I keep winning Science Victory when I’m aiming for Cultural.

[Chekko]

So I got a nice bunch of cities. My units are plenty and fortified around my borders. I’ve focused my game on Cultural buildings and wonders full of art/stuff/music slots to pop Great Cultural people and pop in those slots. I trade around to get my buildings themed, maybe manage to theme 40% of them because trading art is expensive. I prefer using my spies to counter-spy (And to, in my recent game as Eleanor, sync the disloyalty mission with other stuff).

I roll my thumbs clicking next as more and more Great People roll in. Whenever I can I queue up a Builder in between important buildings so I can build resorts and the like. The Tourism increases slowly but my science has completed its tree and finished the last one for the tenth time.

Now the weird part. Rock Bands. I don’t get them. The game says ”wow dude 1000 tourism maang” but nothing changes in the Cultural Victory menu. Still the same tourists. I do it again by rocking the whole world but still nothing. Its like these are useless or I’m missing something. At the same time all of this is happening I’ve built some Space Districts in my major production cities an-
SEAN BEAN: ”Much as our ancestors did ages ago, we thrust forward into the unknown”

Well I won. But how can I win cultural victories? I continued with science because Lautaro was close to win through science

Moderator Action: Please mind your language, post edited --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[tetley]

I usually have to go out of my way to win science victories before I win cultural first, so we must be doing something opposite. I have a feeling it's because I tend to play small maps. Any victory condition which requires, "Do something to every other civilization out there..." is going to be harder on a huge map.

 

[Chekko]

That could be it. I’m playing on Standard/Large most of the time on Continents-like maps.

 

[KKirrin]

yeah your tourism won't apply to other civs until you meet them, so if you're playing continents or something similar that's really going to set you back. what difficulty are you playing on? a lot of winning the culture game on deity is leveraging tourism early and closing it out before civs like greece/rome/etc get a bunch of culture rolling

are you running open borders at all times? at least one trade route to each civ? those are two of the biggest things. my guess is that it's half not meeting civs early enough and half too much of an emphasis on science at the expense of culture or trade routes. on emp or below you can usually close the game out with just currency/printing but ofc you run the risk of getting wiped or barbed out on higher difficulties. deity you typically need to hit flight/computers but you can still end the game before that with ski resorts/rock bands, just requires a good map usually or an op civ (mag cath can end the game sub 90 on deity if the ai/barbs cooperate)

rock bands are def amazing but the victory screen does a terrible job of indicating how much they're actually putting out, you won't really see the needle move for a turn or three then all of a sudden it'll say the game is ending in two turns, then it won't. just make sure you're sending them to the civ with the most culture, otherwise they aren't nearly as effective. also best to send a giant wave of them at once, sending one or two of them at a time can be kinda pointless as the idea is to burst tourism over the final civ or two to close out the game, not rely on them to push tourism in general

 

[Chekko]

yeah your tourism won't apply to other civs until you meet them, so if you're playing continents or something similar that's really going to set you back. what difficulty are you playing on? a lot of winning the culture game on deity is leveraging tourism early and closing it out before civs like greece/rome/etc get a bunch of culture rolling

are you running open borders at all times? at least one trade route to each civ? those are two of the biggest things. my guess is that it's half not meeting civs early enough and half too much of an emphasis on science at the expense of culture or trade routes. on emp or below you can usually close the game out with just currency/printing but ofc you run the risk of getting wiped or barbed out on higher difficulties. deity you typically need to hit flight/computers but you can still end the game before that with ski resorts/rock bands, just requires a good map usually or an op civ (mag cath can end the game sub 90 on deity if the ai/barbs cooperate)

rock bands are def amazing but the victory screen does a terrible job of indicating how much they're actually putting out, you won't really see the needle move for a turn or three then all of a sudden it'll say the game is ending in two turns, then it won't. just make sure you're sending them to the civ with the most culture, otherwise they aren't nearly as effective. also best to send a giant wave of them at once, sending one or two of them at a time can be kinda pointless as the idea is to burst tourism over the final civ or two to close out the game, not rely on them to push tourism in general

Emperor and I went with trade routes to every Civ because of the trade route tourism policy. Open borders was something I did not think about.

 

[Codeword Iroquois]

Pangaea is a solid map for culture, due to the greater speed with which you'll meet people.

 

[hhhhhh]

The question is a bit weird to me, if you don't want to win science just don't build Space Port.

 

[MrRadar]

Emperor and I went with trade routes to every Civ because of the trade route tourism policy. Open borders was something I did not think about.

You might want to have a look at the Wiki page on Tourism for more ideas. A trade route to each AI civ and open borders at all times is only the beginning. Do you run tourism boosting policy cards? Heritage Tourism, Online Communities, etc.?

There are a few helpful great people, including a couple of GM to add further +25% on International Trade routes.

National parks (plant forests, destroy mines to make more NPs), Seaside resorts (Eiffel Tower), Skiing resorts. Christo, of you have lots of religious art.

And send your Rock bands to the biggest competitors first, who have the largest amount of domestic tourists, to reduce that number and lower your victory threshold.

By the way, trade art with the AI, if they have something you need for theming, that is, just buy it from them for cash or swap, if you lack slotting space. If you use spies, use them to steal gold from the most lucrative targets. Gold stealing is the easiest operation and may net you enough gold to buy a few great works, and you can choose what you need, as opposed to art stealing operations, which are more difficult and bring you only one piece per operation and you can't choose what you get.

 

[Chekko]

I went with pretty much everything that had Tourism on it. Policy Cards, a few wonders, govenor promotion, tile improvements, art, Great Merchants, trade routes. Open borders was probably the last piece of the puzzle.

 

[chazzycat]

my favorite playstyle is usually to build up peacefully towards both culture & science victories at the same time, and then see which one wins the race. My capital will be dedicated to the space ship while the rest of my empire pushes tourism. A long time ago several patches back, culture used to win handily every time. In the current version it's almost always science.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

So I got a nice bunch of cities. My units are plenty and fortified around my borders. I’ve focused my game on Cultural buildings and wonders full of art/stuff/music slots to pop Great Cultural people and pop in those slots. I trade around to get my buildings themed, maybe manage to theme 40% of them because trading art is expensive. I prefer using my spies to counter-spy (And to, in my recent game as Eleanor, sync the disloyalty mission with other stuff).

I roll my thumbs clicking next as more and more Great People roll in. Whenever I can I queue up a Builder in between important buildings so I can build resorts and the like. The Tourism increases slowly but my science has completed its tree and finished the last one for the tenth time.

Now the weird part. Rock Bands. I don’t get them. The game says ”wow dude 1000 tourism maang” but nothing changes in the Cultural Victory menu. Still the same tourists. I do it again by rocking the whole world but still nothing. Its like these are useless or I’m missing something. At the same time all of this is happening I’ve built some Space Districts in my major production cities an-
SEAN BEAN: ”Much as our ancestors did ages ago, we thrust forward into the unknown”

Well I won. But how can I win cultural victories? I continued with science because Lautaro was close to win through science

Moderator Action: Please mind your language, post edited --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

If this is a problem that keeps repeating itself, I'd say there's something off in your strategy there.
Granted, I've had games where science was still a viable route despite going culture, but it would be at least 50 turns for me to do so, even if I pooled all my resources towards a SV.

Just some pointers on top of my head here:
1. You might focus too much on science generation over culture.
Generally in a culture game, you wan't to stay "ok" in science (as in, maximum an era behind military tech wise, or at least a very defensible location), and focus on generating as much culture as possible.
You want that culture because of the late game civics (Environmentalism for +25% tourism, Social media for the Online Communities policy that boost tourism from trade routes with 50% etc.), and the science tech tree overall offers less for you for tourism purposes come the late game.

2. You need to be mindful of getting high base tourism in the period leading up to the Information Era civics above.
This can be done with great works, seaside resorts, natural parks etc. etc.
Once you hit the key Information Era civics, you get more and more percentage modifiers on top of that base tourism, which is where you start generating insane amounts of tourism per turn.
In my last Bull Moose Teddy game on Deity, I planted natural parks, seaside resorts and traded for/dug up artifacts and relics like mad, and made sure to spend all my faith towards natural parks.
Once the percentage modifiers kicked in, I went from 400 or so tourism to (eventually) 1650 tourism per turn, which is a huge increase.

3. You need to actively seek out any percentage modifier to tourism.
Trade constantly for open borders (but don't open yours), and make sure to send trade routes to every civ.
That alone gets you +50% tourism towards that civilization, and it doesn't really require you to do anything special or reach late game civics.
When those late game civics hit, you are getting a stupid amount of tourism.

4. Rock bands, use them well.
Set up a good faith economy, and start using rock bands when your base tourism is already high.
Rock bands are the unit you use to close out the game, and you don't want to use them too early (it depends on a lot more factors though, like number of players, total tourism towards other civs etc., but this is just a pointer).
Once you do start using them, you preferably want to get the promotions that let them do a gig "as if 2 levels more experienced", as this generally gives you the highest chance of not losing them, but also promoting them further.
Also, send them towards the civs that have the highest amount of domestic tourists.
If say Persia is at 479 tourists, you need to attract at least 480 tourists in order to win a CV, and thus you want to target Persia.
"Stealing tourists" from Persia both gets you more tourists, and it lowers the cap for your CV.
If you however targeted someone else, you do get more visiting tourists, but the cap remains high, thus you always want to target the guy with the highest domestic tourists and steal from him instead.

 

[Chekko]

I had all the science buildings as I had all culture buildings. In every city. Though I aimed to build more Cultural Districts than Science. Not sure how I focused more on Science to be honest. My aim was culture. If I remember correctly my tourism was like 800 or something. No idea how I would get more. And I had like 4 breathtaking tiles over my entire empire and those I was able to build a Seaside Resort on I did, but it was not many. Ski Resorts was the thing I went for.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I had all the science buildings as I had all culture buildings. In every city. Though I aimed to build more Cultural Districts than Science. Not sure how I focused more on Science to be honest. My aim was culture. If I remember correctly my tourism was like 800 or something. No idea how I would get more. And I had like 4 breathtaking tiles over my entire empire and those I was able to build a Seaside Resort on I did, but it was not many. Ski Resorts was the thing I went for.

Then it seems we have identified one issue - you have plenty of room to improve your strategy regarding appeal for natural parks/seaside resorts.

How I usually go about to improve that appeal is through several means, but I'll briefly list them here:
1. Use the "appeal" lens (in the "lenses" tab above the mini map) to visually see where you have high appeal (charming or higher).
Especially identifying "charming" locations is of importance, since those are very easy to nudge up to breathtaking with very little effort - focus your efforts there first.
2. Once you identify where you can improve your appeal, start off with removing negative appeal factors - Those are rainforest, marshes and/or nearby mines/quarries.
All these terrain/improvements give a radius modifier (to nearby tiles) of -1 appeal, meaning that 1 centrally placed rainforest for instance can cause you to dip low in appeal on the 6 other tiles surrounding it.
3. After you have limited your negative appeal, try to improve your appeal further by positive appeal factors.
Positive appeal factors give extra appeal to surrounding tiles, and those are (mainly): Forests (+1 to surrounding tiles), certain unique improvements (Sphinx for instance gives +2 to surrounding tiles iirc), and City Parks (the final Liang promotion, +2 appeal to surrounding tiles.
Try to be careful where you place them though, so that they boost the adjacent area where you want to place a natural park, but don't place them on where you want to have the natural park or the game will count it as an invalid tile.
Both forests and city parks can generally be spammed, and in the case of forests you have the benefit of using them both to improve your surrounding appeal as well as place a natural park on it (since it doesn't count as an improvement).
4. Be mindful that you need to switch high appeal tiles between cities if you can't build a natural park, as the tiles where you want to plant that park all have to be owned by the same city! Example: In my last game, I had the "Wish you were here" dedication as well as Reyna slotted in a city with two natural parks. Both of them were boosted to about 110-120 tourism each(!). I had about 8 total natural parks, and needless to say, I was killing it tourism-wise at that point.
5. Try to snag the Eiffel Tower - it can be one of the best cultural wonders bar none, and not only helps you set up more potential locations for natural parks, but also boosts the base tourism gained from natural parks/seaside resorts.

Generally this isn't too hard to pull off, but it does require some micro management of your appeal, hence why using the "Appeal" lens is helpful for you to get a visual representation of where you can/should start working to improve your appeal.

Also be mindful that Industrial Zones give negative appeal as well, so if you want to build them, make sure you do so away from any future natural park spots.
Hope this helped!

Also I'll just add that culture per turn is great - up to a certain point.
You of course want culture per turn so that you reach the lategame civics as soon as possible, but don't forget that tourism is what you actually want since that is what wins you the game in the end.
So work on using culture to get to more tourism, not culture for its own sake (this is easy to forget at times).

Example:
In my last game as BM Teddy I played with a friend of mine who also went for CV (we were teamed up) as Russia, one of the absolute top contenders for a CV.
In the end, he was sitting at an impressive 1000 culture per turn, while I was at (barely) 700 culture.
But since I did not focus on culture for its own sake and instead played the micro management game of boosting appeal for natural parks (to get as high a base value as possible before percentage modifiers), I cranked out 1650 base tourism per turn, as opposed to his 700-ish tourism.
Needless to say, I won the game way before he was even close to winning on culture (at the turn of winning, I had attracted about 400 visiting tourists compared to his 180 or so).

 

[Chekko]

There are negative effects to appeal? Don’t think I knew that before. I guess thats it then. Thanks.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Yeah, rainforests, marshes, mines/quarries, industrial zones and flood plains are the main culprits to negative appeal.
The first ones you can fortunately do something about (clearing rainforests, draining marshes, remove improved mines/quarries and avoid planting an industrial zone near a future park spot), while flood plains are the one negative factor you can't really do much about.
Be especially careful about industrial zones, as once placed you can't remove them like you would a mine!

Clearing rainforests/marshes is usually a no-brainer, you get some good harvest yields (especially with Magnus), as well as a spot to plant more trees in the late game.
As for mines, you generally don't care about your appeal in the first half of the game anyway so you can freely plant them then.
Just be mindful that you might have to invest in a few builders in the late game once you do get to natural parks (first in order to remove the mine, and then preferably planting trees or improvements like city parks on top).
Your appeal in the general area should skyrocket at that point and be prime locations for those sweet, sweet natural parks.
With some good micro management it's not unheard of to get something like Breathtaking (8) on every single natural park tile, giving you 32 baseline tourism from such a natural park.
(And with modifiers on top, such a single park can easily break into the 120 tourism + range).

 

[Koljar]

The question is a bit weird to me, if you don't want to win science just don't build Space Port.

This imo. I achieved culture victories "on accident" while playing Eleonore (which is why I usually disable culture victories now). I've never accidentially won a science victory just because it requires tech to be build that you otherwhise wouldn't.

 

[japanesesamurai]

I don’t understand the OP. You have to actively pursue a space victory. If you dont build those spaceports and start those projects it is impossible to win. So just don’t build them.

 

[KKirrin]

Op isn’t accidentally winning science—they’re aiming for a culture victory but not getting there fast enough, so they keep pivoting to science to keep the game from being a loss. They’re just asking for culture help, basically

 

[Vargas1]

Following on Oberinspektor's really helpful comments, I would suggest playing a game as Bull Moose Teddy to help wrap your head around the appeal piece. I'm finishing up my first game with him now and I feel like I've learned a lot during the game in terms of watching for appeal, planning out cities to improve/retain appeal, etc. My past cultural victories had all been primarily traditional great works/wonder based, with a handful of seaside resorts tossed in at the end. This is a very different way to play and has been (surprisingly) a lot of fun. Plus it's an awfully fun moment to get Eiffel bit and watch every yield (I had earth goddess as pantheon) skyrocket.

 

[Anthedon]

Some very helpful tips in this thread, thanks guys!