Theory Why Modern Age Culture Victory Is Weak: The British Museum Will Alter It In DLC 1

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Victory conditions were one of the things I was sure would evolve in civ 7. My impression was they were made as simple as possible so people new to the game could complete them. And considering the UI it’s not a bad choice until they improve said UI.

 

[Kev1916]

Battersea Power Station as their associated wonder!!!

ROFL

 

[UWHabs]

Victory conditions were one of the things I was sure would evolve in civ 7. My impression was they were made as simple as possible so people new to the game could complete them. And considering the UI it’s not a bad choice until they improve said UI.

I think the big problem now is just a little bit of balance. Culture victory starts way too early, and because of AI bonuses they just go absolutely crazy around them. Even if you still had "dig a bunch of relics" as the quest, but they spaced them out around the culture tree a bit more, that would feel a lot more balanced. Like give each explorer one charge, and have them generate like treasure fleets from cities with a museum, and even just that would give them a lot more balance.

Heck, you could even potentially devise a system where each explorer takes 30 / #legacies turns to develop from a city with a museum. So if you got all 6 points in the earlier eras, your museums spawn an explorer every 5 turns. If you got 3 points, they come every 10 turns. Sprinkle a few other relics through the culture tree, or spots which increase the spawn rate, and you could actually create a system that really ties in your earlier era culture progress in the last era.

 

[evonannoredars]

First culture victory attempt, about to win on turn 60 on immortal difficulty. Very much beelined the civics and priortised churning out explorers (probably had a similar amount as the AI, except I strategically spaced them around globally in advance of hegemony instead of having them all walk around in an archaeologist-super-column) and got lucky with a few other narrative events. I wouldn't exactly say it was the most fun, but I advantaged a lot from having settlements across all continents. I think with some balance it'd make a fine victory path (but ofc making the victory itself more interactive would be ideal.)

 

[Dotsworthy]

My general feeling is that VII's culture victory feels lacking as its designed around a yet to be implemented fourth age, with an additional project tacked on at the end to pad it out. I did like the chase to get artifacts, but you can basically cut the modern age in half.

Great works will absolutely be added at some point. I hope they add a lot more variety as that is what I loved most about VI, the amount of different ways to generate tourism, and a need to be diplomatic with the player to get your modifiers.

 

[JTMacc99]

Well science requires you to go thru most of the tree to finish it, where as culture just needs 3? or so civics. Spacing it out so you have to do the same, requiring a good culture gain, would be 1 solution. Of course, if this was done, then i wo

Yes, I think this is a very elegant solution.

My early experience (and not on high level difficulty levels, so take this FWIW) is that going forward I'm going to chase any other victory but Culture because it has proved to be relatively simple to achieve.

I wouldn't change the timing of the first access to artifacts. If you've taken some sort of lead/advantage that gives you a leg up heading into the modern age, I think you should be able to jump on it and grab as many artifacts as possible. This will still require you to sacrifice all sorts of other things to build museums, bang out a world's worth of explorers, and send them all over the place to grab what you can.

So if you choose to chase the culture victory right from the start of the modern age, by moving the second wave of artifacts deeper into the tree, there is more to pay attention to while you're sweating it out. You could put some time into military or economy. My experience with culture is this a complete rush job, where there really isn't a lot of room for a backup plan.

 

[tman2000]

Civ VI had a great culture victory. It was dynamic and tapped into a lot of different game mechanics. People whined that it was too complex; that the game didn't lay out its entire math in front of them even though it was totally sufficient from a strategic perspective to simply pursue the goal "get as much tourism as you can." People also kept crying about an economic victory because every yield needs to have its own little compartmentalized linear victory. God forbid we have to use resources as means to an end or combine mechanics.

This fandom got what it deserves when it comes to victories, imho.

All that VII's culture victory needs to make it more bearable is to tap more into the thing they did with Hegemony. Have multiple such "rounds" of discovering artifacts and make a much smaller share available with Natural History directly. Reward researching the entire civics tree with more artifacts to be unveiled. No deeper mechanical change needed to get the victory into a place where it fits the pacing and depth (or lack thereof) of the other legacy paths, I think.

5's cultural victory was perfection because the UI was so amazing. It was very clear how to pick up artifacts and what impact they had, and it wasn't a rat race, there was some nuance involved. And for a tall oriented game at that.

Your comments on the modern cultural victory resonate with my views on the exploration cultural victory. There should be two phases to culture in these ages. One is establishing the board, which favors beeliners, but non-beeliners can adapt to the board and still triumph. In my view, you should be able to adopt existing religion and trade for relics using gold and military, to use relics as military and trade buffs, while skipping culture and conversion entirely. Likewise, for modern maybe phase one is production to trade for culture, but as excavation cites become scarce, science needs to be spent to gain discoveries from previously excavated artifacts. Thus, if you didn't send out explorers in phase one, you will pay gold to a foreign power, maybe using influence if needed, all to expend science to extract cultural victory points from pre-dug relics. Thing carbon dating, DNA analysis. Though, this is out of the scope of the modern age. You get the idea.

If the fourth age does come about, and it gives us the "true" victory conditions, then culture should leverage ALL ages and require investigation of ruined wonders, religious relics and artifacts. Via expense of influence to get in the door, gold to access directly, and science to understand. That's my ideal. A final age where no victory can depend on beelining or prioritizing one thing, but instead you identify where your mix of advantages are strongest.

 

[tman2000]

It will become the tourist attraction after appearing in Civ7.

Seriously, though, it's good to have less known wonders in the game and it looks like Britain is greatly focused on production, so it makes sense.

It would be disheartening if Britain is a reskin of Prussia or France with...

Battersea
The London Stock Exchange
Ada Lovelace

And... that's it.

 

[tman2000]

I've tried my hand at very mild modding, and the changes that I made were to push explorers back to I think Globalism, and have them only buildable in a city with a museum. Those helped at least force civs to get a little culture research going before they can get explorers.

But I've seen other people with other options for the victory. Forcing you to research each artifact one by one in a museum, limiting explorers and charges, something that forces an investment into culture for you to get the artifacts, all would be better.

The key is to tie culture rushing to a major nerf maybe?

 

[tman2000]

Yes, I think this is a very elegant solution.

My early experience (and not on high level difficulty levels, so take this FWIW) is that going forward I'm going to chase any other victory but Culture because it has proved to be relatively simple to achieve.

I wouldn't change the timing of the first access to artifacts. If you've taken some sort of lead/advantage that gives you a leg up heading into the modern age, I think you should be able to jump on it and grab as many artifacts as possible. This will still require you to sacrifice all sorts of other things to build museums, bang out a world's worth of explorers, and send them all over the place to grab what you can.

So if you choose to chase the culture victory right from the start of the modern age, by moving the second wave of artifacts deeper into the tree, there is more to pay attention to while you're sweating it out. You could put some time into military or economy. My experience with culture is this a complete rush job, where there really isn't a lot of room for a backup plan.

Haha, for me I get 13 or 14 out of the 15 artifacts before they all run out, long before anyone does Ivy or Staffed. AI doesn't seem to ever build the world bank, let alone world's fair.