Lessons learned on Immortal win, Cultural Victory only, i.e. Tourism win

[stanitw]

I'll break this up for readability: Yesterday I finished a game of 642 turns on Immortal (level 7) with Cultural Victory being the only victory condition enabled. I wanted to see how this changed the behavior of the civs as well as improve my game on the cultural side of things (a big part of that being tourism and how to generate a lot of it). I'll tell you what I learned from this very long game and answer any questions I can. Hopefully this leads to some good discussions, but let's stay on topic. I know a lot of players on this forum play on Prince, King, or Emperor (I mention this so you don't think I'm unqualified) and that culture/tourism is always a tough subject, so hopefully this thread will do some good.

[stanitw]

The basics. I played on a standard map, 6 civs, 12 city-states. Quick speed, Terra map? (the one where all civs start on one continent but there are other ones to explore), no Mods, Immortal difficulty, all victory conditions disabled except for "Cultural," nothing else was alterted. Yes there were barbarians too. I was France, the other civs were The Maya, Portugal, America, The Shoshone, and Arabia (I didn't pick any civs except mine). The game started in the ancient era with standard resources.

[stanitw]

First, did I notice a change in the way the AI played when 'culture/tourism' was the only way to win? Yes I did. The AI was not as aggressive as usual. It's strategy definitely changed. I was attacked mid-game by Arabia once but I was able to hold them off with the help of a well placed citadel.

My stated intention going into this game was to stay away from war as much as I could. Actually I was foolishly hoping to go the whole game without ever going to war, but the other civs made that impossible. I never attacked first until the endgame came around. After Arabia and I made peace I built up an army and took over his capital as punishment a few turns later. After that I made peace again and left him alone for 300 turns. America backstabbed me but couldn't take any of my cities. They were in the middle of the map and were soon obliterated from the game entirely (until my surprise move late in the game). I think Portugal attacked me once but nothing came of it. We were just hostile or neutral for the rest of the game. I do know that she backstabbed me by denouncing me for no reason.

The Shoshone and I got along well for most of the game. He declared war on me once when he had 1 city in my region. Once America took that city from him we made peace and never fought again. Finally, the Maya were my best friend for about 350 turns, then they got jealous and denounced me. But they never once attacked me first. Late in the game I had to attack them in order to win.

I was centered in the west, Portugal in the northwest, America in the center, the Maya in the north and north east, the Shoshone in the south and southwest, and Arabia in the south and middle of the map. There were three other smaller continents that we all took chunks of. The Maya in particular had 75% of the second biggest continent to itself.

[stanitw]

One of my biggest goals in playing a game where war was downplayed was to learn how to get better at culture and tourism. I really wanted to ingrain those 2 concepts into my head, the same way the early and mid-game strategies were already so familiar to me. I found that late-game to very late-game, my focus and plan started to lose direction and I didn't have any clear objectives or ideas for an overall strategy. If I was playing a game where Domination was the only victory condition enabled then this wasn't a problem, but in games where I left all victory conditions except Time on, I found this unfocused mindset to be very harmful to my success.

Here's a few things about a Cultural victory that I learned very thoroughly:
1. A cultural victory is really more of a tourism victory. Yes you want a lot of culture per turn in order to hold back other civs from becoming influential with you, but unless you can get a boat load of tourism to become influential with them then all the culture in the world won't matter.
2. The very moment you can build hotels, do so in every city you own that produces at least 1 tourism per turn. Hotels are a must-have if you plan on winning culturally. Start by building or buying then in the cities that already have the highest tourism per turn. These are likely the ones with wonders and great works in them.
3. Airports are another must-have-can't-do-without building for this type of win. Start building those immediately in every city that already has a hotel. The tourism bonuses that hotels and airports give you are huge and the sooner you start accumulating these points, the faster you can get that cultural victory.
4. Do everything in your power to get The National Visitors Center. The boost to tourism is a game changer for any civ that gets it. I actually built mine in about 13 turns but next time I would save a Great Engineer just for this very wonder. It's that important and I wouldn't want to take the risk of someone else finishing it while I was working on it.
5. When choosing what to research late in the game, do everything you can to get The Internet as fast as possible. Skip over as many other techs as you reasonably can in order to get this one tech. Why? It doubles your tourism output. Yes, 100% bonus to tourism.

[Murgen]

Good advice.

Though nobody can "beat" you to the national visitor center.

You want to get as many bonuses to your tourism as possible. That means maximizing your theming bonuses (actually quite easy by swapping great works with other civs).

Diplomats schmoozing, open borders, trade routes, and tourism bonuses from your ideology are also big boosts to tourism. If you can get your religion declared the world religion in the world congress that's another big boost.

[stanitw]

6. Tourism modifiers with other civs (bonuses range from +20-50% each):
A. Get mutual open borders with every civ you can (keep some military units in key places so they don't attack you for being weak).
B. Have at least one trade route with every civ you can. If there are more than 10 other civs in the game this won't be possible (max trade routes is 10). But otherwise get at least one with each civ.
C. Use spies as diplomats in every civs capital. When used this way they spread propaganda and you get a bonus. However only use them this way with civs that follow a different ideology than you. If they have the same ideology, the spy can't spread any propaganda and there's no bonus to be gained.
D. This one is tough but if you can get a shared religion then do so. This would be especially good against a civ that won't give you open borders and that has the same ideology as you.
E. Under autocracy ideology (this is the one I adopted) there's a tenent that gives you +50% tourism to civs that are at war with a common enemy. At the end of my game when I had to become influential with just the Maya to win, I went to war against Arabia only because the Maya did too and I got a nice bonus for doing so for as long as I could.

[stanitw]

Oops. I believe each civ can build it's own National Visitory Center. So yes, you can't be 'beaten' to it, but definitely do build one very quickly. Thanks Murgen.

[stanitw]

At the end of the game war was unavoidable if I were to win. And here's where I did something that I must say I am quite proud of. The Maya was my only competition, no one else was even close. We were both influential with 3 of the remaining 4 civs left (America had been wiped out, by the Maya). I had to get influential status with the Maya to win and they had to get influential status with Arabia to win. Whatever I tried to do I was staying 40,000 tourism points behind the Maya's cultural output every turn--I couldn't catch them. They were 40,000 points behind Arabia but managed to close that gap to about 28,000 while I didn't move from 40k. It was only a matter of time until they won.

A little earlier it looked as though Arabia would be wiped from the game, and if that happned the Maya would have won by being influential with all 3 of the remaining 3 civs. I had to prevent that. I traded, for nothing, to Arabia, a new city I built in the middle of my empire, safe from any other civ--I just let them have a city. I housed them there if you will. As expected their other two cities were taken over. With Arabia safely inside my empire I went to war against the Maya, figuring if I could take several of their cities, including their capital of Palenque and its numerous world wonders, I would get the tourism edge I needed to win. I took over 4 of his cities and then I got Palenque with a boat load of wonders (I also got some from Boston which he conquered earlier). This finally allowed my tourism to start catching up (while decreasing his) to his cultural output and I was bridging the gap.

However I still wasn't sure I'd catch him before he caught up to Arabia (he now only had about 18,000 more to go), so then I made my best move. I liberated the city of Washington for America and put America back in the game. They loved me and I got open borders, a trade route, a propaganda-spreading diplomat, and my tourism output to America, which had been out of the game for 300 turns, was huge. More importantly it was much larger than what the Maya could output to America. At this point I nuked the last Arabian city which I fenced off in my own empire, took them over and out of the game--suckers. Now the Maya couldn't become influential with them and America was the last civ to win over. I did so in about 20-25 turns and won the game.

[Strategikal]

Wow! Excellent strategy! And a good read.

[Strategikal]

A couple more suggestions, which I learned when I was going for a culture victory.

1. Start producing great works as early as possible. I was producing a lot of culture early on but didn't realise the importance of tourism straight away. This builds up over time so it's vital to start early.

2. Research archaologists and get the Exploration policies ASAP, in order to dig as many sites as possible before other civs are even aware of where they are. Same with completing the Exploration tree, to discover the hidden ones first.

As for maximising your tourism with theming bonuses, is it just me or does anyone else find that to be tedious micromanagement?

[stanitw]

Escrito originalmente por Strategikal:

A couple more suggestions, which I learned when I was going for a culture victory.

1. Start producing great works as early as possible. I was producing a lot of culture early on but didn't realise the importance of tourism straight away. This builds up over time so it's vital to start early.

2. Research archaologists and get the Exploration policies ASAP, in order to dig as many sites as possible before other civs are even aware of where they are. Same with completing the Exploration tree, to discover the hidden ones first.

As for maximising your tourism with theming bonuses, is it just me or does anyone else find that to be tedious micromanagement?

Agreed. Since tourism is cumulative, the sooner you start the better. I wish I had finished the Exploration policy tree. By the time I opened it each new policy was very expensive and there was no way I was going to finish them all. I got two or three more policies and that was it. It would have been nice to find those 14 hidden antiquity sites.

No, it's not just you. I do find the theming bonuses to be tedious. It can also be a bit confusing.

[stanitw]

My plan now, which I advise to anyone having trouble with a certain aspect of the game, is to play another game with Diplomacy as the only victory condition enabled. This way one gets forced to learn about what being good at that aspect of the game is all about. After that game I'll play one with Science as the only victory condition. I've already done Domination a few times and the Time victory is just stupid. But if anyone is having trouble with either Culture, Diplomacy, or Science, I highly recommend play an entire game with just that one victory condition. It will do wonders for your understanding of the concept.

[Strategikal]

Escrito originalmente por stanitw:

My plan now, which I advise to anyone having trouble with a certain aspect of the game, is to play another game with Diplomacy as the only victory condition enabled. This way one gets forced to learn about what being good at that aspect of the game is all about. After that game I'll play one with Science as the only victory condition. I've already done Domination a few times and the Time victory is just stupid. But if anyone is having trouble with either Culture, Diplomacy, or Science, I highly recommend play an entire game with just that one victory condition. It will do wonders for your understanding of the concept.

That's a very good suggestion.

I don't agree that the Time Victory is stupid though. I'll explain why another time.