Make culture victory harder

[beginner_]

Often when going for Domination or Science victory you just end up winning with culture because it will simply be much quicker so you shift gears.

In my latest game to my shame I actual lost for the first time on a pretty low level to you guess what culture victory. What "killed" me was a Great Musician. Without it, I would have had enough time to wipe him from the map.

An "quick fix" would be to do something with Great Musicians. Reduce their effect or like it used to be require open-borders. Right now there is no defense against them except war.

Still that would only be a quick fix as often especially when going for domination and already being pretty dominant, you don't even need any to win by culture. There is simply too much stacking of bonuses and modifiers including but not limited to Broadcast and internet techs.

 

[pineappledan]

I have a few ideas to slow CV down. Some of these proposals are things that I am running a poll about right now (link)

• Remove instant culture from building construction: Right now, Circus gives 500, Zoo gives 1000, and Stadium gives 2500 instantly when constructed. That is 4,000 instant Tourism per city, over the course of the game. If you consider that most games end with the culture leader having somewhere around 100,000culture built up, that is only 25 cities worth of instant culture, ignoring all other sources and modifiers. This massive amount of instant tourism is the biggest offender right now.
• Push late game tourism bonuses later and make them more expensive: The main culprit for extremely cheap, easy, global Tourism is the visitor centre, which costs only a few hundred production, and gives a global +25% tile culture to tourism converter and +25%Tourism from Great works. This bonus is strong enough it should be a world wonder (CN tower is sitting right there on the same tech), and so I would argue the national visitor center just shouldn't exist. Another major culprit is Airports, which give another 25%/ tile converter and 25%GW booster. Autocracy can adopt a policy that puts an Airport in every city for free, even if you haven't researched the tech, and that is In Addition to their other Tier-3 CV tenet that converts War Score into a global Tourism modifier. Airports are an extremely good late-game building for their airdrop ability alone; they do not also need to help you with a CV.
• Delay Archaeologists: VP has already put a cap on the number of archaeologists you can have at 1 time. I would also propose moving their prereq building from the Public School to the Museum. Museums unlock on the same tech as Archaeologists, but Public Schools are 1 tech earlier. This change would mean you can't prebuild a public school in a city and have the prereq building ready to go for when Archaeologists unlock. This would delay Archaeologists by a few turns, but it's a small, easy adjustment and every little bit helps.
  
• Make more culture buildings and spread the bonuses around: If you make more culture buildings that roughly have the same bonuses that currently exist, then CV has more buildings to build, meaning more sunk production and maintenance costs, and takes longer to get going. For example:
  • Musician guilds are augmented by Opera House (+33%GMusician rate and +1to musician guild). The broadcast tower unlocks 2 eras later, and gives a theming bonus to GWMusic
  • Artist have The Museum that unlocks 2 eras later. It gives the +33%rate and +1to guilds AND it gives a theming bonus to GWArt
  • Writers have Amphitheaters that unlocks on the same tech. It gives the +33%rate and +1to guilds AND it gives a theming bonus to GWWriting

So why don't we have a split for Writers and Artists like we do for Musicians?? We could add a Scriptorium in Medieval that has 2 slots for Writing, and remove the theming bonus from Amphitheater. Likewise, we could add a Gallery in Renaissance that boosts Artist Guilds, and have Museum only give the theming bonus. That would mean we have the same number of GW bonuses from buildings, but on 6 buildings instead of 4, which costs more production to build and maintenance to keep, slowing CV players down more.

 

[Zanteogo]

Yup, it's the only victory you can get by not really trying to get it.

Honestly, it's part of the problem with VP where you pretty much have to build almost every building, you just decide what order you build them in.

You get so much passive tourism. Like Pineappledan covered, the tourism from building the stuff you're going to build anyways needs to be reduced.

 

[Fluffball]

The imbalance with tourism seemed to start when they changed the additional cities penalty.

You used to get a 5% penalty for every additional city and now you get a 5% penalty for every city extra city you have than the target civ. It is quite easy to grow reasonably large while ensuring you get no size penalty or a very small size penalty for tourism.

I can usually have 10 (non-puppet) cities in most games without suffering a penalty with the main civs i need to overpower with my culture which means a 45% (if additive) or 30% (if multiplicative) increase in tourism from that change alone and then at the same time lots of buildings were changed to add early game tourism in particular while nothing seemed to be added to increase culture output.

The only nerf to tourism (ironically considering the initial point) was to great musicians where they were changed from providing a huge dump of tourism to proving a % increase in the tourism modifier with the target civ for x turns.

The issue seems to me to be more to do with early game tourism than late game tourism/musicians. Most of my games are effectively decided by tourism, either racing the tourism leader to the tourism victory or killing them before they get there as you simply can't defend with culture anymore and the game is effectively decided in the moderon era, with it only taking that long as you need two top tier ideology tenants to win.

In the most extreme example i was dominant with all civs on my own continent in one game before i even even met another civ from outside our continent thus by the medieval era.

 

[stii]

I'm torn on this because yes culture victory being a lot easier is a bit silly. But it does make the AI into a real threat, that they win if ignored for long enough. Otherwise it is always don't die and you will given time because the AI simply can't win the game.

 

[Stalker0]

This would not be a great change longterm but it would probably be the easiest way to suss out what is the "correct tourism value". Just throw on a pure -15% penalty to all tourism as a modifier, straight up. Then you see if that's enough. If its not, increase the penalty more.

Now once you have a feel for how much tourism is actually good for the game, then you decide what you want to nerf to get you there and remove the penalty. Right now it just feels like spitting in the dark, we know we need to reduce it, but I doubt anyone knows just how much tourism we need to get out of the system to make it "balanced", and this might be a good way to start.

 

[Zanteogo]

I'm torn on this because yes culture victory being a lot easier is a bit silly. But it does make the AI into a real threat, that they win if ignored for long enough. Otherwise it is always don't die and you will given time because the AI simply can't win the game.

They can still win science victory, if culture victory is turned off.. They get some insane boosts in the late eras, even on the lower levels to aid in this.

Though, unless the player handles it early, diplomatic victory is the greater threat. (again, if culture is turned off) The AI will snow ball it's self to a win once they have the voting mass push past sphere of influence votes.

 

[stii]

They can still win science victory, if culture victory is turned off.. They get some insane boosts in the late eras, even on the lower levels to aid in this.

Though, unless the player handles it early, diplomatic victory is the greater threat. (again, if culture is turned off) The AI will snow ball it's self to a win once they have the voting mass push past sphere of influence votes.

This is going to depend very much on map settings and difficulty.

On deity 6/8p pangea the runaway AI will often start building culture victory wonder well before it can build any spaceship parts, even when it is 10 techs ahead of me! Same with diplomatic victory you need so many CS to not get conquered that it is super easy to block the AI even if they have a chance.

 

[CppMaster]

I'm torn on this because yes culture victory being a lot easier is a bit silly. But it does make the AI into a real threat, that they win if ignored for long enough. Otherwise it is always don't die and you will given time because the AI simply can't win the game.

Still, you can win more easily via Culture too, anyway, so it doesn't really matter that AI could win via it too.

 

[beginner_]

Honestly, it's part of the problem with VP where you pretty much have to build almost every building, you just decide what order you build them in.

Yeah that one bothers me a bit as well. And if you don't like the min-maxing (eg play at lower level like me) the order really doesn't matter much as well.

The only nerf to tourism (ironically considering the initial point) was to great musicians where they were changed from providing a huge dump of tourism to proving a % increase in the tourism modifier with the target civ for x turns.

Hm, now I'm confused but doesn't BNW without mods require open borders (or war) for them to work? I think in VP, they always work. So while the double tourism per certain amount of turns might be a lower bonus or takes more time to complete, it can always be applied. If open-borders are required you have an easy defense.

 

[stii]

Still, you can win more easily via Culture too, anyway, so it doesn't really matter that AI could win via it too.

I can win any of the victory conditions because as a human I have a lot more forward planning. The AI sometimes struggle to move its spaceship parts to its capital. Giving it a simple victory condition makes it far more of a threat.

 

[CppMaster]

And it makes CV imbalanced.

 

[beginner_]

Last game on 2.3.1 AI seemed to be pretty strong and now on same low level (Prince) on 2.4.4 I'm completely dominant. I'm going for conquest but can already say for certain CV will be faster unless I intentionally ignore it. I will be dominant with all Civs soon so the only delay are the ideology tenants.

 

[beginner_]

I still think CV is too easy. Latest game on 2.5 and Brazil was very close. Not sure what was holding them up really. They were dominant with all civs for at least 30 turns till I got my science victory.

2 possible "easy" fixes but needs to be tested would be to make it require all 3 level 3 tiers of ideology or simply greatly increase the hammers needed for Citizen Earth protocol (and no use of gold or great engineers). Building the space ship also needs a huge amount of hammers. 6x8000 hammers (3 boosters, cockpit, engine, chamber) for a total of 48k hammers vs 6k for the citizen earth protocol. Yeah you can save hammers with SS parts when using the spaceship factory (if you have enough aluminum left) or with great engineers or money (depends on level 3 tenet). Still you will need a lot more production and time than the 6k hammers. Doubling the production cost or needing 3 level 3 tenets would both delay the CV but of course make tourism less important as being dominant with everyone would usually not be the most limting factor.

 

[CppMaster]

Or just reduce tourism sources.

 

[Jdoug312]

Could we add a new type of defense to tourism? Whatever the name ends up being, the mechanism is essentially national pride. "Inspired by the cultural powerhouses of the world, your people long to embrace their own culture." Maybe it's an event, or building, or naturally accruing resistance similar to the bonus a combat unit gets when fighting a warmonger. But it raises your empire's culture level or decreases foreign tourism. Maybe it involves great works or maybe we just keep it simple?

 

[Solic]

I think that we'll be good if some or all of pineappledan's ideas will be implemented. I think 2 tenet requirement is fair and in a good spot and that increased production for the citizen earth protocol will make it more similar to science victory with building the SS parts. Tourism is just too strong at the moment and acquiring influential is too easy.

 

[CppMaster]

Nah, I would leave other requirements, but reduce tourism sources or make culture stronger in terms of defence, that is how much tourism it counters.

 

[beginner_]

Nah, I would leave other requirements, but reduce tourism sources or make culture stronger in terms of defence, that is how much tourism it counters.

Currently one doesn't even need the according WC resolutions or send Great Musicians so yes I agree that the default 1 to 1 of culture to tourism isn't working as there is too much tourism to be had especially in late-game.
I agree that adding requirement for a 3rd level 3 tenet or increasing building costs is just addressing the symptoms and not the cause. It would not change that tourism kind of becomes an afterthought as you will have enough anyway.

Ideas:
- remove instant tourism from buildings
- reduce tourism multipliers and make all of them be bidirectional, eg. only goes into effect if there are for example trade routes in both directions so that one can defend by not trading as example
- reduce increased tourism from technologies and buildings
- reduce effect of great musicians (max plus 50% or even less but potentially increase duration of effect so more planing is needed)
OR
- simply break 1:1 relation and say you need for example 1.3 tourism per culture.