I have recently moved to Monarch and am doing OK winning 50% perhaps ( only played 5-6 so far as am very busy), very proud to have just won as a non-financial civ (Ceasar), though it was a close run thing between my space ship and a cultural win from Catherine.

In this game I had built all over a moderate size island having wiped out the other civ on it early with the Prets. There were 5 other civs on the other large island and I was just ahead/on par tech wise when I met them all. I didn't think I could pull off a major invasion withoiut losing too much tech ground and catherine had already vassalised 2 of them so any war would be big. It was a turning point around the time of gunpowder when I had finally met all the civs.

How was I to win. I decided to go space race but it occured to me maybe I should give cultural a go. Now I have never on any level ever tried for cultural so although I can work out the mechanics OK I have no idea How early you really need to start planning it to have any chance.

Can you wait until after gunpowder to decide to go cultural or is that too late.

I think I will try a prince game cultural first to see the downfalls to avoid.

Thanks all.

Sorry all, normal size speed and usually continents for the above

I've only won a cultural victory by playing a Creative leader and building for culture from the beginning. But I don't see why you couldn't shift toward culture that late.

Try to get the :culture: wonders (Parthenon, Statue of Zeus, etc) and :culture: buildings (Temples, Libraries, etc).

Run a Specialist Farm (Artists) in one city.

If you have BtS you can leave it very late, thanks mainly to corporations, which can provide a huge boost to culture in the late game. I recently won a cultural victory which I only decided to pursue in the mid Industrial age, but I was still done before the space race got serious.

Ideally of course you do plan ahead. Collect religions (you don't have to found them, just spread them around to get enough temples for a good number of cathedrals in the three legendary cities). Grab Sushi, Creative Constructions and Civ Jewellers (if you're still going at that point).

Switch to Caste System, convert your 3 cultural cities to max out food production (farms, windmills) and have them all run as many artist specialists as possible. Use the resultant Great Artists for great works in the 3 cities (try not to produce any Great People in your other cities). You shouldn't have to use the culture slider at all, by the way. That way you should be able to keep up in military techs and avoid getting attacked.

To help out, spread religions, build 9 temples for each one, then build their cathedrals in your 3 cities (+50% culture). Build the Globe Theatre and Hermitage in your weakest cultural city.

The best world wonder to have for this win is the Sistine Chapel; the way it boosts cultural output from specialists and from state religion buildings can be huge (if you have it, to fully benefit, you'll need to avoid Free Religion). This is why it helps to consider a cultural victory early on, so you can be first to Music for the free GA and to get a head start on the SC. You can win without it, of course, but the SC makes it a lot easier.

I've gone for cultural victories as late as the modern age - when I've realised there's no other way I can win. It's worked a couple of times - you just have to go very hard in those three cities, and ignore pretty much everything else...

Actually, I'd say that you must have Gunpowder, Electricity, Radio, Combustion and Assembly Line if you're going to a cultural victory. If you don't, you'll not have the benefits of Broadway and others late-game wonders and more important, you'll be helpless when your neighbor will decide to take your almost legendary cities down.

A little planning before makes things better, sure. If you didn't found a religion, don't have any medieval wonder, it's a little bit late to aim for a cultural victory. But if you put the slider to culture too early, you'll end dead.

PFFT cultural victories are for girls! I'll show you how powerful your culture is with my ICBMS!

PFFT cultural victories are for girls! I'll show you how powerful your culture is with my ICBMS!

Agreed. I've only won by Culture once and it's seriously the lamest and most mind-numbing procession of enter-pressing you can imagine.

Nothing is worse than when you are crushing the entire world beneath your iron fist and are a few turns away from a domination victory and suddenly "some civ wins a cultural victory oh yea!"

..... Turned it off right after that.

Don't turn it off, watch your opponents and crush the fool who goes for it. Razing a legendary city to kill a dude's hope is quite satisfying.

yea but I play on Emperor on lakes which is basically one giant piece of land with 12-20 Civs. That means there are tons of landlocked civs blocked by people who quite possibly don't like me. Not to mention I gotta keep my eyes on something like that. And anyhow I think my massive stacks of death are much more influential than my artists.

Yeah I get the whole ram your culture down their throats with your fists bit and generally win via domination or to get to the next game more quickly via diplo as by that stage I have vassals and a massive population so voting is easy.

I just wanted to round out my style a bit so if I thought, as I did in the game described, I had few other viable options I just wanted a bit of advise and some experiance.

But if you put the slider to culture too early, you'll end dead.

Do it the way I described above and you won't have to touch the culture slider at all. ;) :D

I agree about the culture slider. I've had a number of cultural victories without using it at all. The best bet for doing this without using the culure slider is use an industrious leader, then make a list of all the wonders that produce great artist points and build only those, and only in your 3 culture cities. Other than the basics for health and happiness, don't build anything else in those cities, and set them to producing culture when they are not building wonders.

I only had once, to see the movie. But I usually spot the AIs going for cultural by seeing their next tech being 150 turns away with the espionage.

I only had once, to see the movie. But I usually spot the AIs going for cultural by seeing their next tech being 150 turns away with the espionage.
...and then it's so much fun to invade them and capture or raze that precious haven of culture, isn't it? :D

Yep. :D

Especially when the main city is coastal : declare war, bomb defenses with battleships, attack with marines, raze city, make peace and watch the guy cry.

1) The Gambit. Get a big and trustworthy friend, race towards Liberalism, channel your entire economic output into culture. If noone takes one of your big 3 cities, you will win the game. Most effectively done with cottages.

2) The modern SE. After Biology and the Sistine Chapel, artists are highly competitive and put Financial towns to shame if you still have use for science (e.g. unlocking culture wonders and corporations); you don't need to gimp the rest of your economy either for a decent output.
While not the fastest victory, it's a decent alternative to space: Immune to sabotage, and you can invest the hammers saved into an army. Incidentally... if an opponent's space progress is worrying, spy specialists are also extremely efficient.

Curious, does anyone put up pacifism for those late game cultural wins? I've always found that a healthy supply of GAs is how I win cultural victories, though when I've gone a c victory I've always planned for it.