After several culture wins (and a few losses) on Noble, Prince, and Monarch, I think I have a pretty good feel for what it takes to get a cultural victory at standard settings. This is not to say that the information contained within is a perfect strategy. It can lose, and it does lose. But it seems to win more consistently for me than alternative strategies.
The goal
---
Consistently win a cultural victory on a standard map with 7 civs.
Civilization traits
---
This has a huge impact on cultural games and is probably the most important decision to make. I'll do a quick rundown on how each trait affects a cultural victory.
Agressive - no direct impact on cultural wins.
Creative - seemingly great, but on further analysis only so-so. 2 culture/turn is not very much. Even in the late game when your cities have +150% to +300% culture boosts, this is only 5 to 8 culture/turn. Since most of the 50,000 culture (at normal speed) will come in the last 100 years with cities generating 250 to 1000 culture/turn, an extra 8 is not a big factor at all. In my estimation, this trait adds about 3% to your total cultural output for the game. This is reduced if you receive a large portion of your culture from great artists. Of course it also helps a bit with early city development. Not having to build an obelisk means you can build other important buildings sooner. That shouldn't be ignored, but early theaters largely reduce this advanatage.
Expansive - happiness is usually not a limiting factor in my cultural games, though health sometimes is. So expansive looks nice. Unfortunately, +2 health basically means +2 food (when a city is around the limit). So that's 1 extra citizen. So one (or two) extra tiles being worked or 1 extra specialist. Of course it will be a marginal tile (or it would be worked sooner). Assuming a smallish city of size 12, an extra tile generates around 8% more "stuff" (commerce + shields + food). Probably less since it's probably a marginal tile. I'd estimate a 5% or so gain in culture. This is reduced if you receive a large portion of your culture from great artists.
Financial - this one is huge. Fully developed cottages (with the appropriate techs and civics) will generate +7 commerce per turn on plains and grassland or +8 on a river. Financial makes this +8 or +9. On other tiles, the effect is seen as well. +2 coasts become +3 coasts. Hills with windmills on a river go up 1. Early in the game, financial contributes 25% or more to your commerce production. Late in the game after cottages are developed, financial contributes 15% or so to commerce production. Based on making the cultural slider 90% or 100% late in the game, that means 15% additional culture being genreated from commerce. Of course much (about half in my games) of your culture will be generated by cultural improvements. So in my estimation, financial adds about 7.5% to your total cultural output. Note that this figure is further reduced if you get a significant amount of your culture from great artists. In my games, I generally get around a third of my culture from great artists, so financial is really only contributing 5% to my total culture.But the real bonus of financial is the 25% gain in early science output and the 20% or so gain in mid-game science output. That is a huge factor in monarch games, where you otherwise won't be able to keep up in tech.
Industrious - this looks great, but I don't like how this plays out in monarch games. If you can get to techs fast enough, industrious will allow you to get certain wonders you otherwise would fail to get, particularly when combined with stone and/or marble. The problem is when you don't have stone or marble and you get beat to a tech, so you don't get the wonder you anyway. Industrious has the potential to be a huge cultural boost, but it also can be a waste in some games. I personally avoid financial at monarch due to this inconsistency. At lower difficulty levels, Industrious can be dominating (I've built well over half the world wonders in one noble cultural victory).
Organized - not very good, but I haven't measured the effects to know the exact effect. You will probably end up building anywhere from 5 to 9 cities. The reduced maintenance for these would be nice, but the extra income from financial will more than make up for any maintenance costs.
Philosophical - very good, whether you build wonders or not. This clearly isn't a 100% gain in great artist generation. For starters, much of your great artist generation will occur under Pacifism (+100% output). Also, much (say half) of your great artist generation will occur in a city with the National Epic wonder (+100% output in one city). So figure +200% naturally in your main artist generation city and +100% everywhere else. Philosphical will make this +300% in the National Epic city and +200% everywhere else. So about a +250% nationwide (vs +150%) assuming that half the production is in the National Epic city. So Philosphical is really closer to a 40% effective gain in great people points (3.5/2.5 = 1.4 or 40% gain). Also, the costs of the great artists go up with each one produced. So the actual gain in great person generation is closer to 30%. I typically produce around 12 to 16 great artists in a game with Philosphical. Without philosophical, this would be 10 to 13. So figure philospical adds an 2 to 3 great artists, generating 8,000 to 12,000 extra culture (out of 150,000 total needed) for a boost of 5% to 8%. Actually, 2 to 3 extra great artists can generate more than 8K to 12K culture (more on this later), but these numbers are fine for this discussion.
Spiritual - this one is more difficult to measure, but I don't think it's particularly wonderful on monarch. If you can get more religions, you definitely beneift. But number of religions founded is more dependent on starting tech than on the spiritual trait. What spiritual will do is allow you to avoid anarchy. In my games, I generally make about 5 or 6 switches. So spiritual means I have 5 to 6 more turns at hyper culture growth at the end of the game before my opponent wins the space race. Considering I lost one game by 2 turns, this could be critical. Or not.
Starting techs
---
I'll just mention the three that can be very important early in monarch games.
Mining - required for the quick expansion by deforestation strategy. You develop Bronze Working at the same time you get a first worker. 10 turns later, you have your first settler, and perhaps 10 turns after that you have your second settler.
Mysticism - If you want a guaranteed religion at monarch, you almost have to start with Mysticism. Personally, I prefer to develop other techs before Polytheism, so this isn't big for me. But polytheism first might be a better strategy.
Hunting - one step closer to archery, which can be critical when the barbarians have early archers (which they will at these difficulty levels).
Other techs can be nice depending on your starting location, but since these are so heavily dependent on your terrain, I don't feel that they consistently provide any early benefit.
Unique Units
---
I generally only develop to around democracy, liberalism, and gunpowder before I stop tech advancement. This means getting very quickly behind in military techs. This deficiency can last for up to 75 turns or so. It is quite possible that as you approach your cultural victory, the AI will send tanks at you. Therefore, having a unique unit around these techs is nice.
Without doing a great deal of research, two that work very well in this regard is the Russian Cossack and English Redcoat. If needed, you can fight off moderate tank invasions with these two units. Just expect to lose a lot of units.
I would love to here about other early industrial or pre-industrial era unique units that can help.
Civilization Selection
---
Based on all of the above, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I prefer Elizabeth (phil/fin starts with mining/fishing) and Catherine (fin/creat starts with mining/mysticism). I've had the best luck with Elizabeth using a strategy I will outline below.
Basic timeline
---
4000 BC - found city and start building a worker (assuming you have forests nearby). Have scout/warrior explore nearby (but don't stray too far). Try to find a good second city spot.
Second build - settler. Use the selective deforestation method to rush a settler. Use the warrior to protect the worker, and later the settler. Deforest in the city if you have to and just outside the workable area if you can.
Third build - warrior or archer or settler. Depending on how lucky you feel,
Fourth build - warrior or settler or archer. Whichever you didn't do last time.
Basically, you want to get setup on 3 good city spots as quickly as possible (city location is a big factor in how quickly you can win). But you can't completely sacrifice military, since the barbarians will really start being a problem about the time the 3rd settler is ready.
Once I have 3 cities, I stop rushing units. A 4th city is a priority, but I won't rush it, since I need a little time to get a little commerce going anyway.
Between 4000 BC and 1 AD is all about getting my main 4 cities setup and founding any secondary cities (which will be used for resource aquisition, temple construction, and military unit building primarily). Note that it is often cheaper to build axeman with the city raider promotion and take barbarian cities than it is to build settlers. I usually end up with 1 or 2 barbarian cities.
In my 3 cultural cities, I build cottages (rather than farms) in the open areas, and mines wherever they are needed. I generally leave forests alone at this point.
In my specialist city, I build farms and mines.
1 AD - I begin to prepare the core cities for the culture rush. I do this by making sure I have whatever religions I have established in all my cities. I also make sure I have temples built. This will maximize my cathedral buildings later. Other cultural buildings (monostaries, for example) are nice, but sometimes you need another city imrpovement more. DOn't get too caught up in culture production at this point, but also don't completely ignore it.
In the core cities themselves, I begin to cut down all forests that aren't on hills and replace them with cottages. In some cases, the production will crash. I don't care. What I need at this point in these cities is as much commerce as I can possibly squeeze out. Plus, I want the cottages relatively well-developed by the time I hit 1500 AD. Mines also get replaced by windmills in the core cities and lumbermills get built wherever I am not clearcutting (forested hills, for example, or forests in non-core cities).
1500 AD - Do your final preparations for the culture boom. Determine which 3 cities will end up being your legendary cities. Do this by temporarily sliding culture to 100% and looking at the stats. You may determine that the 3 cities you identified back in the BC years aren't the actual best cities. No big deal, but you need to know now what 3 cities to go with. Build the Hermitage in one of the cities. Build your available cathedrals in the 3 cities. Optimizing this can be tricky, but if you have stored your great artists, you can afford to make some mistakes. Have your non-core cities start serious military production. You need to build a large enough base of units to survive tanks with your inferior units. You may never get attacked, but you need to be prepared.
1600 AD - Flip the culture switch. I prefer doing this around 1600 AD, but occasionally I find myself not quite ready (for example, I am 10 turns away from Democracy). I defer it if I have to, but don't wait too long or you will be seeing tanks and spaceships before you win.
1900 AD - Win. 1900 should be a comfortable win. Other civs may have SS Casings and Thrusters built, but not much else.
City location selection
---
In this strategy, I generally use 4 base cities. 3 are designed to maximize commerce. This generally means as much grassland as possible. Rivers are a bonus. Coasts aren't a deal-killer, but in general, inland is better than coastal. Grassland/Forest or Grassland/Jungle tiles are ok as well. But I do try to avoid pure jungle for an early city since it will generate maintenance problems without generating much commerce. Basically you want open space, balanced with enough un-improved food production to support a reasonable population (12 to 15 is adequate, 15 to 18 is excellent). These cities will eventually become almost 100% cottage.
The 4th city (often the 2nd one founded) will be a specialist city. Here, you want maximum food production. In general, that means as much flood plain, food resources, and grassland as you can manage. Rivers are essential for farming, so river bends are ideal. Ideally, this city will be able to dedicate 6 or so citizens to be great artists, generating 100 or more great person points a turn (if you are philosophical. Sometimes the specialist city will end up being one of your 3 legendary cities, but most of the time, you will have 3 cottaged cities that will outperform it slightly. But since this city will still be producing a fair amount of commerce, if you are stuck with 2 good cottaged cities (rather than 3) and a specialist city, use the specialist city.
Additional cities are purely about resources or production or simple land grabs.
Specialists
---
Using this strategy, the only great person I ever want to create is a great artist. Great scientists aren't a disaster (particularly if developed early), but every great artist puts you at least 2.67% closer to your goal. I generally develop about 15 great artists during the course of the game, so that gives me 40% of my needed culture
So how do I generate great artists without building any world wonders? The national wonders are a minor help, but basically it's all done with artist (culture) specialists. I religiously look at the F1 city info summary screen. Whenever a city is at it's limit in happiness or health, I manually stop it's growth and switch excess people into artists. Generally this means 1 or 2 specialists in about half my cities. Spreading great person point production across multiple cities isn't ideal, but most cities will end up generating 1 or 2 great persons sometime during the game.
Once I get to the end game, almost everything will be coming from the specialist city. In good games, this city will be generating up to 100 great person points a turn without a single world wonder. That will give me a great artist every 15 turns or so in the end-game (obviously the time goes up as you get more).
One thing to watch out for is the AI creating a specialist. When you have your science slider high (which is 90% of the game), the AI will tend to create scientist specialist. When you see this, switch the scientist out for an artist specialist. Again, great scientists aren't a disaster (use them to build academies), but great artists are better.
So what should you then do with your great artists? Whatever you do, don't immediately go create a great work. You may think you know which 3 cities are going to be your legenedary cities, but in my last 3 games, my 3 best cities were always different than what I thought my 3 best cities would be when I started the game. Clearly I am not a perfect judge of terrain yet.
Some people would suggest adding the great artist to one of your 3 cultural cities as a super specialist. While this is technically the best approach, I don't do this. A great work will produce +4000 culture in one lump sum. A super specialist will produce something like a base +14 culture/turn. But this value is modified by improvements. So a +14 super specialist in a city with 1 cathedral, The Hermitage, and free speech (+250% bonus) will actually generate 49 culture/turn. That would mean it generates more culture in less than 100 turns.
The problem with this is the same problem as immediately creating the great work - you may not be good at predicting which city needs the improvement. Perhaps the city you think is your 3rd best city is actually your 4th best. Perhaps your improvement causes a city to hit 50,000 culture while another lags behind at 40,000. Ideally you want all your cities to hit 50,000 at the same time. The only predictable way to do this is to save your great artists and use them in a single great work rush at the end. 12 to 15 saved great artists is a wonderfully flexible way of evening out your top 3 cities (and by then you know exactly what your best 3 cities are without any mistakes).
As I become better at identifying which cities are best earlier in the game, I might start using more super specialists with my early great artists. But for now, things work out well enough by saving them all.
End of Part 1
The goal
---
Consistently win a cultural victory on a standard map with 7 civs.
Civilization traits
---
This has a huge impact on cultural games and is probably the most important decision to make. I'll do a quick rundown on how each trait affects a cultural victory.
Agressive - no direct impact on cultural wins.
Creative - seemingly great, but on further analysis only so-so. 2 culture/turn is not very much. Even in the late game when your cities have +150% to +300% culture boosts, this is only 5 to 8 culture/turn. Since most of the 50,000 culture (at normal speed) will come in the last 100 years with cities generating 250 to 1000 culture/turn, an extra 8 is not a big factor at all. In my estimation, this trait adds about 3% to your total cultural output for the game. This is reduced if you receive a large portion of your culture from great artists. Of course it also helps a bit with early city development. Not having to build an obelisk means you can build other important buildings sooner. That shouldn't be ignored, but early theaters largely reduce this advanatage.
Expansive - happiness is usually not a limiting factor in my cultural games, though health sometimes is. So expansive looks nice. Unfortunately, +2 health basically means +2 food (when a city is around the limit). So that's 1 extra citizen. So one (or two) extra tiles being worked or 1 extra specialist. Of course it will be a marginal tile (or it would be worked sooner). Assuming a smallish city of size 12, an extra tile generates around 8% more "stuff" (commerce + shields + food). Probably less since it's probably a marginal tile. I'd estimate a 5% or so gain in culture. This is reduced if you receive a large portion of your culture from great artists.
Financial - this one is huge. Fully developed cottages (with the appropriate techs and civics) will generate +7 commerce per turn on plains and grassland or +8 on a river. Financial makes this +8 or +9. On other tiles, the effect is seen as well. +2 coasts become +3 coasts. Hills with windmills on a river go up 1. Early in the game, financial contributes 25% or more to your commerce production. Late in the game after cottages are developed, financial contributes 15% or so to commerce production. Based on making the cultural slider 90% or 100% late in the game, that means 15% additional culture being genreated from commerce. Of course much (about half in my games) of your culture will be generated by cultural improvements. So in my estimation, financial adds about 7.5% to your total cultural output. Note that this figure is further reduced if you get a significant amount of your culture from great artists. In my games, I generally get around a third of my culture from great artists, so financial is really only contributing 5% to my total culture.But the real bonus of financial is the 25% gain in early science output and the 20% or so gain in mid-game science output. That is a huge factor in monarch games, where you otherwise won't be able to keep up in tech.
Industrious - this looks great, but I don't like how this plays out in monarch games. If you can get to techs fast enough, industrious will allow you to get certain wonders you otherwise would fail to get, particularly when combined with stone and/or marble. The problem is when you don't have stone or marble and you get beat to a tech, so you don't get the wonder you anyway. Industrious has the potential to be a huge cultural boost, but it also can be a waste in some games. I personally avoid financial at monarch due to this inconsistency. At lower difficulty levels, Industrious can be dominating (I've built well over half the world wonders in one noble cultural victory).
Organized - not very good, but I haven't measured the effects to know the exact effect. You will probably end up building anywhere from 5 to 9 cities. The reduced maintenance for these would be nice, but the extra income from financial will more than make up for any maintenance costs.
Philosophical - very good, whether you build wonders or not. This clearly isn't a 100% gain in great artist generation. For starters, much of your great artist generation will occur under Pacifism (+100% output). Also, much (say half) of your great artist generation will occur in a city with the National Epic wonder (+100% output in one city). So figure +200% naturally in your main artist generation city and +100% everywhere else. Philosphical will make this +300% in the National Epic city and +200% everywhere else. So about a +250% nationwide (vs +150%) assuming that half the production is in the National Epic city. So Philosphical is really closer to a 40% effective gain in great people points (3.5/2.5 = 1.4 or 40% gain). Also, the costs of the great artists go up with each one produced. So the actual gain in great person generation is closer to 30%. I typically produce around 12 to 16 great artists in a game with Philosphical. Without philosophical, this would be 10 to 13. So figure philospical adds an 2 to 3 great artists, generating 8,000 to 12,000 extra culture (out of 150,000 total needed) for a boost of 5% to 8%. Actually, 2 to 3 extra great artists can generate more than 8K to 12K culture (more on this later), but these numbers are fine for this discussion.
Spiritual - this one is more difficult to measure, but I don't think it's particularly wonderful on monarch. If you can get more religions, you definitely beneift. But number of religions founded is more dependent on starting tech than on the spiritual trait. What spiritual will do is allow you to avoid anarchy. In my games, I generally make about 5 or 6 switches. So spiritual means I have 5 to 6 more turns at hyper culture growth at the end of the game before my opponent wins the space race. Considering I lost one game by 2 turns, this could be critical. Or not.
Starting techs
---
I'll just mention the three that can be very important early in monarch games.
Mining - required for the quick expansion by deforestation strategy. You develop Bronze Working at the same time you get a first worker. 10 turns later, you have your first settler, and perhaps 10 turns after that you have your second settler.
Mysticism - If you want a guaranteed religion at monarch, you almost have to start with Mysticism. Personally, I prefer to develop other techs before Polytheism, so this isn't big for me. But polytheism first might be a better strategy.
Hunting - one step closer to archery, which can be critical when the barbarians have early archers (which they will at these difficulty levels).
Other techs can be nice depending on your starting location, but since these are so heavily dependent on your terrain, I don't feel that they consistently provide any early benefit.
Unique Units
---
I generally only develop to around democracy, liberalism, and gunpowder before I stop tech advancement. This means getting very quickly behind in military techs. This deficiency can last for up to 75 turns or so. It is quite possible that as you approach your cultural victory, the AI will send tanks at you. Therefore, having a unique unit around these techs is nice.
Without doing a great deal of research, two that work very well in this regard is the Russian Cossack and English Redcoat. If needed, you can fight off moderate tank invasions with these two units. Just expect to lose a lot of units.
I would love to here about other early industrial or pre-industrial era unique units that can help.
Civilization Selection
---
Based on all of the above, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I prefer Elizabeth (phil/fin starts with mining/fishing) and Catherine (fin/creat starts with mining/mysticism). I've had the best luck with Elizabeth using a strategy I will outline below.
Basic timeline
---
4000 BC - found city and start building a worker (assuming you have forests nearby). Have scout/warrior explore nearby (but don't stray too far). Try to find a good second city spot.
Second build - settler. Use the selective deforestation method to rush a settler. Use the warrior to protect the worker, and later the settler. Deforest in the city if you have to and just outside the workable area if you can.
Third build - warrior or archer or settler. Depending on how lucky you feel,
Fourth build - warrior or settler or archer. Whichever you didn't do last time.
Basically, you want to get setup on 3 good city spots as quickly as possible (city location is a big factor in how quickly you can win). But you can't completely sacrifice military, since the barbarians will really start being a problem about the time the 3rd settler is ready.
Once I have 3 cities, I stop rushing units. A 4th city is a priority, but I won't rush it, since I need a little time to get a little commerce going anyway.
Between 4000 BC and 1 AD is all about getting my main 4 cities setup and founding any secondary cities (which will be used for resource aquisition, temple construction, and military unit building primarily). Note that it is often cheaper to build axeman with the city raider promotion and take barbarian cities than it is to build settlers. I usually end up with 1 or 2 barbarian cities.
In my 3 cultural cities, I build cottages (rather than farms) in the open areas, and mines wherever they are needed. I generally leave forests alone at this point.
In my specialist city, I build farms and mines.
1 AD - I begin to prepare the core cities for the culture rush. I do this by making sure I have whatever religions I have established in all my cities. I also make sure I have temples built. This will maximize my cathedral buildings later. Other cultural buildings (monostaries, for example) are nice, but sometimes you need another city imrpovement more. DOn't get too caught up in culture production at this point, but also don't completely ignore it.
In the core cities themselves, I begin to cut down all forests that aren't on hills and replace them with cottages. In some cases, the production will crash. I don't care. What I need at this point in these cities is as much commerce as I can possibly squeeze out. Plus, I want the cottages relatively well-developed by the time I hit 1500 AD. Mines also get replaced by windmills in the core cities and lumbermills get built wherever I am not clearcutting (forested hills, for example, or forests in non-core cities).
1500 AD - Do your final preparations for the culture boom. Determine which 3 cities will end up being your legendary cities. Do this by temporarily sliding culture to 100% and looking at the stats. You may determine that the 3 cities you identified back in the BC years aren't the actual best cities. No big deal, but you need to know now what 3 cities to go with. Build the Hermitage in one of the cities. Build your available cathedrals in the 3 cities. Optimizing this can be tricky, but if you have stored your great artists, you can afford to make some mistakes. Have your non-core cities start serious military production. You need to build a large enough base of units to survive tanks with your inferior units. You may never get attacked, but you need to be prepared.
1600 AD - Flip the culture switch. I prefer doing this around 1600 AD, but occasionally I find myself not quite ready (for example, I am 10 turns away from Democracy). I defer it if I have to, but don't wait too long or you will be seeing tanks and spaceships before you win.
1900 AD - Win. 1900 should be a comfortable win. Other civs may have SS Casings and Thrusters built, but not much else.
City location selection
---
In this strategy, I generally use 4 base cities. 3 are designed to maximize commerce. This generally means as much grassland as possible. Rivers are a bonus. Coasts aren't a deal-killer, but in general, inland is better than coastal. Grassland/Forest or Grassland/Jungle tiles are ok as well. But I do try to avoid pure jungle for an early city since it will generate maintenance problems without generating much commerce. Basically you want open space, balanced with enough un-improved food production to support a reasonable population (12 to 15 is adequate, 15 to 18 is excellent). These cities will eventually become almost 100% cottage.
The 4th city (often the 2nd one founded) will be a specialist city. Here, you want maximum food production. In general, that means as much flood plain, food resources, and grassland as you can manage. Rivers are essential for farming, so river bends are ideal. Ideally, this city will be able to dedicate 6 or so citizens to be great artists, generating 100 or more great person points a turn (if you are philosophical. Sometimes the specialist city will end up being one of your 3 legendary cities, but most of the time, you will have 3 cottaged cities that will outperform it slightly. But since this city will still be producing a fair amount of commerce, if you are stuck with 2 good cottaged cities (rather than 3) and a specialist city, use the specialist city.
Additional cities are purely about resources or production or simple land grabs.
Specialists
---
Using this strategy, the only great person I ever want to create is a great artist. Great scientists aren't a disaster (particularly if developed early), but every great artist puts you at least 2.67% closer to your goal. I generally develop about 15 great artists during the course of the game, so that gives me 40% of my needed culture
So how do I generate great artists without building any world wonders? The national wonders are a minor help, but basically it's all done with artist (culture) specialists. I religiously look at the F1 city info summary screen. Whenever a city is at it's limit in happiness or health, I manually stop it's growth and switch excess people into artists. Generally this means 1 or 2 specialists in about half my cities. Spreading great person point production across multiple cities isn't ideal, but most cities will end up generating 1 or 2 great persons sometime during the game.
Once I get to the end game, almost everything will be coming from the specialist city. In good games, this city will be generating up to 100 great person points a turn without a single world wonder. That will give me a great artist every 15 turns or so in the end-game (obviously the time goes up as you get more).
One thing to watch out for is the AI creating a specialist. When you have your science slider high (which is 90% of the game), the AI will tend to create scientist specialist. When you see this, switch the scientist out for an artist specialist. Again, great scientists aren't a disaster (use them to build academies), but great artists are better.
So what should you then do with your great artists? Whatever you do, don't immediately go create a great work. You may think you know which 3 cities are going to be your legenedary cities, but in my last 3 games, my 3 best cities were always different than what I thought my 3 best cities would be when I started the game. Clearly I am not a perfect judge of terrain yet.
Some people would suggest adding the great artist to one of your 3 cultural cities as a super specialist. While this is technically the best approach, I don't do this. A great work will produce +4000 culture in one lump sum. A super specialist will produce something like a base +14 culture/turn. But this value is modified by improvements. So a +14 super specialist in a city with 1 cathedral, The Hermitage, and free speech (+250% bonus) will actually generate 49 culture/turn. That would mean it generates more culture in less than 100 turns.
The problem with this is the same problem as immediately creating the great work - you may not be good at predicting which city needs the improvement. Perhaps the city you think is your 3rd best city is actually your 4th best. Perhaps your improvement causes a city to hit 50,000 culture while another lags behind at 40,000. Ideally you want all your cities to hit 50,000 at the same time. The only predictable way to do this is to save your great artists and use them in a single great work rush at the end. 12 to 15 saved great artists is a wonderfully flexible way of evening out your top 3 cities (and by then you know exactly what your best 3 cities are without any mistakes).
As I become better at identifying which cities are best earlier in the game, I might start using more super specialists with my early great artists. But for now, things work out well enough by saving them all.
End of Part 1
He demanded it of me, and what the heck, why not. Plenty diplo points with him.
