Christianity did spread to me, so maybe Culture could be possible. Hate culture games though, they're painfully boring
Think I've only gone for culture once or twice in my entire Civ4 career, and the reason is quite simple: it bores me to tears. Eyes are red and body void of liquids now, but at least I won. Sadly a game like this isn't "just one more turn..." but "okay, how long to go...?" Check Victory screen....
But at least I got there, and trying to be positive about the whole ordeal, maybe I learnt a little about it (besides not dying to boredom, seriously, how can people like jesusin actually play these games time and time again, and still live to tell the tale??)
Now that I've bored you too about my boredom
Went into Culture mode rather late. But at some point post-1AD I decided to try that rather than a quite possibly ill-fated Cuirs attempt. As suspected there was no chance to grab Lib. I tried, almost had a GS ready to finish Edu, but a few turns before that Joao (think it was him) got Liberalism. I still needed it for Free Speech, but it would have been nice to get something like Nationalism for free.
Thankfully Buddhism was the AP religion, which was one of the three religions I had. Built some missionaries, focusing on Buddhism first. Then got up AP-temples and monasteries, before going for the other religions. Didn't have Stone (which boosts Christianity cathedral), but copper boosts Buddha and Confu 'cathedrals'. Got them up in due time, although it took forever in the cottage/silk city. Got two GS early on, which were spent on Philo (too late to found religion) and Edu (needed it anyway). Next 9 were Great Artists. Only one were in slight doubt, with a 93% GArtist chance in the capital (which had worked scientists very early on). Oh, and I was probably lucky to get Sistine, the only wonder I got in the whole game. Guess the AI was late to it for some reason, because they happened to go for the other ones. Lots were built early, so I could mostly forget about failgold (apart from 500 or so from Paya). Though I did get a little anyway, as I figured IND could still be useful for it, despite not having a boosting resource like Stone (got marble later, but all those wonders went crazy fast).
Capital became legendary first. It had Hermitage, but I didn't use any bombs there. Two other cities were just one turn apart, so not too bad. One was the NE city up north (with Globe as well), and the last the silk haven. This happened a little before 1700AD. No idea if that is good or bad, but presumably middle or the road.
There were some AI wars, but it mostly kicked off towards the end. Wang lost a city to Zara at some point, but oddly managed to peace out despite being inferious technologically. Yet later, both Joao and Freddie declared on him in the same turn, and took him apart from several directions. He kept Seoul before capping to Joao. Throughout the game I tried to beg gold, but even post turn 200, when I had never begged anything from Hammurabi, the AIs were total twats about it, and with only one or two exceptions turned me down. That was despite only asking for meagre amounts like 50g. Some of them had coffers of 2000g. Bonkers and not half annoying when I was strapped myself.
Doubt I'll try another cultural game for a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long time.
Excellent write-up
@Solyaris 
About the map: It was obviously tough with all those barbs early on. I would be dead without Archery. It was a little tricky war-wise because we needed boats to reach AIs, but that also meant we had more peace in terms of defense/border pressure, and that all trade routes were excellent from the start. Naturally I would have preferred a map without ~50% useless ice and tundra. At least the capital was good. And it was nice with a bunch of silk for trading purposes.
Hopefully nobody else went for culture
so I can get something in return for 32 hours which felt like 3200
Oh, and small footnote: I got two tech gifts throughout the game, surely because I was hilariously backwards. Zara gifted Military Tradition, and on the very last turn, Hammurabi gifted Gunpowder.
Not often you see barb rifles. I'm surprised they lasted that long
