Struggling with Culture Victory

[DuragonZer0]

I was really big into Civ IV, and have been playing Civ V lately, trying out the new win conditions, figuring out the new tricks.

But the Culture victory I absolutely cannot win, it seems like no matter what I do it just takes way way too long to max out 5 trees.

I was playing as Egypt, I only had 3 cities until very late game when I was attacked - and then I made ALL the captured cities puppets, still only 3 non-puppet cities.

I was using my status as Egypt to wonder-whore at the cost of not having an army, and I was selling all my resources for gold which allowed me to keep all the Maritime and Culture City-States allied with me.

I tech'd extremely fast, taking Aristocrachy followed by Scholasticism, and building the great library to slingshot ahead with civil service.

When I was attacked I had 0 army, so I spent gold to buy some units, and the next thing I knew I had puppeted the entire pangeae for a domination victory long before the social policies ever filled out.

Is it absolutely vital for me to buy every culture thing in all 3 of my cities, and throw tons of specialist artists?

I thought maybe what happened was that by also generating Great Engineers and Great Scientists, it cut down on my Great Artist generation (since the cost goes up with each great person.) I also skipped Piety, taking Rationalism for extreme tech instead, but even factoring in that I didn't have 2 free social policies, it still seemed to take forever.

Does anyone have any common tips or experience for what might've taken my SPs so long? It was near 2000 AD on level 5 King when I finally could build the wonder.

Much appreciated

 

[snarzberry]

There are some key wonders that really help. Stonehenge, the Oracle, The Louvre and Cristo Redentor (and if the game's still going then Sydney Opera House). Getting to Archaeology fast so you can build the Louvre and the Hermitage which doubles the base culture of your best city is one of your goals.

As to number of cities that is best, I really think it's one. I don't think the maths lets you found a second city that pays its way in the culture stakes. You might want it for other reasons though, like offence/defence or trade. Taking your city count down to one or two will help a lot. You can puppet to your hearts content of course.

Social Policies to get are the left side of Freedom as a priority, you'll probably want some of Liberty in order to get early key wonders and then Piety and Patronage are in there as well.

Your tech path is through Archaeology and then focus on getting to Radio and Telegraph. They let you build Cristo Redentor and Broadcast towers. After that there's nothing you really need, although shooting for Globalization and SOH is an option.

Sounds like you just need to tighten up your game and know what you should be aiming for.

 

[Ghiznuk]

I did it with Egypt. I had three cities until middle-game where i got a fourth one.
Same thing happened to me - one AI attacked me late in the game and i suddenly puppeted his whole empire, but even then it didn't get me close to winning by Domination at all.

I built almost every wonder possible (- oh btw i had marble just next to my capital !) - most of them using Great Engineer - especially needed ones, the ones which have been mentioned. Was a bit disappointed to notice that the Burial tomb does not allow for Artist specialist (i think the Temple - which it replaces - does ?). Didn't have any river so didn't get to build any Garden.

I aimed for Tradition, then Piety (i played a lot with the "Happinnes becomes Culture" bonus ! + the "Two free Social policies"), then Liberty (+100% culture per city with a Wonder inside - thank you Great Engineers !), then Commerce and Patronage. I did not rely too much on City-states, just a tiny bit for . Got as many Artist specialists as i could. I did not really use the Great Artists though - mostly for Culture bombs.

Cultural victory in the year 2020 something, very near the end of the game. No other computer seemed about to win, and thanks to my conquering my big neighbour, i could have got Score victory.

Bt I'm sure it's possible to do better - try maybe France. The Egyptian Wonder-building bonus was very useful in the beginning of the game (especially with marble on my capital's terrtor !!), but in the end, it was not as useful as spamming Great Engineers.

 

[slobberinbear]

I had a culture win on King with France, five cities. I think they make a multi-city culture win a bit easier.

Yes, you build every cultural wonder, culture building, befriend every cultural city state, focus on great artists (which are settled) ... I like Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Patronage, and Freedom for Culture.

The multi-city culture win seems like it shouldn't be *that* much harder, but it sure seems like it. What you get in return, though, are more hammers and more luxuries.

I am currently attemping Cultural on King with Persia, five cities. It is not going well.

 

[PScirocco]

The key is to get the 4 Freedom sp asap, and make sure your other 2 cities have a world wonder to help their culture production (if you REALLY need to, save your great eng to rush a wonder there).Once you get Cristo and broadcast towers up, you should be really close to victory (around 4 to 5 sp to go), what I do sometimes is to stop getting RA, hard research electronics if needed (if you have a vast tech lead then it's probably not needed), close off borders, and use that gold to bribe everyone into fighting each other. Defensively the ones from tradition and freedom, artillery, and some defensive buildings should be more than enough to handle any invasion.

This is on emperor, so it should have no problem working on king.

 

[DuragonZer0]

Trying to play with only one city sounds extremely boring, to be frank. Running with 3 cities is boring, its really hard to resist expanding then specializing cities and warmongering.

But really good tips, i really appreciate the tips on tech to focus on. Interesting to hear others having similar troubles too. And sounds like I was wrong to worry about too many non-artist great persons.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

 

[snarzberry]

Trying to play with only one city sounds extremely boring, to be frank. Running with 3 cities is boring, its really hard to resist expanding then specializing cities and warmongering.

But really good tips, i really appreciate the tips on tech to focus on. Interesting to hear others having similar troubles too. And sounds like I was wrong to worry about too many non-artist great persons.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Having only one city would be very boring if you don't play it well and the game drags on and on. But if you play it well you can win around the turn 250 mark. Then it's only somewhat boring . One city plus puppets is fun tho, I recommend Askia for that game.

 

[slobberinbear]

Just got my Bollywood achievement on a 3-city Gandhi culture win, Emperor. I am kinda digging the achievements, strangely, even though it is virtual fluff of the highest order. I did Tradition-Piety-Freedom-Patronage-Commerce, mostly in that order, saving of course the 2-policy policy in Piety for the end. I actually completed the Sydney Opera House too soon; I used it to nab around my 26th policy. It's great when you can build it, get the free piety policy, which then gives two more policies, then go straight to building Utopia.

One nice thing about the multi-city culture game is that your other cities can build units while your capital is building Utopia. This was a completely peaceful game, but Hiawatha and Monty were each taking over their parts of the world and I wanted to at least keep them from taking Delhi before Utopia was done.

Delhi's culture was incredible, stretching out 7-8 tiles in most directions.

 

[Kevin J]

Just got my Bollywood achievement on a 3-city Gandhi culture win, Emperor. I am kinda digging the achievements, strangely, even though it is virtual fluff of the highest order. I did Tradition-Piety-Freedom-Patronage-Commerce, mostly in that order, saving of course the 2-policy policy in Piety for the end. I actually completed the Sydney Opera House too soon; I used it to nab around my 26th policy. It's great when you can build it, get the free piety policy, which then gives two more policies, then go straight to building Utopia.

One nice thing about the multi-city culture game is that your other cities can build units while your capital is building Utopia. This was a completely peaceful game, but Hiawatha and Monty were each taking over their parts of the world and I wanted to at least keep them from taking Delhi before Utopia was done.

Delhi's culture was incredible, stretching out 7-8 tiles in most directions.

Hmm, I see another Challenge thread in the making.

3 City Bollywood, Immortal Difficulty. Or even two difficulties, on the same map.

An interesting map, like in the Kamehameha challenge, can really influence how different strategies play out. The map shapes the flow of the game, and allows us to see the results of different choices - "what-if?"

Challenge threads can be very entertaining - you get to both play the game and see the same game play out in the hands of others.

 

[Hammurbabble]

I've only done a cultural victory once and it was on Prince (I haven't been playing that long). I played as India, built 4 cities, had a completely peaceful game the whole time through, and did essentially what people are suggesting. India is a really great choice for a culture win because of the special ability which mandates not many cities but great big ones with lots of production and commerce. I think it's probably the best for a culture game, although France and Egypt are obvious contenders.

I wonder about that fewer-cities-better rule. I know that the culture needed for advances goes up with more cities, but so does the total possible culture output; does anyone know how the math actually balances? Regardless, I had no problem playing with 4 cities except that one player came very close to a diplomatic win and I had to frantically buy off city-states for a few turns.

One interesting side note. I built the UN myself in that game. I figured denying the city-states' favorite pretty-boy the extra vote was a good idea. But when I did that, and then started buying up city-states to keep pretty-boy from winning the game, a warmonger who was on very good terms with me started DoWing my city-state allies! With apologies to me, of course. It seemed like the AI concluded I was going for a diplo win and decided to do something about it with great directness and brutality. Nice smoke screen for my real intentions, if purely accidental.

 

[CYZ]

Culture win has always seems the easiest victory to me besides Economic win. But I'm a terrible turtler/builder. Even in games where my plan is to expand as much as I can I'm afraid to build more than 4 cities.

Culture isn't that easy though, mainly because it doesn't come as early as some people would suggest, plus you're really limiting your options for blocking the victory of AIs.

Edit: Also, best amount of cities for cultural is one, at least 90% of the time. I've lost a game to Polynesia doing a OCC. It was bugged and didn't build a single improvement other than two fisherboats. And it still won!

Anyway, as mentioned before you might need a second city for other reasons. But unless there's a wine+incense site or you're playing polynesia and see a good site for spamming Moai, one city will be best.

 

[Hammurbabble]

WHY is one city best?

There's a trade-off here purely in connection with culture, leaving everything else out of consideration. Simply put, one city = one temple/opera house/etc., two cities = two of each. And so on. Does anyone have a link to some hard info as to exactly how much the requirement to advance to a new SP goes up with an additional city, so that this can be compared to the potential increased culture output? Is the one more than the other? Or is that just an impression people have?

 

[Martin Alvito]

The numbers you need are here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389702

Suppose you found the second city before taking any policies and build The Oracle. Further suppose that you take Free Speech with the seventh policy (after accounting for The Oracle) and build Cristo Redentor before the sixteenth, and that you take Piety. That's more or less the best approach found in G-Major.

If FS and CR are additive rather than multiplicative as I believe they are, then you need 30022.5 Culture (plus whatever rounding alters) with one city and 39,040 Culture with two cities to build Utopia. That essentially means that your second city needs to contribute 9,000 Culture over the course of the game to be worthwhile. If it's settled by turn 20 and Utopia is started on turn 200, then you're looking at needing 50 Culture per turn on average over the course of the game that the capital alone could not have provided in order to make an additional city worthwhile.

Any second city you found won't have Hermitage or Stonehenge, so it's extremely difficult for that city to contribute enough per turn to make that up. It can be done as follows:

+5 Culture for Museum
+4 for Opera House
+3 for Temple
+2 for Monument
+11 for strong Monastery with 3x Wine/Incense
+12 for Artists
= 42/turn

Then a 100% multiplier from Constitution yields 84 Culture/turn from about turn 120, and around 155-160 you get a Broadcast Tower for 126 per turn. That's going to be long enough that including whatever you made starting in the 50s or 60s when the Temple and Monastery went up will cover the differential. Odds are that you'll probably get an extra Great Artist from the city as well, which helps the math even more.

However, it's pretty much impossible for the second city to make sense unless you had a strong Monastery. At that point you're looking at base Culture in the 30s, and that's just not quite going to get it done.

 

[walkerjks]

WHY is one city best?

There's a trade-off here purely in connection with culture, leaving everything else out of consideration. Simply put, one city = one temple/opera house/etc., two cities = two of each. And so on. Does anyone have a link to some hard info as to exactly how much the requirement to advance to a new SP goes up with an additional city, so that this can be compared to the potential increased culture output? Is the one more than the other? Or is that just an impression people have?

The reason is that a ton of your culture will come from landmarks. You'll have a minimum of 5 or 6 of them if you prioritize GA production and The Louvre. And you want those landmarks to be in the city with the maximum multiplier (which will be wherever you build The Hermitage - likely be your capitol).

Also, a non-trivial amount of culture may come from culture CSs, which a second city won't directly help with.

Given how stacked culture production is towards The Hermitage city, it is difficulty, over the course of a game to get a second city (much less a third) to generate even 20% (assuming you get the Liberty policy that reduces culture costs of additional cities) of the culture of the capitol. Now there are exceptions - a second city with a strong monastery (multiple incense/wine) makes it easier.

But if you place all your landmarks in one city, take a look at total culture output and then take a look at your second city right before you fill your last tree. If the second city isn't generating 1/6th of the total culture (3/13ths if you go without the LIberty tree), it isn't pulling it's weight.

 

[Hammurbabble]

Thanks for the link.

With respect to number of cities, here is the important part of the formula: (7 + 3 n)/10 rounded to the next multiple of 5, where n is the number of cities. This is a multiplier applied to the base cost of the policy. However, this can't be right. It implies that the multiplier is 5 for any number of cities up to 14 (14 cities would give 42+7=49, divided by 10 is 4.9, which rounds up to 5). Only on the 15th city would the number jump up to 10, which is the next multiple of five.

Can someone clarify this, please? I know from play that there's a jump in culture cost long before you get to city 15.

I understand the point about landmarks, but there are very few wonders that act as multipliers on culture (I believe the Hermitage is the only one that does on a city-only basis). It does make sense to concentrate your landmarks and wonders on the Hermitage city. However, that's not really an argument against more than one city when pursuing a cultural victory. That extra cities don't contribute to CS relations is simply not true. More cities mean more gold, which means more contributions to the city-states, which means more allies. Only one city means no trade routes, only two luxuries, and limited build speed.

If the second city isn't generating 1/6th of the total culture (3/13ths if you go without the LIberty tree), it isn't pulling it's weight.

That doesn't follow. The important comparison is not between that city and your first city, but between what the city is putting out in culture and what it adds to the cost of the next PC.

If you have only one city, you can only be working on building one thing at a time. If you have, say, four cities, then during the time that your capital is building a wonder, the other three can construct two or three culture building each. Remember that the time to win the game is not infinite. Obviously you don't want to spam huge numbers of them. I'm simply questioning whether that "one only" is not taking things to an unwarranted extreme.

It really does all come down to that multiplier on culture cost for number of cities. Can someone clarify exactly what the multiplier is? The link presented above stated that it is linear rather than geometric, which argues that having several cities is a good idea, unless it's a very steep linear climb indeed.

 

[Martin Alvito]

With Representation, it may very well be that it makes sense to go to the second city. I didn't consider that in the analysis. I'd have to know more about how it interacts with Free Speech and Cristo to be sure.

The table in the link gives you everything you need with regard to the multiplier. We aren't dealing with a smooth curve here due to rounding, so throwing the calculus at it or attempting to infer from what should be the underlying function will lead to errors at the margin. You're going to have to work with it at the level of discrete data points.

 

[slobberinbear]

Reading the table, it appears *roughly* that the required cultural points double at the 4- and 8-city levels. This pretty much tells me what I need to know ... that I'm going to have to work really hard to keep up culture with most civs if I expand much. Which is a shame, because for me policies are one of most interesting aspects of the game, along with expanding and building.

 

[walkerjks]

It really does all come down to that multiplier on culture cost for number of cities. Can someone clarify exactly what the multiplier is? The link presented above stated that it is linear rather than geometric, which argues that having several cities is a good idea, unless it's a very steep linear climb indeed.

There's some rounding weirdness, but basically, if your first city is 1x, each additional city adds 0.3x to the multiplier. That goes down to 0.2x/city with the proper SP.

Assuming that you are playing a fast game, like a turn 240 culture win. The reality is that 80% of your total culture is going to be generated in a 50 or 60 turn period (from, say turn 170 to turn 220 (when you are building Utopia and culture doesn't contribute to winning anymore). This is when you have most of the multipliers in place and this is when you have all your specialists in place and this is when you are placing the bulk of your landmarks (in the city with The hermitage, because you would be a fool to give up 6cpt/landmark by placing in another city). It's hard for the 2nd city to overcome the culture from the landmark spam.

2nd city can help. I've run numbers 10 turn samples from an actual game and threw it in a spreadsheet. In that case, the culture output of the second city did slightly increase the pace of SP gain (by 3% or so over the entire course of the game). But it was marginal. Absent a strong monastery, there simply aren't enough good culture buildings to make it a much better play, particularly if you are getting 80 cpt or more from cultural CS alliances.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Well, you definitely have me feeling the itch to go try to shave three turns off my G-Major I time and win that thing now with Representation. Thanks for the idea!

 

[vexing]

let us know how it goes, even if you fail miserably. i strongly suspect multicity will never win, but i've never actually tried.

cristo/fs both apply after the city multiplier... ie two cities with both goes to .65 from 1.3 (or .6 from 1.2 with rep)