Tips for a Cultural Victory?

[KMadCandy]

pegino, that depends on how much time you think they'll have left to live in the city before you win. figuring out the amount of time of course takes practice! very early ones are usually best settled. the best place to settle, in theory, is the city that'll hit legendary last. however, i've had games where the city that ends up being the third isn't the one that i originally planned on being one of the top 3; i changed my mind as the game went on. so now, i generally settle in city 2, and city #3 i use the bombs in to catch it up to 1 & 2 at the end. my last game i ended up spreading my bombs out 1 - 3 - 9 or so. my last city had a lot of catching up to do, and always does.

the amount of culture you get per bomb, and the amount you need to hit legendary, depend on game speed. at quick speed, culture bombs are worth a lot more than they are on every other speed. so on quick it might be best to not settle any at all. i don't know for sure, i don't play on quick.

 

[cabert]

about settling vs bombing, you can use a rule of thumb or a big calculator.

Normal speed, a culture bomb is worth 4000 culture.
a settled GA is 12 cpt (+money+other possible benefits, such as +2cpt with sistin, +3 beakers with representation).
SO without bonuses, it takes the GA 333 turns to give you the needed culture.
Now in a cultural game, you WILL get bonuses:
- free speech : 100%
- each cathedral : 50%
- hermitage : 100%

With just liberalism, you need 167 turns to get the 4000 culture.
With lib+1 cathedral, it's 134 turns.
with lib + 2 cathedrals, it's 112 turns.
with lib + 2 cathedrals+hermitage, it's 84 turns.
with lib +4 cathedrals+hermitage, it's down to 67 turns.
with lib+hermitage+4cathedrals and sistin chapel somewhere, it's 58 turns only.

this was the easy part .
now let's try to see how many turns you need to win at a given point.
hum, that's complicated enough to build a calculator. There is a link to such a calculator in goodonut's article.

my rule of thumb : before liberalism, I settle. After, I keep in store for a bomb.

 

[GrandSultan]

Artists late game are nice to bomb in the one city I always find is alittle behind. They work nicely to keep all your cities around the same culture level/culture per turn. Thats nice to minimise the chance something with the AI's could go wrong.

 

[KMadCandy]

*giggle* they say great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ. cabert which do you think we are? i was already searching for a link to that spreadsheet before you posted!

this thread has an excel spreadsheet that you can enter your current figures into and see when your cities would hit legendary, if everything stays as it is on your current turn (which it won't, it'll get better as you improve things). if going into that kind of detail is your thing (it does the math for you, all you do is type things in), and your system can handle tabbing out of civ, it's invaluable for making judgement calls about whether to settling GAs vs. saving for culture bombs, and whether getting just one more GA would help, or if perhaps starving cities a bit would get you enough to speed up the win a few turns. since the win depends on all three ciites, often 1 GA speeds it up but 2-3 won't help, often it would require up to 4 for them all to hit legendary earlier. if you want 2-4, you need to MM the order of the cities that they'll be born in, and how much food you can afford to lose there per turn to run max artists for max GPPs.

that thread.

don't forget to adjust the gamespeed dropdown box for your gamespeed (i've done that, oopsies!). it has helped me a lot. it lets you enter stats for 4 cities, since as i mentioned, my first few games i was surprised to find that a different city (the GA farm) would be a better choice for legendary #3 than the one i'd first thought about. now i just figure GA farm will be #3, and will require the most bombing, but i do still use the spreadsheet to check.

some things that weren't obvious to me as a complete noobie to culture: it's better to build the hermitage in your second best city, not the worst, because it's most helpful where there's more culture to benefit from it, and then you depend on mostly bombing city 3/GA farm, since it won't have the commerce 1 and 2 have. the total amount of food that satellite GA farms can make at max population is not the stat that matters. you want a city that can get the max food per citizen working a tile ratio.

an example of what i mean:

Spoiler :

this city has 12 tiles (more than half) that will never be self-supporting in food, even with windmills and biology. but it produces 28 food with just 8 citizens working tiles, assuming no loss of health. that's awesome! gives me 6 population that doesn't need to work tiles = 63 GPPs per turn) strictly from artist specialists if i'm using parthenon/pacifism/philo leader. and it's not even my main farm, no national epic here. a whopping 4 hammers per turn in that configuration. i had it mostly build missionaries when the temples were complete. i used the missionaries to encourage AI swaps to FR for political reasons (such as making worst enemies friends so that i could trade for health resources, and because i was the only hindu civ at the time), and to use as scouts to update my world map (oh wow they have SAM infantry now, apollo messages will start soon).

that's a city i'd never consider in a normal CE game. but it's lovely for cultural. it gave me 4 GAs and was my backup-to-my-backup GA farm. backup GA was actually one of the top 5 cities at the end of the game, with no wonders at all (even national), go figure. my map had a ton of food, and the AIs didn't grab the spots i wanted. it was basically heaven.

important disclaimer: please read my sig. i consider cultural victories one of my strengths, and i learn more every day. even tho i keep thinking of things to add to this thread, i am far from an expert. what works for me might not work for you, i'd hate to get "-15 You gave me bad advice! so think about my tips, but also consider your own playstyle/what will be most fun for you. do NOT consider them as "the one true way".

 

[OscarWildebeest]

KMC, how do you get away with having the city defended by a single warrior? I'm always panicking, trying to keep my armed forces on a par (or nearly) with my neighbours'.

 

[KMadCandy]

short answer: diplomacy. if my neighbor is monty, restarting. because i am of course incapable of keeping things short, long answer is in a spoiler box.

Spoiler :

oh it's totally fun having warriors, and nooooooo clue how close the AIs are to rocketry until i see SAMs in their cities , since i'm blocked by eleventy billion pre-reqs on the tech tree *giggle*

the screenshot on page 1 is a game with handpicked opponents, they were picked to get along with me and each other, but a bit on the religion-happy side. the religion angle makes it a bit tricky and interesting, but not as dangerous as the aggressive warmonger types. that's the #1 easiest way. cyrus was the odd man out there, he was the one we didn't like (except hatty, they were both jewish) ... he DoW'd mansa even! i can't remember the last time i saw an AI vs. AI war in a handpicked culture game, but i don't usually pick him. anyway...

latest game, turn after the win:

Spoiler :

the DP with fred wasn't needed, i'd been checking to see how many i could get at once for giggles. this is another game with handpicked opponents, but a couple i hadn't tried before.

things that i do with random and with picked opponents: stay NSR/FR if there's not one dominant faith, until just about everybody is in FR themselves, before picking a state religion to run pacifism. i'd rather have the benefit for longer, but sometimes it's not safe. extra great artists won't help me if i'm dead. i check the diplo screen obsessively. if any 2 civs are miffed at each other, i usually cancel ongoing trades (OB/resource deals) with both. the last thing i want is for one of them to come by and demand that i cancel trades; that will get you a -1 with one of them guaranteed. best to do it on my own turn and not get the -1. i trade and make sure everybody is at +4 fair/forthright and +2 years of resources (to the extent possible as far as them getting along). if possible, i do what i can to help them get along. i mentioned somewhere recently, but apparently not this thread, that i gifted churchill liberalism (and one of the pre-reqs) in that game, so that he'd go to FR and then get along with hatty. i wanted her pigs, but i didn't want "traded with worst enemies". it worked. that's not something i'd have thought of a year ago.

lots of people love Liz for cultural. i like her, and have won playing her a number of times. but my favorite trait for culture is spiritual. not for the temples, but for how flexible it lets you be in politics. "change to your religion? absolutely no problem buddy!" wheeeee +1. "use your civic? why didn't i think of that myself!" +1 again. swap from caste to slavery if i want to whip something, etc. gandhi's my favorite leader for culture lately. next try will be roosevelt, and the culture slider isn't allowed to go over 20% *giggle*.

the higher the level you're on, the more likely it is that the AI's will send you a missionary. i think because their production bonuses get so big that they run out of other things to build a lot sooner. i've had emperor+ OCC games where i end up with 4 or 5 AI founded religions in my one city, yeehaw! spiritual is so priceless for that--change when they ask you to, then change back 5 turns later so that the others aren't mad at you. the +1 stays, the -heathen everybody else gave you for those 5 turns goes away.

sometimes somebody gets mean and declares, and i'm totally gonna lose those wars so i quit (victoria i am looking at you ... capture my city 3 turns after i build sistine chapel, that is just plain RUDE!!!!!!). but i put a lot of effort into diplomacy, and if you were watching over my shoulder you might not be able to guess whether i was going for cultural or diplomatic except by the techs i pick . trying the usual "build up the power graph" is too much effort for me, feels like wasted hammers and i'm lazy that way. so i do it by pulling the "i'm harmless and nice and sweet, and we get along so well, don't pick on me ok?" act. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i of course like it better when it works.

 

[cabert]

I'm not playing HoF, so I don't try those extreme strats.
Still I'm rather short on the power graph (best defended city may have 2 LB )when going cultural.
The trick is of course diplomacy.
It's very game dependant, but I'm rather proud of my emperor level/isabella/epic speed cultural win. I founded buddhism, got a Great Priest super fast (stonehenge + oracle ), built the buddhist shrine and let the faith spread like plague.
My neighbours were not of the pacifist kind :
- Alexander
- Tokugawa
- Bismarck

Other leaders in the game :
- mansa musa
- Huyna capac

I was friendly with bismarck and tokugawa (I even trade techs with him!) and alexander, joined alex's war vs mansa musa (all my 2 catapults were send to malian land ), and avoided real wars for most of the game.
I got attacked by HC a few (Epic speed! more than 40!) turns before winning, but I saw it coming and signed a defensive pact with Alex just a few (2?) turns before the DoW. I managed to kill his cavalries and canons with my catapults and muskets (took a lot, drafting and whipping is easier when you're spiritual and running 100% culture ), while alex, then tokugawa, sunk HC's fleet. I tried to sink it by myself, but it takes a lot of caravels to sink a frigate.

 

[KMadCandy]

I founded buddhism, got a Great Priest super fast (stonehenge + oracle ), built the hindu shrine and let the faith spread like plague.

if you found buddhism, you should make the buddhist shrine, not the hindu shrine ! i never build stonehenge for culture victory, i build monuments, and run a priest or 3 if i want to pop a prophet, but i never want more than a couple. 9 out of 10 games i don't make a shrine since it adds GP points when i want pure GA points. would be good for my budget tho. i love seeing all these different things people do!

"drafting and whipping is easier when you're spiritual and running 100% culture" hahahaha true!

 

[The Navy Seal]

Go diplomatic every body will vote for you no matter what.

 

[cabert]

if you found buddhism, you should make the buddhist shrine, not the hindu shrine ! i never build stonehenge for culture victory, i build monuments, and run a priest or 3 if i want to pop a prophet, but i never want more than a couple. 9 out of 10 games i don't make a shrine since it adds GP points when i want pure GA points. would be good for my budget tho. i love seeing all these different things people do!

"drafting and whipping is easier when you're spiritual and running 100% culture" hahahaha true!

I corrected the hindu/buddhist mismatch, and would like you to consider that stonehenge is the cheapest way to get 16 base cpt in a city.
Of course, you don't get the monument's biggest output, but 2 vs 16 is a small loss!

 

[KMadCandy]

I corrected the hindu/buddhist mismatch, and would like you to consider that stonehenge is the cheapest way to get 16 base cpt in a city.
Of course, you don't get the monument's biggest output, but 2 vs 16 is a small loss!

yeah it depends on how fast which city can build stonehenge for me. when i used to contemplate it, only the capital could make it, and that's the city that needs 8/later 16 cpt game-long anyway. i think i don't build SH enough even in normal games, if i have stone i might but often it's just an automatic "nah not that". and i shouldn't be playing on automatic!

i love the list of your friends. my currrent game, inland seas/OCC rest random, isabella just DoW'd me. she chose unwisely. she's the only buddhist. my tech lead let me bribe in my friends alex, monty, huayna, bismarck, and toku (almost exactly your list). we're all conf. literally the entire world is now at war with her. i'm having a lot of fun! but boy i'd hate to see these guys in a game i did plan on a culture win *giggle*.

 

[Wodan]

If going for a cultural victory, which one is better use for Great Artists: plant them as super specialists, or launch one-time culture bombs?

Depends on how close to winning you are. Generally, a good rule of thumb is that if you're already at the point where you crank the culture slider to 100%, then save your GAs for bombing.

Wodan