Culture victory bugged? HELP!

from Stardock Forums
This is my third consecutive game with this problem (2 small and 1 medium universe). I have all but one of the 64 sectors under my control, the game has listed "12mts" next to culture victory objective for almost 2 years now, and it still won't let me win. :( There are only two enemy planets left in the game, and one of them only has like 5 people on it. Unless I am totally misunderstanding something, there is no way I should not get to win with what I have?!? I even tried running the game for another 36 months beyond this, but all that happens is my people get a lot more unhappy. The only way I can ever win is to conquer every single last planet and I know the game is not supposed to make you do this (it's not FUN after a certain point).

Also, I notice whenever I load the game that most of the squares in the universe revert to black again, but after I run 1-2 turns they are all back to my color. What's up with this?

I still have the save game file in hopes that somebody will look at it. Can somebody please help me?

--Soulfire

~SDC~
371 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I've had this bug occur to me as well. I have no explanation. I think they're aware of it and it may be fixed soon, but maybe post in the buglist to be sure.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Also, with this bug, when I submitted my score it said I won by transforming my race rather than the eventual culture victory I finally got when I owned *every* sector.

~SDC~
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I just posted it. Two tiny games, both had 12 mts sitting there forever. Eventually won both on Military, but it wasn't fun (and I almost got ganked by space sharks on the second one!)

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
er, that's games on a tiny universe, not tiny games :)

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Were you at war during the 12 month count down? You can't be currently at war to gain the cultural victory.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
WTF!? That explains it then! The timer was waiting until I could end the war... gaaa! I read the manual, is that in there?

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Ohhhhh. Well, hell. Nobody ever said -that-. That should be in the question mark popup for cultural victory.

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Something for the faq this one I'd say!
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Well I killed everyone I was at war with (to get rid of enough opposing culture). The yellow guys had one planet with a population of only 5 (A miserable planet I used as a fule depot to extend my range and then gave it away when I didnt need it anymore), and the purple guys had their starting homeworld left, but I was at peace with both of them. In fact the purple guys (Yor) were way in the green with me.

--Soulfire
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Anyone know if the Space Sharks count as being "at war" for the purposes of Cultural? I've noticed they're listed in the foreign policy section for other races as an "At War With" target.

~SDC~
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Another thing is that I've had about 46x the cultural influence in the sector the yellow AI's little pop. 5 planet is, and it still won't defect:

My culture = 366
His = 8

It has been like this for probably 36 turns, and it still never defected to me. When you first load the game, it sais my influence there is only like 138 I think, but after running 1-2 turns it goes up to 366 (which I also do not understand).

--Soulfire
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
The influence routine relies on data from previous turns. The save function doesn't (and apparently -can't-) save all the data it relies upon. Therefore, when you save and reload, your influence calculation will take some number of turns to return to approximately where it was, and may not completely rebound. It's a somewhat significant flaw in the system, IMO.

~SDC~
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, because this makes it even harder for people who can't play for long stretches of time to win culturally.

I still want to know why I can't ever win culturally though. I do not WANT to have to mop up every single last planet when the enemy can not even begin to challenge me anymore. Not having to do that was one of the features of this game I really looked forward to.

I still have the save game if any DEVs will look at it?

--Soulfire
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Soulfire:

I've won my last two games with a cultural victory (the last one, on 'Painful' AI, saw me in *no* wars whatsoever!). So I feel your pain.

One of the things I did, though, was to continue to keep pumping up cultural bonuses even when I was clearly on my way to winning. Perhaps you are already doing this, but my understanding is that if you stop doing that and rely only on the counter, other civs are meantime building up their own culture stuff, thereby stalling your victory.

I could be wrong, but this thinking has worked for me the last two games...
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Cari_Elf was kind enough to tell me why this was happening to me:

Apparently, you need to be into the game X number of turns before culture victory is enabled. Although I have enough cultural dominance to trigger a culture victory, it is still too early in the game so it is disabled. Apparently this is more of a problem on medium and smaller sized maps as the larger maps take longer to achieve 90% dominance.

--Soulfire
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
The manual is EXCEEDINGLY sparse on information on winning, especially winning culturally. I was tearing my hair out before reading this. As a followup, does anyone know exactly how many turns one must have played for cultural victory to kick in?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Only the major races count towards cultural victory. Space sharks not included.

You have to be past the year 2190 to win by culture.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
The 2190 culture win precondition definitely needs to go into the updated manual.