Optimal number of cities for a culture win

[anomeric]

Hey all,

My preferred method of victory is culture, but obviously things have changed from G&K. In G&K, I would usually go for three cities to minimize the cost on added policies. Now, however, social policies aren't required for victory and seem more like a perk than anything. This makes me wonder, is it better then to build more cities to maximize great works slots? Or is it still better to keep the city amounts low? I know this depends upon map size (since map size dictates the penalties for number of cities), so for reference, I usually play on large maps with epic speed.

I haven't really experienced late game tourism yet because I've gotten lax with defense since the AI is so passive until Renaissance where they DoW you all the sudden. This has resulted in me restarting a few times, haha...

Thanks!

 

[GreenThings]

In Gods and Kings each city added a 15% increase in policy cost. Four cities, including the capital, was optimal. This has four cities producing culture and the policies were 45% more expensive.

Now each city adds 10%, meaning that four or five extra cities is good.

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[Eagle Pursuit]

I don't know that anyone has found the perfect balance point yet. Fewer cities allow you to get policies faster, but that's not essential. More cities give you spots to store Artifacts, which up your total culture and tourism.

France, Brazil, and Polynesia really benefit from going wide as they can get tourism from their UIs. More cities = more UIs = more Tourism. With Brazil, you want to balance that by keeping your happiness up to keep the Carnivals going.

 

[Glieze]

In Gods and Kings each city added a 15% increase in policy cost. Four cities, including the capital, was optimal. This has four cities producing culture and the policies were 45% more expensive.

Now each city adds 10%, meaning that four or five extra cities is good.

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This is completely irrelevant seeing as you need TOURISM for culture win, not policies.

It depends on how many wonders you can pick up tbh. If you can't get any, then 4-5 cities will mean you roughly fill your slots without wasting too much, but if you can get the good wonders and perhaps cathedral religion too, then you might be able to manage with 2-4.

 

[Cymsdale]

It depends on how many cities you need to take over the highest culture civ, and steal all their wonders and works.

 

[digrosz]

This is completely irrelevant seeing as you need TOURISM for culture win, not policies.

It depends on how many wonders you can pick up tbh. If you can't get any, then 4-5 cities will mean you roughly fill your slots without wasting too much, but if you can get the good wonders and perhaps cathedral religion too, then you might be able to manage with 2-4.

But you also need policies... Aestetics (how the fk do you spell that) is somewhat of a requirement for a Tourism Victory.

Wonders are nice indeed, giving those theming bonuses can really make a difference, but you should focus on the writers. With amphitheaters you have more than enough space early on, and later you could stuff some pieces of music or art in wonders.

 

[digrosz]

But on the topic , I think around 5-8 cities is great. You have plenty of territory to pick artifacts up from (to stuff in your wonders), but you also deal with the increased tech and policy cost by not having too many cities.

 

[anomeric]

Cool... thanks. I definitely had been playing conservative and still not settling much (partly out of habit). The next game I play, I'll focus more on expansion.

 

[Kwami]

I had five cities in my first cultural game and I couldn't fill all of the great works slots, so it seems like five is too many unless you don't build wonders and thus have fewer slots open (but that's kind of silly for a culture game). Then again, I also had so many social policies* that I just started taking random things because it didn't matter, so it seems like sticking with only a few cities also isn't ideal. I don't know!

* Full Tradition, full Piety, full Aesthetics, full Patronage, Exploration (opener), Rationalism (opener), full T1 Freedom, full T2 Freedom, one T3 Freedom. Then, I started taking random stuff like Exploration to see if I'd make it to the hidden artifacts. The game ended before I got there, though.

 

[Martinus]

I think the argument that you need many cities to slot the great works is overrated - the culture victory is won through multipliers and theming bonuses, and every time I won the CV so far, my capital (or, more rarely, another designated GW city) was generating over 90% of my tourism.

I believe museum is the only general building which allows you to store more than one work of art (and thus offers a theming bonus) - everything else comes from world wonders and national wonders.

The only reason why you would want more cities than one is to send food caravans to the city or cities that are running the GWAM specialists.

 

[Chris Hill]

But you also need policies... Aestetics (how the fk do you spell that) is somewhat of a requirement for a Tourism Victory.

Not necessary - I just one a Cultural Victory with only one Aesthetics policy. More important is to get the wonders and the correct combinations of writing, artist, music and archaeologist items to put in them. Do not go over the top on archaeology - use them for the single item buildings.

I ran as Prince, with 4 cities on a large map.

 

[Martinus]

I don't know that anyone has found the perfect balance point yet. Fewer cities allow you to get policies faster, but that's not essential. More cities give you spots to store Artifacts, which up your total culture and tourism.

France, Brazil, and Polynesia really benefit from going wide as they can get tourism from their UIs. More cities = more UIs = more Tourism. With Brazil, you want to balance that by keeping your happiness up to keep the Carnivals going.

Actually, I would say that France is a classic example of going OCC - their UA effectively forces them to store all their great works in Paris.

 

[darden]

I usually lay down 4 cities, and only expand to 5-6 if a particularly good location is discovered (contains a natural wonder or luxury resource I may want)

 

[HurricaneKnapp]

Tradition is still great for a culture build, so going too wide can be problematic. The bonus to Wonder production is certainly important, and buying Engineers with faith definitely doesn't hurt. Beyond that, however, having more cities would only mean more territory, since most of your tourism will come from your capitol. More territory means more archaeological digs, but you only need more than two digs if you really want to fill your museums in other cities. I'd most likely settle the usual four cities, making sure to found them somewhere I cleared out a barb camp.

 

[marlowe221]

Well, one of the keys to a CV certainly seems to be GP generation. The faster you can do that, the faster you can get theme bonuses going in your cities since that is the primary means of generating great works.

You also have to be pretty surgical about building wonders these days. The AI seems to be in a lot bigger hurry to build a lot of them than they used to be.

As far as number of cities - I would say 2-5. Maybe I'm way off but I don't see how you could effectively use your GW slots in more cities than 5. On the other hand, I don't see how you would generate enough tourism with only one city. Unless you managed to get all the right wonders build, AND had some religion-related tourism bonuses going at the same time...

 

[azzaman333]

Plonking as many artifacts as you can get your hands on into Museums seems a fairly effective strategy to me. It's also less reliant on needing to beat the AI to wonders which may not be on your tech path of critical importance.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Actually, I would say that France is a classic example of going OCC - their UA effectively forces them to store all their great works in Paris.

A Chateau can produce 2 Tourism with both a Hotel and an Airport. You can build 3 Chateaux around 1 luxury. So Each city with 1 luxury can produce 6 Tourism from Chateaux.

A museum can generate +4 Tourism as a theming bonus plus +8 from its contents (including +4 from hotel & airport).

So each additional French city with one Luxury and a full Museum can generate 18 Tourism.

I'd say that's worth going wide for, even if Paris is generating 100+ Tourism by itself.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I would argue that the real key is not how many cities, but how much population. The Guilds are greatly required, so the question is one of how much population can you get how fast. Tall vs. Wide is less important.

Martinus, France can go either tall or wide, because of the Chateau. Going Wide means that you are more reliant on Hotels, Chateaux, and Landmarks, which means that you delay your CV (most likely). OTOH, you're also more resilient.

Eagle: Does the French UA double Museum theme bonuses for non-Capital Museums?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I would argue that the real key is not how many cities, but how much population. The Guilds are greatly required, so the question is one of how much population can you get how fast. Tall vs. Wide is less important.

Martinus, France can go either tall or wide, because of the Chateau. Going Wide means that you are more reliant on Hotels, Chateaux, and Landmarks, which means that you delay your CV (most likely). OTOH, you're also more resilient.

Eagle: Does the French UA double Museum theme bonuses for non-Capital Museums?

Nope.

EDIT:
According to this thread, the maximum museum bonus is +4 for non-Paris cities.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Huh. Really. Oh... wait, is that with the Aesthetics Finisher?