Cultural Victory Elimination Thread (no SS)

[enKage]

I am on that side that strongly prefers post flight CV (and suprisingly, beelined flight is not such a late tech!) simply because early strong tourism is not always workable and quite RNG. Depends too much on starting position and has a opportunity cost of expansion, which can be a huge price when unexpected war breaks up (or any other factor).
I am aware, there are some civs that CAN do very early tourism victory, but not every game suits it, so it is a restart. And I consider resterted game as LOST game. Restarting because eart goddess was taken counts to me as LOST game. Restarting because Russia, Kongo and Eleonor are as opponents counts to me as LOST game. So in my understanding, I have much bigger chance of winning culture victory with a civ that is fairly good in adapting to most condition and explode tourism a little bit later, than with a civ, that has too many "IFs".
I just see, what shape I am in the start of medieval era (and I play so long even with barb spam pre t15) and evaluate if the game is promising. And because of MY playstyle I can see I am in good / very good shape in nearly every game as Cree (though I would never go for CV as them), and among remaining civs: America, Persia, China, Japan. This four civs, bacuse of the ability to do well in every starting condition with my playstyle are safe in my votes for a long time.
On the other side - "bad shapes" - I have Canada (obvious reason) and suprisingly Greece, mainly because hill bias and disability to grow to more than 2 district slots. I can do great, but most of the greek games are pure restart for me. With Gorgo I always do better. But my undisputed king of "restart, until you found good condition" is Kupe, so again my downvote to Maori (even though it is post-flight civ, still Kupe's post flight has less IMO tourism potential than others)
Kupe -3

Upvote for Persia as a civ which is very stable in my hands. And pairidaezas are not only tourism tool. This UI is worth working (in opposite to sphinx) from the earliest stage of the game, granting (combined with satrapies) significant civic progress and enough gold not to feel the difference, when buying great works early instead of generating GWAMs
Cyrus +1

Catherine/France (Mag) [20]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [18]
Gitarja/Indonesia [4]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [14]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [23]
Peter/Russia [22]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [19]

 

[bbbt]

There's a number of ways to evaluate who is best at culture victory. I'm going to attempt to choose slightly more specific voting criteria for my remaining rounds. For this round:

If all these civs were in a game, with ONLY peaceful culture victory allowed as a win condition, who would win?

Pericles/Greece [24] 23+1 - His tourism bonuses are clear: can get GWAM quickly. Fast beelining to multiplier policy cards and civics through huge cultural production. Suzerainship of any cultural UI CSes. Can get a religion if wants (early GP wildcard running).

But what put him over the edge by this criteria: Culture is also the DEFENSE against a cultural victory. With his huge cultural output by mid to end game with the 5% suzerainship stacking, no one will be able to become dominant over him with their tourism.

Gitarja/Indonesia [1] 4 - 3 - Of the folks remaining, she has almost zero cultural bonuses. Her tourism bonus - to Kampungs - is based off food output. And while they are pretty spammable, UIs only start tourism at flight, and have no multipliers. She has very specific map criteria.

Catherine/France (Mag) [20]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [18]
Gitarja/Indonesia [1]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [14]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [22]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [19]

 

[lotrmith]

A little late posting today.

A recap of how a Culture Victory works: You attack with Tourism. You defend (as do other civs) with Culture. So the goalpost moves as the game progresses, since early Tourism is relatively low as is early Culture accumulation... but in the late game culture accumulation is sky high and so by necessity the late game Tourism sources need to be high.

The trick is that at any particular point in time, to get a win, you need to out-Tourism your strongest opponent's Culture. Also, since Tourism is a lifetime metric, getting Tourism sources early matters a lot: If you've got 20 Tourism at turn 50, and nothing else until say turn 100, that's 50 turns generating a lifetime 1000 Tourism by turn 100. By turn 200, that same original 20 source will have gotten 3000 total Tourism. So if you have a new Tourism source starting at turn 100, it needs to be at least 30+ Tourism to equal the gains by turn 200 of the earlier 20 source. This is why increasing power of progressive era Tourism sources is important, and also why early sources of Tourism are still relevant.

All that said, your mileage may vary, but is comprised of the following in approximately this order:

A religion with a Holy City, possibly significantly bolstered by relics.
Great Works.
National Parks, Seaside Resorts and Culture Tile Improvements.
Ski Resorts and Rock Bands.
Wonders throughout, generally increasing in power the earlier they are built.

Depending on the strength of your abilities where they land in this timeline you may or may not succeed early, in which case either the later sources are irrelevant or they are necessary to close out the game.

Also to note, and this applies to just about everyone equally, your ability to win a Culture Victory in any game in any reasonable amount of time is highly contingent on your opponents. If extremely high Culture generating civs are present, like Greece or Japan or China, you're basically screwed.


MAGNIFICENCE: TL;DR Here's a breakdown from someone employing the fast culture wins with this leader. Spoiler Alert: It's probably the least consistent and simultaneously most convoluted strategy in history. Hence she has no business being here.

Spoiler :

Basically you get between 8-10 cities up as fast as you can you only build a government plaza with ancestral hall in one city and a theatre square, and in all the other cities you just chop/build theatre square and then the projects.

You have to settle differently prioritizing all possible luxury resources over anything else after your first 3 cities so fresh water etc is irrelevant its just total available luxury tiles that you're prioritizing in order to maximize the power of her court festivals.

Trade with the AI with for all of their excess copies of luxuries other than the first copy they wont trade right before you goto complete all your festivals.

You also have do everything you can NOT to research techs or get civics because every 2 techs/civics adds production onto your districts, adds gold for purchasing tiles, and worse yet adds production to your court festivals.

That's pretty much it, hope that helps. If you have more specific questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.



I had people in my comment sections asking questions which I elaborated on so figured I'd copy and paste it here for you too:

My first attempt with this style was on a map that I didn't have resources set to abundant and that was the one that I won in 108 turns. The key to winning fast is that you have to work very hard to control and limit your technologies and civics being finished so that the cost of your Court Festivals doesn't go up.

Then, you have to time out your court festivals to all pop on the same turn but actually it's you have one pop first, and then pop all the rest the following turn. What you do is have a builder in all of your cities except for the first city that you are going to allow to finish naturally. Have all your other cities with a builder and either a rainforest or a forest/stone to chop and have them timed so that they are down to one turn left for completion.

When your first Court Festival pops, it will boost and finish whatever civic you were researching. Be sure you don't have multiple civics lined up otherwise it will boost more than one. When this happens it will cause the cost of all your other Court Festivals to increase so they'll go from having one turn left before completion to having between 2-5 turns depending on their production levels.

Then you simply don't chose another Civic yet, and use all of your builders to chop out all of the remaining festivals that same turn and then you will instantly win the following turn. I was playing with 7 other civs and needed exactly 9 festivals total to win based on the amount of luxuries I had accrued.

Anyway, sorry if I rambled just thought I'd try to explain the technique in case you were interested in trying it again and seeing how low you could get it. I ended up doing fine with 4 total scouts. Another thing you could try doing rather than spending the production on the horsemen would be to levy a city state fairly early and use their warriors or swordsmen to explore.

Also, one other thing about city states is that you also want to try targeting the one or two for suzerainship that have the highest amount of luxuries in their territory or immediately close by. And don't forget to promote Amani too so that you get to double the luxuries.

Lastly, speaking of Governors I got Reyna first for her faster tile acquisition, then Liang for the extra builder charge, then Magnus in time to chop pyramids and then straight to wherever you are going to chop your Ancestral Hall/Settlers. If you have quite a few rainforest tiles in that city I'd skip provision but if you don't have many to keep the population up I'd promote him so you don't decimate your pop. After that I got Amani and then went for her luxury resource promotion path.

Oh also, after chopping the either the Pyramids or Oracle depending on your map layout you want to immediately rotate Magnus to whatever city you're going to do the government plaza in to chop your settlers. As soon as your done chopping as many as you can, you rotate him through your cities as fast as you can to chop their theatre square and most of their Court festival before moving him on so that you can time things out properly. Do as best as you can to have a builder or two waiting in each city you rotate Magnus to so that he only has to be positioned there for 1-3 turns before moving onto your next city.

Also, you want to fully take advantage of all the luxuries you'll be accumulating so make sure to sell them to the AI for whatever you can as fast as you can. Just make sure to stop selling them by the time you hit between turn 60-65 so that you can time your Court Festival poppings to be sub 100.

Canada: A tundra bias means strong early Holy Sites via Aurora which turns into a religion which turns into even stronger production (thank you Work Ethic), in addition to the early Tourism from the Holy City and the tourism modifier for shared religion throughout the course of the game. You can leverage that production into Theater Squares for GWAMs. You can spend your Faith on missionaries or Apostles to spread your religion and/or try to generate relics, without worrying about your Faith bank because you have Mounties to make Parks instead of Naturalists (or you can use both, whatever floats your boat), and Tundra is National Park playground. Your Hockey Rinks do double duty as tourism generating improvements post-Flight and appeal increase on adjacent Park tiles. With your faith generation and faith savings from using Mounties, you can finish out with Rock Bands as necessary.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [18]
Gitarja/Indonesia [1]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [14]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [22]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[JesseS]

Peter/Russia [22+1=23] I haven't had the chance to upvote Russia yet, so will do so now that they're starting to lag a little. Basically, Russia is strong all-around, with the Lavra providing a ton of great people points and reliably getting you the first great prophet. Dance of the aurora and work ethic are a great combo, but earth goddess and choral music are also good choices. The extra land on settling helps with early production and growth and lets you lock in good districts without spending much gold on tile-buying. Their strong faith game and extra land means that their national park game is second only to Canada. The only challenge is building theater square buildings fast enough to house all your great works.

Kupe/Maori [14-3=1] The Maori have very interesting gameplay but their abilities include some notable negatives that I think make them worse on net than the remaining contenders (besides maybe Indonesia). Yeah, your woods look incredible after flight and conservation. You have to love tiles in national parks that are more productive than other civ's mines. But each woods tile is only actually producing 1 tourism per turn by the late game and the Maori don't have any notable bonus towards science to get to flight faster. No great writers means your early tourism (and therefore tourists throughout the game) is weaker. You get good first meets and a lot of era score, but not being able to chop resources costs a fair amount of production and can sometimes block good district placements.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [18]
Gitarja/Indonesia [1]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [11]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [23]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[Hokie Fan]

Peter/Russia (22+1) Peter does everything Wilfrid can do, only better and faster. Getting a religion up and running as Peter is incredibly easy because the Lavra is cheap and gives you +2 GP points. Because of Peter's tunrda bonus, he's virtually guaranteed Dance of the Aurora. Wilfrid, on the other hand, has to work much harder and expend more resources in the early game to get both of these. Peter starts cleaning out the great people before others can even get theater squares. Because Peter can easily take choral music and doesn't need to spend as many early game resources on religion (more free hammers), he generally can get theater squares up fairly early or just generally set up a good empire. While Wilfrid can spam national parks, this is more map dependent and I too often find that I don't have vast swaths of tundra to do so in. Peter, Pericles and Qin Shi Huang are my top three.
Gitarja/Indonesia (1-3) The Kampung tourism bonus is fine and I much prefer playing a Gitarja game to some of the other remaining civs, but her bonus is not early game and not consistent. I consider Gitarja to be a decent and flexible civ, but not particularly specialized for tourism.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [18]
Gitarja/Indonesia [ELIMINATED]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [14]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [23]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[Jewelrunna]

Kudos to @Kmart_Elvis for pointing out Cleopatra's Sphinx's power, I underestimated it to be sure. That said, I still weigh Pairidaeza's as better because it has better mid-game Culture and is more consistent. For situations where putting the two Sphinx's next to each other is necessary, you can go City Park -> Pairidaeza <- City Park and get the same result. Consequently...

Cyrus/Persia [19] (18 + 1): Great mid-game culture infusion, and one of the best Tourism steroids in the game. There's certainly an argument to be made for which is better, but given that the Pairidaeza will on average have more Culture, which means it itself will have more Tourism connected to it on top of making everything else around it have better Tourism... yeah, Persia is a juggernaut of the victory type.

Hojo Tokimune/Japan [7] (10 - 3): I'm generally a big Japan advocate, and they're the Civ who's had my opinion of which grow the most since launch. But since I've ragged on Pericles' lack of Tourism bonuses... yeah, we've gotta be fair here. What Japan gets for Culture Victories are essentially half-off Theater Squares & Holy Sites, extra adjacencies for those districts (improving his Culture & Faith economy a good amount), and a mostly irrelevant amount of Culture in the late game from the Electronics Factory. Comparing him to Greece, you essentially have about the same strengths except for with Japan, trade off the sheer amount of Culture you're getting for also having half-off Holy Sites and better Faith yields (meaning you can more easily afford Rock Bands, Naturalists, and have a better Religion push for the Christo Redentor-based Tourism). Now, that's certainly great to have, but is that necessarily better than the sheer amount of Culture either of the Greece's have? No. And again: no direct bonuses to Tourism like Cyrus, Qin, Teddy, or even Cleo. So while I think Hojo is great for a Tourism Victory, this is a reasonable spot for him to be eliminated at. I would've knocked out Cleo next, but @Kmart_Elvis convinced me otherwise.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [7]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [14]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [23]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[cylenalag]

Don’t mind me, just making sure both recent Peter increases (Hokie Fan and @JesseS ’s) and the drop to Kupe were added, not just one of them. Scores should be up to date now.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [7]
Kristina/Sweden [21]
Kupe/Maori [11]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [25]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[walkerjks]

Kristina is the ultimate no luck involved cultural queen. No wonders needed. No religion needed. Just PP first, then theaters and go. You need to expand. You need to take advantage of whatever tourism city-states can give you. But 8 cities without monumentality by turn 100 should be good enough at any difficulty level (and then another 4 to infinity cities later, because you want that snow city...) And Kristina will get you there. She is the simplest, no brainer, cultural civ. My only problem with her is she tends to get poor starts compared to some civs.

Qin is getting my downvote. Great wall is pretty good. Wonders are harder as you move up in difficulty level. There are better options.

People are seriously overhyping the amount of Tourism needed. If you get to Tourism really fast, other Civs don't have enough Culture to fight back so much and you just need less of it. In addition, you got there faster so you have more of it earlier. It's getting to the point I'm tempted to ask what turn count people are winning their CVs by, because people are making points I can only understand if they're only used to winning really "late" eked-out Culture Victories instead of decisive earlier ones.

Depends on whether or not they pick their opponents (Peter as an opponent can sure throw a monkey wrench into a "quick" - turn 180 - culture win). Depends on difficulty level. Depends on map (playing Pater on inland sea is way different than on continents in terms of tundra available). For some of my votes, I'm thinking, on an ideal map... For some of my votes, I'm thinking, on a generic or random map... It matters a lot for most civs. The difference between needing 150 foreign tourists or 400 foreign tourists is substantial.

Haven't tried Kampung tourism, but I don't think it is impressive.

The reason Kampung is special is where it occurs - in the water. It simply doesn't interfere with any other source of tourism, so you can Maoi/Colossal Spam to your heart's content (if available), manipulate appeal to maximize seaside resorts to you heart's content, etc... Kampung is an add-on to normal tourism spam techniques, where land-based buildings that generate tourism have potential trade-offs.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [7]
Kristina/Sweden [22]
Kupe/Maori [11]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [22]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[hhhhhh]

@walkerjks your scores are out of date, please update.

 

[Josephias]

-3) Kupe / Maori (11 >> 8) It is difficult to downvote already, but let me choose Kupe this time, mainly because a flaw I see in the argumentation in favour of him: yes, he can meet other civs much earlier, but it won't have much impact, as he starts accumulating tourism much later. Early sources of tourism, as pointed out by @lotrmith are religion Holy site and Great Works (and of these, the early ones are Great Writing). Both this sources, and also early wonders, would be difficult to achieve as Kupe, so you'll be not getting much benefit from these early contacts. As the game advances and you reach flight, Kupe's potential skyrockets, but i am not sure if enough to recover the lost ground (and to actually get that "early contact" benefit, as at that point, much other civs would also know most of the remaining world too).

+1) Qin Shi Huang/China (22 >> 23) As for early tourism accumulation goes, Qin wondermongering helps. Besides, if one of these wonders is Stonehenge, it grants you as well the religion Founder tourism benefits. Minor, as probably others would get it as well, but you could say Qin can take the Drama & Poetry eureka for granted, that summed to China's general Civics discount positions him well in the race for Theaters. All while setting up great walls that may help boost your tourism production in the endgame. Seems a quite strong contender to me, if you actually focus on playing culture/tourism.


Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [7]
Kristina/Sweden [22]
Kupe/Maori [8]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[Dantesedge]

Hojo Tokimune/Japan [8] (7+1) Hojo doesnt have just one half-priced district that effect a cultural victory (like Pericles or Peter) - he has two! TS are hard to get good adjacency bonuses with if you are not named Pericles, but Hojo can with proper city planning. Same with HS, with no need for mountains! Pack those cities together! This way you'll have good early culture and faith to work your way through civics, GWAMs, GWs, and a good faith economy by the time you reach Conservation. He's missing any UIs that benefit from Flight, but he doesn't need them. He may not be the best on this list, but he is still better than some left. I know his time is limited but I'll still stick up for him!

Kupe/Maori [5] (8-3) It's actually difficult to downvote at this time because these are all good candidates for the final 10. Kupe has one of the more unique and interesting cultural strategies but for those who have to wait for the Modern age to start racking up huge tourism gains (Canada, America, etc.), Kupe is the one who could be the most behind. Yes, he can meet civs earlier than most people and with the proper land found he can have good culture and faith to help him through civics. However, he can't build TS and HS as fast as Pericles, Gorgo, Hojo, and Peter can, and he can't get any great works of writing to start any early tourism gains. That and @Josephias is right... by Flight most other civs would have met each other. Look, he's very good and as I said it's getting hard to downvote so I'll pick someone else tomorrow, but for tonight, he gets the -3.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [8]
Kristina/Sweden [22]
Kupe/Maori [5]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[Amrunril]

Maori (5-3=2) A lot of potential once they get off the ground, but without any guarantee of a good capital location or room to expand, they just have too much of an uphill climb to get to that point.
Japan (8+1=9) Unique districts are often as valuable for their production discounts as for their unique features and when unique features are important, it's often for improved adjacencies. This means, in effect, that Japan plays like a civ with 3 unique districts, two of them critical to cultural victory.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [9]
Kristina/Sweden [22]
Kupe/Maori [2]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Gorgo/Greece [15] (18-3) I'm a much bigger fan of Pericles, as the main problem Gorgo has is that the culture yields she brings in get weaker essentially over time. They are strongest in the early game where killing a warrior gets you 10 culture, propelling you to Political Philosophy and other important civics. But eventually, civics cost get pretty high and suddenly your kills aren't making much of a dent. Pericles has a slow snowball, but gets stronger as time goes on.

Kristina/Sweden [23] (22+1) I love auto-theming, and not just because it's a QoL enhancement. Sure, you can theme works with other civs, but it's going to take a long time before you get the amount of art types you need. Instead of waiting around for a museum to be themed, Kristina let's you take a single artist, pop all 3 of their works, and you're immediately getting double/tourism and culture. You're going to have to go deep into the eras to unlock all the art you need to theme your museums if you're another civ. So you might theme one museum, then have to wait 30 turns to finally get what you need for your next. Kristina gives you theming in Every museum, Immediately. Furthermore, you can theme wonders and the Bibliotheque, which other civs cannot do. Other civs might get GWAMs faster (Russia, Kongo), but hers are stronger.

Catherine/France(Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [15]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [9]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [2]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [24]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [20]

 

[xaiviax]

Winter Wonderlands

Tsar Pyotr of the Russian Empire 24+1
The starting bias combined with the Mother Russia ability is tremendous. The 8 extra tiles are such a boon, in so many ways, such as flexible city positions. The broken Lavra can usually be that much better with Dance of the Aurora. And your pantheon should of course come early.
All these benefits start early. Early is so much better than late.

Sir Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada 20-3
The Last Best West turns a negative start bias into a mediocre one. (Can become great later) Four Faces of Peace is not an advantage, just ask Cyrus.
The Mountie and hockey rink are fantastic and synergistic... but not early. Early is so much better than late.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [15]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [9]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [2]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]


P.S. I respect the Pericles over Gorgo opinion, but because of early/late, I disagree.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Gorgo/Greece [12] 15-3 The weakest of the two Greeks, you don't really want to be fighting much in a CV as it's a distraction.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10] I agree with @Amrunril that "in effect, that Japan plays like a civ with 3 unique districts, two of them critical to cultural victory." Don't really understand why they are so low in this list - definitely top 5 IMO.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [13]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [2]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]

Moderator Action: I deducted 6 points from Gorgo instead of 3, this and subsequent votes corrected.

 

[TCBB]

Kupe/Maori [3] (2+1) Woah, woah, WOAH. What happened to Kupe in less than 24hrs?? I honestly don't know how you guys play him, but something isn't going right. Kupe *does* get direct boosts to tourism (Marae + Flight, which is extremely easy to rush); he *does* get direct boosts to culture (Marae, plus he gets such insane production that he can build a 6/7 turn monument in most new cities); he *does* get to meet all the players faster than anyone else (instant ocean travel); he *does* get to meet all the city-states first (suzerainties are all yours); because he's pumping out so much free culture, he *does* reach Environmentalism before the AI has even reached museums; and because he's such a behemoth at faith too, he *does* get to finish them off with Rock Bands if he hasn't already won by then. Looking at my hall of fame, I've won four times as Kupe: one religion (T201), one domination (T235), and two culture victories at T139 and T161, both of which are my fastest culture victories ever. You're all mad if you want him gone.

Cleopatra/Egypt [10] (13-3) Saltiness inbound. It will be a bad joke if Kupe and Hojo, two civs who are definitely A-tier in all aspects of the game including culture, are beaten by Cleopatra, who is probably a low C-tier overall, pushing up to B-tier culture. Try getting to Museums fast as Cleopatra. Try getting to Flight fast as Cleopatra. Try getting to Computers or Environmentalism fast as Cleopatra. Oh, whats that? You can't? Because she is an underwhelming Civ with almost nothing to help her generate culture, science, or production? Because she nearly always spawns in the middle of flat, unproductive floodplain terrain? "Oh but teh sphinx makes tourism". Yeah: so do all of Hojo's countless great works, and nearly every single tile in Maori's lands. The difference being, Hojo and Maori also have insane generalist abilities which let them regularly clock in over 50+ turns faster than Cleo.

Super-salty bonus edit: WHO THE %&*£ VOTED DOWN GORGO?!?

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [10] (13-3)
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [3] (2+1)
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]

 

[Lamington]

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [4]
Cyrus/Persia [19]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [4]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]

Kupe/Maori [4] (3+1) Once more outside immediate elimination territory. Yes, kupe can potentially be fighting for territory, but as mentioned above, he definitely has early sources of culture, through the marae, and he can find city states earlier with early ocean going. I don’t recall struggling for a culture victory with him, and I definitely do not consider myself a skilled player.

Cleopatra/Egypt [4] (7-3) Yes, as mentioned above, aside from the sphinx, which by adding appeal can help bolster tiles for national parks, or seaside resorts, but can struggle with actually getting through the tech or civic trees.

 

[monikernemo]

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [4]
Cyrus/Persia [16] (19 - 3)
I could be wrong but I think Persia and Egypt's kits are not so much different (w.r.t Sphinx and Pairadeiza's appeal boosting ability). Some may prefer Egypt's kit more since more alliance points == level 2 cultural alliance faster and more great people's points. And furthermore, both civs have no direct bonus to science, maybe Egypt's bonus alliance points can see them earning a level 2 research alliance more quickly and earning more science. Otherwise, I don't think Persia is that much ahead of Egypt.
Gorgo/Greece [13] (12 + 1)
The early game culture boosts puts Gorgo in a good position that can be as potent as Trajan's columns. Unlocking PP early is crucial for Gorgo for her to snowball and expand quickly which is one thing she does alot better than Pericles. Don't think she should be that far off Pericles. If we are talking about speed, then certainly, in a good map, Gorgo should be ahead of Pericles.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [4]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]

 

[CrabHelmet]

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [1]
Cyrus/Persia [16]
Gorgo/Greece [13]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [5]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]

I agree with the above poster about how Cyrus is overrated, but I've already cast a vote against Cyrus and it's really beyond time Cleopatra went. The Tourism UIs are not that good. Cyrus is up on 16 - ahead of Gorgo! - for having a UI only marginally better than the Batey or Moai or the City Park. Cleopatra is in basically the same position, but her supplementary game is even worse than Cyrus'.

Kupe is a great Culture civ and I'm going to do my best to stop him slipping down. The Marae means he has a fantastic Faith economy without having to do any real investment outside of his early Culture game, which means he has absolutely no problem getting Rock Bands and Naturalists without needing to have looked vaguely in the direction of the Religion game. Faith has become an increasingly large part of Cultural Victories, weirdly, and Kupe is in the privileged position of not having to find a way to build yet another district. This means you can set him up faster, and faster Tourism is earlier Tourism is better Tourism. Compare this to someone like Kristina, who has basically no relevant early-game boosts, has nothing in the way of Faith, and therefore has to build Theatre Squares and Holy Sites, making her early game even worse.

I've also noticed nobody has commented on BM Roosevelt or especially Menelik in a long time. Would be interesting to hear what people think either way on those two!

 

[Drivingrevilo]

I find it really interesting how these threads ebb and flow. Yesterday for example, we had three fast up-votes for Kupe from what seemed to be Europe; then, we had several equally fast down-votes for him from what seemed to be the USA; now, we're seeing several more up-votes from Europe again. I remember something similar in the city-state elimination thread, where Europe loved Yerevan but America didn't seem to be fussed. Any sociologists / anthropologists want to hazard an explanation?

Kupe/Maori [6] (5+1) A repeat vote, I know, but he really doesn't deserve to go yet. Look at it like this. There are several Civs who start generating mega-tourism after Flight. These are Cleopatra (who I'm eliminating), Cyrus, Qin, Menelik, and Kupe. Of these, Kupe has (1.) the greatest production, (2.) the greatest incentive to rush Theatre Squares (ie. to get Marae), (3.) the greatest city-state game, and (4.) the second-greatest faith generation, after Menelik (obviously). So he's going to reach Flight earlier than the others (from overall production); he's going to have a tonne of Theatre Squares grabbing all the Great Artists (regrettably, no Great Writers, but that malus was genuinely necessary to avoid him being ridiculous); and he's going to be the first to reach Museums, the first to reach Democracy, the first to reach Rock Bands, and the first to reach Environmentalism. Therefore, out of these five, I see Kupe as clearly the best. You can argue that he is worse than a Peter or Pericles or Kristina, and I may agree with you; but of the Civs centred around Flight, Kupe is not the worst.

Cleopatra/Egypt (ELIMINATED). For the reasons I explain. Of the five leaders associated with Flight, she is the weakest all-round.

Catherine/France (Mag) [17]
Cleopatra/Egypt [ELIMINATED]
Cyrus/Persia [16]
Gorgo/Greece [13]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [10]
Kristina/Sweden [23]
Kupe/Maori [6] (5+1)
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [24]
Peter/Russia [25]
Qin Shi Huang/China [23]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [21]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [17]