The cultural victory appears to have gone through just as many changes as the diplomatic one in Civilization V: Brave New World. Before, "it was all about building a small, compact set of cities building as much culture as possible... you just waited for all that culture to build up over time, so you could get enough social policies to win the culture victory," Beach said of the game's current path. "That was pretty cool, but it was a little too passive. We really felt like, as a military player, you have to go out and spread all over the entire world to win a victory, and we thought there's no reason that your culture couldn't be doing the same thing." In Brave New World, the player takes more of an active role not just in gaining culture, but spreading it throughout the world. Where special buildings used to give you three or four culture per turn, now they'll only give one--but you'll have the opportunity to get more culture by adding great works to your cultural buildings.
The culture-related Great People have been expanded upon to do just that, and gaining their signature creative works will go a long way towards getting other civilizations to "recognize your cultural amazingness." Great Artists will still pop up from time to time, and they'll be joined by Great Writers and Great Musicians, too. "So if you get Shakespeare as your great writer, Macbeth will be his great work. If you get Van Gogh as your great painter, Starry Night will be his great work. And you start collecting these great works, putting them into your culture buildings, deciding which cities you want to show them off in, and what happens is the cities start to generate tourism," Beach stated, bringing up another of Brave New World's additions to the core game. Getting people from other civilizations to visit your city is now a key component to a cultural victory. Unlike religion, which spreads city by city, culture spreads person to person, and civilizations you have a good relationship with are more likely to be influenced by your culture. "If they're hostile and have a different ideology, they won't want your culture influencing them at all, and those are going to be the people you have to convince that your culture is great so that you can win the cultural victory," Beach said.
