Newbie Q: How do I finish cultural conquest?

Build all the Starbases you can next to Alien planets.
Then upgrade the Starbases selecting cultural improvements. The Alien planets will defect to humanity.

If you conlonize in a Alien sector and get a Warning that the planet may defect. Plant starbases in this sector and upgrade them. Your planet would not defect and since you already have one colony in the sector the alien worlds in this sector may start defecting to your side.

Two more thing help me.
I trade technology to minor races for cash.
When I get a "wonder" I trade this to minor races for lots of cash. The minor races go quick in to bankruptcy and if you built colonies and starbases in their sectors you will get their planets.

See If you can trade major races for technology and planets. If you get an alien planet in a trade build lots of starbases in this sector.

At one time, I think you had to control 80% of the sectors for a cultural victory. It must have changed because I had every planet defect to my side in a previous game, then it was considered a military victory for the metaverse. Does anyone know if this is a bug?

Yes that us how I won my last game.


When the last planet defected to humanity I received a military win but if I control all the planets but one I should of received a cultural win.

The concept of a cultural victory is still too new and it looks like it still has some glitches in it. I am certain that the SD people have been seeing the comments about it and are doing something to solve these problems for built 4. Until then I don't see us being able to get an actual cultural victory or understanding what it takes to get one. I think at this point all we can do is speculate. Instead, I am waiting for beta 4.

Many thanks for all the helpful replies.

I killed every player in the game, major and minor races. The only one's left with 2 systems were "The Pirates" and still it was considered a "diplomatic victory". That just makes no sense since I was never at any time in the game allied with anyone! :notsure:

It is a bit easy to win, since the AI almost never attacks my ships, even when I'm eating up his systems!

I think I'm still playing with the original difficulty setting (easy)... how can I change to something more difficult?

The setting you mentioned ("easy") was on the first settup screen, and was removed.

You don't mention what intelligence settings you are using for the AIs, and this can have a dramatic affect on the difficulty of your game. If you have them set at a low intelligence, try raising them a leel and try again, on the theory that after a few games you will find a level that is comfortable for you.

Another method would be to remove the optional bonuses on the first setup panel (just don't use some or all of them). This has the same affect as the "difficulty" settings that were in the first setup screen.

Thanks for the advice!

I just played a game right now. I used 6 out of 10 ability bonuses and I set all the AI's to "smart". I then selected a medium galaxy and set the habitable planets to "rare".

The game started out ok.. I explored the galaxy and colonized 1 solar system with 2 planets (total of 3 planets).

There was one sector that had 2 Torian systems, 2 Yor Collective systems and 1 minor race systems. I thought wow.. a sector with 5 habitable systems, how great would it be to own all those systems and set lots of starbases in the sector. About 10 turns later, the Yor Collective AND the minor race (they usually get great planets) surrendered to the Torians. I thought, "Now I'm screwed, they've got 6 planets in 1 sector!".

Anyway, I played on and decided to build up a defensive force, rather than an offensive one. I build starbases on 3 resources and invaded 1 planet owned by a minor race. Right after I invaded the planet, the minor race surrendered to the Torians (with 2 planets) and I thought... "THIS IS REALLY UNFAIR!....Ok.. this might be the challange I wanted :)".

At this point the Torians were bigger than I was in every way. They had 8 planets (I had 4) and they had lots more influence, military, population and technology than I. From then on I just built every social improvement I could on my 4 planets and built starbases and not ships.

About the time I researched Battleship, most of the systems in the galaxy converted to terran ownership (in about 10 turns) and I won MILITARY VICTORY without attacking anyone (aside from the original minor race). Admittedly, by then I did have the best influence, military and technology, but the funny thing is my score was only 902. LOL

I suspect that most people do not see this as a military win. Hopefully Stardock fixes this.

The low score is a bug as well ?

When you win should not your score be based on
population
technology
difficulty
number of planets

Why when you win military you get such a low score is beyond be hopefully even if you win by military in a future release you get more points, it may get be a bug?

the low score is probably related to the incorrect end game scenario.