Well, anyone have any actual culture victory strategies that doesn't require reloading the perfect settings? Not much strategy in that.
Based on playing, there are 2 main pathways to a culture victory (CV): with a religion or without a religion. CVs synergize well with a heavy religious play as there are “faith dumps” which allow you to put faith towards directly improving culture and tourism. However, a CV can be a valid backup to the “traditional” 3 theaters approach used by fast science victories (in short, prioritize culture and supplement with science and production later). Basically, it boils down to a few strategies that all basically need to be taken advantage of to pull off a decent CV:
1. Determine sources of culture/tourism and how feasable they are to sustain:
- great writers are quick, but you quickly run out of space for books (TS + amphitheaters are expensive)
- relics are powerful (especially with reliquaries belief), but complicated to obtain (apostle dies in religious combat with martyr promotion - Mont St Michel a must) and get nerfed by other civs when they get to “the englightenment”
- great artists make three works each, but theming can be difficult and artist costs quickly get very expensive
- great musicians difficult to obtain and build spaces for works for music (a broadcast tower holds 1 work, requires amplitheater and a museum, first)
- archaeologists are EXPENSIVE (except as a faith purchase) but do offer the best (and easiest) theming
- religion provides 8 tourism to holy city, some beliefs offer bonuses to tourism
- wonders provide tourism (unknown the amount) but are obviously expensive, so be prepared to use Magnus and chop overflow for best return
2. Determine a decently good source of faith for theater square buildings (if going religious with Jesuit Education) and for buying late-game civilian units like archaeologists (monumentality golden age) and naturalists (faith purchase only; for building national parks; if no religious focus, will probably be able to build 1 or 2, with strong religion, can build 5-6+ easily).
3. How good infrastructure/production (and borderline abuse Magnus’s chop overflow) to build wonders with great works slots (eg hermitage,
Sydney opera house) and key culture wonders (coliseum, cristo redentor)
4. Have decent science (can be pushed later in the game) to get to printing (doubles book tourism), then flight (tile improvement tourism) and radio (build seaside resorts).
5. KEEP BUILDING CITIES! CV is the only (I think) victory condition that basically caps the amount each city can support the victory (eg limited great works spaces). If you have a strong economy with good faith, or can basically plop and city and have a fully-developed theater square 5-10 turns later (buy district with Reyna, buy buildings with faith, Magnus chop if necessary). The number of different districts required for CV requires A LOT of cities - it’s ok if they have only 1 or 2 districts (4 pop max), as this reduces amenity demand.
