Tried out the new cultural game. Can't see why it doesn't go my way.

[Nargluj]

Hello.

Since the cultural part of the game got reworked I decided to try it out. I've enjoyed it more than the old "Turtle up, build wonders and hope no one knows I exist.".

It's a Immortal, Standard speed, Standard size, Continents map, Korea

Thought some additional science would be nice to compensate for the AI's advantages.

The thing is, I thought I played it well, but I don't seem to get much influence over the other civs. I'm not sure why it is so. It's 1932 AD, I got the Internet and China's building space ship parts. She got 3 parts left, I got LOTS OF influence left. As of now, it would be faster to abandon culture, nuke China, ban nukes and build the space ship myself

Maybe they got lots of culture (I'm winning the city states quests for culture)? They got the key wonders? Else?

Please give me some hints here.

I'll try to attach some screen shots and the save.

(If they're bad, please tell me.)

 

[budweiser]

Yes, how much culture did the biggest one manage to make during the game?

Make sure to keep tabs on the leader through out and maybe take some diplomatic steps to slow them down. he he.

Also do you have trade routes, open border and a diplomat in place? This is crucial to get uou over the top. lastly do the music concerts to finish it.

If you dont have it by 352, its not going to work.

Also dont split your guilds or you great work vessels, keep it in one city. Try to get a few more great works out there. Did you finish the art tree quickly?

Faith is a little low, try for 50 FTP.

That was a good try.

 

[dragonxxx]

he has different ideology (guess he is freedom, china is order) and only one of : diplomat, open b and trade routes. Its visible from the screenshot.

If you are far away from them - make a settler and settle somewhere near em ( city is enough to get caravan goin, so you get 25% bonus). and you have to pay for open borders the whole game after you get some tourism going.

More FPT would be nice as well, as u can buy 2-3 musicians to bomb tourism at the end.

Raw tourism seems rather low btw. Do you have National Visitor center and airports ?

 

[Nargluj]

Yes, how much culture did the biggest one manage to make during the game?

Make sure to keep tabs on the leader through out and maybe take some diplomatic steps to slow them down. he he.

Also do you have trade routes, open border and a diplomat in place? This is crucial to get uou over the top. lastly do the music concerts to finish it.

If you dont have it by 352, its not going to work.

Also dont split your guilds or you great work vessels, keep it in one city. Try to get a few more great works out there. Did you finish the art tree quickly?

Faith is a little low, try for 50 FTP.

That was a good try.

I've trade routes with all but Austria and China (Embargoed). Open borders with all who lets me (pretty much all but Austria and China again). Got diplomats in place where they're needed the most. +1 or 2 in my own city to protect tech.

Embargoed Austria and China (bought votes and put gold in CS) to slow them down.

Why I thought putting one of the guilds in second town was good was because I wasn't sure if I had enough food to keep cap rolling nicely. Didn't really think about stacking +gp % at that time.

Have stacked most great works in my capital. Been moving around to try which places gives most culture and tourism.

Finished aesthetics right after tradition. Got last policy in freedom (one for + tourism %).

Got no faith because I didn't get a fair shot at a religion. Both Maya and the Celts are over zealous with their faith so I would just spend lots of time and get no where with it.

 

[kamikazees]

I think your tourism is about 1/2 of what it should be. By T350 you should really be maxing tourism.

Did you build the guilds early? Did you max out the Aesthetics policy branch? Any policies in Piety?

It looks like Seoul is pretty maxed out on specialists, but I don't see any airports and hotels in your cities. Do you have them? You need to prioritize those as well. How about landmarks? Archeology sites?

I play on Immortal too. Culture games are typically slow starts (not really much happening until the Industrial era), but really take off when you get Hotels, Airports and the Internet. Gotta give those tourists something to do, right?

When you get your tourism in the 700+ range (or even 1000), you typically want to get great musicians (spawned or faith bought) and bomb the cultural leader, either through open borders or by Dow'ing him/her. You will catch up quickly to their cultural output that way.

 

[dragonxxx]

I looked at the save, and you indeed have no National Visitors Center. Even as your tourism is split like that, you could have at least 200 more TPT with it. I assume you could have had it at least 50 turns ago

Also, not going full rationalism is a mistake, culture victory is still a science game
Last but not least, you produced a Great Merchant and even planted a Great Engineer ...

 

[Nargluj]

I got guilds, hotels and airports fast (no beeline, had a bit military to think about, but still took a fast route there.) in my two biggest cities. Got it in my third city when I had time (maybe 15-25 turns delayed), didn't have much culture and tourism there.

About archaeology sites and landmarks. I didn't have any sites in range from my cities, got 2 from nearby and 'borrowed' 3 from others.

I didn't go anything in piety since I had the Calts and Maya as neighbours. Waste of time and military to try to fend those two fanatics.

As for policies I went Tradition --> Aesthetics --> Rationalism till Ideology --> Freedom down to + tourism in tier three --> other stuff

 

[Nargluj]

I looked at the save, and you indeed have no National Visitors Center. Even as your tourism is split like that, you could have at least 200 more TPT with it. I assume you could have had it at least 50 turns ago

Also, not going full rationalism is a mistake, culture victory is still a science game
Last but not least, you produced a Great Merchant and even planted a Great Engineer ...

Got the tech for National Visitors Centre about 6 turns ago? Maybe 12? I was building a nuke which I really wanted to get done. Was feeling a war with Germany was imminent. Done next turn.

Or maybe I just forgot about it. X)

Gotta has them nukes.


About other great people. Does those increase the cost for others or just themselves? I usually don't play culture. Still another miss.

 

[dragonxxx]

well, its in the tech before internet. And Internet is the most important tech for CV
So after Plastics, you basicly have to beeline for Internet and then fill up the rest. Its only 5-6 techs usually, so you can bulb most of it with a few scientists.

Merchant, Scientist and Engineer share the same points, so when you make a merchant u increase the cost of the other 2.

 

[chazzycat]

350 is too late, it should be over by 320 at the latest. did you time the international games with internet and try to get some musicians out? that's the key part of culture victories IMO.

other things:
- try to get all tourism wonders in your capital if possible. the effect of national visitor center is huge. splitting the wonders up 50/50 is fine but put the tourism ones in your cap and the non-tourism ones elsewhere.
- empty slots in Ufizi makes me sad. at least get some artifacts in there if you cant get the art theming bonus. you should never have empty art/artifact slots at the end game.
- i can't see a single landmark in your territory. did you just get unlucky? or did you turn those into artifacts? Landmarks are way better if they are within working range of one of your cities.

 

[Nargluj]

well, its in the tech before internet. And Internet is the most important tech for CV
So after Plastics, you basicly have to beeline for Internet and then fill up the rest. Its only 5-6 techs usually, so you can bulb most of it with a few scientists.

Merchant, Scientist and Engineer share the same points, so when you make a merchant u increase the cost of the other 2.

As far as I noticed, the cultural gp are all independent, right or wrong?


Didn't know about the internet boosting tourism before I began, got it as a happy surprise somewhere one or two 'tiers' behind when I read it. Think I still took a fast road there... ...maybe.

 

[dragonxxx]

Yeah, they are independant.
Well overall I think you had to speed up the science a bit (not having +17% bonus for univercities is something I don't understand. You have also no Consulates (these are sick for culture), but instead you have two other points in the Patronage tree.

Also, to be honest, Aestetics is fine to open, and then finish it at the end. Not straight filling it. Rationalistm is way more important. Especially as you do not have a lot FPT to buy musicians.

Still, China is so far away, that these musicians would not have been THAT good anyway.

 

[Nargluj]

Thanks for all the advices. Feel a lot different now than GnK. Didn't know science was that much important.

I feel the purpose of the game was full filled, learn the new culture game.

Probably going to finish it with diplo. since I've got almost enough votes already.

 

[homegrown]

Thanks for all the advices. Feel a lot different now than GnK. Didn't know science was that much important.

I feel the purpose of the game was full filled, learn the new culture game.

Probably going to finish it with diplo. since I've got almost enough votes already.

Which is how quite a few of my immortal cv's end up... diplo victory. It's usually one runaway wonderwhore halfway across the planet.

 

[Nargluj]

Which is how quite a few of my immortal cv's end up... diplo victory. It's usually one runaway wonderwhore halfway across the planet.

Maybe it's time to begin to appreciate a good naval attack and landing. Maybe Denmark and Songhai is not as bad as we've thought they where?

edit: To get to the other side of the world, naval movement is good.

 

[Deau]

If you don't have a high faith yield, you want to skip over Broadway and musician guild all together until the internet. Concert Tours is your only way to catch up to culture runaways. If you ought to produce GMs all game long, you will typically need at least 5k faith piled up when Internet kicks in to buy great musicians and bomb the furthest culture runaways.


As others mentioned, T350 internet is far too late. CV, currently is all about earliest turn-to Internet because the NVC/Internet combination skyrocket your TPT yield. But also because unlike all other VCs, you are racing against an always increasing total from your opponents and not a static total number of beakers (SV) or timely gold dump (diplo). Thus, the slower you get there, the harder it is to reach the finish line. Try to jump into rationalism right away (at least opener + secularism) even if it delays putting anymore than 1 point into aesthetics.

Beyond this, due to NVC, CV is extremely capital-centric. You typically want to try as much to get the culture wonders all in your capital. For instance, Uffizi/broadway should not have been in a satellite city unless it is otherwise impossible to build them on time due to building queue piling up in cap. You should typically consider spending gold to rush-buy infrastructure in cap rather than satellite cities so as to leave more time to build wonders there (at least when you have the science buffer to hard build wonders).

 

[budweiser]

But also because unlike all other VCs, you are racing against an always increasing total from your opponents and not a static total number of beakers (SV) or timely gold dump (diplo). Thus, the slower you get there, the harder it is to reach the finish line.

This is only because the current line of thought does not consider aggression to stifle enemy cultural gain.

Why did Napoleon attack Austria, Egypt and Russia of all places? Because they were cultural juggernauts.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

To free Europe from the shackles of monarchy?

I wouldn't put all my guilds in one city, too hard to staff them all.

 

[kb27787]

no landmarks really hurt but that's just bad luck.
A couple landmarks with some WC proposals easily equal one whole filled Louvre with a hotel and airport; if you have several of them near your capitol, it's like you were a wonderwhore even though you weren't.

 

[Buccaneer]

To free Europe from the shackles of monarchy?

I wouldn't put all my guilds in one city, too hard to staff them all.

Not really, the key to culture (apart from NVC/Internet ending) is science and growth. Science to get to the key wonders early and to the end early. Growth to run all of the science and GWAM specialists possible. I'll add another key - don't let anyone else build the Great Firewall.