how do I win a cultural victory?

[dante alighieri]

AAAARGH!

I tried to win a cultural victory as the khmer and after awhile I realized I wasn't going to make it. I switched to try to win a space victory and gained a good tech lead, got to beat on Augustus, and chased his toady Wang Kon off of the continent. I only had one piece left for the Spaceship that was going to take about 7 more turns. I was going to spend the time for tthat and the journey to take a few ships and transports and wipe ot Korea's little island refuge.

Then Ramses won a cultural victory.

I need help with this. Whats the best civ to win a culture victory? Any tips on how to do it would be appreciated.

 

[eewallace]

I've had quite a few cultural victories, and think the best traits for cultural victory are (1) financial; (2) industrious; (3) philosophical. (Not creative--I've found its benefits to be overrated.) Also, it helps to choose a civ that starts with mysticism so you can found one of the two earliest religions. The best setup I've found is when you can get your first 3 cities in a nice valley with lots of good farmland and hopefully a river--those are the cultural cities. Try to surround them with cities that produce military and can protect them. When you are not building culture-producing buildings and wonders in your 3 main cities, set them to producing culture.

 

[Quildavyr]

Pick Justinian!

 

[Horace]

build high culture wonders like the sistine chapel etc

 

[Bushface]

It helps to set up for "always peace" ,choose a civ which gets Mysticism as a starter, and a leader who is Spiritual. Put every possible effort into researching techs which found religions, and build high-culture Wonders. You need three high-culture cities, in each of which you build temples and "cathedrals" for every religion present; this means having at least six other cities with every religion in each, to build the Temples to feed the cathedrals. Add Monasteries as and if needed. Once the religious base is secure, push the culture slider up. By the finish, you should have three cities each generating well over 1000 culture points per turn.

 

[eewallace]

Actually, if you are capable of building wonders fast (by trait, or access to the right resources), you can get a cultural victory without even messing with the cultural slider much at all until the endgame. At least in early and mid-game, I have the slider set as high as possible on science to keep my tech lead so I can get to techs with good wonders and build them first in my cultural cities.

 

[The-Bored]

Industrious leaders help a lot, as do philosophical leaders. It has been said that the combination of the two would be the best, but sadly no leader has those two traits.

 

[eewallace]

Here are my suggestions for the best leaders for a cultural victory:

Huayna - industrious/financial, plus starts with mysticism
Elizabeth - philosophical/financial
Darius - financial/organized

These qualify as runners-up:

Roosevelt - industrious/organized
Qin - industrious/protective (has a nice UB)
Pacal - expansive/financial (starts with mysticism)
Louis - industrious/creative
Pericles - philosophical/creative

Actually, maybe I should have made three tiers, with Huayna alone in the first tier!

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Don't underestimate the value of the luxury-producing wonders, which give a 100% boost to culture. Also, don't underestimate the value of the culture-producing corporations.

 

[Esgaro]

I will take the opposite viewpoint and say that you do not need industrious, any wonders, or to found a religion. Sure, the Parthanon and Sistine Chapel are great if you can get them, but I wouldn't call either one a necessity.

Religions are certainly very important, but they will usually spread to you easily enough if you open up your borders. Let some other sucker research them while you are working on expanding and getting your important infrastructure in place.

The biggest hurdle is spreading around three or four religions to nine cities, and building the culture multipliers in your three target cities. Use great early great artists as super specialists, and mid-late ones as culture bombs.

 

[ezwip]

Esgaro is right the key is getting alot of religions and building the temples/monasteries etc. Don't go heavy on expansion. Try to build all of your wonders in the 3 cities you are building for culture. Since you aren't going for expansion dump everything into research. Ignore the cultural slider until you start falling way behind in techs. Your cities should be booming in culture at this time. So switch the cultural slider all the way and forget about research. If your cities are not booming in research and you are way behind in techs you messed up. You will have to resort to war as a last ditch effort. Also I recommend pacifism. Anything that gets great people is a plus.

 

[Fjordson]

Ramses and Justinian are pretty good cultural victory leaders as well - I figured because nobody mentioned them Id just give them some credit - the spiritual aspect allows them to build temples faster and therefore cathedrals/pagodas/academys etc - which really help.

 

[King of Town]

It is is easiest if you have at least 9 cities, not only for cathedrals, etc but for protection. I have found that once i start getting close to winning the AI attacks me every time. Thats one reason why I kind of like Qin for this. Good for industrious and protective. The one time I like protective is here. Plus his building is the best. Religion is of course the only way to win. You also have to make the choice of win you are going to stop teching and when you are going to start with 100% culture on the slider. I like to get at least free speech. My last time I stopped once I was the first to get to this point, I got gunpowder and just cranked out musketmen with my other cities. I got like 15000+ points which isn't bad.


I also wanted to add, I find cultural one of the hardest wins, which goes against what most people would say. On all of the rest of the wins you are keeping up in tech and so your army isn't behind, and you don't have to worry about someone invading with infantry while you are sitting on longbowmen. You also lose your top 3 cities to culture building for most of the game.

 

[PibbZ]

I dont know about cultural victories in TBS, but in vanilla and warlords i always won a cultural victory eventually, which wasnt very hard if you focus on 3 cities. I never had to produce culture however.

Hopefully thats changed now, making it a little bit harder

 

[TM Moot]

I won my first Cultural victory recently, as Inca on Prince level.

I went down the Wonder route, rather then religion. I had founded one religion and spread it fairly well, but most of my Cultural points came from Wonders and lots and lots of specialists in each of my 3 main cities.

I didn't even adjust my culture slider as I wanted to keep my techs up to bag all the Wonders.

3rd city acheived Legendary about 1900, I'm sure if I had managed religions better i could of acheived victory a lot earlier.

Definitely helps having 9 cities in all though. Enjoyed the game, might try again as Monarch (never managed it in Warlords though ).

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Culture "multipliers" added to high commerce potential city.

Each religion I get is an extra +50% modifier per turn once the cathedral buildings are done. I need at least 3 religions minimum (+150% per turn) to even have a chance at cultural, since I keep getting beat to wonders (Industrious would have helped). Getting all seven to spread to my borders (+350% bonus total once all the cathedrals are done) is hard to accomplish.

At lower levels I can found the religions I need, but founding all the religions by myself tends to make the AI into a happy one religion block if I'm not careful (an AI will usually get one early religion, and AI like to push religions more than I do). So in response, I actually like to have different AI researching different religions to keep them divided.

 

[Quildavyr]

Ramses and Justinian are pretty good cultural victory leaders as well - I figured because nobody mentioned them...

I did it.Over there.

 

[thomson_2001]

or..... just wait till latish game and go nuts on millitary. guess you could steal a few high cultural cities and maybe few surrounding ones ....ivenever done it but hey could work

my fave way to win cultural is via specialist economy with lots of artists specialists. that way can get the extra culture plus the great artists to culture bomb your top 3...easy

 

[Hawe Hawe]

Cultural is so easy, for me personally the by far easiest. But i love them. You can win with every leader, even with Boudicea or Tokugawa (the worst for cultural in my opinion).
Most things mentioned in the posts above are correct, apart from "Pick Justinian": He is not optimal, because you can't assign artists with his UB Hippodrom. Financial cottages help (ok, they help with everything), wonders help and artists help, all true, but the most effective cultural weapons are:
1. the cathedrals! They are based on temples, which get cheaper with spiritual. This in combination with the high fexibility of civic switches is why i suggest the spiritual trait.
2. The Culture-Corporations: Sushi, Creative Constructions, Civiized Jewellers. They are extremely powerful, but its a totally different aproach: Warring at first culture in the modern era. I won really unexpected cultural victories with the corporations. You will find specialized threads on that topic inh the strategies forum.

 

[ButSam]

I won my first culture victory on Noble. I am no expert, but the way I won was as follows:
* Build high-culture wonders, early wonders (since culture will double after 1000 years), and wonders that produce Great Artists as a priority. Other wonders are nice but not as necessary. Pyramids are great. The one that allows all religious civics is also great...I think it's Schwedagon Paya or something like that. Apostolic Palace is also nice -- you probably founded a few religions, and the AP matching one of your religions (meaning you are a full member) will give you a bonus per turn. This isn't as important as, say, Sistine Chapel, but it is still a good one to seek as a 2nd-tier wonder.
* Try to found at least 3 religions, and establish at least 9 cities (not all of them have to be good). I think I did it with 4 religions (2 that I founded, 2 that spread to me) and 7 cities, but it would have been faster with 9 cities.
* For detonating Great Artist culture bombs or Great Artists settling in your city, or for Culture-boosting wonders/buildings (hermitage, cathedrals): When deciding which of your 3 cultural cities to settle in, settle/build in the city that produces the fewest culture points PER TURN. This is not necessarily the city that currently has the fewest culture points.
* Prioritize Drama. Music (I think) gives a free GA to the first person to research it, and is also important. Aesthetics is also very nice.
* Get Cathedrals early. Build temples in all your cities for all your religions. With 9 cities, you can build 1 cathedral per religion in each of your 3 culture cities. Each cathedral requires 3 temples for that religion. Cathedrals boost culture by a percentage (50%? Maybe it was 25%... I don't recall. It is very useful though!)
* Set the culture slider at a small percentage early (such as 10%) to provide a long-term boost to culture. Up the culture slider gradually as you feel comfortable, then to 100% for your final push.
* When your cities (any of them, but especially one of the big 3) get to a decent size and can afford to in both food and hammers, create Artist specialists. The more Great Artists, the merrier! This is most beneficial if the city is one of the big 3, since you reap direct benefits from the specialist, but it also helps produce GA's in any city that you have an Artist specialist in, so don't limit your Artist specialists to only your big 3 if other cities can afford to have Artist specialists as well.
* Don't forget about protection! You will be a prime target if you ignore your military. At least 2 of your cities that are not a part of the big 3 should be military production cities. Along these lines, allowing drafting is also very important. In my game, being able to draft meant the difference from having one of my big 3 culture cities captured in an AI attack and being able to withstand the invasion.

There are tips that I probably missed in the War Academy.

Sam