Utopia project..- How to get there?

[spironline]

Been playing CIV since 1990. Hooked ever since...

If I got it right I will ned 5x6 SPs to build the Utopia Project for a cultural victory. Given he increased cost per own city & new SP, this seems all but unattainable..?

Perhaps playing with just one or two cities would do the trick, but that seems SOOOOO boring! Which leaves just two strategies: going-on-the-rampage forever battling unhappiness or science-maximising with 10 cities and never going to war...

Any thoughts, you CIV addicts?

 

[TM Moot]

I've just won my first civ V cultural victory (with Napoleon).

I feared it could of been a dull game, but I actually enjoyed it more then I thought I would.

Only founded 2 cities (Paris and Orleans). Puppeted 14 others, 6 in my initial classic age expansion and the rest in counter-attacks after beating off invading AI's.

Just make sure you build the 4 must have cultural Wonders (Stonehenge, Oracle, Sistine Chapel and Cristo Redentor) & select the right Policies (Freedom and Piety plus 3 others). Also, ally with cultural CS's.

 

[elthrasher]

Going to war a lot is the best way to win a culture victory. Just puppet (or raze if you must) all the cities you conquer. Puppets will contribute culture but won't raise your SP costs. It's possible to do this with only one settled city, but easy enough to use 2-4.

 

[ArataWata11]

just complete 5 policies. I won cultural victory with 12 and 5 puppeted cities as India. I completed 5 policies around 90s and finished building utopia project in middle 2000.

winning cultural victory for me is just matter of strategy and planning. choose civ that has ability to earn more culture like the aztec or france or india, build wonder that helps you earn culture, haja sopia, redemtor and especially the opera house of australia (forgot the name, sorry) which gives you free policy, similarly, chooce policy that helps you earn more culture like the pious policy.

 

[azzaron]

Ignore elthrasher, he's wrong. Puppeting a city will increase your SP costs. TM Moot gives you the basic strategy which you should follow.

TM Moot said that he went 16 cities... but that definitely depends on what map size you're on. Try to keep the city count as low as possible - grow big cities instead. I usually try to stick to a smallish core of cities (maybe 6-8) for as long as possible. I still war to keep the AIs down, but I'll raze cities instead of puppeting them.

 

[elthrasher]

Ignore elthrasher, he's wrong. Puppeting a city will increase your SP costs.

I beg your pardon, but I've done this quite a lot. There are a few threads around here wherein players complain that puppets are too strong for precisely this reason.

 

[snarzberry]

Going to war a lot is the best way to win a culture victory. Just puppet (or raze if you must) all the cities you conquer. Puppets will contribute culture but won't raise your SP costs. It's possible to do this with only one settled city, but easy enough to use 2-4.

You say that warring a lot is the best way to win a cultural victory. I do personally detest this new model in Civ 5 where a lot of people are still war-mongering to obtain a cultural victory. I prefer a cultural victory to be a peaceful victory - an alternative to war.

But that aside, I just want to question your claim that warring is the best way. By best I assume you mean is more efficient, gets you the win sooner or is more likely to provide you with a win than any other way. On deity level it's been proven that it is possible to win in significantly less than 300 turns on standard-everything cont/pan settings in a peaceful, one-city set up. I'm not saying that this is impossible to replicate or surpass with a violent approach, but I've not seen the evidence.

I wish there was more depth to building a culture driven empire of a small size, so I'm hoping for something like a new religious system to come along in a patch and save the day.

 

[seasnake]

Culture Victory?

First, select Siam

Second, bribe every cultured city state

Third, Max out Piety, Tradition, Freedom, Patronage and 2 Other Social Policies.

Fourth, build the Oracle, Sistine Chapel and Cristo Redentor (I did it without Stonehenge, but of course that can only help).

Fifth, keep your empire smallish, 2 - 6 cities depending.

Tradition will get you the Wonder discount bonuses and keep your smaller empire (with cheaper social policies) productive, Piety will get you the free policies and the culture from excess happiness, extra culture in Freedom, Patronage will max out the Siamese bonus, make it easy for you to be an ally to 6 or 7 Cultured City States. Combine with the Siamese extra culture from CS and you'll win.

 

[Shadow717]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned sydney opera house on the list of "must have" wonders, doesn't that give 2 free policies? I know in my cultural victory as India that was critical to me getting utopia before the time expired. However that said, I almost ran out of time, which I suspect most people do not. I wasn't as effecient as I could have been, maybe everyone considers it to come too late in the game?

 

[timtofly]

Does it not just depend on your "comfort" zone? Between Settler And Diety you have a range where you get a head start or the AI gets a head start. Both the people fed up with the game and those who play the game agree that the AI is the same in all catagories. I am working on my settler acheivement and although settler is way below my comfort zone, here is what you can do in the easiest mode: I have about 100 cities and have a presence on all continents of a terra map. I chose to only play against England, China, and Russia (cat fight). It has been a fun empire building game. I have had no battles to fight other than when I DoW to get the "I can has nuke acheivment". I reloaded the game and have continued the peaceful empire building game I have played from the beginning. I finished the tech race around turn 200 and have been getting future tech's since. With the 1.141 patch I now receive less gold per turn, but I am getting a SP every 4 turns. Before the game is over, I will probably get all of the SP tree acheivments. I have had the ability to build the Utopian Project since the 1850's. I do not puppet, but I have 16 CS allies. Some people have perfected the game and can play against 12 AI and Conquer before 1AD. I myself like the empire building aspect. Settler may be too easy, but I will build up to Deity eventually and enjoy the game for the next 5 years.

 

[snarzberry]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned sydney opera house on the list of "must have" wonders, doesn't that give 2 free policies? I know in my cultural victory as India that was critical to me getting utopia before the time expired. However that said, I almost ran out of time, which I suspect most people do not. I wasn't as effecient as I could have been, maybe everyone considers it to come too late in the game?

I'm not sure if it gives two SP's or only one, I thought only one. The reason I'm not sure is, as you say, it comes so late that the game is usually over well before then. But if you were still struggling on then there would definitely be a time when it was worth going after. Perhaps if a player on lower levels was going for a puppeting/domination win and found that it was not working, that late game they could shift into a cultural win mode and included SOH as a part of that revised strategy. Not sure if that's feasible. Civ 5 is definitely lacking in the flexibility department so possibilities such as that would be welcome.

 

[elthrasher]

You say that warring a lot is the best way to win a cultural victory. I do personally detest this new model in Civ 5 where a lot of people are still war-mongering to obtain a cultural victory. I prefer a cultural victory to be a peaceful victory - an alternative to war.

But that aside, I just want to question your claim that warring is the best way. By best I assume you mean is more efficient, gets you the win sooner or is more likely to provide you with a win than any other way. On deity level it's been proven that it is possible to win in significantly less than 300 turns on standard-everything cont/pan settings in a peaceful, one-city set up. I'm not saying that this is impossible to replicate or surpass with a violent approach, but I've not seen the evidence.

I haven't really been able to handle deity since the last patch, so I can't comment on that. I can do a violent culture win in less than 300 turns on immortal using the Aztecs, Songhai or Romans, maybe with any civ. It could be the one city thing is faster, though I think it would be hard to prove one way or the other. I think warmongering is easier, but maybe that's just me. Also gives you a little more to do during the game.

I agree with you that there should be peaceful means and I recognize that there are, but I don't feel they are very well fleshed-out and they don't hold a lot of interest for me. I play a violent game not so much because that's how I prefer to play but because that's how I prefer to play this game. The elements of war seem most fleshed-out.

 

[Samuil]

I won a cultural victory with Napoleon...
Was on an island alone, built 5 cities and focused on culture and hapiness (it increases culture with one piety civic)
Once you have all 5 trees completed, you need to build a wonder (utopia project)
The game was fun, I was at war with superior tech enemies that nuked me several times
I still won though

 

[vexing]

I'm not saying that this is impossible to replicate or surpass with a violent approach, but I've not seen the evidence.

my diety culture victory as songhai with 5 puppets won in the 1600s. i wasn't lucky enough to get the oracle either.

 

[Harvestmoon]

Bollywoooooooood!

 

[snarzberry]

my diety culture victory as songhai with 5 puppets won in the 1600s. i wasn't lucky enough to get the oracle either.

Then I guess warfare is the best way.

That would make it the best way to pursue all victory types. I want to see some balance so that some peaceful strats can compete.

 

[elthrasher]

Then I guess warfare is the best way.

That would make it the best way to pursue all victory types. I want to see some balance so that some peaceful strats can compete.

It's my opinion that warfare is the best way to go and often was in Civ IV as well. You wouldn't have to be constantly at war to get the same result in Civ IV.

I agree that there should be alternatives. I think it's a tricky puzzle. My neighbor builds some cities and puts buildings in them and improves his tiles and builds some wonders and then I roll in and take everything and now all that good stuff he had is mine. How do you make staying home and working on culture as good as that?

The real problem in Civ V is that you don't have to constantly churn out new units like you did in Civ IV. It's kind of a "fire and forget" system. I use a couple dozen turns at the start of the game building military, launch them and then sit back and build infrastructure.

Maybe bring back war weariness or something.

 

[_hero_]

Ignore elthrasher, he's wrong. Puppeting a city will increase your SP costs. TM Moot gives you the basic strategy which you should follow.

TM Moot said that he went 16 cities... but that definitely depends on what map size you're on. Try to keep the city count as low as possible - grow big cities instead. I usually try to stick to a smallish core of cities (maybe 6-8) for as long as possible. I still war to keep the AIs down, but I'll raze cities instead of puppeting them.

Puppets do not contribute to SP cost but do increase culture. Annexed cities do contribute to SP cost but puppets do not. I just won a cultural game with 37 puppets and 2 cities of my own.

 

[joyous_gard]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned sydney opera house on the list of "must have" wonders, doesn't that give 2 free policies? I know in my cultural victory as India that was critical to me getting utopia before the time expired. However that said, I almost ran out of time, which I suspect most people do not. I wasn't as effecient as I could have been, maybe everyone considers it to come too late in the game?

It all depends what is "essential." Different games have different needs. There have been games where it was better for me to tech Broadcast Tower instead of Cristo Redentor since I had the economy to rushbuy all my broadcast towers and that would have had a greater effect, sooner, than the cristo redentor. I've also had games where the Sydney Opera House has been important too, but there it is more because I "wanted" a culture win vs a diplomacy victory.

My essentials usually are
1) 1-4 settler built or annexed cities (I like 3)
1) Stonehenge and a wonder in all free cities (Oracle is nice)
2) not delaying Monument-->Temple-->Opera-->Museum too long in all my cities so I can get hermitage
3) Hermitage in largest culture city.
4) I take the left two Freedom SPs as soon as I can because they double culture and reduce SP time
5) if I do those, I am usually set but Cristo is awesome and so are broadcast towers. I also sometimes put down great people but not recently.


To what others have said about warring and culture... Maintaining a low number of cities and capturing the rest simply leaves options on the table... if you build too many of your own cities then you take yourself out of the culture victory. Not sure what the max cities is, but it does get harder at 5 (but is still possible).

 

[cccv]

Perhaps playing with just one or two cities would do the trick, but that seems SOOOOO boring!

Actually, don't knock it til you've tried it. I decided I may as well knock out the OCC and Bollywood achievements at once, so I did a OCC with India, of course going for the culture win. It was a fun game. I won before even getting to the Christo tech. I had so many GPs that I spent the last 45 or so turns in a neverending golden age, and my one city had a giant blob of territory that wasn't too far from being as large as the empires surrounding me.