How the heck do you win a cultural victory?

[Xiao Xiong]

Every time I think I am well on my way to winning a cultural victory, I win a diplomatic victory first. I mean, if I cancelled the diplo condition, it seems like I would have got the cultural victory... but...

SO FRUSTRATING!

 

[joncnunn]

In BNW:

1. Play the exchange great work minigame to max out theming bonuses.

2. After you get a significant amount of tourism, open borders and run a trade route with those with the most culture.

3. No later than when you have both the tech for Hotel & Airport, have your science be a direct focus on just what is needed to hit the Internet. Skip anything not on that path.

4. Place Diplomats in civs choosing a different ideology.

5. If you decide very early on (say within the first 100 or so turns) that you are going for Cultural victory, then start Aesthetics as soon as you finish the first tree. You'll eventually want to finish it (but can interrupt it for Rationalism). You may also want to open Exploration just for The Louvre.

6. Use the tourism bonuses within whichever ideology you chose. Note that Autocracy's is pretty weak compared to both Freedom & Order. (Autocracy culture is more for using your army to go conquer cities in which the AI has stored their great works and then relocate them. Order works best if either the AI with the most culture has gone Order or if you can get your happiness higher than that AIs. Freedom just needs you to build Broadcast Tower in your best tourism city and along the way to have chosen New Deal and the specialist boost tenets to max out its benefit.)

7. Optional: Don't put so much effort into becoming allies with so many city states if not intending a diplomatic victory. Also, you can abstain from the vote for world leader.

In either Vanilla or G&K:
Play as a semi-OCC (don't found any cities yourself but leave as puppets any conquered cities) and do everything to boost your culture per turn as high as it can. Save a GE so you can rush Utopia Project the moment you finish five trees. Also find something to fight off boredom, since old cultural victory was really boring.

 

[Sherlock]

When you say 'open borders' don't you mean 'keep your borders closed to deny the other Civ's the tourism bonus' and get THEM to open up their borders?

 

[Browd]

Yes, you don't want reciprocal open borders, just the other civ to open its borders.

 

[Chum]

Yes, you don't want reciprocal open borders, just the other civ to open its borders.

I rarely sweat this. Open borders gets to be EXPENSIVE later in the game with certain civs. Most of them are not a tourism threat to you, because the AI very rarely manages to pull the kind of Tourism you can if you're going for a CV. So when it's 1500 and Attila is on the other side of the map and wants to trade open borders, he gets it. Saves me money I need to spend on the culture leader who in no way wants to give them to me for less than 3 luxes.

 

[Browd]

If the other civ is a cultural/tourism nobody (as Attila often is), that's fine. If the other civ is a rival for a cultural victory, far better to go with unilateral OBs, even if the cost he extracts is horrifyingly expensive.

 

[lindsay40k]

Are you supporting your tourism with religion, much? If you found a faith, even if you don't get sacred sites, it sounds like you're good at diplo and can get your faith passed as world religion then stage-manage the international games to coincide with hotels for a massive tourism rush.

Faith also enables you to buy a Great Musician supergroup at this stage to wallop the most stubborn culture into envious submission. Concert tours during the IG are brutal.

 

[Sagax]

Speaking of Great Musicians, DON'T build Musicians Guild until late game. They do more work by giving concerts than turning into Great Works, so you want those first spawns to occur when you have high tourism output.

 

[lindsay40k]

If you're made of hammers, you can hasten a policy or two by building a MG in each city and closing up just before Hendrix comes along a hundred years too early

I think there's an argument for Holy Cities or Paris to generate a couple of GM's then build Broadway. If you've got loads of faith, you can just buy a couple of rock stars when the time comes, and the triple GWM generates quite a bit of tourism whilst hastening your lv3 tenet.

 

[reddishrecue]

To win a cultural victory, your civilization has to reach influential and 100% in the cultural victory screen. If you go to the cultural victory screen, you will see how much you have influenced each civilization by percentage. Once the percentage of influence to all civilizations reaches 100% to all, then you automatically win a cultural victory.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

When you say 'open borders' don't you mean 'keep your borders closed to deny the other Civ's the tourism bonus' and get THEM to open up their borders?

In the game I was playing I opened borders both ways with most civs, so what if they send a little tourism my way, I only did the 1-way with the one civ of another ideology that was generating a large amount of tourism.

I did ally all the CS's but only primarily because Maria was in the game and I needed to stop her from becoming a runaway, she was already the next largest civ and the biggest threat. So I allied as many CS's as I could and she gobbled up all the ones I couldn't.

Anyway, my problem with cultural victory is that it seems like if you have any hope of getting it you are already such a massive runaway civ that you have to work hard to avoid getting other victory conditions.

To get it you have to be a science leader and a production powerhouse, and at that point you pretty much dominate in every way. If you are in position to win CV, you probably have the production/science to go domination, or to go spaceship, and finish either of those before you rack up the tourism necessary to win a CV.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

To win a cultural victory, your civilization has to reach influential and 100% in the cultural victory screen. If you go to the cultural victory screen, you will see how much you have influenced each civilization by percentage. Once the percentage of influence to all civilizations reaches 100% to all, then you automatically win a cultural victory.

Yeah I know, problem is that every time I try I wind up winning a diplo victory first.

After I hit internet there were really no more wonders so I sat there pumping out great people, using trade routes, diplomats, etc., but really that left me with a lot to do while waiting for the tourism to roll in. So I build military units, bribed CS's, and eventually won the diplo victory. By that time, although I had chosen not to go to war with anyone, I had a military that could have annihilated anyone else as well, so I could have gone domination at the last minute too.

Seems like every other victory condition is available by the time you win CV.

 

[reddishrecue]

You must have used a traditional or liberty start.

 

[Uzael36]

Speaking of Great Musicians, DON'T build Musicians Guild until late game. They do more work by giving concerts than turning into Great Works, so you want those first spawns to occur when you have high tourism output.

If you are afraid that GM's will not be as powerful if created early in your game, you are mistaken. Their tourism output is not based on when they were created, but when they are used. A GM generated on turn 150 and used on turn 250 will be equal to one generated on turn 250 and used on 250.

The only downside is having to support their maintenance cost.

 

[phillipwyllie]

If you are afraid that GM's will not be as powerful if created early in your game, you are mistaken. Their tourism output is not based on when they were created, but when they are used. A GM generated on turn 150 and used on turn 250 will be equal to one generated on turn 250 and used on 250.

The only downside is having to support their maintenance cost.

The strength of a GM is 10 * Tourism at the time of birth. For GS/GW it is the last 8 turns of science/culture. On standard GE are 300 + (30 * city population).

 

[Minor Annoyance]

If you're not going for total pacifism, you can take out whoever has the most culture rather than try and compete with them.

 

[joncnunn]

Speaking of Great Musicians, DON'T build Musicians Guild until late game. They do more work by giving concerts than turning into Great Works, so you want those first spawns to occur when you have high tourism output.

Alternatively you can propose Arts funding, finish Aesthetics, and faith buy them a couple late in the game. In which case those that you naturally built get start putting out 2 tourism per turn (later 3 post Hotel & Airport) and get relocated into Sidney's & Broadway for additional bonuses.

 

[joncnunn]

If the other civ is a cultural/tourism nobody (as Attila often is), that's fine. If the other civ is a rival for a cultural victory, far better to go with unilateral OBs, even if the cost he extracts is horrifyingly expensive.

I've never seen an AI that was a threat to get more effective tourism than my culture.

 

[jlim201]

Its so easy for me to win cutural victory on emporor (my current level). Build wonders, micromanage theming, rush Printing Press, Acoustics, Architecture, Radio, Refrigeration (hotels), Radar (airports), Computers (build Firewall to prevent AI's from getting it) then Internet.

For me I can get culture victory earlier than anything else, other than domination on a duel- small map.

 

[chazzycat]

If you are afraid that GM's will not be as powerful if created early in your game, you are mistaken. Their tourism output is not based on when they were created, but when they are used. A GM generated on turn 150 and used on turn 250 will be equal to one generated on turn 250 and used on 250.

The only downside is having to support their maintenance cost.

advice #1: ignore this comment, its completely wrong, and a pretty important point...

I also agree with those saying trading open borders is (generally) fine. Unless the AI is actually a threat to win CV, which is very rare. It doesn't slow down your CV, just speeds up theirs. Which is irrelevant unless you are really playing badly or on too hard of a difficulty for your skill level.

OP, what difficulty level you play on? Emperor and below, you can just build wonders and cruise to CV. Immortal+ requires a bit more strategery but is still doable.

Also, there are a ton of guides on this site about this topic already, if you type in culture BNW in the search bar you'll have plenty of reading material