Good day to you, too, AnyKeyz!
Culture is generated through two ways that are very similar.
1) You get flat culture rates. Monuments give you +1 culture, Libraries give you +3 culture, etc.* Specialists give you culture (which can be boosted by building a wonder.)
*Note, there is a bug in the current version of BtS (and maybe others) where the buildings don't display how much flat culture they generate when you are building them. Once you've build the building, however, it shows you how much culture it is producing in the city info screen. This is very annoying.
2) You get % culture rates. Cathedrals are the most common building here and grant a nice +50% bonus, here. Though there are others. Broadway, Broadcast Towers, etc. And as mentioned above, free speech nets you 100% bonus to culture in all cities.
Levgre makes some good points, but I'm going to pick on him a little bit. (Please don't get too mad at me, Levgre.
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culture slider usually isn't good unless you have nothing left to research for culture. One reason is that for cultural victory you only need high culture in 3 cities. That means in every city BUT those three your commerce is being wasted.
This is mostly true, though not entirely. The Colosseum and Theatre generate bonus happiness in cities if you raise your culture bar up. This can be a nice way to combat unhappiness for whatever reason, though usually doesn't help all that much because it's usually only one city with a few unhappy people, rather than a few cities with 1 unhappy person each.
GET CULTURAL BUILDINGS. give them pretty high building priority for your cultural centers.
Go for wonders. But not too much in your capital. If you just have 1 or 2 in your capital they make it to 25000 pretty easily, because your capital buildings pumps out 4 culture from turn 1.
3 cities should reach 25000 about the same time. So build units and other practical things in your capital while you build wonders in other cities. Any culture above 25000 is a waste.
Ideally you'd want all 3 cities to hit legendary culture at the same turn. This won't happen, but it should be your target. Usually I find that I have 1 city hits legendary culture very early, (typically my capital) and I have two cities that take about another 20-40 turns afterwards to hit Legendary culture. If one of the last 2 cities are significantly closer than the other, I'll use my great artist (that I've been saving) to make a great work in the lower of the two cities.
Don't sacrifice tech for culture until very late. Liberalism gives you +100% culture with free speech. You lose out on culture AND tech if you slow yourself down in getting this.
Likewise there are modern buildings and wonders that give fantastic culture(broadcast towers and wonders), if you weren't able to get enough medieval buildings, or were in a hostile environment so you had to keep up in military tech and missed out on cultural buildings.
A late cultural win is still much earlier than space race, and is probably much safer than a rushed cultural victory.
Religions are where your true cultural bonus comes from, if you get 3-4+ you are in good shape(another reason why tech stays important until liberalism, grabbing religions). Cathedrals give +50% culture. You need 3-4 temples to be able to build one, so you have to make sure you do that.
Cathedrals are a bit weird. I think I have them figured out, but I could be wrong. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. To build the first Hindu Cathedral, you need to have built 3 Hindu Temples. To build your 2nd Hindu Cathedral, you need to have built 4 Hindu Temples . Etc. This is why a Spiritual leader is superior to a creative leader when it comes to winning a cultural victory. Each religion you have nets you 1 culture per turn. If you can grab 3 religions, and spread the religions to all cities in your empire, that's 3 culture per turn before multipliers (as opposed to 2 culture per turn before multipliers with Creative.)
I'll say it again. Spiritual is greater than Creative. With Spiritual you should have no problem founding 2 to 4 religions throughout the game. Another bonus is you can produce missionaries in you high production cities really fast, and spread your religion(s) to your newly founded cities for 1 culture per turn per religion, negating the need to build a monument in a fresh city.
Creative = 2 culture per turn
Spiritual = 1 culture per turn per religion, + access to more religious buildings (each temple is worth +1 culture and each cathedral is worth +50% culture.)
When you are on the home stretch go into super culture mode. Stop all research, build army for defense if needed. Your 3 main cities produce culture with hammers, and THIS is when you use your GNP for culture(and gold), and set all specialist to artists. If you have universal suffrage keep in mind you can always use gold to rush cultural buildings or wonders in cities that need them. If you got lots of early culture buildings and religions, you can skip broadway etc. and go into super culture mode earlier.
Definitely good advice.
Sometimes you will generate more culture in your last 50-100 turns of the game than rest of the game. If you do it properly, you get a TON of culture near the end of the game.
Great artists and great engineers are very good for culture. You still might want a great scientist for teching. I think great prophets aren't that useful, although they are not horrible as you can build the religion wonder, which only gives +4 culture and +1 GP, but if you get a large amount of money for the religion wonder it equals out. Merchants are the worst. So here's a list of great people you should get.
1-2 scientists, academies give culture and boost research, or rush to liberalism.
1 great prophet, some culture + money.
Many great engineers and great artists. Engineers are better midgame, artists are better late game(the great work rushes to a victory quicker than a wonder's culture would)
0 great merchants, I think.
Keep in mind, you can still use 1(maybe 3) specialists for a wonder age to good use. So you don't have to be SO careful about avoiding merchants, prophets, and scientists, like if you want/can build the colossus, go for it. And one merchant in a city with all the financial buildings(capital) never hurts.
Great Merchants, while not the most ideal great person for a culture win, can still be useful. Remember that you probably won't be getting up to biology, thus food will be short. The one extra food can sometimes help a city get that extra one size it needs to have that one extra artist specialist. Though a great artist > all other great people, a great merchant isn't worthless if you just so happen to get one.
I usually save one great engineer for the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty = 1 free great specialist in each city on the continent. Which means +4* culture per turn for your culture cities from the artists, or +2 production per turn for your other cities from the engineers.
*or +6 (see below)
So basically cultural victory is simpler than you think. Build buildings that make culture, and be smart about developing culture equally in teh cities. Everything else is mostly the same. Dont worry about the slider, just go as normal with using it for science.
That's how I won my first few cultural victories. I didn't even adjust my cultural slider. I just built culture, culture, and culture!
One piece of advice you should have is to think about how your civics and world wonders work together. Representation + Free Speech + ???* + Mercantilism + Organized Religion with the Statue of Liberty + Ankgkor Wat + The Sistine Chapel. This combination is very powerful. You net +2 Free Specialist per city (on the continent with the statue) and all of those Free Specialist generate a BONUS +3 beakers and +2 culture, each. So just with that alone, you can have 2 free priests that produce 2 hammers, 1 gold, 3 beakers, +2 culture, and +3 great person points each. All of these bonuses are before multipliers. Now start adding in your normal specialists you will put in those cities, and you're starting to have something that resembles a specialist economy that is helping you to achieve a cultural victory at the same time!
*You don't need Caste System, though it can help at times. Here's why you probably won't need it: In the cities where you are going to be building your culture up, you will have lots of culture buildings. Thus you will have lots of artists specialists slots available, and shouldn't hit the cap, or ever if you do, you can still use priests specialists for just a bit less culture.
If you want to try for an easier culture win, try playing as Isabella of Spain. She starts with Fishing and Mysticism. These starting techs can really propel you to dominating with religion. I once played a Monarch game on a small map where I founded all 7 religions in my main city because I had two coastal fish that I was able to abuse for commerce right away.
Also her being expansive (+2 health per city) is HUGE for a culture win, as you will usually have tons of religion, thus tons of happy people, and most likely only be limited by health. This +2 health will help you grow two more city sizes before having any health concerns.
Her other trait, Spiritual, is handy because it permits you to swap civics and religions without going through anarchy. You might find yourself swapping civics and/or religions a lot, though not by your choice. In a cultural game, you will typically suffer a "-2 Our Close Boarders spark tensions" with your immediate neighbours. To counter this, switch to whichever religion they have chosen (or, better yet, spread your own to them before they adopt a religion.) If your stronger neighbour adopts Hinduism, you should do the same. Being Spiritual here helps you not lose out on production, commerce, tech learning, etc, for when you need to swap religions. Another way to please your neighbours is when they ask you to adopt a civic, just do it! In 5-10 turns you can swap back, with no anarchy. This grants you a +2 bonus...well a +1 by adopting their favourite civic, but you also avoid the -1 you refused to adopt our favourite civic. You won't get a +5 you adopted our favourite civic, because you didn't stay there, but that's okay. +2 here, +1 there, +1 from gifting them things, and +2-4 from religion, should be enough to keep them off your back long enough for you to win.
Good luck to you, AnyKeyz, and have fun with a peaceful victory.
is Legendary at Quick speed, 50,000
