The best way to win culture victory

[budweiser]

I have a strong feeling that you can acquire as many cities as you want and still accellerate your cultural gain, as long as you can keep adding a wonder to each city. More research is required.

Also, I did a 1CC cultural and won the game before I could even research Cristo. OCC has bad tech rates if you go Piety.

 

[Celevin]

I have a strong feeling that you can acquire as many cities as you want and still accellerate your cultural gain, as long as you can keep adding a wonder to each city. More research is required.

Also, I did a 1CC cultural and won the game before I could even research Cristo. OCC has bad tech rates if you go Piety.

I actually go Rationalism, and build a lot of trading posts and cities. I do a 4+ slingshot to the Cristo Rendentor. I don't think Peity's one free policy is worth it...

It's all about the puppets (which aren't possible in OCC). Your science levels aren't bad at all with them. If you want to get the craziest, fastest win, you're probably right with the 4+ cities (every one having a wonder), then a mass sell at the end.

 

[budweiser]

I actually go Rationalism, and build a lot of trading posts and cities. I do a 4+ slingshot to the Cristo Rendentor. Remember I'm not talking about just any culture win, but the fastest possible.

Whats your best year/turn number so far?

 

[Celevin]

Whats your best year/turn number so far?

Haven't tried in a few weeks, still 1700. I had a 1600 one lined up, but it fell apart in the last quarter.

 

[budweiser]

Haven't tried in a few weeks, still 1700. I had a 1600 one lined up, but it fell apart in the last quarter.

That's good. So, you don't think Piety's culture from happiness is a good investment?

 

[acm2033]

Good analysis.

Not of me, but of my post. You can't analyze me, I'm a mental fortress.

Ha!

Yeah, selling cities to buy all your SP's is not the way it was intended, I'm sure. Good find. Also, I agree that you should be forced to buy SP's right away. (That's what I thought you had to do, before reading differently here on civfanatics).

Would that one change fix this problem? Would it cause any other problems?

 

[Neuro]

Piety is definitely worth taking over Rationalism. Science isn't your major roadblock, culture is. A free SP is worth 2685 Culture in the end, that can easily shave 6-7 turns off your game.

 

[toccoto]

Change it so your policy cost is determined by the largest number of cities your Empire has ever held /as their own/ (IE Any cities you build yourself, or AI cities that you Annex and built a Courthouse in.)

That way if you sell off your cities, your social policy cost isn't changed.

Boom, I fixed Civ V. Throw me another one.

 

[Celevin]

Piety is definitely worth taking over Rationalism. Science isn't your major roadblock, culture is. A free SP is worth 2685 Culture in the end, that can easily shave 6-7 turns off your game.

Doesn't matter, that slingshot's needed. It gets you broadcast towers faster, which nets you faster policy gain than Piety's free policy.

Would that one change fix this problem? Would it cause any other problems?

It would fix it partially, but there'd be a bit of a problem. It wouldn't feel right as people would purposely delay their next policy (if they could) until they got an era change so they could get another tree. It would also be clunky as REXing would have to be timed with gaining your next policy. People would also still sell all their cities near the end and try and coast.


I think the very easiest method is this:

Currently policy cost has a multiplier that's a bit ugly. Your policy cost is multiplied by (1+((1-a)x)) where a is your number of cities, and x is something determined by world size (.3 for standard). For example, if you have 10 cities on a standard world, your policy cost is multiplied by 1+((10-1)*.3) = 3.7

My idea is to remove this multiplier. Then divide all culture gained before it goes into your pool by the end of the turn by the multiplier instead. A civ will still gain policies at the same rate, with the following exceptions:
- Mass selling of cities won't be effective
- People will no longer feel the need to wait for a policy before building that next city

This removes half of the problem. The other half (puppets and cultural city states) still exists.

 

[taltamir]

Currently policy cost has a multiplier that's a bit ugly. Your policy cost is multiplied by (1+((1-a)x)) where a is your number of cities, and x is something determined by world size (.3 for standard). For example, if you have 10 cities on a standard world, your policy cost is multiplied by 1+((10-1)*.3) = 3.7

it should be noted that the multiplier varies by your difficulty level. the higher the difficulty level, the greater the penalty for each additional city.
This means that the higher the difficulty level, the more you gain from selling your cities before spending culture.

 

[CultureManiac]

It's *completely* different from ICS. ICS is just a (too) viable mode of play. Giving away cities to win faster is wrong.

It's not about making culture wins more difficult, it's about making them less absurd. When I go for the fastest, easiest culture win, it doesn't feel like I'm building an empire. I'm not even using that many policies (which you'd expect!). I'm using the minimum number of cities, I'm taking lots of puppets through domination, and I'm saving most of my culture until the Cristo Rendentor. And at the end I'm trying to *give* away my cities.

Agreed that selling off cities at the end plays like an exploit. I've never done it that way. (Prefer OCC) I have, however, kept most of my points for Cristo Redemptor and then gone for Freedom for the cheaper SP rate immediately after. End up buying a dozen or more at once. Gotta admit that feels a bit gamey as well. You do lose some of the benefits by not grabbing policies earlier, but I think we have to admit a lot of them aren't really worth much, depending on your style of play.

It would be nice to see that saving and splurging evened up some, though. It's just that the builders have really been pushed to the side with this version, and it's a matter of getting there quickly or being steamrolled by another civ's overwhelming military. (Never been in a serious race with another civ for a cultural victory - actually the hardest part of a cultural victory is simply staying alive.)

I don't mind, in fact rather enjoy, going head to head with someone on the battlefield every once in a while. But I like to have a choice at the higher levels to win in ways other than war.