheons can help with culture, too. Many choices offer cultural boosts depending on your terrain.

 

[Tyxerxa]

Did it work on Deity with the OCC?

 

[Hambil]

I'm still working on Immortal. Haven't tried Deity yet. Not sure if I will from what I've been hearing There is a point at which fun becomes work.

 

[Tyxerxa]

Ok, because I tried it several times and did not even get the Sistine Chapel, was way back in technology and got beaten to religion with Stonehenge, Tempel and religious city state allied. If at all I tghink it could work on small maps or very crowded maps, means additional civs. But with standard settings I did not even come close to anything viable.

 

[Hambil]

I've done it on several maps, on immortal. It's hard, and you don't get much for wonders. You don't need them though. However, it would be nice to get a religion. If you can't do that on Deity my strat would need to change. If I ever decide to play it on that level, which is unlikely until they patch it and make it easier.

I should mention (as I did above in one of my posts) I re-roll until I get a really good start - so that may be different than what you do also.

 

[calla]

i'm still trying to perfect cultural victories on king, but depending on the map you play, you want at least 2 other production cities outside your capital.

city placement is also crucial for a cultural victory. you should be able to get at least 3-4 resources per city. they don't have to be unique because you can always sell off your extra resources but the key is to keep your happiness/income up as you try to find a balance between military units and buildings

 

[GreedysMaximus]

i'm still trying to perfect cultural victories on king, but depending on the map you play, you want at least 2 other production cities outside your capital.

city placement is also crucial for a cultural victory. you should be able to get at least 3-4 resources per city. they don't have to be unique because you can always sell off your extra resources but the key is to keep your happiness/income up as you try to find a balance between military units and buildings

I think this is one of the biggest problems i have, the lack of resocurces to trade for RA's and other stuff. If i'm playing a civ like India is it smart pumping out 3-4 cities? The unhappiness will be substantial and it'll be hard to guarantee security for all these cities, since i can guarantee you that some AI will be always drooling at your direction.

 

[calla]

hm i never really liked india because of that trait. when you pick social policies, you really need to fill out the tradition line, especially the one that allows you to spread your borders at a lower cost.

ra's were nerfed with the expansion, so you really need to be able to pump out science by using buildings, city-states, and gps.

i'd suggest that you squeeze out two scouts and use them to scout the map to find as many villages as you can. also remember the more civs you meet, the lower the cost of techs.

1 warrior and archer are more than enough to deal with barbs that may try to pillage your improvements. once you've build a few wonders such as the gl, nc, and oracle, you can start expanding slowly and focus on balancing buildings and military units. but city placement is the most important thing. your placement has to literally be perfect because you only want 3-4 cities max.

its all a delicate balancing act. like i said, you want a lot of production cities that can also sustain a high population. you want your cities to be as flexible as possible because sometimes, you want to focus hammers, sometimes you want to focus culture, etc etc.

with the nerf to gp spawning, i'm not so sure a city dedicated to gps would be optimal. but you still need artists, engineers, and scientists.

 

[Hambil]

Pump science with food. City growth beats all for science.

 

[GreedysMaximus]

I don't have the xpack yet, but i've heard a lot of good feedback on it and will prolly acquire it in a couple of days. What's different for the cultural route in G&K compared to the vanilla? A few things have already been mentioned here, but i'm sure there's more to know.

 

[Xile]

once you've build a few wonders such as the gl, nc, and oracle, you can start expanding slowly and focus on balancing buildings and military units. but city placement is the most important thing. your placement has to literally be perfect because you only want 3-4 cities max.

If you build all that before expanding, you are basically shooting yourself in foot, because that's a lot of turns. Your 2nd city will take ages to develop and you're less likely to found a religion with decent beliefs on higher difficulties. Settler before GL is easily doable on emperor and below. Not sure about immortal, but culture games are boring as is so there is no need to make them frustrating as well.

its all a delicate balancing act. like i said, you want a lot of production cities that can also sustain a high population. you want your cities to be as flexible as possible because sometimes, you want to focus hammers, sometimes you want to focus culture, etc etc.

You don't really need that much production, unless you're wonder spamming, because you'll probably end up buying the more expensive culture buildings anyways.

Also, there is plenty of time to get a decent enough force to defend yourself while you don't really have anything else to build(between drama and poetry and acoustics or even longer than that, if you picked up legalism after amphitheaters were built).

 

[_megafone_]

I tried to play an OCC cultural game last few days. Perfect start, perfect setup, even lucksacked with my neighbors - I only got one close, Napoleon, with the rest of the pangea locked out by a huge mountain range, and I saved one of his workers very early so he became my buddy and never even tried to attack me. Scored Stonehenge, the Oracle and pretty much every relevant cultural wonder (except the Opera House since I wasn't on a coast), got a religion up with World Church and spread it to the two biggest AI civs on the game, got 4 GAs planted, two allied cultural city-states for around 200 turns, built every cultural building as soon as the tech was out, had absolutely NO wars for the whole game even in the middle of a pangea so I spent NO hammers on military units the entire game. In short, it should be the easiest cultural win ever. But...

... I *had* to build a spaceship because by the time I was filling my fourth branch, someone else was already building theirs and I had to race, lol =(. If even on this cheesed game I couldn't do it, I wonder if it is doable in any circumstance without a civ with huge bonuses (I was playing Korea - but it should be doable with any civ, not just some random cultural powerhouse like Polynesia or whatever).

P.S.: Piety sucks BIG TIME now. If there's one thing that they should balance right now, it's it - it is so incredibly worse than Rationalism it's not even funny.

 

[prince_caspian]

P.S.: Piety sucks BIG TIME now. If there's one thing that they should balance right now, it's it - it is so incredibly worse than Rationalism it's not even funny.

I differ, the 10% reduction is still very important if going cultural, as is +33% culture. For the same reason Cristo Redentor is an important cultural victory wonder - if build early enough it can shave off 10-20 turns to Utopia. The Piety finisher has incredible synergy with Freedom - holy sites giving culture, you can buy GAs with faith, Freedom's finisher increases yield from holy sites thus giving you even more faith to buy GAs/GPs to spam landmarks/golden ages/holy sites. The best way to achieve a cultural victory now is to maintain an uninterrupted golden age in late-game - 60-100 turns is optimal and you can never do that unless with bought GAs.

 

[budweiser]

If you go Piety, its important to get some kind of wonder in each city. The other thing is, castles will give culture if you put up that new wonder. The Honor tree can be worthwhile here. Every little bit helps. I agree about Freedom and Holy shrines.

 

[_megafone_]

Seems good, but Faith works best with large empires, not small ones. A four-city empire with Temples and Shrines plus Piety give you 20 fpt, which is kinda bad. You'll never really crank a ton of Great Persons with three cities even if you go Piety, unless you have a Natural Wonder or get ALL the three big Faith Wonders (SH, HS and the Great Mosque).

And I'm already thinking four is too much on Deity for cultural victories, but someone smarter than me should do the math as for how many cities is the best option, lol.