How to culture victory.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Domination = They have a wonder, I take the wonder. I focus on tech for my units. Maybe ally with war city state.
Tech = I can build the wonder before them anyways. I have few units but good units for defense, am far ahead in technology.
Diplo = I basically play a normal game until industrial, so i'll have wonders and tech as well as lots of allies who give me usefull things, AND a great say in the world congress later on.

Cultural = I waste valuable time on religion (patronage is garbage btw and I see no reason at all to adopt it EVER), spend valuable culture on aesthetics (also garbage) only to find out that other nations are so far in tech that they always (and i mean literally every single time) steal the wonders i need, and because of all of this I am so behind in tech that it's laughable.

How the heck do I win a cultural victory without making the difficulty stupidly easy?

[cuavas]

Cultural victory is a fun challenge.

First thing is to get a strong start, usually utilising Tradition. You need at least a few solid cities, as Civ V lends itself to specialised cities. You aren’t going to have the population to make a single city function as the city of knowledge, city of wonders, and city of guilds pumping out great people. You’re going to need to spread it over at least a couple of cities. Make sure you explore so you meet other civs early and can start exporting tourism.

Aesthetics definitely isn’t useless – that double theming bonus makes a significant difference with museums, and a potentially huge difference if you pick up powerful themed wonders like the Louvre. When it’s time to choose an ideology, if there’s a civ with a large amount of culture to overcome who’s already chosen before you, choose the same ideology as them. You can’t afford the differing ideologies penalty. Remember to use diplomats for the tourism modifier.

Don’t try to build all the themed wonders, just concentrate on a few, and let the AIs take the others. You want to try for the powerful Louvre (relatively easy because it requires Exploration, and it gives you a free Great Artist), and the Eiffel Tower (free tourism happiness, and quite doable if you beeline radio).

The strategy you use will depend somewhat on the civ you’re using. France and Polynesia can farm tourism using their UIs, so positioning cities to make the most of that is important. France has a capital-centric UA, so you want strong production in the capital to crank out wonders there. Assyria works best with early war-mongering followed by a shift to tourism later. You can pick up a couple of well-developed original capitals, and steal a technology from each city you capture. The Celts are suited to building wide or war-mongering, as they have a happiness boost from their UB, so they’re less dependent on wonders and can achieve a cultural victory just by filling the great work slots in culture buildings in all their cities (hidden antiquity sites from Exploration really helps here, as does the doubled theming bonus on museums from Aesthetics).

Whoever you’re playing as, don’t be afraid to get involved in some early wars or skirmishes. You absolutely need to get the prime city locations and build at least six solid cities. Tourism increases massively later in the game anyway.

[Damsteri]

There are two ways to get a super fast culture victory, that are good to know.

The fastest way focuses on abusing game mechanisms and advanced starting settings, and can be achieved in just 20-30 turns with any civilization on almost any map. It's a technique about using later era start and retroactively acquired policies from that start with a certain ideology tenent (Autocracy: Futurism). Later era (other than Ancient) are broken and this is the prime example.

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

I waste valuable time on religion (patronage is garbage btw and I see no reason at all to adopt it EVER), ...

The second fastest way to get a culture victory is through religion, which is the fastest "legit" way to do it. The plan is to go Liberty+Piety on policies, settle many dozens of cities and buy 2 (or 3 if Byzantine) religious buildings to each city. You want to get Sacred Sites reformation belief as soon as possible and then all of your cities start producing tourism very early. Culture victory can be achieved even before ideologies, my fastest was 128 turns on normal speed with 44 cities using Emperor difficulty. It's a high risk strategy, fails often and doesn't left you with any backup strategy and far behind in science. Works best with land maps, and with religious civs or holy mountains / strong pantheon.

Also... Strong religion (especially faith production) makes possible to spam Great Musicians bought with faith at the late game in large numbers. It makes the whole game that has been played before it pointless.

------------

So, the fastest way to get a culture victory is to abuse ideologies and the second (and maybe the third too) fastest is to abuse religion. All other methods are "normal" and the victory is decided in late eras. All other methods require you to have a good science output otherwise you end up in problems.

[Grendalcat]

Aesthetics is the single most important policy track for me, going for a Culture victory.

Why would you say it's garbage?

[Matthew]

--Culture victory is largely just a science victory with a few differences.

--Contrary to popular belief, it is actually better to play wide for culture. You won't have the great work slots with 2 or 3 cities, + taking cities = taking enemy great works.

--Get Secularism (Rationalism + 1 policy) first. You don't need to complete Aesthetics until later.

--Don't sacrifice science for a trivial amount of tourism. i.e., wasting time building Parthenon for a measly +2 tourism, and in doing so giving up all the land around you to settle.

--Don't select International Games until later. Ideally you want to get it after you've built hotels and airports with Internet. Once you get the full tourism boost, burn all your faith on purchasing Great Musicians. Bomb the culture leaders with rock concerts.

Pay attention to which one or two Civs you need to actually beat in their culture. There is typically only one or two who are putting up any real fight in building up culture. The rest can be ignored, because once you surpass the one or two big ones, everyone else will inevitably flip as well.

Make sure, when possible, to keep sending trade routes and get open borders from these Civs. Pay them luxuries and gold, if needed. Later on, after Internet (which you get to quickly, because you didn't sacrifice tech), place a diplomat in their capital cities.

When all else fails, just remove those one or two Civs from the map completely You can't build up culture if you are dead.

[Foolish Bastion]

Originally posted by Matthew:

--Culture victory is largely just a science victory with a few differences.

--Contrary to popular belief, it is actually better to play wide for culture. You won't have the great work slots with 2 or 3 cities, + taking cities = taking enemy great works.

--Get Secularism (Rationalism + 1 policy) first. You don't need to complete Aesthetics until later.

--Don't sacrifice science for a trivial amount of tourism. i.e., wasting time building Parthenon for a measly +2 tourism, and in doing so giving up all the land around you to settle.

--Don't select International Games until later. Ideally you want to get it after you've built hotels and airports with Internet. Once you get the full tourism boost, burn all your faith on purchasing Great Musicians. Bomb the culture leaders with rock concerts.

Pay attention to which one or two Civs you need to actually beat in their culture. There is typically only one or two who are putting up any real fight in building up culture. The rest can be ignored, because once you surpass the one or two big ones, everyone else will inevitably flip as well.

Make sure, when possible, to keep sending trade routes and get open borders from these Civs. Pay them luxuries and gold, if needed. Later on, after Internet (which you get to quickly, because you didn't sacrifice tech), place a diplomat in their capital cities.

When all else fails, just remove those one or two Civs from the map completely :cozykcdknight: You can't build up culture if you are dead.

These are excellent tips and points.
Thank you.

[zxcvbob]

Sacred Sites with 2 religious buildings and lots of cities will almost get you there. With enough small cities you can go alll the way with it, but I've only gotten that to work once (I had about 20 cities, with the population capped on most of them, with pagodas and mosques)

The Autrocracy tenet "Futurism" is also great if you can get to it fast enough, or if you have a head start already from Sacred Sites.

Other than that, you tech to the Internet as fast as possible, meanwhile building the Hermitage and Natironal Visitor Center in your city with all the great works (usually your capital) Don't even build the music guiild until very late (modern era at the earliest, if you manage to build Broadway) because you want musicians *after* researching Internet and building the visitor center. Then use these musicians to play concerts in your enemies' lands; declaring war if they won't give you open borders.

Cultural victory is seldom peaceful. You can acquire a lot of culture by stealing it ;) and you eliminate a competitor in the process.

[bncrain]

As someone who is mainly interested in culture and trade, I struggle with this a lot. War is kind of boring to me (though I know I'm in a minority there!) One of my ultimate dream jobs would be working on a future Civ title to help create less formulaic ways of developing culture over time. With the way the culture track is set up in Civ 5, there are a few key benchmarks you simply *must* hit, or you're DOA and will need to change it up toward the end of the game. That said, I've managed to win culture victories in a variety of settings, including twice doing the OCC. A few things

The Lourve, which someone mentioned, is crucial--I've never managed a cultural victory without it. I tend to focus on no more than 3-4 cities, driving to make them all large (25-30 or higher, with the capital in the 40-50 range by EOG) and building the key touristic infra as early as I can--that's hotels, airports, and broadcast towers. The Eiffel Tower is very helpful with 12 tourism points, but not a MUST have. Definitely focus city production on Great People once they reach a certain level, and build up a strong international trade network to generate gold so that you can buy needed buildings there rather than relying on local production.

Because you have to dominate all other countries in influence, rather than just a supermajority (which seems more realistic to me frankly) the ultimate hat trick is making absolutely sure you snag the Great Firewall, which means you have to go for it *before* developing the Internet. That's tricky, because if your main competitor(s) beat you to the internet, it gets harder and harder to close the gap, even if you've been focusing relentlessly on culture the whole time. If the other paths to victory allowed, you're almost certain to lose, because you won't be able to run out the clock if they're 8,000 culture points away and your per-turn tourism advantage is, like, 100-200. If one of the leaders gets the Great Firewall before you, it's pretty much over.

I'll echo what a number of other players have said, too: science is deceptively crucial to a culture victory. You need to be at the forefront at least from the Medieval age on in order to win with culture, unless you're leaning heavily on religion from the get-go. Many of the key cultural/tourism related techs come later in the game, so you have to get there first, while also keeping your military strong enough to fend off attacks. That's probably the most common way I lose: I get so focused on culture development that I forget to keep up my military, and an AI swoops in and cripples me. >_<

I play a lot as trade-friendly civs--mainly Arabia, Morocco, and Portugal, and their advantage is generating a lot of GPT through trading, starting relatively early in the game for the former two and more toward the middle for the latter, which can build Freitoria to snag lots of free luxuries. High purchasing power (3-500 GPT or more) is VERY helpful when trying to go for cultural victories, in my experience. Egypt is also nice, because they have a strong construction bonus for wonders, which can be a big help (especially with the World Congress Cultural Heritage Sites resolution passed).

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by zxcvbob:

Sacred Sites with 2 religious buildings and lots of cities will almost get you there. With enough small cities you can go alll the way with it, but I've only gotten that to work once (I had about 20 cities, with the population capped on most of them, with pagodas and mosques)

That strategy can be leathal. My fastest one was Byzantium with two holy mountains and three buildings. I didn't had (or need) many cities on that one, mayby 20 or so. I have a screenshot on other one, with Mayas. 44 cities and in the end I had so much happiness and faith and I was able to settle a new city and buy two religious buildings to it.. each turn. I was not able to produce and move settlers fast enough. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=295732880

Originally posted by zxcvbob:

The Autrocracy tenet "Futurism" is also great if you can get to it fast enough, or if you have a head start already from Sacred Sites.

I don't thing that Futurism is good enough alone, but with late era start it's a game breaker when used in this way:

1. Start a late era game (Modern era or later).
   
2. Get Futurism (with starting policies).
   
3. Build Guilds, but don't work them immediately, hold it.
   
4. Work Guild specialists (make sure you won't get any GWAMs before you have met everybody).
   
5. Meet everybody and start popping up GWAMs.
   
6. Wait for victory.

Just tested for fun, got a win on 34 turns, little bit slow. Can be faster if every GWAM is acquired from other sources (policies/wonders) and other civs are met faster.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Grendalcat:

Aesthetics is the single most important policy track for me, going for a Culture victory.

Why would you say it's garbage?

Because I'm used to the other three victories. To me a whole SIX policies that could have been spent on war, trade, science, growth, or expansion is just... why?

[DerEider]

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

Originally posted by Grendalcat:

Aesthetics is the single most important policy track for me, going for a Culture victory.

Why would you say it's garbage?

Because I'm used to the other three victories. To me a whole SIX policies that could have been spent on war, trade, science, growth, or expansion is just... why?

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

How to culture victory

This is WHY !!

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by DerEider:

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

Because I'm used to the other three victories. To me a whole SIX policies that could have been spent on war, trade, science, growth, or expansion is just... why?

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

How to culture victory

This is WHY !!

okay, okay. That's fair. some people are saying i should go tall and others wide. Is it just a preference or is one of these actually better?

[cuavas]

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

okay, okay. That's fair. some people are saying i should go tall and others wide. Is it just a preference or is one of these actually better?

It’s a balancing act – you need enough cities to pump out the tourism you need to win, but you need cities with enough science to get archaeology/refrigeration/computers/internet fast enough and enough production not to get beaten on the Louvre and which ever other key wonders you decide on. (It’s useful to build the Great Firewall to prevent the biggest cultural powerhouse from blocking your Internet bonus, but it isn’t necessarily critical. Often there will be a civ aiming for a science victory, and totally neglecting culture that will build it before you or the cultural powerhouse(s) can get it. I’ve had Germany build the Great Firewall after I’ve already reached Influential status with them.)

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by cuavas:

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

okay, okay. That's fair. some people are saying i should go tall and others wide. Is it just a preference or is one of these actually better?

It’s a balancing act – you need enough cities to pump out the tourism you need to win, but you need cities with enough science to get archaeology/refrigeration/computers/internet fast enough and enough production not to get beaten on the Louvre and which ever other key wonders you decide on. (It’s useful to build the Great Firewall to prevent the biggest cultural powerhouse from blocking your Internet bonus, but it isn’t necessarily critical. Often there will be a civ aiming for a science victory, and totally neglecting culture that will build it before you or the cultural powerhouse(s) can get it. I’ve had Germany build the Great Firewall after I’ve already reached Influential status with them.)

What about piety? I use it occasionally on domination, but what are the actual benifits? I mean i read the bonuses sure, but i mean in terms of a real situation? How is it viable?

[cuavas]

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

What about piety? I use it occasionally on domination, but what are the actual benifits? I mean i read the bonuses sure, but i mean in terms of a real situation? How is it viable?

There’s a reformation belief (Sacred Sites) that gets you +2 tourism for each religious building (Cathedral, Monastery, Mosque, Pagoda). If you’re going wide and you have two religious building beliefs, this can be very powerful. If not, Piety isn’t worth the trouble – save it for Aesthetics, Exploration, bits of Rationalism, and/or ideological tenets.

(Yes, there’s also a high-risk approach of getting Sacred Sites, temporarily converting your cities to allow purchasing religious buildings, then converting them back. But it requires capturing missionaries and a lot of faith to spend on Great Prophets to convert back after getting the buildings.)

[DerEider]

Originally posted by cuavas:

Originally posted by Alberic De Bordeleaux:

What about piety? I use it occasionally on domination, but what are the actual benifits? I mean i read the bonuses sure, but i mean in terms of a real situation? How is it viable?

There’s a reformation belief (Sacred Sites) that gets you +2 tourism for each religious building (Cathedral, Monastery, Mosque, Pagoda). If you’re going wide and you have two religious building beliefs, this can be very powerful. If not, Piety isn’t worth the trouble – save it for Aesthetics, Exploration, bits of Rationalism, and/or ideological tenets.

(Yes, there’s also a high-risk approach of getting Sacred Sites, temporarily converting your cities to allow purchasing religious buildings, then converting them back. But it requires capturing missionaries and a lot of faith to spend on Great Prophets to convert back after getting the buildings.)

Keeping a "cache" of Inquisitors { of the desired ultimate faith } available to effect the "reconversions" is far cheaper { Faith-wise } than relying on buying Great Prophets