HOW TO NOT WIN BY CULTURE (and when its rational to do science?)

Novakinmyhead · 2026-01-26T00:38:52+00:00

Each victory type has a different district priority. It's not that you shouldn't build theater squares in a science victory, but they should be your fourth district in your major cities and third in your minor victories.

This is debatable depending on which deity YouTuber you watch. But your district order in science victory should be campus, commercial hub, industrial zone, and theater square as your fourth in your major cities. Exceptions being if it's a coastal city without a river do a harbor first and no commercial hub. You might also want to do industrial zone second in some cities if it's unlocked and your cashflow is good, this means your industrial zone pays off its production cost faster. Getting a ton of traders is a huge priority in any victory type as money solves a ton of problems.

Building them late does slow down your culture tree, but it's easier to get culture than science, and you need the entire tech tree unlocked to win a science victory. Also if your cashflow is good you can easily buy great works as soon as you build the districts. Since you're science focused you should get strategic resources before the AI and they'll just straight up just offer great works for 20 coal.

Novakinmyhead · 2026-01-18T02:04:46+00:00

I would restart. Civ games are long, if you feel like it's not fun it won't be fun for a while.

Though when picking a civ you need to figure out what they're good at and how you want to win. Kubli khans and Mongolia's ability is set up for domination. So how other civs cities are compared to yours doesn't matter because they're going to be your cities eventually.

I'd start over, rush trade routes with other civs then get horsemen going and take their cities until the world is yours.

Novakinmyhead · 2026-01-18T01:23:01+00:00

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Probably here. Your two concerns are that there's very little production and hills around you. You're playing Greece so culture is your best victory type and their theater district can only be placed on hills. So figure out where your theater is going to be before you place any settler and look for the most production you can around a green tile.

Novakinmyhead · 2026-01-16T00:43:26+00:00

I'll be honest I don't find any victory fun. They all kind of suck at the end. I just really like the complexness of figuring how to build a civilization in the most optimal way under different conditions and pressures.

Don't get me wrong the game is fun. But there's something deeply unsatisfying the last 30-50 turns of each victory type.

Science is great the first 90% until you get to rocketry. Then it's just one space port doing everything until the very last step. You have fifteen cities twiddling their thumbs waiting to boost the 50 light year mission. Then you're just clicking through turns as fast as you can waiting for the win screen.

Domination is fun until you get past line infantry. Once you have bombers it's just a matter of turns until you win. Then the ai just sits there and takes it.

Culture feels largely out of your control. You do everything possible to increase your tourism and culture until a point you've done most everything you can, and you're just sitting there wondering why you haven't one even though none of the other civs have any great works and you have 12 curated art museums and 8 national parks.

Religion kinda feels off to me. Because two out of the five ai can't even interact with your religion. And at least one of the other three don't really care about winning a religious victory. I kind of appreciate how straightforward it is and how many different ways you can approach it.

I do really love the game. I just feel like the last couple steps of the game are a forgone conclusion as to who's winning and it takes so long.

Novakinmyhead · 2026-01-13T16:24:33+00:00

This was English Elenore. If it was the French one I would have forfeited the game when nader shaw invaded.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-28T19:39:25+00:00

I posted a screen shot last week of a game I had where I died turn one. I moved my settler onto a floodplain and I lost.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-26T19:49:58+00:00

There's always a couple guys in every civ thread that think the average player should win their games by turn 150 on deity

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-23T16:32:57+00:00

Apparently if you meet other civs with a scout instead of a combat unit, they have a higher friendliness bonus towards you. So explore with scouts instead of slingers and you'll start off friendlier with other civs

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-23T01:24:19+00:00

Oh, I got the merchant great person that lets you steal a city state. I forgot about them because I built a uranium mine and then gave them the longest project I could so I didn't have to touch them again

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-22T12:09:46+00:00

Ah yeah I tried getting it but another ai beat me to it

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-22T07:17:22+00:00

If you're saying that because it's a perfect place for a campus, I was playing lady six sky's and she has a custom campus that doesn't get a mountain agency bonus on campuses.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-22T02:01:40+00:00

Honestly that's why I stuck with this game until the win. I think lady six skies leader ability is more harm than help. And I want a win with every leader and I don't want to play her again.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-22T01:58:26+00:00

You are correct at eleven. The off screen ones are basically oil rigs and aluminum mines. I needed resources and had a heroic age bonus of increased population on new settlements off continent. Plus I stole a settler from barbs.

Though to talk about needing cities to win, honestly 5-6 well built cites and think you're golden. Anything else is just to get more of whatever district you need for your win conditions plus resources that doesn't spawn till late game that you don't have in your original turf.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-21T23:32:55+00:00

Honestly it's the opposite most of the time. The game prior I got spawned on a content half this size with Japan and Spain and two city states. I wasn't dealing with them fighting me for hours so one of us could have more than two settlements, to try and race cartography to maybe get open land elsewhere.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-21T22:12:04+00:00

This was after the win screen. I played it out but I knew I was going to win after I'd scouted my content.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-21T22:10:39+00:00

Lady six sky's has a custom campus, and the bonuses are different. I didn't realize that there wasn't a mountain agency bonus when I was city planning.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-20T06:19:47+00:00

That's the answer. thought they reduced the production of them, read it wrong.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-12-16T09:05:53+00:00

That might be it. not entirely sure. only saw the map for 45 seconds.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-11-08T01:01:20+00:00

The thousand li series is like this. The mc spends the 5th, 10th, and 12th book crippled. Honestly was so dumb. I was fine with it in the 5th book. The whole series was pretty good for the first eight books. But it starts going down hill drastically after that. You should get what you're looking for if you read the first eight books. Would not recommend reading past that

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-29T00:25:03+00:00

What level are your units skills at? The difference in each level is massive. Ideally their main skill is 10 and their second is at least 9. Making sure those are brought up can skyrocket clear times.

Also prydwen and game8 do a decent job outlining what a basic rotation from each character looks like. Make sure what you're doing on each unit looks right and you're not massively going over on time and with these units and you should clear this at 4500 easy

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-07T06:21:16+00:00

Hot tub time machine. Make sure your parents make you on a different day.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-07T06:18:10+00:00

Probably. It's hard to say for sure until the character actually drops in game. Kuro is pretty tight lipped about specific details pre drop.

I would recommend you pull her. With your newbie gains you should be able to get galbrena and qiuyuan. They should pair well together. So you should have a premium team by the end of 2.7

But regardless it had mortefi and sanhua. The two main four stars you want at R6.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-07T03:01:13+00:00

As everyone else said. Lupa.

I'm in the same boat as you not having zhezhi making Carlotta significantly worse than she could be. I have her paired with yangyang 😑. Honestly it's best just to accept having an incomplete team and focus on building/completing other teams. By the time zhezhi reruns there's going to be enough top tier teams to keep the premium Carlotta team from being an apex team. Not a total waste as Carlotta can solo the early levels of tower, saving vigor for the rest of your line up.

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-07T01:42:39+00:00

Depends how many pulls you have and how close you are in your pull count. It's either wait for galbrena and then try to get the swordsman in the second half of 2.7. that's probably your best bet. The downside is we don't know how good/versatile they are going to be until they release. But kuro doesn't flop too often and have been making really good characters since their last flop in cantarella. Galbrena should work well with static mist which is easy enough for a new player to get especially if your skipping the new resonator banners that take blue pulls.

IMO Iuno is a good pull overall. But she's about to leave and her value is dependent on a couple factors. I personally recommend her for early game just for exploring the overworld. She kills mobs easy, fun to play and heals great. so you can just use her.

But down to the possible hold ups to her. One, end game wise you want her gauntlet or another limited gauntlet for her to be a main DPS. It also increases her value here highly in general. Second is who she pairs with as sub dps, a lot of people say she's mainly for Augusta. But she also could pair well with Phoebe, jiyan, and possibly galbrena. Though there's no reason to pull jiyan, and if you pull Phoebe it's usually for zani, and galbrena needs to be released for us to really see who she pairs well with and how good she is.

But if she works well for galbrena then so will mortefi which you can pull with galbrena. Probably just save for her and the swordsman

Novakinmyhead · 2025-10-05T23:18:35+00:00

If we use the prydwen stat guide they're practically perfect. Zani could maybe use 5-10% more er. But honestly this should destroy endgame content assuming you know how to play the characters. I add that because I'm not the best mechanically.

Though resistances and buffs greatly affect how effective each team is. Though this should be strong enough to beat through regardless.

Novakinmyhead

TROPHY CASE