Why oh why does the AI always outpace me in cultural influence?

Seems like no matter what I try at any point in before late endgame the AI all have staggering leads over me in cultural influence. What am I doing wrong? The only direct way I know of to increase influence is to drag a musician over to the other civ and put on a show, but most of the time I can't even get open borders to do that in the civs I'm farthest behind. Are there other ways I don't know about?

Maybe it's because I tend to put some of the cultural buildings on the back burner while I make more important things? But I'm not THAT bad about it... Is it just another adjustment they make to higher difficulty to give the AI a boost like how they're always ahead in techs?

Your best defense against influence is to have a strong culture output. Consider tourism only on culture victories.

Make the guilds soon enough, ally CS and win the world fair (propose it yourself). Also obviously the longer your game takes the more influence the AI is able to make. Usually you can win the world fair sometimes before T200. It usually is enough to not be influenced over exotic. Then unless you're the only one picking an ideology it shouldn't be a problem at all.

No, AI has no direct tourism boosts.
The AI has a cultural policy discount which might help it reach tourism tenets & policies faster, but this is actually on all difficulty levels.

The AIs hammer boost for buildings at higher difficulty levels though will help the AI build the guilds and storage for works faster.

It sounds like you aren't going after cultural victory, build the guilds and play the swaping great works to max out theming bonuses minigame anyway.
Just getting to exotic over them will largely negate happiness concerns which only takes 10%. (For that matter if an AI does become exotic over you it's almost impossible to get back down to unknown)
Note that tours are only effective if you have a large base tourism, otherwise you get booed off the stage.

Check the indicators when Hotels and Radio is discovered. If you are at risk of being overrun ideologicaly, build them in your capital.

The AI's killing you because he's getting all the wonders. It's immortal or deity--it happens. Like joncnunn said, it's hard to stop them from getting Exotic on you. So for that reason, I do advocate getting tourism; to counter his exotic with an exotic of your own. However I like filling most of your art slots with archaeologist digs. You can slow down the AIs tourism on you by sticking cheap units on top of the neutral archaeological sites. Getting enough artifacts means you can bulb your artists and writers and not great works them.

I keep on seeing people say to get tourism with the AI to avoid penalties from theirs. How does that work? I've never really noticed it, the game doesn't say that it helps resist them.

joncnunn said:

It sounds like you aren't going after cultural victory, build the guilds and play the swaping great works to max out theming bonuses minigame anyway.

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What does this mean? Theming bonuses? What's that mean that it's best to have all great works in one city or as few as possible?

Also this brings up another question of mine. How come in nearly every game I play I get to a point where I can no longer have musicians and writers complete great works even though there are still great work slots open? Is it some kind of glitch?

Any building or wonder that will accommodate two or more great works offers the potential for a culture and tourism "theming" bonus. If you mouse-hover over the +0 next to the slots for that building/wonder on the culture screen it will tell you what you need for a theming bonus for that building/wonder (e.g., two Great Works of Writing from different civilizations and different eras, three Great Works of Music from the same civilization and the same era). Move great works from slot to slot to try to max out your theming bonuses.

If you don't have the right combination of great works to max out your theming bonsues, you can try trading great works with the AI (note that music cannot be traded). Trading happens on the next culture screen, not the ordinary trading screen, and you can only do like-kind trades of great works and artifacts (can't trade a Great Work of Writing for a Great Work of Art, or for a luxury or gold-per-turn, for that matter).

ksot said:

What does this mean? Theming bonuses? What's that mean that it's best to have all great works in one city or as few as possible?

Also this brings up another question of mine. How come in nearly every game I play I get to a point where I can no longer have musicians and writers complete great works even though there are still great work slots open? Is it some kind of glitch?

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Consolidating works in one city is recommended because then you can construct buildings that add the bonuses to tourism in that one place. For example, you only get to build the national visitors center in one city. That provides a huge bonus to tourism. However, if your works and wonders are spread throughout your empire, you miss out on a ton of bonuses. It hasn't been mentioned yet, but it is these multipliers that really boost tourism. The works provide the base number but you actually don't need that many. To get insane tourism numbers, it's about having a few works and then concentrating your bonus buildings there.

To your second question: if you aren't able to create a work, make sure your great person is next to or in a city. It won't do it if you are one tile away. Also, remember that the works slots are specific. In other words, building an opera house will ONLY let you have a music work. It cannot hold a great work of writing.

Until you build the multiplier buildings that Primacide describes, there is utility in putting GWs in other cities -- to generate culture in those cities to encourage those cities' border growth. You can then move those GWs to cities with multiplier buildings, when that becomes more relevant.

My problem isn't the empty slots, it's the lack of them. I have archaeologists just sitting there, one turn of digging left. It's either make a landmark or nothing at all.

tetley said:

My problem isn't the empty slots, it's the lack of them. I have archaeologists just sitting there, one turn of digging left. It's either make a landmark or nothing at all.

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That's actually the one thing Cathedrals are best for (after your Museums in every city are filled with your choice of either a pair of Artifacts or a pair of Art.)

Beggars can't be choosers, but what I don't like about cathedrals is lack of theming bonus. But it'll get those digs off the map, and it'll fit one more GW in your city with Hermitage+NVC.

joncnunn said:

That's actually the one thing Cathedrals are best for (after your Museums in every city are filled with your choice of either a pair of Artifacts or a pair of Art.)

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Because artist guilds are available at guilds and museums far away at archaeology (which you probably wouldn't beeline), cathedrals really helps in getting in some extra early pressure.

As for archaeological digs, landmarks trumps artifacts. Its more culture and more tourism (after hotels).

Vitruvius said:

Because artist guilds are available at guilds and museums far away at archaeology (which you probably wouldn't beeline), cathedrals really helps in getting in some extra early pressure.

As for archaeological digs, landmarks trumps artifacts. Its more culture and more tourism (after hotels).

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Yes, it can, but it's fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.

Yes of course, but I was referring to digs outside your city limits.