Let's discuss the new culture game

[Big J Money]

I think we know enough now to make some predictions about culture's effect on game flow, even if some specific details and value comparisons still aren't revealed yet.

Here are some interesting conclusions I'm coming to:

-) Culture point hoarding isn't for the culture victory any more. It's about not losing to someone else.

-) Policies being unhooked from victory means that policies can be treated a little more like techs in the sense that you can cherry pick what you want without it hurting your CV

-) There is no cultural victory anymore, it's a Tourism victory even though it retains the old name.

-) If not CP accumulation, what does a tourism victory require? Mostly: great artists, wonders, archaeology (I'll break down later), and foreign relations (I'll break down later)

-) Which civs will now be geared towards a tourism victory? What kind of swaps will we see?

-) Civs that were good at generating tons of culture...what's their role now? I imagine it's more policies and tenets, but it's intriguing to me how obtuse it is to understand how directly useful this is. It's not likely these civs will be "worse", but they will likely be more subtle, refined, and harder to understand how to use effectively.

-) Archaeology. This is purely location based. Therefore, wide empires will benefit the most because they'll have the most digs under their borders. Will this be the death of going tall for culture?

-) Foreign relations. One likely will be unable to just win a tourism victory through optimal solo play. One will likely be required to trade great works. What will this mean for MP? Will TV be impossible since players will be too savvy to trade great works with the tourism leader?

-) All the old culture powerhouse wonders are now a gamble. Do you build them to protect yourself from someone going for tourism victory? If you are going for a TV, do still try to get them so that your opponents can't protect themselves?

-) It's a very easy matter to see what level all players' tourism is at. Will this make a tourism victory pretty much impossible since it's a clear warning for players to build more culture buildings to stop that player?

Hopefully that's enough fuel for discussion!

PS: TV = tourism victory. Don't use that phrase if you don't like it, but I am using it in the interim to distinguish between vanilla/G&K culture victory and BNW culture victory

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

-) Archaeology. This is purely location based. Therefore, wide empires will benefit the most because they'll have the most digs under their borders. Will this be the death of going tall for culture?

I don't think this is necessarily the case. It seems likely to me that wide empires will have to deal with archaeologists from other civs coming in and sniping away their artifacts unnoticed. Civs have to build archaeologists (no purchasing allowed) and only in cities with universities. Archaeologists only have one use like work boats. Therefore it will take a while to clean out all of the Sites. I doubt the AI has the foresight to park units on top of the Sites to protect them.

Tall civs can snipe away those artifacts from wide civs. Plus the Sites can occur in unoccupied territory and in city-states. Also, A Tall civ can get the Exploration Finisher (10 hidden Sites revealed) faster than a wide civ, thereby nullifying a wide civ's advantage in # of Sites within borders.

 

[Big J Money]

Do we know yet if archaelogists will be like missionaries and able to pass through other civs without open borders? If that's the case, then I agree going wide will not likely give the advantage I mentioned.

I can see lots of military units sent out to camp on sites then! That will be interesting because it's sort of like the early game scouting brought back later into the game.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Do we know yet if archaelogists will be like missionaries and able to pass through other civs without open borders? If that's the case, then I agree going wide will not likely give the advantage I mentioned.

I can see lots of military units sent out to camp on sites then! That will be interesting because it's sort of like the early game scouting brought back later into the game.

Archaeologists do abide by Open Borders, but Tall civs are usually on friendlier terms with other civs than expansive civs are. So Open Borders shouldn't be too hard to get in order to snipe Sites. You may ruin your friendly reputation, but you can get a more diverse set of artifacts for the Louvre's theme bonus.

 

[Big J Money]

Actually that makes me think... does anyone know what happens if you find a great work and don't have any slots available in any cities for it?

 

[Atwork]

Do we know yet if archaelogists will be like missionaries and able to pass through other civs without open borders? If that's the case, then I agree going wide will not likely give the advantage I mentioned.

From one of the walk-throughs on Youtube, the impression I got was that Archs'ists can pass into other peoples' borders but it may effect your relations negatively. Can anyone confirm or deny?

 

[Atwork]

Nevermind, Eagle Pursuit got the answer out already. Thanks.

 

[Grumpbeard]

-) Policies being unhooked from victory means that policies can be treated a little more like techs in the sense that you can cherry pick what you want without it hurting your CV

-) Archaeology. This is purely location based. Therefore, wide empires will benefit the most because they'll have the most digs under their borders. Will this be the death of going tall for culture?

-) All the old culture powerhouse wonders are now a gamble. Do you build them to protect yourself from someone going for tourism victory? If you are going for a TV, do still try to get them so that your opponents can't protect themselves?

I noticed that too, about the policies. Without needing to finish 5 to get the Utopia project, you can more easily go one level in to a policy to get one thing you want without having to go all the way down. My wife, for example, will like picking honor to see barbarians (so she can wipe them out... she dislikes barbarians with a weird passion) but going no deeper in it. Granted, it will often make sense to finish a tree to get the bonus, but its not needed.

Archaeologists can cross borders, I believe, if the borders are open. That should help. Also, a Tall empire it more likely to have had things happen closer in, so that should help. (that is to say, if you only have a few cities, more barbarians and more wars will happen closer in to you - if only because they have to reach you). Maybe not, but I don't think it should be a huge problem.

I have to imagine some of the old culture wonders will have some tourism added once tourism starts. I mean, the Pyramids (for example) are a huge tourism generator for Egypt.

-GB

 

[Calouste]

I noticed that too, about the policies. Without needing to finish 5 to get the Utopia project, you can more easily go one level in to a policy to get one thing you want without having to go all the way down. My wife, for example, will like picking honor to see barbarians (so she can wipe them out... she dislikes barbarians with a weird passion) but going no deeper in it. Granted, it will often make sense to finish a tree to get the bonus, but its not needed.

Archaeologists can cross borders, I believe, if the borders are open. That should help. Also, a Tall empire it more likely to have had things happen closer in, so that should help. (that is to say, if you only have a few cities, more barbarians and more wars will happen closer in to you - if only because they have to reach you). Maybe not, but I don't think it should be a huge problem.

I have to imagine some of the old culture wonders will have some tourism added once tourism starts. I mean, the Pyramids (for example) are a huge tourism generator for Egypt.

-GB

That last paragraph makes me think of something. We know that Landmarks will give an additional +1 for every era that has passed since the event that created the dig. Do we think that that is going to apply to World Wonders as well?

 

[Big J Money]

Unless it's a fairly recent change, I doubt it. The hands on videos with the devs gave a lot of basic and fundamental aspects of tourism play away. I'd be surprised if they forgot to mention this or had any reason to not reveal it.

 

[Navelgazer]

Do we know what kind of tourism bonus Natural Wonders are going to give? It would seem very strange for them not to have one.

 

[Gali]

The biggest difference I see is the new role of conquest in cultural victories. Attacking enemy culture civs is now heavily incentivized. With the drop in culture policy costs per city, reduction of importance of policies and the lack of per city penalty for tourism the benefits of a wide empire for culture victory is now huge. You can actually annex the good cities without killing your victory progress, and puppets are always useful. The biggest bonus though is in the GW system. Now you can in effect steal your enemies cultural specialists. That makes the cultural gains of conquest massive. Add in the ability to have their dig sites, wonders and the diversity to maximize theme bonuses and conquest now boosts culture in a big way. Attacking cultural civs will be especially useful in that they are most likely to have GW and will be the ones to slow down your victory. Killing Brazil in the renaissance will prevent them from severely delaying your culture victory with their mass brazilwood Carnival spam.

 

[Viregel]

Aren't the Maya better now with their UA? With the Great People, they can presumably get a great writer, a great artist and a great writer possibly before the Rennisance. I think that the Maya are now far better suited for cultural victory.

 

[MadDjinn]

Aren't the Maya better now with their UA? With the Great People, they can presumably get a great writer, a great artist and a great writer possibly before the Rennisance. I think that the Maya are now far better suited for cultural victory.

why would you do that though?

That's the time you should be planting GSs and GEs or a random GMerch for gold.

 

[Big J Money]

The biggest difference I see is the new role of conquest in cultural victories. Attacking enemy culture civs is now heavily incentivized. With the drop in culture policy costs per city, reduction of importance of policies and the lack of per city penalty for tourism the benefits of a wide empire for culture victory is now huge. You can actually annex the good cities without killing your victory progress, and puppets are always useful. The biggest bonus though is in the GW system. Now you can in effect steal your enemies cultural specialists. That makes the cultural gains of conquest massive. Add in the ability to have their dig sites, wonders and the diversity to maximize theme bonuses and conquest now boosts culture in a big way. Attacking cultural civs will be especially useful in that they are most likely to have GW and will be the ones to slow down your victory. Killing Brazil in the renaissance will prevent them from severely delaying your culture victory with their mass brazilwood Carnival spam.

Yes, except maybe the part about GW. GW can be sent to other cities, and from a comment I remember hearing once, it sounds like it's a simple click of the button (i.e. not something that can be intercepted or stopped).

Although going back to my question from before, I wonder what happens if someone wishes to move a GW out of a besieged city but they have no slots in other cities to accept it.

 

[VainoValkea]

I've been wondering the exact same things, and also which policies one would want to pick for a culture game. There's only one that's pretty obvious, Aesthetics a.k.a "The Culture Tree". It provides the player with plethora of GWAMs for all their great work needs. The Great Artist from the SP Fine Arts is not unlikely to be the first Great Artist in the game for the player taking it. Of the Ancient policy trees, I'd believe any is decent for culture, but religion bonuses for tourism could be huge in which case the player might want to pick Piety first.

As for the later policies, I'm not sure at all. Archeology could be useful, but AFAIK the only policy that aids it is Exploration's finisher. Exploration's bigger bonus culture-wise is probably the Musée du Louvre. Exploration and Commerce also provide trade route bonuses, which goes well in hand with a CV as the player probably wants to increase their tourism through trade routes as well.

Finally, the player must pick an ideology, and each of them has its own tourism booster. I guess for a culture game one would probably want to pick Order or Freedom, for the following reasons:

Autocracy, it seems to me, is the worst one for a cultural victory. They have a Tier I tenet that grants them 100 Tourism for each GWAM that is born in their empire, which, by screenshots that show Tourism per turn amounts of 200 and more, I believe is a fairly insignificant amount unless the Autocrat pumps out GWAMs like there is no tomorrow. The larger boost is 50% from wars with common enemies (Tier III) but that is very situational and is most likely to boost Tourism with those who already get more of it.

Order is a more interesting package. They have two Tourism boosters: Tier II for increasing Tourism with other Order civs (+34%) and Tier III for increasing Tourism with less happy civs (+34% again). I can imagine these two playing together: first the Order civ increases its happiness to bomb its neighbors with the +34% added Tourism, after which the neighbors will eventually switch to Order and get finished by the added cultural pressure of sharing the ideology. Potentially very powerful.

Freedom has a single ability Enhancing Tourism, by increasing Broadcast tower cities' Tourism by +34% (Tier III). Very powerful because this bonus will hit everyone once the player gets these towers up and running. Also, I'd believe it's a cumulative bonus with the other Tourism modifiers since it happens on a city level.


What do you guys think are the ultimate culture policies?

 

[digrosz]

I don't agree with the OP. it states that accumulating culture isn't that important anymore, but you must see culture as defensive tourism. If you lack culture, other civ's tourism will dominate in your country, thus making it harder to win a cultural/tourism Victory.

 

[VainoValkea]

I don't agree with the OP. it states that accumulating culture isn't that important anymore, but you must see culture as defensive tourism. If you lack culture, other civ's tourism will dominate in your country, thus making it harder to win a cultural/tourism Victory.

It will make it harder for the culturally dominated player to win any victory whatsoever, if the dominating player is of different ideology than the dominated one.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Piety ( Reformation beliefs, World Religion Resolution) will definitely be an important cultural victory tree.

Autocracy has a side benefit for cultural wins... Conquering Wonder rich enemy cities so that
1. They produce less culture and are easy to influence
2. They produce less tourism and so won't win before you
3. You steal their works

Note, the 50% 'same war' bonus can apply to someone you are at war with.

If Poland, France, and Brazil are all at war with each other, they all are sharing a war.

I see the 3 ideologies playing differently
Freedom is the simplest... Get lots of broadcast towers in your tourism cities (empire can be wide or tall)
Order.... Maintain high happiness... ( so play tall)... Deny happiness to others (particularly non-orders)
Autocracy... Maintain a good military and crush the other cultural leaders.

 

[headcase]

Note, the 50% 'same war' bonus can apply to someone you are at war with.

If Poland, France, and Brazil are all at war with each other, they all are sharing a war.

Never thought of this, now that tenet makes a lot more sense for culture victory