godotnut
Inverted Unicycle
Just finished my first cultural victory in Civ5. This was the second game I attempted since Civ5 came out. I played on Emperor difficulty and won around 2000. This was not a fast finish, but victory really wasn't in doubt. My only worry was that one of the AI (who at least seemed to be best buddies with me) would invade.
I wanted to share some basic observations about cultural wins:
1) They are quite easy, even if you have have never played Civ5 before, and even on the higher levels. At least that's what it seems like right now. Just play nice with the tougher civs and try to avoid war.
2) One city only will probably provide the fastest victory condition. Each additional city adds 33% to the total needed to advance through policies, and additional cities will not add that much more overall culture--not even close. Your main cultural center will be cranking out several times the culture of your other cities, if optimized for culture.
3) Additional cities provide some benefit in terms of safety (producing units) and resources, but if you are trying for fastest win possible, its OCC all the way, I believe.
4) Another option is to play militarily and leave captured cities as puppet states, since puppet states do not add to culture needed for advancement through the trees. I have not tried it yet, but it should work and might produce a faster finish than an OCC, especially on lower levels where you can easily roll as many AI as you want.
5) You have to build the Utopia project after you complete all of the policies. Your game will not end when the policies are completed. Prepare to build the project by maximizing production in the tiles for the city you will be building the project in. Do this just before you are about to finish your last needed policy. Don't worry about going over the tiles with monuments. Save forests for workshops, then chop them just as you are finishing the project.
6) Culture bombs by artists do not add to your culture for policies. Culture bombs add land to your empire but nothing to the pace of your advancement through the policy trees. Therefor use artists to improve tiles in your main culture city. In the end, your culture city will be working mostly tiles with monuments.
7) Stonehenge is a powerful early wonder for cultural victories. Sistine Chapel is even more powerful. Taj Mahal is pretty good. There are also a couple of late game wonders that are powerful, Cristo Redemptor (spelling?) and one other that I can't remember. After you get broadcast towers, the rest of the techs aren't very useful at all, except to give you modern units in case of attack.
8) Cultural victories require far less micromanagement than they did in Civ4. Some will like this, but personally it seems to me that a lot of the strategy for cultural games has been greatly simplified.
9) You won't be finishing your cultural games as early as you used to. They take more turns now.
10) Make as many cultural city states as possible your allies and keep them that way. Maritime is nice too. Militaristic city states are useful for OCC games, where you don't want to waste your precious production on units, but they are the least useful city states.
11) Progress through the policies is the most complicated consideration, and I am going to refrain from speculating about the optimal path in this post. The trees you need are pretty obvious, and I want to think more about the best exact order before commenting. I certainly did not pursue the best exact order in my first game.
Comments? Questions? Ideas?
I wanted to share some basic observations about cultural wins:
1) They are quite easy, even if you have have never played Civ5 before, and even on the higher levels. At least that's what it seems like right now. Just play nice with the tougher civs and try to avoid war.
2) One city only will probably provide the fastest victory condition. Each additional city adds 33% to the total needed to advance through policies, and additional cities will not add that much more overall culture--not even close. Your main cultural center will be cranking out several times the culture of your other cities, if optimized for culture.
3) Additional cities provide some benefit in terms of safety (producing units) and resources, but if you are trying for fastest win possible, its OCC all the way, I believe.
4) Another option is to play militarily and leave captured cities as puppet states, since puppet states do not add to culture needed for advancement through the trees. I have not tried it yet, but it should work and might produce a faster finish than an OCC, especially on lower levels where you can easily roll as many AI as you want.
5) You have to build the Utopia project after you complete all of the policies. Your game will not end when the policies are completed. Prepare to build the project by maximizing production in the tiles for the city you will be building the project in. Do this just before you are about to finish your last needed policy. Don't worry about going over the tiles with monuments. Save forests for workshops, then chop them just as you are finishing the project.
6) Culture bombs by artists do not add to your culture for policies. Culture bombs add land to your empire but nothing to the pace of your advancement through the policy trees. Therefor use artists to improve tiles in your main culture city. In the end, your culture city will be working mostly tiles with monuments.
7) Stonehenge is a powerful early wonder for cultural victories. Sistine Chapel is even more powerful. Taj Mahal is pretty good. There are also a couple of late game wonders that are powerful, Cristo Redemptor (spelling?) and one other that I can't remember. After you get broadcast towers, the rest of the techs aren't very useful at all, except to give you modern units in case of attack.
8) Cultural victories require far less micromanagement than they did in Civ4. Some will like this, but personally it seems to me that a lot of the strategy for cultural games has been greatly simplified.
9) You won't be finishing your cultural games as early as you used to. They take more turns now.
10) Make as many cultural city states as possible your allies and keep them that way. Maritime is nice too. Militaristic city states are useful for OCC games, where you don't want to waste your precious production on units, but they are the least useful city states.
11) Progress through the policies is the most complicated consideration, and I am going to refrain from speculating about the optimal path in this post. The trees you need are pretty obvious, and I want to think more about the best exact order before commenting. I certainly did not pursue the best exact order in my first game.
Comments? Questions? Ideas?
I can almost sustain a perma-Golden Age (well, almost) in my last game.
