Isn't cultural victory a bit anti-climatic?

[Rowger]

I'm a relatively new player (on my 5th game rn, 3 first were in the first 3 difficulties, Prince is nicely challenging for me) but if there's is one thing bothering me is how easy and early culture victory happens. In vanilla it was probably too hard but it had a late game durability like science and diplomatic wins, VP keeps those last two but culture is the odd one because anyone on top of the score is going to win it without even trying before the information era (where you can win with science and diplomacy) and there isn't much to do other than conquering him, which of course is very hard since top score = usually big military and advanced science. No comment about domination because I barely war so it isn't my thing, but I assume you could win even before cultural with it (you, not the AI. Maybe I'm wrong and in high difficulties it actually can win domination, idk).

TL;DR: I think I'm going to disable cultural victories, not satisfying at all. (The argument can be made that its because of difficulty, though. Nonetheless I miss how intentional it used to be, with hotels and airports and what not, now it just happens)

 

[Dawnpromise]

I'm in the same boat. You spend the game building and researching but then usually without noting a culture victory pops up.

I find the game is much more balanced with culture victory disabled as influence has enough effect outside of being a win condition to still be relevant.

 

[Txurce]

I never win CV accidentally, although I come close. But I've lost only one game to a CV in a long time. Runaways are more of an issue in my games than premature CV's.

 

[Dawnpromise]

It's not just an issue of losing due to a culture victory it's a matter of hot CV just sort of happens as opposed to the conditions of other victories.

Domination is obvious, one civ goes on the warpath and even the War Adviser starts screaming "hide yo kids, hide yo wife! [Insert Civ Name] is going for a Domination victory!"

Science Victory involves one civ building a friggen' spaceship and saying "Screw this I'm out!"... and being declared winner because clearly you can't argue with that.

Diplomatic is all the world leaders coming together in the World Congress and voting into agreement that "Yeah [Insert Civ Name] should totally be in charge of the world!".

Even Score Victory at least has a "It's the end of the world! But [Insert Civ Name] is/was clearly the best of us!" tone to it.

Culture Victory is just sorta "We're all copying [Insert Civ Name]'s culture because they are so cool" tone to it feel. No climax, no build-up, just "Oh by the way, everyone's copying you. So you win".

 

[Txurce]

It's not just an issue of losing due to a culture victory it's a matter of hot CV just sort of happens as opposed to the conditions of other victories.

Domination is obvious, one civ goes on the warpath and even the War Adviser starts screaming "hide yo kids, hide yo wife! [Insert Civ Name] is going for a Domination victory!"

Science Victory involves one civ building a friggen' spaceship and saying "Screw this I'm out!"... and being declared winner because clearly you can't argue with that.

Diplomatic is all the world leaders coming together in the World Congress and voting into agreement that "Yeah [Insert Civ Name] should totally be in charge of the world!".

Even Score Victory at least has a "It's the end of the world! But [Insert Civ Name] is/was clearly the best of us!" tone to it.

Culture Victory is just sorta "We're all copying [Insert Civ Name]'s culture because they are so cool" tone to it feel. No climax, no build-up, just "Oh by the way, everyone's copying you. So you win".

To be clear, I don't find going after a CV very interesting, because it feels passive, much like you say. But in fairness, you have plenty of warning that one (or more) civs are pulling ahead in culture. The game sends you messages, and you can check progress on the CV screen. In this way, it's almost identical to a SV, where the only warnings are "X just built a SS booster," at a point where if you're not neck and neck, you don't have a chance.

 

[Gazebo]

No unilateral victory condition will ever be anything but anticlimactic. That's just the way it is.

 

[CrazyG]

The coming changes to the medieval trees will shake up cultural victories quite a bit

 

[Dawnpromise]

Yeah, but I'll probably still keep them disabled all the same. You can still usually gauge "A CV would've happened already" at some point in the late game when you're reviewing influence. Don't need that moment to be the 'That's all folks!' of the game. At least with a Science or Score Victory I feel like I was at least honestly outperformed at something instead of "They triggered Tourism again so it's over!". At least with Science and Score you can reduce/stop them by actively punching the lead civ. Not sure how I'm supposed to reduce influence aside from "Produce more culture".

 

[tu_79]

No unilateral victory condition will ever be anything but anticlimactic. That's just the way it is.

It's not so unilateral. It involves doing some competition for wonders, another race to take artifacts, getting open borders and trade routes to some neighbours so you can influence them easily, stealing works and sending musicians to the most resilient. Scientific victory is the most unilateral one, as you can completely ignore what the rest of the world is doing (in lower difficulties).

What I think is getting boring is that they don't need to do much of any of the above for winning. Just being ahead helps with historic events, your culture and tourism is slightly better than the rest of the world. So, in all, the complaint comes from the CV being too easy and fast. CrazyG got a stunning early victory, but I'm pretty sure he did all he could to achieve it. That's why some say they get the CV without trying (trying hard, I understand, you can't win CV without some buildings and actions). Anyways, better wait until some testing is done with the newest medieval policies.

Not sure how I'm supposed to reduce influence aside from "Produce more culture".

Taking their cities, stealing their works, sending musicians. You might be already influenced, but you can prevent that they influence further any others.

 

[GodDamnItAlexander]

I personally think the culturally victory type is fine and interesting. What may be less so is the journey sometimes.
In my last culture the AI didn't get aggressive when I've already 100% influenced them. Nor did they get aggressive when I got close to 100% influencing everybody (my neighbors were being aggressive throughout the whole game, and later on Global Peace Accords was enacted. Still though). I'm sure a human player would however.

When you're nearing 100% influence with everyone you should feel like you're on stage naked. Everyone knows you're nearing victory and they should hate you for it. Imagine if you're just one civ away from victory, and suddenly you're DoWed by half of the worlds armed forces. So you frantically send out Elton John to do a rock concert, surrounded by your naval escorts as you declare war on the last civ it gain entry into his lands. Meanwhile America drops a fat man on your cap because they were curious to see if it actually works (it works!).

 

[tu_79]

I personally think the culturally victory type is fine and interesting. What may be less so is the journey sometimes.
In my last culture the AI didn't get aggressive when I've already 100% influenced them. Nor did they get aggressive when I got close to 100% influencing everybody (my neighbors were being aggressive throughout the whole game, and later on Global Peace Accords was enacted. Still though). I'm sure a human player would however.

When you're nearing 100% influence with everyone you should feel like you're on stage naked. Everyone knows you're nearing victory and they should hate you for it. Imagine if you're just one civ away from victory, and suddenly you're DoWed by half of the worlds armed forces. So you frantically send out Elton John to do a rock concert, surrounded by your naval escorts as you declare war on the last civ it gain entry into his lands. Meanwhile America drops a fat man on your cap because they were curious to see if it actually works (it works!).

The eternal discussion. Should AI behave like a player, or should it behave like a realistic country?

Usually countries don't get too annoyed for being influenced, but it's a game after all. I prefer AI with less handicaps and behaving more like a human player would do. Temporal alliances and all that stuff. I proposed time ago that AI would form coalitions when a player threatens victory, and the civs leading those alliances would be the most annoyed at our progresses. Once the threat is under control, coalition would end. A civ won't join a coalition if it thinks it can achieve another victory type earlier without getting involved.

Right now, only civs threatening with dominance need to face angry 'coalitions'. Actually, they get so annoyed that they start ignoring that the runaway army is so dangerous.

 

[PapaRockett]

The coming changes to the medieval trees will shake up cultural victories quite a bit

Please elaborate!

 

[Dawnpromise]

Please elaborate!

The new trees shuffle around the Tourism bonuses out of Aesthetics into the new trees.

Fealty gets the shared religion bonus.
Statecraft gets the open borders bonus.
Artistry gets the GA historic events.

Makes it less "take Aesthetics to get CV" and makes influence easier to get for other strategies.

 

[PapaRockett]

The new trees shuffle around the Tourism bonuses out of Aesthetics into the new trees.

Fealty gets the shared religion bonus.
Statecraft gets the open borders bonus.
Artistry gets the GA historic events.

Makes it less "take Aesthetics to get CV" and makes influence easier to get for other strategies.

That's great, I always thought Aesthetics was essential to get those bonuses

 

[Dawnpromise]

That's great, I always thought Aesthetics was essential to get those bonuses

The full details are in the General Balance thread "Upcoming Piety Changes" look for whichever version G has posted most recently (last I checked it was 5.0).

 

[a1nosugar]

I'd really suggest upping the difficulty one level if you are winning accidently. On king I can't get cv no matter what I do.

 

[Rowger]

It's not so unilateral. It involves doing some competition for wonders, another race to take artifacts, getting open borders and trade routes to some neighbours so you can influence them easily, stealing works and sending musicians to the most resilient. Scientific victory is the most unilateral one, as you can completely ignore what the rest of the world is doing (in lower difficulties).

What I think is getting boring is that they don't need to do much of any of the above for winning. Just being ahead helps with historic events, your culture and tourism is slightly better than the rest of the world. So, in all, the complaint comes from the CV being too easy and fast. CrazyG got a stunning early victory, but I'm pretty sure he did all he could to achieve it. That's why some say they get the CV without trying (trying hard, I understand, you can't win CV without some buildings and actions). Anyways, better wait until some testing is done with the newest medieval policies.


Taking their cities, stealing their works, sending musicians. You might be already influenced, but you can prevent that they influence further any others.

How does sending musicians help? Aren't they a sort of "attack" cultural unit? As in you use them to win a CV not to defend against one.

By the way, I just thought of another thing about cultural victory. It's the only one that doesn't take active input from you to win.

Domination = conquer the last capital
Science = assemble the spaceship
Diplomatic = buy the CSs
Cultural = eh I guess you win

Maybe if you win by bubbling a great musician it's less passive, but still.

 

[GodDamnItAlexander]

The eternal discussion. Should AI behave like a player, or should it behave like a realistic country?

Usually countries don't get too annoyed for being influenced, but it's a game after all. I prefer AI with less handicaps and behaving more like a human player would do. Temporal alliances and all that stuff. I proposed time ago that AI would form coalitions when a player threatens victory, and the civs leading those alliances would be the most annoyed at our progresses. Once the threat is under control, coalition would end. A civ won't join a coalition if it thinks it can achieve another victory type earlier without getting involved.

Right now, only civs threatening with dominance need to face angry 'coalitions'. Actually, they get so annoyed that they start ignoring that the runaway army is so dangerous.

I agree. It's a game at the end of the day. We're all having fun because we're trying to win. Seeing it as "world politics simulator 2017" would make it boring (and anti climactic as OP complains).

 

[nekokon]

Maybe make them into another tier of difficulty ? It shouldn't be too hard (hopefully) seeing it only involves changing value for behaviors (Don't quote me I can't even understand 2 lines of code for the rest of my life)
One of the most important plus for Civ series is immersion, which represents by various leaders with their personality. If you take that away and make everyone a level-headed player just for a better challenge, I would rather play some other 4x games with much more distinctive races and gameplays, with AIs who really know how to play their specific race to the fullest.
Not saying it's bad, just saying everyone has their own cup of tea (or beer, for me).

 

[Psikus]

I think that a nice way of making culture victory more proactive would be to require building a wonder before you win. So, once you are dominant with all other civs, this unlocks the culture victory wonder, and it takes an extra 10-20 turns. That wonder could have diplomatic penalties to encourage the AI to put up a bit of a fight before you defeat it.

The main drawback for this approach is that it could make culture victory too much like other victory conditions. On the other hand, this method has been proven to work...