Newbie question about conquest and winning the game

[redryder]

I'm new to the game, and I'm trying to get a feel of the mechanics and how the game works. Let's say I'm going for a cultural victory or any non-domination victory. I've exhausted all available space and my civ's borders have reached another civ's borders. At this point in the game, is declaring war and taking over other cities the only option left to me if I want to expand my empire?

 

[QiZhe]

Well, you can go cultural victory - ##,### cultural points in 3 cities (legendary status. I believe it's 25,000 on lower levels and 50,000 on higher difficulty levels. With diplomatic victory, you need to build the United Nations, get yourself elected secretary general, and try to pass a resolution for you to beat the game. You need a fairly significant number of votes to win diplomatically. There is also space race victory. After building the Apollo Program, you have to try to finish all the spaceship parts before anybody else wins.

 

[redryder]

Well, you can go cultural victory - ##,### cultural points in 3 cities (legendary status. I believe it's 25,000 on lower levels and 50,000 on higher difficulty levels. With diplomatic victory, you need to build the United Nations, get yourself elected secretary general, and try to pass a resolution for you to beat the game. You need a fairly significant number of votes to win diplomatically. There is also space race victory. After building the Apollo Program, you have to try to finish all the spaceship parts before anybody else wins.

I guess I wasn't very clear..let me rephrase my question.

I've read the manual and I know about the victory conditions for peaceful victory. What I'm trying to ask is - Is it possible to acheive a cultural victory without attacking any cities at ALL? Not even once. Do I HAVE to take over another civ's cities in order to expand my empire? Do I even have to expand my empire's borders in order to attain any victory other than domination? Can a peaceful victory in this game be achieved with 4 or 5 cities?

Seems like a lot of questions but they're all asking more or less the same thing.

 

[Traxis]

What I'm trying to ask is - Is it possible to acheive a cultural victory without attacking any cities at ALL?

Yes, it is definitely possible. There is a report in the Stories & Tales forum where Kylearan won a cultural victory in a 3 city challenge on Monarch with no warring at all.

 

[GenocideBringer]

Why would you need to expand your empire? You only need 3 cities to get a culture victory.

 

[Traxis]

Why would you need to expand your empire? You only need 3 cities to get a culture victory.

More cities = more science, more GPP (i.e. more Great Artists). You only NEED 3 cities, but with more it is easier.

 

[redryder]

As a general rule, on a standard size map, how many cities is required to win the game for non-domination victory? I don't mean what is stated in the manual, but rather a good rule of thumb.