Is cultural victory too hard to achieve?

[alcibiades]

This is something that has bugged me for a while: I think cultural victory is incredibly hard to achieve, in fact almost if not really impossible. Now I know it can be done so don't come rushing in saying 'I have done it so there is not a problem' (I've done it myself also), but I still think it's too hard.

First off, completing 5 policy trees requires 30 policies. That's a pretty damn lot! Even if you subtract the odd free policies (Oracle and Sydney Opera House, is there one in Piety also?), it's still 27 you have to get. And even if you get to aquire all those policies, you have to build the massively expensive Utopia Project (and you can't use GE to rush it along).

One of the issues I have with CV is that it obviously appeals to small focused empires (3 cities or less) because otherwise, policy cost grows pretty quickly off the board. However, very small civs inevitably suffer on Science: Science is one of the only features in game that does not scale with empire size, so if you have few cities and hence low science output, you will have trouble keeping up with the big guys. One of the most powerful ways to help that is by going Rationalism, but Rationalism excludes Piety (and vice versa), and Piety seems like an almost necessary means to achieve Cultural Victory.

I've had some pretty bizarre experiences while trying to win my first One City challenge, a game mode where Cultural Victory seems like the obvious target. Most of the times, I perish because I fall behind on science. One time, I actually managed to finish all 30 policies and then started constructing the UP, only to loose when I was 4 turns from finishing it - because the game was out of time, and I was only #2 on the leader board. That was excruciating.

I had a similarly strange experience the other day, again playing OCC and aiming for a cultural victory. However, this time I played Babylon and went Rationalism to keep up with science (which actually worked, the combination of a very early Academy courtesy of free Great Scientist, and Great Library and Oracle made me stay ahead in science almost entire game, in spite of having only one city), only to realize in modern era that the loss of Piety ment there was no way I could achieve 30 Policies, even though I had 20+ World Wonders in my city (including all the important cultural ones except Sydney Opera House, which I couldn't build as I was not costal located). So a bit desperately I shifted horse and went for Science Victory, which I manged one turn before Korea would have finished their space ship! How bizarre is it that it's easier to win a Science victory than a cultural victory with only one city - a game setup that would hugely favor cultural victory?

So what do the rest of you think - is there a problem with Cultural victory - and if so, what needs to be changed? Personally I think Policy cost in late game is way too high - even with Broadcast Towers and Cristo Redentor, it's very slow to progress with policies in late game. Also, I think there should be more ways to get free policies and I think the Utopia Project needs to be cut down in price.

[Kukulcán]

Not at all. Its possible to win culturally even on Deity with OCC.

Myself I have only accomplished it on immortal. You just have to balance tech as well and focus on great artists more.

[istry555]

I think the main concern for a cultural victory is that you really need to decide to be going that path from turn one. To achieve it in a reasonable time, it's also more dependent on choosing specific policies first and hitting specific wonders. It's not something you can just decide later on and shift focus. There's more leeway with conquest, science, and diplomacy (gold). So, it is harder in the sense that you have to play a much more specific game to win by that path, though I'm not decided if that also translates to harder as compared to the other victories.

[Joketa]

Personally, I think it's the easiest victory, but maybe that's because it's always been been my favorite kind of victory and so I have a lot of experience with it. For one thing, you don't have to do so much happiness management. In fact, I rarely build so much as a circus unless I end up doing a lot of puppeting. Puppeting is one way to offset the loss of science and gold from having only a few cities, but I've won plenty of times without a single puppet. Remember that puppeted cities don't add to your policy costs.

It is true that you have to pretty much decide to go for a cultural victory from turn 1, or at least before the Classical Era. The best advice I can give you is start and finish the Piety tree as soon as it becomes available. I usually start Tradition, move to Piety, finish Tradition, and then move onto Freedom. There's also another approach in which you start off with both Tradition and Liberty before moving onto Piety. You can then come back and use Legalism to get up to four free Opera Houses and finish off Liberty just in time to get a key late-game Wonder.

Another key is focusing on artist specialists. Make sure your capital has plenty of room to plop down lots of Landmarks. Once you finish Freedom, each landmark is worth 12 base culture points. This is far more than any Wonder. In fact, you can win without building a single wonder as long as you get the Hermitage. That said, one of the most helpful Wonders is actually the Hanging Gardens. Build it, use the extra food to production focus while you build wonders and food focus to grow tall while you're not. Then use it to support all your specialists once you've got a large enough city.

If you have Korea, then I suggest trying them out for a CV. They are by far the easiest to win a CV with. They get extra Science from all specialists and Landmarks. Playing on any level below Immortal, I can use Korea with just two cities and still be ahead of everyone else in Science while going for a CV.

[Schuesseled]

why are you having difficulty getting science from a small number of cities, science comes from population. (you can have a high population, in a small number of cities.)

[Akinaba]

My two cents (actually copecks ) in CV discussion.

I also think that CV is the most easy victory to acheeve, maybe because it was two my first ones I ever won in Civ V... Howerver...

I won my first CV playing by Alexander by Greece. I cleary believe that you need to decide win a CV from the very beginning. Concentrate on Landmarks and Specialists is important too, but as said you need to enshure that you can provide all your specialists with food obviously. Another important thing is some certain World Wonders, that not only provide you with food or happiness but also help to spawn Great Artists faster.

Talking back about Alexander I used his trait of improoved influence on City States to get ally with all cultural CS and get their culture then. This game was also interestnig as though I really had to care about their defense, and relations with other civs. Protectorate somehow...

[PachaMinnie]

Victory types always depend on your play style, I like to dig down with 2 cities. build wonders, and collect culture. Therefore culture is the easiest for me. Some people however like to build big empires and focus on science and war. Therefore Science is easier. For me science is a rare victory type for me. I do not like building big empires nor focusing on tech. I usually play on small or tiny, sometimes standard, or putting 4 civs on a duel map. Most of the time I take empires instead of settling them.

My first culture was Siam I think. I was playing on like settler because it was my first Civ 5 game ever and I took over all of Asia, Europe, some of Oceania , Some of North America, and some of South America. So on settler culture victories are very easy.

[SamBC]

Not tripping, just forgot how to do maths. Ignore me for now...

[Artifex]

One of the issues I have with CV is that it obviously appeals to small focused empires (3 cities or less)

Then you "obviously" don't know how puppets work

[Jazzterisk]

A culture victory used to be the easiest to achieve in the initial release but the devs did a bunch of tweaking with the subsequent patches and it's now much more of a challenge I find.

[tejon]

Heh... right after that major culture rebalance, there was a bug where the newly-introduced track capstones were counting as additional policies when determining subsequent costs. I played and won a game before they fixed that. Cultural victory. :P

[Joketa]

Heh... right after that major culture rebalance, there was a bug where the newly-introduced track capstones were counting as additional policies when determining subsequent costs. I played and won a game before they fixed that. Cultural victory. :P

Yeah, there was a short period of time right after a major revamp when culture costs went through the roof.

[Jazzterisk]

Heh... right after that major culture rebalance, there was a bug where the newly-introduced track capstones were counting as additional policies when determining subsequent costs. I played and won a game before they fixed that. Cultural victory. :P

I don't remember that. How long was the bug in before they corrected it?

[Gooner]

I think the cultural victory is one of the harder victories to achieve, especially on the easier levels. However, on the harder difficulty levels the conquest and diplomatic victories are much harder to achieve, especially on a larger map.

I don't like the diplomatic victory at all in Civ 5. I'd prefer they went back to the Civ 4 idea of only civilisations voting and having to do a lot for a rival civilisation to vote for you. The idea of city states voting for you automatically if you're allied with them and the AI refusing to vote for you makes the diplomatic victory more of a 'who has the most cash to bribe city states' victory.

G&K will correct this to some extent though I believe.

[cahtush]

It all has to do with playstyles, i find the science victory to be the easiest and the war one the hardest, due to having a small number but very well devloped cities and minimal millitary early on. I just always play this way by default.

Mabey cv isint good for your playstyle.

[alcibiades]

Well the reason I find it hard is because, like I said in opening post which apparantly most people didn't bother reading, I either lose out to science victory from an opponent or runs out of game time without having acquired the sufficient number of policies. Problem might be science victory is too easy, but I find 9/10 games that's how I win, unless I conciously decide to go for something else.

And yes, the times I have aimed for CV I have decided from day one that's what I wanted, I know that is necessary. I also think I play pretty dedicated towards that goal entire game, trying to pick my policies and wonders always to maximize culture gain. I might not have put enough emphasis on great artists, I tend to favor Great Engineers and Great Scienties because GE = free wonder (benefit + culture), and GS because I find it hard to keep up with science with only 1-3 cities. I also might not have realised before my latest game how powerful Hanging Gardens is (I usually miss that one), because the free food makes it possible to dedicate population to tiles that create production hence making Wonder production a lot easier.

Someone asked why I found science a problem with few cities. I know that Science comes from population, but cities don't grow that much faster because you have fewer of them, so generally there will be a strong correlation between number of cities and number of total citizens, and hence science production. It might not be so in early stages of game, but in late game, from my experience larger empires inevitably has a science advantage over smaller empires. As for pupeted cities, I guess that's a way to circumvent some of those features, but obviously you can found those yourself.

The reason why I made this topic was that I find it ironic that I would think my playstyle exactly would suite CV (small empire, wonder hoarder, fully develop cities, not going to war if avoidable), and yet it seems I have to conciously sidestep Science Victory in order to have CV. I just find that ... odd. But maybe the problem is another one, perhaps Science Victory comes too easily. Or maybe I'm just even more science oriented.

[Kukulcán]

Plant several academies too. SIgn Research agreements. Etc. Its not hard to keep up Science even without Babylon. I have done well in Cultural games even without Piety as well. Sometimes I wanted to go Rationalism and did.

Remember to build granaries, water mills, and the Hanging Gardens (and Aqueducts). Building Mega Cities 1-3 is what you should aim for. Population growth and emphasis is essential of course. You want cities at least at 20 population before you start too much of a heavy emphasis on specialists.