How does one go about getting a cultural victory? We had one player this evening who had America with a double culture great person to start, who devoted himself to trying to acheive a cultural victory, and was unmolested the whole game. By the time the game ended, (with two of the other players with two lvl 4 techs) he still hadn't quite reached the end of the second phase.

Thoughts?

The single most important strategy when going for a cultural victory is to pick a nationality that is faster at cultural victories than anyone else.

USA would not be my first choice for a cultural victory (more like 4th)

Rome gets +1 culture every time it builds a city or wonder. At minimum that's 5 extra steps on the culture track.

Rome can additionaly overbuild it's own wonders, to gain more culture.

It can build cities in exposed positions. Once destroyed it can rebuild for culture+1 step.

If other player refuse to destroy roman cities, It can Nuke it's own city & rebuild it.

China's probably 2nd best, +3 culture points for each hut/village conquered. That's +18 culture points, essentially for free. China should develop movement speed (e.g. sailing) early to reach as many huts as possible before other players.

3rd choice I'd use Eqypt. A free building each turn gives the option to rapidly boost culture production.

Seems odd to me that only half the civs have a decent shot at a cultural victory if all the civs have an equal shot at the tech victory, economic victory and military...

Osaka said:

All the civs are biased towards certain victories. For example the Germans are more military and the russians are more scientific.

A cultural victory is very do-able. If he hadn't quite reached the end of the second phase, he was probably doing something wrong.

Here are a few tips:

Build buildings with the culture symbol on them

Research techs that give you culture

Try to build at least one culture providing wonder

Don't bother devoting a city to the arts unless you'll get at least 3 culture tokens from it

Save all of your incense for use on the tech that gives you 7 culture per incense. Don't spend any of it on the 3 culture per incense tech.

Osaka said:

If all the civs had equal shots at all of the victory conditions. That would require the differences between the civs to not improve their ability to progress any of the victory criteria by so much as 1 game turn quicker over 15+ turns of play. Would't that make any difference pointless...?

I'm not arguing that all should have an equal shot at the victory conditions, I'm just suggesting that it seems (and has been suggested) that it is neigh impossible for some civs to achieve a cultural victory (I could be wrong here) whereas the same cannot be said for the other types of victory. Of course, Germany has an advantage when going for a military victory, and Russia for a technology victory, but the other civs still have a decent shot at them.

I can see the Americans going for culture. Not my top choice, but I would use the American ability to pump out buildings and wonders ahead of your opponents. All things balanced in a game, the Americans can build wonders a turn or two before their opponents by using their trade conversion.

I have won a cultural victory with America and a military victory with Russia and I saw someone else win a Gold victory with Russia.

Periculum said:

If the Americans ever won with a cultural victory I would say this game was unthematic in the extreme.

Bleached Lizard said:

Oh, I don't know... They did give us Paris Hilton and Survivor...

Back on topic a bit, I think the Russians have a decent shot at a tech victory, especially if they can steal a tech or two early on. After all, if someone builds better infantry than you, *yoink*

A house rule that might make things slightly more balanced in terms of a cultural victory might be to make spending culture tokens be part of the research or start of turn phase, giving players a chance to attack and "loot" some of the player's culture before they have a chance to spend it... Thoughts?

I played as the Chinese a few nights ago. I managed to pull a few culture great people and started devoting my capital to culture while exploring as many huts as possible. I almost had a victory aside from a few mistakes of my own. If you want to win by culture, don't forget how powerful silk can be with a few of the trade techs. Use it! I missed out on a win because I didn't have enough trade points to buy one more culture advancement at the end of the game. Instead my Egyptian neighbor managed to come in and kill my capital on the last turn.

Osaka said:

Personally I would not aim for a tech win with anyone except Russia. Even if Russia is not in the game.

Other nations can manage {coin, culture} wins faster than the average nation can get a tech win.

XAos said:

OOPS! I meant to say military victory, not tech victory... Since their "thing" is all about tech, obviously they have a shot...

And in the last game we played, Germany would've had a tech victory if the US hadn't lucked out with an economic victory that turn (by spending culture and drawing a great person with a coin)

I played Mao yesterday for the second time in a row. Exploring the huts was an easy early game setup. I got a second city out as fast as possible so that my capital could produce culture buildings like the temple and library that the Chinese can build from the start. I chose the location one space to the right of the suggested start location for the Chinese capital. This gave me room to build three libraries. Once they became Universities and I had a temple too, the city was producing more about 8+ culture a turn. I was able to buy two spaces a turn minimum on the culture track. In the early stages, I was buying three or four. I think the key is to build up one city to create a ridiculous amount of culture with buildings first, then great people to cover up the production spaces you were using on the buildings. Use your other cities to produce units, figures and defenses. As usual, it was still a close game. I haven't really seen a blowout in my local game group yet.

Just yesterday I won a cultural victory against both Rome and China, while playing as the US. What helped me a great deal were great persons with cultural bonuses, but as the US you will also have a starting city capable of producing incense. This can be used for 2 separate technologies. One of level 3 (I believe) and one of level 1. The former gives you 7 culture for 1 incense in your city management phase, while the other gives you 3 culture.

Some culture cards give you a free resource, which should immediately be spent on the +7 or +3 culture ability (whichever you have available at that point). I also got the cheap stonehenge wonder giving me 1 culture at the start of my turn. Try to build a second and third city where you can already get some culture and preferably put wonders, great persons and buildings that produce culture on them, so your capital can focus on making incense. It's also very important to get a nice amount of trade going, because lateron in the game trade is used to advance on the culture track. Harbors are great (since they go on spots where you can't possible farm culture anyway), but trading posts giving both culture and trade are good to go as well.

Nearing the end of the game, all my cities produced 18 culture and thanks to the culture cards, I often had excess incense for the +7 bonus. So getting 25 culture per turn is great, especially if you can combine that with a high trade. Don't be too scared to advance more spots on the culture track than you can hold cards, since not every culture card may be useful to you. Also, the great persons you get from advancing on culture with a little luck give you a culture bonus as well.

On the very last turn my opponents tried to oppose me, but I had culture cards that canceled their abilities or writing (with 1 spy token) to cancel their actions.

Osaka said:

That would weaken Culture victory a bit, since it would happen after military (right now you can claim your culture victory before anyone has the chance to get the military or tech victories)

I find that culture victories seem hard, because you need to build up your culture "machine" before you focus on moving up the track. After a couple of turns, it seems like you aren't making any progress where everyone else is, so the temptation is to start dedicating cities to the arts before they are optimized for it.

I've found that if there's a resource you really want to punch out every turn, you don't want it in your capital city limits. This would allow you to put a scout on the space and let one of your weaker cities mine the resource while your capital produces as much culture as it can. The capital is the best workhorse for culture or production as it's immune to the disastrous nuke token. It'll also allow you to not be as worried about covering up that space with a building.