Questions about Culture Victory

[zxcvbob]

You might have to declare war on Egypt and take all their wonders and great works. Culture victory doesn't have to be peaceful

 

[Sclb]

I would advice against conquering CV leaders as you will have to eliminate them completely and you might not be able to do so in a timely manner. You are however free to conquer other civs to steal their works.

Also never plan you entire CV game around winning IG, sometimes the AI has massive production and will win it no matter what.

 

[stormtrooper412]

You should be fine as long as you get to Internet and National Visitor Center in around T250, which should give you around 400 tourism, assuming you stacked your Oxford, Hermitage and Museums. And perhaps at least 1 Culture wonder. Beeline to Airports next if you need it and THEN start popping musicians

 

[BlackWizard]

And don forget landmarks. Sometimes you are lucky with them and have like 6 landmark in 4 cities. If you are very lucky you will have 2 landmark in capital. Sometimes you are very unlucky and have only one landmark in 12 cities. These effect more than one missed cultural wonder

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

... Other people have tourism in the hundreds. I feel like I'm a stud if I get it over 100 and that's usually 200+ turns into the game...

Are you getting all the theming bonuses you can? http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Theming_bonus_(Civ5)

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

rather than start another thread, i have a question for some advice: playing as Brazil/Deity/continents and going for a CV, i had been mostly going full tradition then into various trees based on which strategy i wanted. but now i've started trying liberty instead of trad.

because it is continents, should I hold off on Liberty finisher til late for an Artist for a golden age or should I finish Liberty early for an Admiral to meet people quicker for trades, World congress, etc.? also, if i do hold for an Artist, should i also save the golden age policy for the finisher? it gives a discount on future policies but Brazil's UA wont get max tourism benefit from it.

im stuck on Brazil or France on continents for a Deity/CV. im getting frustrated with the timings on Tradition and now want to try with liberty while still making decent use of their tourism bonuses.

edit: btw, im not looking to do the 'conquer the continent' strategy now. i will conquer for wonders but not strategize to conquer the whole thing.

 

[Acken]

I've never been a fan of using the finisher for the admiral. Sure it allows meeting civs 30 turns earlier at snail speed but I don't think it's worth a wonder or an academy.

There's hardly a concensus on whether its a good idea to hold on the liberty golden age for Brazil. Most CV players use tradition anyway. You also have other options for a golden age. Taj and Aesthetics.
I can see both ways being a good idea with brazil so I don't really have a suggestion. As long as the liberty golden age does pay off (not overshoot golden age length) and you don't really care for the policy discount (small empire).

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well the few times I did Brazil, waiting for the Liberty golden age is worth it, but it suggests burning a lot of policies to get there

 

[vanatteveldt]

I just did a t213 CV with the russia DCL, it's an insanely good production map so I thought it would be nice to test strategies on.

What I was wondering, what kind of policies do people pursue? I went full tradition, opened Aesthetics, 4 in rationalism (open, one left, two right - I was thinking to use the finisher on Internet but that didn't work out), full Aesthetics, and freedom. Problem is, with the rationalism policies the freedom +34% came 3 turns later than my finish date, so that wasn't much use. However, without the rationalism I would fear Internet would have been delayed, even with the insane russia map I only got Internet T205 (for a t213 finish). Does it make sense to use writers on policies rather than great works?

Also, I think I heard that people like wide empires for CV, but your main assets are great works and wonders, neither of which really scale, and both of which benefit from a mega-capital more than anything else. I guess wide gives more archeology, but I can generally get more than enough anyways from CS and from the AI (they don't seem to mind stealing just the one, right?). Or does wide make sense mainly for France and Brazil?

 

[IronfighterXXX]

What I was wondering, what kind of policies do people pursue? I went full tradition, opened Aesthetics, 4 in rationalism (open, one left, two right - I was thinking to use the finisher on Internet but that didn't work out), full Aesthetics, and freedom. Problem is, with the rationalism policies the freedom +34% came 3 turns later than my finish date, so that wasn't much use. However, without the rationalism I would fear Internet would have been delayed, even with the insane russia map I only got Internet T205 (for a t213 finish). Does it make sense to use writers on policies rather than great works?

I usually take only two policies in rationalism in culture game (opener +secularism) - should be enough if you play correctly (play science game to renaissance - prioritise growth and science buildings).

Also, I think I heard that people like wide empires for CV, but your main assets are great works and wonders, neither of which really scale, and both of which benefit from a mega-capital more than anything else. I guess wide gives more archeology, but I can generally get more than enough anyways from CS and from the AI (they don't seem to mind stealing just the one, right?). Or does wide make sense mainly for France and Brazil?

While in theory I see potential in wide play for CV in practice I never saw great game of this kind. I got best results with 3-4 cities.

 

[Sclb]

Wide game also increases tech/SP costs, takes long time/gold to get the 5th or subsequent cities going. AND even then you might have bad luck with landmarks which was the only good reason to go wide in the first place. You'll never be able to fill all the museum slots playing wide. Also I've never got liberty wide to ever work for CV where it would be better than a tradition start.

 

[beetle]

I often skip research labs. Granted I don't settle my GS nor bulb before the end when playing a CV… Reaching internet after Plastics with only school-powered GSs is trivial.

This was the best tip for me in this thread. CV is so hammer heavy, being able to skip something is so helpful! My finish time was terrible (T372), but I finally got my first peaceful CV this way (on the recent Austria DCL).

 

[vanatteveldt]

Don't you think it might be worth the money to at least buy a lab in the capital? That is not too expensive, but will give the bulbs quite a boost since often the capital is producing most beakers anyway. If the cap has around 100 base beakers, a lab will add 50 + 9*3 = 77 bpt (assuming you can fill the extra spec splot and you have secularism), giving 616 extra per bulb (and you might well have more than 100 base beakers in your cap by then)

Concretely, it's about 37k beakers from plastics to Internet, so assuming that you have 5 GS and 700 bpt (of which 600 city bpt) before labs, it will cut time from ((37000 - 5*8*600) / 700 = 18.5 turns to (37000 - 5*8*677) / 777 = 12.7 turns. I would say that getting Internet (and visitor center) 6 turns earlier might be worth 1350 gold, but I guess "it depends", especially on your economic situation...

 

[Acken]

I have a tendency to already have enough GSs but I guess it suggests I should bulb intermediary techs and buy a lab. But then I think I usually have an already cloged production queue so reaching the techs a bit faster wouldn't be so impressive. Maybe investing into a bulbed chemistry could be a good move in that case.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but there's a fixed limit of how many GS you can have, right? I mean, you have a set number of scientists and +GPP boosters, and I guess in a CV game you probably won't have the liberty finisher or LToP since engineers are more attractive, and I don't think PT is high on the list either. So, I would guess that with superior micro you might have 1 more GS, but certainly not much more? And even with a full build queue Internet is free and visitor center is really cheap with a tall empire, so these techs would be best as soon as possible?

 

[stormtrooper412]

Absolutely. Getting Internet and NVC as quickly as possible is key

 

[zxcvbob]

Don't you think it might be worth the money to at least buy a lab in the capital? That is not too expensive, but will give the bulbs quite a boost since often the capital is producing most beakers anyway. If the cap has around 100 base beakers, a lab will add 50 + 9*3 = 77 bpt (assuming you can fill the extra spec splot and you have secularism), giving 616 extra per bulb (and you might well have more than 100 base beakers in your cap by then)

Concretely, it's about 37k beakers from plastics to Internet, so assuming that you have 5 GS and 700 bpt (of which 600 city bpt) before labs, it will cut time from ((37000 - 5*8*600) / 700 = 18.5 turns to (37000 - 5*8*677) / 777 = 12.7 turns. I would say that getting Internet (and visitor center) 6 turns earlier might be worth 1350 gold, but I guess "it depends", especially on your economic situation...

Buy a research lab in your best science city (usually the capital) and use all your hammers for archaeologists, late game wonders, and international projects.

 

[Acken]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but there's a fixed limit of how many GS you can have, right? I mean, you have a set number of scientists and +GPP boosters, and I guess in a CV game you probably won't have the liberty finisher or LToP since engineers are more attractive, and I don't think PT is high on the list either. So, I would guess that with superior micro you might have 1 more GS, but certainly not much more? And even with a full build queue Internet is free and visitor center is really cheap with a tall empire, so these techs would be best as soon as possible?

Yes I do not deny that my point was that I usually already can reach plastics to Internet without a lab (Natural + PT + sometimes rati finisher). So if anything, getting a lab would mean I can get something else before labs by sacrificing a GS before it.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Interesting, I guess that means you have a lot more science and/or scientists than me (which given your track record should probably not be a surprise ).