Anyone managed cultural victory yet?

[Compy386]

I've failed several times in a row to nab the cultural victory.

My last attempt was with Siam, the culture bonus on the Wat seemed to help a lot.

I actually lost with 4 turns remaining on my Utopia project (game reached 2050)

I got some policies out of order....

It seems there's a specific order of policies combined with specific wonders like Sistine Chapel for 33% culture boost to all cities and Christo Redentor (sp?) for -33% cost on new policies...

I'm also curious if its better to stay with one tree until its maxed out or get whatever's most useful at the time...seems like getting Freedom with culture bonus for cities with wonders increased and reduced cost of new policies...

piety also seems to be important, extra happiness goes to culture and you get 2 free policies at the end.

It just sucks cuz with tradition you have like 4 cities, and they suck. You have to build a wonder in each one, and if you're building culture buildings your science suffers...

bah im just frustrated...anyone got any tips?

[rrhal]

The more cities you have the harder it is to achieve the next social policy. So you want to build an empire around a few cultural power houses.

In order to get extra culture befriend the city states in hopes they will supply you with culture and luxury items. Liberating them and running their errands is a lot cheaper than bribing them with gold.

[dragoaskani]

I have managed my 1 culture win with 6 cities. Yes it increases the culture cost, but it makes a more managable and effiecient empire. That being said one trick is to save the piety policy for last and use it to finish off your last 2 policy's since they costs scale higher and higher for each one this makes the most sense in the long run. You are definetly right about the Sistine Chapel and Christo Redentor making big differences. My recommendation there is do what I did. Try to make sure that you have an okay chance at getting a couple great engineers. In my game I got a total of 3 of them and saved them for these particular techs.
Obviously your science suffers quite a bit with fewer cities, if you can manage a good gold surplus. (I did this as Arabia, the Bazaar's ability netted me THOUSANDS of gold in trades over the course of the game) I was constantly in research pacts with my good buddy lizzy, and that bastard darius.

[Calouste]

Broadcast Tower gives +100% culture, so beelining to Radio is quite useful if you want to go for a cultural win.

Tradition/Piety/Patronage/Freedom seem to be the trees you really want to have for a cultural victory, with Commerce or Order being the 5th (or Honor if you're Monty).

Just pick whatever is useful at the time, which basically means picking the policies that give even more culture.

Note that the free policy from Free Religion (and the Oracle and the Sydney Opera House) does not increase the cost of any future policies, so putting off using it doesn't give you any benefits, unless you expect that the cost of policies will be increased later because you will have more cities.

[Manbullpig]

I'm playing Napoleon, and i just wanted to win with a cultural victory, so i played defensively.

Siam, Arabia, and Persia ended attacking me, not all at once. I found a choke point into my empire, built a city there, and 5 fortresses and a citadel (effectively perfected the maginot line) and played a defensive war.

I ended up wiping out the other 3 civs on my continent, so I'm just going to dominate whoever else is left in the game, leave them their capital, and wait it out to win by culture

[Ninja Llama]

Just play as France. Since culture is per turn, it's all about the early game...

[Onandoga]

Use india, Get the piety social policy that lets you convert 50% excess happiness into culture. Build 3 cities. Build as many buildings and wonders as you can.

StoneHenge is definetly the most useful wonder to build in the early game, and it will definetly give you a head start on social policies especially Tradition->Aristocracy +33% wonder production bonus.

[Glumgar]

I had a culture win on Prince with 4 cities.

The policy trees I completed were Tradition, Piety, Patronage, Freedom, and Order. Not necessarily in that order, and I didn't make any special effort to complete one tree before going to the next. There's no real reason to do it that way, so you should just get whichever policy is most important at the time as long as you stay within your 5.

Some important wonders I got were Stonehenge, Sistine Chapel, and Cristo Redentor.

Some important policies for a culture win are:

Aristocracy (+33% wonder production)
Free Religion (2 free policies)
Constitution (double culture in cities with a wonder)
Free Speech (-25% policy culture cost)

I managed to get wonders in 3 of the 4 cities... city number 4 was kind of a dud and I think I may have actually been better off without it.

I played random civ, and got Rome. Better than a combat civ for culture, because you have to build all those culture buildings in each city anyway.

Anyway, it was a pretty sloppy win. The tech pace of myself and all the AIs was really bad. Also, the last few policies took forever, up to about 5k culture and my income was 400-500 per turn. I didn't actually win until 2030 AD or something like that.

[Compy386]

) I was constantly in research pacts with my good buddy lizzy, and that bastard darius.

LOL Lizzy's always a BIATCH to me

no matter what i do

[Compy386]

I'm playing Napoleon, and i just wanted to win with a cultural victory, so i played defensively.

Siam, Arabia, and Persia ended attacking me, not all at once. I found a choke point into my empire, built a city there, and 5 fortresses and a citadel (effectively perfected the maginot line) and played a defensive war.

I ended up wiping out the other 3 civs on my continent, so I'm just going to dominate whoever else is left in the game, leave them their capital, and wait it out to win by culture

That's always my problem.. from the start i was playing Siam and bismark kept being a big fat pimply ahole to me....my empire had ONE HEX mountain pass with an ally city state on the left...I built a star fort there and he kept declaring war on my city state (who i wanted because i was siam and he was feeding me culture)

so eventually i was like...you know what bismark? i've had enough of your fat mustache and probably wasted a good deal of time killing him....

by then catherine had destroyed japan and much of washington she had the biggest continent on the map all to her self....and ceaser was off on his own tiny continent being a self-rightous prick...

[Oddible]

...one trick is to save the piety policy for last and use it to finish off your last 2 policy's since they costs scale higher and higher for each one this makes the most sense in the long run...

This is actually incorrect. You need to have 30 total social policy adoptions to get to the utopia project (1 to unlock each of 5 policy branches and 5 policies in each branch). The cost of adopting a policy goes up each time you reach the mark in culture, however, the cost does NOT go up for Free policies (you can get free policies in the Piety tree and from The Oracle). So it will cost the exact same amount of culture to purchase your 22 non-free policies whether you take your free ones as soon as you get them or wait til the end. The advantage of taking them as soon as you get them is that you get the benefits of those policies for a longer time!

So take them asap!

[FeddyPoap]

In one of my games I am unable to build the Sydney Opera HOuse. It has never appeared on my building list. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one able to build it, I'm playing on Warlord so its pretty easy, I don't know how any other civ could have researched Globalization before me (and haven't seen a message saying someone else completed it). Not sure how to find all the wonder lists. Wasn't that in Civ IV? Though it may have been only in the end game. But anyway, has anyone else been unable to build the Sydney Opera House wonder?

[Compy386]

In one of my games I am unable to build the Sydney Opera HOuse. It has never appeared on my building list. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one able to build it, I'm playing on Warlord so its pretty easy, I don't know how any other civ could have researched Globalization before me (and haven't seen a message saying someone else completed it). Not sure how to find all the wonder lists. Wasn't that in Civ IV? Though it may have been only in the end game. But anyway, has anyone else been unable to build the Sydney Opera House wonder?

hmm did you try the civilopedia? I'm still trying to learn the new techs with the new wonders....

its cool cuz you can plan your strategy around what wonders/policies your going to get....

In a game as England I got commerce and big ben
together gave me I think a 50% reduction on purchasing things in a city...I used my navy to set up little colonies all around the globe for luxury resources, and only built markets/banks/Stock Exchgs in those cities and limited their growth.

long story short it was the only reason I was able to beat harud (arabia) who had taken africa europe and asia, while I had north and south america and a few colonies around

He had better units, but I just kept sending riflemen and cannons, purchasing them every turn..by that time it was ~1900 and i had banked over 4000 gold

it was great fun...since I planned it out from the beginning and overcame great odds...

[FeddyPoap]

Turns out you have to build it in a coastal city. I like how the Civilopedia doesn't mention that. I don't live in Australia so I had no idea that the real opera house is situated by water.

[firkraags]

Ha ha. Go the Opera House.

I've had a cultural victory on, um, whatever difficulty is no 6. Archipelago helps to discourage warmongers, and Napoleon's bonus is great. Ghandi would be a second choice. Lots of food buildings and specialists. I think I had 6 cities. I didn't want to expand beyond 4 but you kinda have to at some point, maybe for luxury resources, but I found when every city had Opera House and lesser buildings. There is only so much culture you can leech out of city states.

[FarmerBen]

Using alot of the suggestions in this thread, I went for an epic King game using India -- only using 1 city so far the whole time. It's really amazing what some cultural/wonder planning can achieve.

My tech was pretty much 2nd place all game, making alright income, and I was lucky enough to start on this tiny continent connected to a big one so no other civs settled there (except one Iroquois city). The AI civs all love me and I've had like one war elephant + 1 other unit all game, never had to attack anyone. My capital's borders (with all the cultural/wonder choices) are ENORMOUS now, way beyond the city's borders, and its swallowing up the whole continent. Really interesting.

I'm 2nd place with the most policies, but I don't think the 1st place AI has methodically planned the policies for a cultural victory, I plan on winning if no one attacks me. In industrial era now.

[jasta85]

argh, i tried going for a cultural victory again, did really well early on but got side tracked by wars with 2 civs in the last 1/3 of the game. ended up with 4 complete policy trees and 2 policies short of the utopia project by the end of the game. Ironically I reached the apollo project about 2015, and with only 3 cities the entire game (until like 5 turns before the end where i made 3 more just to see if i could get a few extra points).

I'll probably try for a tech victory next as teching happens pretty naturally if you expand at a moderate pace.

[Fenian]

Egyptian Prince or King (cant remember which) 2 cities only. Turn 499 I had 1 turn left on my utopia project. I actually thought I was sweet (its a 500 turn game right...) Hit next turn and got a defeat screen! I was robbed I tell you...

[Onandoga]

Im a culture powerhouse with an uncultured civ.

I havent finished my game yet, but iv found that as a rich gold producing machine i can expand to an extremly large empire and still keep churning gold. If you use gold to rush all the culture buildings in everyone of your cities you can actually beat the amount of culture added on for another city.

Plus with a large gold economy you can bribe culture states to help along the way! Its pretty efficient.

[Psycocaptain]

Yes I just got one BUT.....

Dual size map
Easiest Dif
I was ghandi
Only used 3 cities.....

I did it this way to score acheivments, I don't usually play on easiest difficulty but doing it this way just netted me 5 acheivments.....

But yes cultural victory is SOOOO hard cause the larger your empire gets the more and more culture it takes to unlock policy

[Gilligan]

I finished on turn 443 as Napoleon on King difficulty the other day (standard size archipelago with 8 civs and 16 states). Had two cities and went with Tradition, Piety, Commerce, Freedom, and Order.

After noticing that there are quite a few policies which won't really help you with culture generation at all, I eventually realized that the easiest way to a culture win is probably to just hoard as much culture as possible until you can build the Cristo Redentor. So in addition to nabbing all the good wonders as quickly as possible, only pick the policies you really think you'll need and then start stockpiling. I had somewhere in the vicinity of 20-25k culture saved up around turn 400, which allowed me to pick up all but two of the remaining required policies (which I then got in about 20 turns and then about 20 more to build the Utopia Project).