there is no point in playing cultural with a small empire anymore

there is no point in playing cultural with a small empire anymore. cultural wins are way harder than the other wins now. i just don't get it. with the patch everything is screwed. the hermitage is almost useless and so are the broadcast towers. if you complete it, the piety branch doesn't give 2 free social policies like it was. how are we suppose to win through culture? i just don't see any advantage in playing with a small empire.

 

Well it's harder to win cultural with a big empire so...

 

Just like every patch for any game, ever. Something is going to become weaker and something is going to become stronger; you can either A) continue playing the way you want to B) Play the 'OP' way C) play the 'UP' way. Previously culture victories required minimal effort, now they require a little more focus. While they may not be immensely easy anymore they are hardly out of reach -- with the exception of on large deity quick maps I want to say, lol.

 

I don't get it? Like someone already said it's harder to get a cultural win with a big empire.

I always go for 3 or 4 cities if I'm going for a cultural win. At most.

 

Broadcast Towers were fairly useless pre-patch because you could pretty much win a cultural victory before you had researched them.

You can still win through culture, it will just take a lot longer than it used to.

 

Beeline Representation before you expand, and your cost for expansion (required culture for SP-wise) will be greatly reduced. This permits moderate expansion, while still permitting a Cultural victory in reasonable time.

 

It's still viable, it's just not as obvious as before.

 

Actually this is correct, its far faster to win by diplo or tech than by culture. I played 2 casual OCC games on a standard emperor pangaea to test it 1st game win by culture turn 309, 2nd game by diplo turn 265. Pretty big difference there. i was getting over 700 culture per turn and it was taking 10+ turns for the last few policies

 

I wonder what the breakpoints are where cities are making it faster rather than slower post-Representation. I imagine it'd be more difficult to calculate, but not impossibly so.

 

Does Bee lining Representation have much of a benefit before you place your 2nd city? it was my understanding once Representation was taken it took into account your already built cities. So if you had built 3 cities it would go from 30% to 20% cost of all future policies.

 

It is possible, you just have to be aware of certain aspects needed for a culture win.

You have to stay ahead in tech in order to build critical wonders

Your main culture city (Most likely Capital) must be on a coast to benefit from the Sydney Opera House.

Every city besides the capital must have a wonder in it to be considered productive. (Piety Bonus)

Great Artists have been greatly buffed with the Freedom Finisher. Combined with an early Hermitage you should easily be able to complete 3 trees before even hitting late game wonders such as Cristo Redenter & Opera House, not to mention Broadcast Towers.

Yes Piety has been restructured, but in reality so has the SP system, it seems to me that it is a more constant influx of culture, rather than a big boost toward the end of the game.

 

Yeah, definitely viable, played 3 culture wins since the patch.

But I still don't get the question, because before the patch it was also quite impossible to get a culture win with a big empire. So I wonder what the topicstarter means?
Or does he mean a culture victory with a OCC instead of a small empire?

 

Agreed, it's viable. I won a cultural victory much earlier than I was used to....around 1750 AD. Normally my culture victories came in 2000 AD or so. You do have to hog the wonders with bonus culture though (Stonehenge, Great Wall, Louvre, etc).

 

Some people are saying they have kind of stumbled into Culture Victory opportunities with large Empires, on another thread one guy was saying he nearly got one with 25 Cities!

 

This is exactly the case. It doesn't matter if you build your cities before or after Representation because it's applied retroactively to all cities you already have.

 

Welcome to 21st century gaming. The internet allows developers to release untested bug riddled games and then they spend forever patching to fix one issue while offsetting another.

Don't worry, a fix will come along. Just don't ask what will break when they fix it!

Moderator Action: Such posts without content besides "tHiS gAmE is b0rken!!11" are considered spam.

 

The only true *change* to culture is that it is now viable with a semi-large empire. Meaning it isn't limited to OCC or 2-3 Cities anymore. You can play aggressively and still win a culture victory.

 

It's not that hard. In my first game I played, I had originally started out wanting to do domination until I found myself on an Island. I actually totally switched gears midstream and eked out culture win at about 2020 or so,

 

basically, what i'm saying is that the patch makes the cultural win too hard to accomplish. if i play with a small empire, i won't attack enough so that i can have a decent amount of culture from killing (i think it's an advantage in the honor branch, which btw makes the Aztecs even less appealing) and if i play with a big empire, i can't rely on the broadcast towers which are now useless. in any case, cultural victories are almost out of reach lol.

 

St. Petersburg: 44 population
Moscow: 36 population
Rostov: 27 population

Won a Science then a Domination Victory with those. There's certainly an advantage to tall empires.