The Cultural Victory

[yanner39]

I am almost done my first game as Portugal. I scaled back to Emperor level to learn the game. It's a large islands map, standard speed. Here are some observations:

It's 1962 and I am still not done. I'm close to researching the Internet and I have 4 out of 7 Civs that are influenced by me. I can't remember the last time I ended a civ game this late.

One of the things I did wrong is neglected my science. This made it that I plowed through the tech tree slowly. Under the old culture game mechanic, you could spot researching a lot sooner. Now, tourism takes off a lot later in the tech tree. What I should have done is reserved one of my cargo ships as a food cargo shop and grow my capital quicker and sooner (although it is currently 1962 and my cap is at 32 pop).

The last three Civs I need to influence are Egypt (whored wonders) Russia and Venice. The tough part is that we don't share ideologies and religion (to boost Tourism with these Civs). I just recently used the World Congress to switch to Freedom. I should have done this sooner but I was afraid to anger the other Civs. Plus, just because the world ideology is Freedom, it doesn't mean they will automatically switch. Same with religion.

The theming bonus I found are difficult to achieve. Is there a strategy to get the proper artifacts/works of art?

Don't neglect military. I have not been DOWed yet.

If anybody can provide additional tips, that would be great.

 

[Magic of Friend]

"Don't neglect military." This was your mistake. Unless you are right next to very leaders like gandhi the A.I.s will never DoW you. Ever. Its the 1990's in my game and I only have a single crossbowmen. Haven't been DoW'd all game. I get spy reports all the time saying someone is going to attack, but they never do.

 

[RancheroGT]

"Don't neglect military." This was your mistake. Unless you are right next to very leaders like gandhi the A.I.s will never DoW you. Ever. Its the 1990's in my game and I only have a single crossbowmen. Haven't been DoW'd all game. I get spy reports all the time saying someone is going to attack, but they never do.

What difficult do you play on? The AI will DoW you in a heartbeat on higher levels, if you don't have some sort of military.

 

[Gucumatz]

I have gotten over a dozen backstabs by AI in my sp games... including from some of the more peaceful civs like Poly and India. Of course the Ai will attack

 

[ptoss1]

I have gotten over a dozen backstabs by AI in my sp games... including from some of the more peaceful civs like Poly and India. Of course the Ai will attack

Poly is a peaceful civ?

 

[Gucumatz]

Well in GK he always was for me, he would stay a few cities and never be too reckless [compared to other AI]

 

[Pyke]

As Portugal basically w/ 1cc I was producing ~850 tourism a turn - past the year 2k - with an AI civ (the Netherlands) at 6 of 7 on Science Victory. I was forced to take a Diplo win (38 delegates - needed 37) to avoid losing to the AI [Emperor].

 

[Novalia]

The game in general is much longer. I OCC'd, wonder whored every wonder, ran all great people specialists and had all themes even in the cities I eventually annexed after conquering them in atomic era, signed multiple RAs... and it still took until close to turn 400 to win. My cap ended at 50+ pop, bought all science buildings immediately, was making 500 gpt... Probably the only thing I did wrong was not invest in the aesthetics tree... I got stuck on the freedom tree thinking there would be some big payoff at the conclusion. Didn't really plan a culture victory as the Assyrians.

Point is the game just takes longer now.

 

[Adjuvant]

Generally toward the end there are one or two "hold outs" you have trouble naturally rasing over 60 or 70 percent in an acceptable amount of time.

Bank thousands of faith to musician-bomb the last one or two holdouts. Each information age musician, depending on culture disparity and the other factors, considering your tourism is 600+, (or at least "moving the bar" .6% to 1% per turn) will yield 10% to 15%. If they won't open borders, DoW and run them in, burning them.

This last game I just finished a bit ago, i had pedro with +960 tourism standard speed, emperor and alex was still being a hold-out. I had to hit him with 4 musicians in 1940 to win.

Don't bank older musicians hoping for this to work, though. Their tourism-bomb yield will be low, a fraction of the later-age ones.

I generally bee-line Leaning Tower. It's pretty important if you only have, like, 50 faith per turn post industrial. If you have 150+ faith it's not so important, because you'll be able to just by 4-6 musicians in info age with 12k + banked faith. After that, if you can bee-line internet, forsaking rifling+ (which isn't so bad because you're teching through subs and infantry) awhile by laying low and signing lots (3 or 4 opponents+) research agreements, it's pretty easy.

Immortal's a little different, but along the same lines. It's just not as forgiving at the beginning.

 

[Adjuvant]

Probably the only thing I did wrong was not invest in the aesthetics tree...

Yeh, need that full or the reformation belief to buy any great people to buy out the musicians at the end. Either works.