[GS] Not Understanding Culture Victory

[ThawingOyster]

Need some advice with Culture Victory in Civ 6.

I have 1000+ hours with Deity wins in Civ 5. 100+ hours in Civ 5 with Domination and Science wins as high as Emperor. Have not won a culture game on any difficulty higher than Settler.

Game:
Small - Continents

Strategy:
First build is a scout. Open borders asap.
2-3 cities before Ancestral Hall.
3-6 cities after AH (Total 6-8 cities).
Expo Build Order: Monument - Granary - Theater District (Chop in TD) - Commercial Hub (International Trade Routes).

Government: Classic Republic - Merchant Republic - Democracy - Digital Democracy
Civics Tree: Political Philosophy (CR) - Feudalism - Exploration (MR) - Then I take the path to Tourism% boosts policies.

Usually go for a religion (Naturalists and Rock Bands) but tried w/o religion my last game. Don't see it going anywhere. T150 and only 34 Tourism. I see this game going the way of the my previous attempts...

Spoiler :

 

[Bangau]

I highly recommend looking at some GOTM (Game of the Month) games on this forum. Culture victories can look hard, but often are actually very doable if you take the right steps.

In general:
- realize that a culture victory is really a 'tourism' victory: culture gets you civics, and you need many civics to unlock the things that give you tourism, but culture by itself is not what you need
- sources of tourism are e.g.:
- great works (from great writers, artists and musicians)
- you need the buildings in the theater square to place these
- relics
- improvements (either specific for your civ, general ones like ski resorts, or gotten from being suzerain of a city state), tourism received after researching flight
- religion (religious tourism from founding a religion)
- walls (tourism after unlocking the civic conservation)
- (buildings in) water parks and entertainment complexes
- wonders
- you need YOUR outgoing tourists to be higher than every else's INTERNAL (domestic) tourists, if you want to understand this better I recommend a video on this from @PotatoMcWhiskey about this on YouTube from (about) half a year ago
- it will take some time to 'pump up' your tourism, if you keep building up tourism, eventually there comes a point where suddenly it's only a few more turns to win, and then you do
- you can greatly increase your tourism with modifiers: e.g. having a trade route to another civ gives +25%
- it is a valid strategy to wage war on other civs if they have very high culture and tourism to decrease their tourism 'defence', be careful though that the negative modifiers from the war don't hurt your tourism more than it hurts theirs

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's not too bad, but you need to keep expanding. Could have easily chopped a Petra city to the south; maybe it's still around if the AI has no desert.

You need to explore. If you don't know civs, you can't get tourists from them; needed to develop seafaring a while ago.

Ancestral Hall is nice but no point delaying expansion for it. If you are going that, you're looking at expanding to 15+ cities, including random islands in the ocean; as long as you can chop a holy site, theater, or harbor, it's good. I usually look for a forested tundra city so I can build St. Basil's.

There is no point to t3 and higher governments because there is a penalty for different governments t3 and above; only switch when they switch. T4 governments in culture victories are a meme; don't even bother.

Even if you don't go religion, Rock Bands/Naturalists are still key so you want to add Holy Sites mid-game or so even with no religion. Theocracy is endgame government until other AIs switch, due to the less faith purchases.

At Conservation, walls provide tourism, so make sure to build as high level walls as you can by then. It stacks, so Ancient is 1, but Ancient (1) +Medieval (2) = 3 and Ancient (1) + Medieval(2) + Renaissance (3) =6

 

[yung.carl.jung]

There is no point to t3 and higher governments because there is a penalty for different governments t3 and above; only switch when they switch. T4 governments in culture victories are a meme; don't even bother.

I wonder if the sheer production, Great People Points and brute GPT from T3 governments ever trumps the %malus for your tourism. I would think that a player already doing well in tourism shouldn't pick up the T3, while a player who can rushbuy needed infrastructure / culture buildings / great people would probably benefit more than they lose.

Personally I've had a few games where I tried winning SV and then changed to culture around t100. It was, for the most part, pretty smooth sailing, even with T3 and having no prior culture infrastructure in place. Switching from SV to CV is probably the easiest, which makes sense. After all, a CV needs/benefits from techs as well.

 

[Victoria]

I wonder if the sheer production, Great People Points and brute GPT from T3 governments ever trumps the %malus for your tourism. I

nope...unless you really are cranking out CH projects.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I wonder if the sheer production, Great People Points and brute GPT from T3 governments ever trumps the %malus for your tourism. I would think that a player already doing well in tourism shouldn't pick up the T3, while a player who can rushbuy needed infrastructure / culture buildings / great people would probably benefit more than they lose.

Personally I've had a few games where I tried winning SV and then changed to culture around t100. It was, for the most part, pretty smooth sailing, even with T3 and having no prior culture infrastructure in place. Switching from SV to CV is probably the easiest, which makes sense. After all, a CV needs/benefits from techs as well.

Well, Rock Band Tourism I believe is not affected by different governments, so if your culture victory were heavily lopsided towards relying on Rock Bands it could make sense. Sometimes a religious victory that didn't go well can transition into this. You may also have started a Domination Victory but are too lazy to finish it off so you use stockpiled faith to finish the game.

Of course, Theocracy would still be better anyways at least until Rock Bands become prohibitely expensive and you're just looking to finish the game off with already promoted RBs. And maybe by then the losers will have finally moved to t3, dictating the switch.

But yea, 90%+ of cases,you seek to end the game either in Theocracy, or w/e government people switched to.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

nope...unless you really are cranking out CH projects.

in which case one would have to ask themselves under which circumstances this strategy is really effective. since I often end up with 15+ cities, spamming CH projects seems far more viable than most people who finish peaceful DV with 7-10 cities.

In games where you get Hong Kong, the decision is once again nudged towards T3.

I haven't won a Deity CV in GS yet since I only picked up the expansions a few days ago. Will be looking to do that soon. Around what turn (standard) do you usually finish? I suppose the longer the games go on the more utility one would get from the economic prowess of a T3.

My culture games have all been incredibly fast so far (sub 200) so in my eyes that makes T3 govts. even worse, since they give you value over time while having a % modifier to your tourism just makes you win faster without any need of a buildup.

 

[Victoria]

I suppose the longer the games go on the more utility one would get from the economic prowess of a T3.

Even then, the raw power of -20% at the end of the sums is significant. The only GP of real value are the merchant ones that give +25/50% to trade routes or artifact base multiplier.
The real ramp ups are these multipliers and things like resorts/Cristo/Eiffel means post 200 should never happen... however, you do get a remote Greek getting 500 culture per turn every now and then... so you either need to deal with them directly or ramp up to roughly 1500 tourism which is doable... and possibly a few rock bands if 200 is looming.
Of course a rubbish start on flat grassland inundated with barbs will always slow things down so if you do not restart you will eventually go over 200.
For an inexperienced CV player it is about learning to concentrate on your victory. Once you have that in your head and are maintaining your borders and routes each turn (wish there was an easy way) then you start finessing turns with different strategies.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Deity GOTM is up and it is Culture.
Hope to see you all show us how its done!!
I played up to turn 25 but kinda tired.

How much production should you aim for per city?
Would you rather have Production Cities or just have a specific amount in each city?

 

[Victoria]

Hope to see you all show us how its done!!

I was hoping you could. Currently in the middle of making 1k scrubs for a local hospital. Doing my bit for English culture.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Deity GOTM is up and it is Culture.
Hope to see you all show us how its done!!
I played up to turn 25 but kinda tired.

How much production should you aim for per city?
Would you rather have Production Cities or just have a specific amount in each city?

Wanted to play a game where I measure how fast I can conquer/settle cities to devise some kind of benchmarks. Sadly I'm constantly crashing on loading which really takes away my energy for playing this game. Not sure I'm willing to try a new game until I've finished this one, gotm has to wait.

some things I remember, please remember this is quick speed, so not all that impressive:

took first capital at ~t30 with just three warriors two slingers, at that point I only had 3 cities. Self settled a lot and ended up with ~5 cities by t45. Took 3 cities from Arabs pretty quickly, settling at around 8 cities at ~t55. self-settled a bunch more and conquered like one or two cities, I don't exactly remember, and ended up with I think 11 cities at around t70. war stagnates at this point. later on, I upgrade my army and take my other neighbors incredibly fast. 3 cities from indonesia, including cap, 3 cities from japan, including cap, for a total of 4 capitals, army is still going strong. sitting at 17 cities iirc somewhere post t100. currently on t120 and close to 20 cities. quick speed makes warfare incredibly hard, standard is so much easier.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Anyone play as France and not see the Tourism kick in at Flight for the Chateau?
I thought when you hover over each it shows 2 tourism?
Is it Advanced Flight or Flight, maybe I am just hallucinating
I saved my current game thinking it might kick in when I continue.

 

[Foulweather]

You can disregard Holy Sites if you want to. Run God King until you get a Pantheon, then pick Earth Goddess. Grab Eiffel Tower as well and get passive Faith for Naturalists and Rock Bands. Colossal Heads, Monasteries, and Nazca Lines can also be good for passive Faith.

 

[Victoria]

Was just playing a Kupe game and Moai's work at 5 tiles.

Spoiler :

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Was just playing a Kupe game and Moai's work at 5 tiles.

Spoiler :

View attachment 553499

Thanks for the answer.
For some reason I thought it popped up when you just hovered over the map.
It seems you have to go into the culture screen.
I never really cared or bothered to check before.
After the GOTM I was interested in learning more about CV.

 

[FlyinPhil]

Need some advice with Culture Victory in Civ 6.
2-3 cities before Ancestral Hall.
3-6 cities after AH (Total 6-8 cities).

Spoiler :

View attachment 551584

Ancestral Hall is nice but no point delaying expansion for it. If you are going that, you're looking at expanding to 15+ cities, including random islands in the ocean; as long as you can chop a holy site, theater, or harbor, it's good. I usually look for a forested tundra city so I can build St. Basil's.

Oyster,
I'll ditto this advice. I just finished a Deity/Island Plates/Standard size/Marathon speed map to get a Culture Victory as Kristina; my first Deity CV. It took me about a dozen attempts to even get past the Industrial Era, because I kept getting stuck on landmasses with aggressive civs, or when I would finally get my own landmass (or one with a weak opponent), there would be one or two runaway AI civs that were speeding through the Industrial Era when I was still working through Classical Era techs and civics. At lower difficulty settings, I would absolutely go for Gov Plaza/AH as soon as my capital had one district and 4 population. This would allow me to steamroll the AI since I could pump out advanced cities pretty quick; in some cases I'd have 15 cities by the end of the Medieval Era.

In this specific game, I waited until I had a city centered on production (good hills, adjacency opportunities, and choppable tiles), then built my gov plaza and AH. At that point I had sat at 7 cities for a while (the capacity of my small island continent), then I did a second wave of city building that doubled the size of my empire. Another vital factor was using military force smartly to keep AI civs off the surrounding landmasses, or delaying sweeping barbs from those landmasses so the AI wouldn't be able to settle until after I already had forces and settlers in place.

Granted, everything is situational, but don't assume that gov plaza and AH are crucial to beating the AI.