(Request) tutorial on wining a cultural victory

[PEACE!]

hy..so every time I plan on wining a cultural victory,I allways fail by not having enought time.. and I just don't get it.. usually i'm the 1 one that get's the wonders.. and the most kick ass spots to settle.So i ask a tutorial from you,hardcore civ V gamers,a tutorial showing me how.. btw the level i request is 5..

 

[MMMiles]

Any Civ will work, but Ghandi is helpful.

The only real trick is to limit your non-puppet cities. My last cultural win was with 3 cities (and about 20 puppets). If you go to war, puppet or raze, but don't keep anything. Building only 2 cities would be even faster.

Every city you add increases the amount of culture you need exponentially, and each city only adds a fixed amount of culture, so once you've got more than 3 cities those policies will come in a lot slower.

Puppets help with research, immensely. Get Forbidden Palace or Order if you want to puppet other cities.

Make allies with cultural city states. Focus on cultural techs and wonders if your economy and military will let you.

Mainly: keep your controlled city count low. 3 is a comfortable number.

 

[fed1943]

Or if you want to have a lot of cities (not puppets) play France.

 

[PEACE!]

why Ghandi?
seriosly.. this made me wonder alot.. I meent.. wouldn't Egypt go much more suitable? I meen it has a 20 percent bonus towards wonder building..

yes thank yout alot.. but what I wantd to know is.. what should I go first? what should I research first? when should I settle my first city?

 

[stormerne]

Please also look here, which was the first Hall of Fame Gauntlet challenge for Civ5 and chose a cultural victory as target. There were some stunningly effective strategies described and some very impressive results (while still playing as an unimpressive cultural civ).

 

[MMMiles]

why Ghandi?
seriosly.. this made me wonder alot.. I meent.. wouldn't Egypt go much more suitable? I meen it has a 20 percent bonus towards wonder building..

yes thank yout alot.. but what I wantd to know is.. what should I go first? what should I research first? when should I settle my first city?

Gandhi: population causes half unhappiness, but city number doubles unhappiness. So a few 1-3 cities with huge populations will create much less unhappiness. The Mughal fort also creates culture (but not much). If you capture a few other puppets you can let them grow to huge sizes without worrying about unhappiness as well.

Wonders are not super important for culture, there a few heavy hitters but they aren't all necessary.

Where you settle is up to you - having some hills for production is good, or forests. You're going to max these cities out so when you settle you can look at the whole area - you'll use a those tiles eventually! You can't really go wrong though, unless you have lots of desert or tundra, or NOTHING but grassland (weak production). Just look for an area where you think you can grow the full city radius.

What techs are up to you. Play the game normally, just make sure you are getting each culture building as reasonably soon as possible. You want good cash supply for city states as well. If you can, make sure at least one of our cities has good production (hills, forests or plains) in case you want to pump out units.

My culture victories on diff 6 I didn't do anything special. Just kept my city count at 3 and guarded my borders. I went to war just out of boredom and to get rid of neighbors bit I probably didn't need to. I did keep Great Engineers around when I wanted to nail certain key wonders (big culture boosters), but there are only a few of those.

I chose liberty, piety, patronage, freedom and then your pick. Sometimes I grab tradition for the wonder focus but it's really up to you.

The key is very few cities. Gandhi will help keep your happiness in check, but any civ will do.

 

[Civsassin]

Or if you want to have a lot of cities (not puppets) play France.

You cannot win a culture victory with more than about three core or annexed cities. France is not your best civ for a culture victory.

Siam is your civ for a culture victory. Ally with cultural and maritime city states to get the double culture and double food bonuses respectively. You'll be tearing through policies. The food bonus will help you to grow to truly large populations with no happiness issues. The key is to micromanage your population.

Great artists are your friends. You can expand your borders to capture key resources or just to give you some separation between your city and potential enemies.

Great engineers can help you capture the key wonders. Here is a post from another subject:

I would start an OCC with either SIAM or India. India is intuitive for it since Gandi's passive benefit punishes expansion and rewards large populations. SIAM isn't so intuitive, but it's UB and passive benefit allow you to blow through policies. The Wat, which replaces the University, also provides +3 culture. The passive benefits doubles city-states culture and food. You will rack up culture and grow a huge population. You will also never experience unhappy citizens.

Policies: Tradition, Piety, Patronage, Freedom, Order

Build your one city on a hill for the defensive benefits, and keep some up to date units for self defense. Keep an up to date siege unit in your city. and some modern melee units in defensive positions. Prioritize "The Great Wall, "Hemeji Castle," and "The Kremlin" for defensive purposes. With walls and a castle, you will be practically impregnable.

Get a few units out early to get the cash from barbarian emcampments and scouts to search for city-states. If you are on the water, get a Tireme out early for the same reason.

Great artists are your friends. Not for their cultural value, but because they can expand your territory tremendously via culture bombs. Have them expand in the direction of luxury resources for happiness and trades. Even if you cannot "work" the tile, once improved, you'll still get the five happiness and ability to trade the resource. The extra territory will give you a lot of time to maneuver your forces to respond to an attack as enemy units move slowly (The Great Wall) towards your city. Once they get near, you hammer them with siege and have your couple of melee units mop up. Prioritize culture and policy-related wonders. Micromanage your specialists to pop Engineers (for wonders) and Artists (for land). Switch between different city focuses based on your needs. When you need to pop out a major build, switch to production focus, which will also generate great engineer points.

City growth is your friend. You will be able to run your economy on specialists AND working your most productive tiles. The "Statue of Liberty" is huge since you will be using many specialists as your population grows.

Prioritize "Stonehenge," "The Oracle," "Angkor Wat," "Cristo Redentor," "Sistine Chapel," "The Sydney Opera House," "The Hagia Sophia," and "The Louvre." Obviously, you cannot get them all, but you can probably get most based on your production capability.

This should get you started. If you want to make it easier on yourself, try an archipelago style map. You are much less likely to get attacked early even on higher levels, and you'll have time to implement your strategy. The other civs won't avoid you forever, so keep a good defensive force no matter where you start.

 

[Paeanblack]

What techs are up to you. Play the game normally, just make sure you are getting each culture building as reasonably soon as possible.

You don't even need to worry about getting the culture buildings as early as possible. Delaying a monument by 50 turns is a whopping 100 culture. This is inconsequential compared to the 30000-100000 total culture you will need, depending on how many cities you settle and the order in which you take your policies.

The things that matter the absolute most are the "Free Social Policy" bonuses. These allow you to take policies without increasing their costs. They are effectively worth as much culture as your final policy would have otherwise cost. This can easily be worth 4000-8000 culture in one shot. Even Stonehenge, combined with all the +% culture buffs picked up along the way, may not contribute this much.

This is why the Piety tree is so crucial, along with the Oracle and the Sydney Opera house.

Secondly, go for the Freedom and Cristo Redentor policy discounts as soon as they are available. You don't need to bother saving up policies beforehand, because it really doesn't matter if you spent 90 or 190 on your third policy. The real savings happen when you already have about 20 policies, and the discounts are worth 500+ culture.

 

[ZHONN]

I don't think that three controlled cities is the maximum amount. I've won culture on more, something like six or such.

I also don't find wonders so important, unless they're the culture specific ones. Stonehenge, Cristo Redentor, etc. Wonders are also important to so that you have at least one World wonder in every one of your main cities.

One should build all the culture buildings asap and use plenty of culture specialists. They don't give much culture as they are but with the modifiers it adds up and the landmark is a good improvement. I'd never use them for culture bombs or golden ages.

From social policies it's important to get to renaissance fast and to the freedom policy.

 

[Civsassin]

I don't think that three controlled cities is the maximum amount. I've won culture on more, something like six or such.

I also don't find wonders so important, unless they're the culture specific ones. Stonehenge, Cristo Redentor, etc. Wonders are also important to so that you have at least one World wonder in every one of your main cities.

One should build all the culture buildings asap and use plenty of culture specialists. They don't give much culture as they are but with the modifiers it adds up and the landmark is a good improvement. I'd never use them for culture bombs or golden ages.

From social policies it's important to get to renaissance fast and to the freedom policy.

Three cities probably isn't the maximum, but if I were trying it for the first time, or an early attempt, I would limit myself to no more than three.

Approximately how many turns into the game did you win it with that many cities? That's not easy to do. You must have had a very good strategy. Non of your cities were puppets?

 

[atteSmythe]

I recently won a culture victory on a Huge map, King, with over 280 cities in my empire, none puppeted save those still in revolt. Granted, the Huge map helped there, as the culture target penalty per city is less.

I wouldn't recommend doing it this way, but surely there's some room to work with between 3-6 and 280.

 

[Civsassin]

I recently won a culture victory on a Huge map, King, with over 280 cities in my empire, none puppeted save those still in revolt. Granted, the Huge map helped there, as the culture target penalty per city is less.

I wouldn't recommend doing it this way, but surely there's some room to work with between 3-6 and 280.

I find that very hard to believe, but if you say so...

 

[atteSmythe]

There's a savegame posted in the thread. (edit:Link)

 

[Civsassin]

There's a savegame posted in the thread. (edit:Link)

I look forward to seeing it when I am on a computer that can display it. Thanks.

 

[atteSmythe]

np - just remember that it's highly non-optimal. Paeanblack refers to needing 30000-100000 culture to win a culture victory. That game I posted required over 115000 culture just for the last policy adopted!

 

[Civsassin]

np - just remember that it's highly non-optimal. Paeanblack refers to needing 30000-100000 culture to win a culture victory. That game I posted required over 115000 culture just for the last policy adopted!

How many turns did it take to reach that, and how did you produce that much culture? I understand that each additional city adds 33% more culture to the policy requirement. Does that number change on huge maps?

 

[atteSmythe]

It must. It only took me 10-11 turns to get that last policy, and the amount being added was much, much less than 33%. I think that 33% must mean the per-city contribution? I don't know.

According to the math in this thread, though, I was still doing fine. Search for 'Will expanding increase or decrease policy speed?' At my peak, I believe I was pulling in 120 culture per turn from city states. The target ratio on a Huge map is 17/3 (city states/your average) culture. So in order to keep expanding, average city culture needs to be greater than the city-state contribution divided by 5.6. 120/5.6 = 21.4. My 'filler' cities were each pulling in 46 culture per turn (my capital was pulling in something like 230-something, if I recall). So long as I could get new cities' culture above 21.4 (monument, temple, opera house, museum, specialists = 26), I could keep expanding. Each broadcast tower I purchased bumped the total up to 46, and those advanced cities could pull up the average. During an average turn, I could purchase two broadcast towers, and that went up to 5 during a golden age, with maybe a little finagling.

 

[stormerne]

Personal opinion:

CIV
Play city states hard. Therefore Siam is the best civ to go with for the first time. (And their Wat is fabulous.)

CITIES
If you're going to expand at all, do it early rather than later. It's mathematically provable that expanding late has a bigger adverse impact on culture thresholds.

CITY STATES
Ally city states, maritime at first, then cultural. Militaristic won't help much. Choose neutral, friendly over hostile (unless that's all you have available).
Rule of thumb: City states will account for around one-third of your total culture points per turn.

SOCIAL POLICIES
Get the whole Patronage tree as early as possible.
Freedom is magic and a must.
Order is good for the end.
Piety helps at the end too.
The other is up to you. Tradition is a help for early wonders.
Save Free Religion (Piety) to the last policy but two (as they're the most expensive).
You can take mutually exclusive trees (e.g. Piety then Rationalism). They still both count even though the effects of the first are canceled. BUT this tactic is not useful for a cultural victory.
Trivia: You can open the Patronage tree by researching just 5 techs, and you can open the Freedom tree by researching just 7!

MILITARY
Always keep a sufficient military. Always keep it upgraded.
Rule of thumb: Aim for a little better than half-way through the demographics for military strength.

WONDERS
If you're playing on lower difficulty, you should be able to get Stonehenge and Oracle. Don't bet on either at higher difficulty!
Rule of thumb: If you find yourself relying on getting Cristo Redentor (let alone Sydney Opera House), you've been doing it wrong and you've taken far too long to win. That said, if you have to, you have to.

ANTI-CLIMAX
Yes you will feel this when you win.

 

[Civsassin]

It must. It only took me 10-11 turns to get that last policy, and the amount being added was much, much less than 33%. I think that 33% must mean the per-city contribution? I don't know.

According to the math in this thread, though, I was still doing fine. Search for 'Will expanding increase or decrease policy speed?' At my peak, I believe I was pulling in 120 culture per turn from city states. The target ratio on a Huge map is 17/3 (city states/your average) culture. So in order to keep expanding, average city culture needs to be greater than the city-state contribution divided by 5.6. 120/5.6 = 21.4. My 'filler' cities were each pulling in 46 culture per turn (my capital was pulling in something like 230-something, if I recall). So long as I could get new cities' culture above 21.4 (monument, temple, opera house, museum, specialists = 26), I could keep expanding. Each broadcast tower I purchased bumped the total up to 46, and those advanced cities could pull up the average.

Thanks for the description. I will check out the numbers thread. I'm going to give it a try.

 

[atteSmythe]

Ah! stormerne reminds me that I had both Cristo Redentor and the Sydney Opera House, which must throw those calc'd numbers all out of whack.