Gorgo/Greece [13] (12+1) - Japan seems to be a lost cause, so I’ll start supporting Gorgo, as she is starting to slip.
Some may argue that I am overvaluing the benefit of early Culture, but similar to how Rome can win a very fast Culture victory, I believe that Gorgo’s ability to get to the key early civics much faster than most other civs is deceptively powerful and a strong advantage for a fast Culture game. Yes, her Culture yields drops after the early game, particularly compared to Pericles. However, this arguably isn’t that important if she is already ahead by 30+ turns and generating Tourism before most other civs due to having most if not all of the early Great Writers. As mentioned before, yes, GWoW have been nerfed. However, it still is one of the most reliable early sources of Tourism and can double with the relatively early Printing tech.
Like Rome, Gorgo will get to Drama & Poetry a lot sooner (though with more variability than Rome). In my games with Gorgo, I have ranged between getting it at around Turn 40-50 (usually closer to 45), sometimes in the mid to high 30s, with a couple of games where I killed a bunch of units and had met a couple of Culture CS getting it slightly before Turn 30 (with Rome, I consistently can get it around Turn 35 ... thus, though I recognize Gorgo can sometimes get to TS faster and then leverage her cheaper TS that produces better Culture compared to Rome, I still feel Rome is slightly better because of consistency). This is HUGE. Most civs normally get it around Turn 70, if not later. Furthermore, unlike Rome, once at Drama & Poetry, Gorgo can build TS in half the time (on average saving you 8-10 turns in the early and mid game to to build something else) and get better Culture yields from those TS.
Furthermore, Greece has the amazing extra Wildcard slot. This means she can compete for an early Pantheon (strong now with the nerf to first CS envoy) and eventually run Agoge, Colonization, and Ilkum at the same time. This offsets somewhat Rome’s advantage of not having to put Production / Gold into Monuments and applying it to something else.
Again, though I am in the camp that, in general, early Culture to get to the key civics > late game Tourism from Flight from a UI that was reached via a weaker early Culture economy, this does not mean that I discount late game Tourism. The more Tourism, the better, because it means you win faster. It just means I think that early Culture is more impactful. Though Gorgo (and Rome, as well as Pericles and Japan) don’t have UI that generate Tourism at a Flight, being ahead by 30+ turns, particularly in your civics, means you get all the mid to late game Tourism generation before others and that Tourism is working for longer, which I would argue more than compensates for a lack of a UI. A Culture victory is about LIFETIME Tourists, so you want to get them earlier rather than later. It’s not like you can only have Tourism from early GW vs only late game Tourism. In my fast Culture victories, I want both. And like CrabHelmet has mentioned, though RNG dependent, you sometimes have City States that give you a good Culture UI, and because you’ll be ahead, you can probably be the suzerain of that CS. If that’s the case, hey, there’s your UI, which will be adding Tourism to the GWoW you already have.
Most players admit the Civ is a snowball game. Thus, why for Culture victories is it being slightly discounted in this elimination thread? Again, I don’t want it to seem like I’m criticizing those who support late game Tourism. I want late game Tourism as well. I just want it to leverage a strong early game where I have several thousand of lifetime Tourism already built up.
In fact, I think Sweden should end up in the Top 3, even though it has no benefits to early game Culture and can sometimes have difficulty doing well in general early (i.e. - surviving) on higher difficulties, simply because her mid to late game Tourism is STRONK. If left alone (but not too isolated, you want to be able to trade with other civs for the Tourism modifier), Sweden will exponentially jump ahead in Tourism. Rome and Sweden have had my best Culture victory times, with Gorgo, Pericles, and Japan (and Maori and China, for different reasons) close behind (though I’ve had some Sweden games with good but not great victory times due to having to put production into units to defend from an attack without the inherent bonuses of Rome that I’ve mentioned in my earlier posts ... with Rome, I consistently get the same Culture victory times unless I start in Tundra, though most civs save for Russia and Canada struggle in Tundra).
My last comment is about Gorgo vs Pericles. While I think Pericles (and Japan) is a very good Culture civ, Pericles can’t normally compete with Gorgo (or Rome) when it come to getting to TS in the first place. Also, though I know CS are harder for the AI to outright capture than it used to be (though it still happens occasionally), good luck trying to get a whole bunch of suzerainties on higher difficulties (i.e. - more than 6, which equals +30% Culture for Pericles). Yes, Greece gets a lot of envoys from completing TS. However, I still find the AI tends to covet the CS you are in the lead with, and will flood it with envoys (including Apadana envoys, since the AI loves that wonder), Amani, magically completing CS missions that you have no idea if the AI actually met or not, etc. Thus, unless you are purposefully putting in 16 CS in your game, it is somewhat hard to get 10+ CS for 50%+ Culture, though once you get enough TS, you might eventually get there.
Cleopatra/Egypt [ELIMINATED] (3-3) - I avoided downvoting her because I might be biased since I don’t play her that often and thus am remembering my old games (I have played 1 game with the post Sphinx buff). However, with the remaining civs, I think she should go, particularly before Japan (who will probably be eliminated right after anyway).
She’s definitely been buffed and is no longer trash. Nubia still can do everything she can do District wise and better, but the Floodplain immunity and decent boost to Wonders on rivers is appreciated. And the +15% Production to TS if located adjacent to a river she might be Not that far behind Rome / Greece / Japan,
The Sphinx is a solid UI in general and a wonderful one for Culture victories, I won’t deny it. Post Flight it has the double whammy of generating 2-3 Tourism plus technically adding +2 Tourism to your National Parks and Seaside Resorts as well as giving you more viable spots to place them in the first place.
However, relying on appeal always requires a little bit of tile management, which is not always easy to rely on (“Man, this one tile next to these three Mountain tiles is the only way I can set up a National Park eventually, but that means I can’t place a good Holy Site now to get the Faith for that National Park ...”). In addition, you sometimes have to avoid Mines, though Lumber Mills offset this somewhat now.
In addition, my criticism in general of UI that provide Culture is that you often don’t want to necessarily work all of them that you place early, which is why, they will tend to have a slower early game Culture economy compared to Rome, Greece, and Japan (which either get the Culture from adjacencies or inherently for free early). In the early game, I would argue Production and growth from Food are important in terms of tiles to be worked by Pop (Culture and Science are important, but again should arguably be gotten by adjacency / other means and not necessarily by worked tiles unless those tiles also have Production / Food). You want to be pumping out units / settlers and building districts. You want to be growing your Pop so that you can place districts. Often, you can’t afford to be working more than 1-2 of the tiles that you’ve place Culture UI on per city.
Now, Sphinxes potentially avoid this by being able to be placed on high Food flood plains you are probably already working. Thus, they can actually take advantage of the +2 culture for a good Culture economy (eventually +3 with the late game Natural History civic). The Faith is great too as you should never undervalue Faith in a Culture victory. However, because they can’t be adjacent to each other, in the few games I played as Egypt (and the only 1 game post Sphinx biff), I normally had them on only 2 tiles (3 at the most) that were actually workable in the early to mid game.
Given my preference for snowballing civs, though Egypt can potentially snowball in a Culture victory, I don’t believe they can do so as reliably.
Catherine/France (Mag) [18]
Cleopatra/Egypt [ELIMINATED] (3-3)
Cyrus/Persia [11]
Gorgo/Greece [13] (12+1)
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [2]
Kristina/Sweden [20]
Kupe/Maori [2]
Menelik/Ethiopia [23]
Pericles/Greece [19]
Peter/Russia [26]
Qin Shi Huang/China [24]
Teddy Roosevelt/America (BM) [19]
Wilfrid Laurier/Canada [10]
To keep up my trend of long posts, I would like to comment about China, since I don’t know if I’ll be able to vote in their favor if I keep propping up Gorgo.
China is a WONDERful fast Culture civ, but with a completely different approach than my early Culture economy snowball favorites Rome, Greece, and Japan.
As most players know, China should be rushing Wonders, hard. In fact, unlike the above civs (Rome and Greece in particular) where I’m trying to build both a large army and a whole bunch of settlers to go super wide, with China I instead focus on builders specifically, a large army, and settlers to a far lesser extent. Thus, I try to get Craftsmanship as fast as I can so I can run Agoge and Ilkum right away at the same time. It helps that China can actually place three improvements for the Craftsmanship inspiration while still saving a build charge for a chop, offsetting somewhat its lack of a reliable early Culture economy. The large army is meant to capture nearby cities to offset the fact that I’m not building as many settlers as I would with Rome / Greece (I will still tend to have less cities than Rome / Greece).
Additionally, if you optimize and switch back-and-forth in your build queue between the army / builders you’re actually building and a Wonder to apply the builder charge to, you are technically building two things at once in a turn.
If you build enough wonders, this means China will often be getting a good amount of Tourism before almost any other civ in the game, including my favorite, Rome. I normally can reliably get Temple of Artemis, Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens. I will almost always get most of the Classical Age wonders, the most important being Great Library, Colosseum, and Mausoleum (and Petra of course for Petra porn, but it’s not “important” like the other two). I often can get Stonehenge if I quickly find a Natural Wonder and have Stone nearby (sometimes unfortunately not the case). Apadana is a little iffy. If I luck into early Culture yields, then it’s normally not a problem. If not, then the AI will often have gotten it, since they love it so much, particularly on higher difficulties. I will say 70-80% of the time, I get it, but there have been times I’m one-to-two builder charges away when the AI steals it.
By doing this, you should have a healthy start at building lifetime Tourists super early to get a fast Culture victory.
Admittedly, they don’t have a great direct early Culture economy compared. Great Wall is great in Culture post Castles tech, but that can be a somewhat awkward tech to reach. However, their stronger Inspirations (and Eurekas) help somewhat compensate this. In addition, getting a few of the Wonders that have Culture yields can help as well. However, the lower Culture generation in general is why I normally get faster wins as Rome, even though China has Wonders to offset.
After splitting Teddies I even played a game with RR version heading for diplo victory and again, tourism happened before 
