Cultural Victory problem...

Hi I'm slowly learning the game and I've played about a dozen times now with different civ's. I'm having a problem with cultural victory on Immortal.

I've tried twice as Persia. I don't know why but i'm stubborn and want to get it with them. I like the fact that there golden age is epic.

This is sort of the game plan I used in both and lost to a science victory both times at about turn 280-290 on standard speed to the computer...I was about 5-6 policies away.

1. main city up and running.

2.when I got to the policy that gives you a free settler and speeds settlers I then got three more cities up. by about turn 70ish.

3. focused on the top part of the science tree so I letrally was almost at modern age and still making pikeman..lol

4. I had 2 army troops at turn 200ish...lol all I did was build buildings and wonders. I did miss out on alahambra so that's 20% less culture in my main building but still maybe that would be 2-3 more policies.

5. I build science buildings first asap to keep science up and then immediately build cultural buildings. I always made sure to use up slots of the cultural buildings.

6. because of the fact that golden ages are epic and I got the policy tree line that increases golden ages by 50%, my golden ages were 16turns when I use great artist and 20 turns when I got them by happiness. I had a golden age from turn 240 and still had another 40 turns waiting when the game ended at turn 280-290..basically I had over 100 turns of golden ages lined up because all my great artists started poping up at turn 200ish..i used the first 2 for terrain bonus and then the rest I used for golden age.

7. I had 7 city states as allies and 4 others as friends. 3 cultural allies and a mix of the rest.

8. since I had a tone of golden ages I had about 170 gold per turn for well over 100 turns and just kept buying more allies.

My cultural count was 680per turn with 4 cities at turn 280 and I was just about to get the last 2 cities a broadcast tower.

I know I could have done a few things differently but really, the AI is winning really really early with science..i mean turn 280ish is really hard to beat...


Anyone have a good strategy for me, an idea of when to pop up 2nd to 4th forth city...which wonders to go for..anything would be great...

thanks : )

Kirbdog has an excellent culture strategy guide here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=493543

Because culture is a lot slower than science for some reason, you usually have to go smash the leading AI (or two) militarily so you have time to get the last few policies. I've also had a tough time winning culture with 4 cities... Try it with 2 or 3. My first culture win was actually a OCC but I kinda cheated by reloading a bunch of times. But yeah, with 4 cities those policies are expensive and there's a lot of waiting around. Use the time to go burn down the top few cities of the score/science leader.

Every culture game i've ever won has focused around planting great artists. i suspect it's much harder if you're expending themall on great ages

For standard speed the benchmarks are :

-Archeology by turn 160
-Broadcast Towers by turn 200-210
-Approx. 1000 cpt provided from 3 or 4 cities(puppets optional)

You better rush/build :

-Opera Houses asap
-Hermitage asap
-Open and finish Freedom tree asap(opened with archeology)
-Broadcast Towers

Try to(optional) :

-Start a golden age approx. 140 turns before finish date to keep a pace of 6-7 turns between policies earned(burn 1/3 of your great artists for golden ages)
-Build Cristo Redentor

Win range at immortal(safe) : 260-280

1. dont use your great artists for golden ages, instead build their improvement.
2. get cultural CS as allies.
3. dont forget to use proper beliefs when founding your religion.