Looking for help with culture win

[Zezima]

(Does this belong in BNW or Strat forum? If so, please go ahead and move it)

Hey guys, looking for some advice on my first attempt at a culture game in BNW. I'm playing Brazil on king small continents on epic speed and its turn 525 (which is almost 100 turns longer than I'd normally hit a science vic on emperor in G&K...) and I've managed to become influential on 4 of the 5 other civs, but I'm struggling with Greece (the runaway).

Spoiler :

As you can see, I'm looking at 300 some odd turns to become influential, even with a carnival running, and obviously I just don't have the patience for that. I'm wondering what the best approach is to taking down Greece (culturally of course) given my situation.

I'm tech leader, despite my measly beaker output, just put research labs and hotels in all my cities, working toward airports and then eventually the internet. I have most of the major culture wonders with theming bonuses as high as I can get them with my current GWs.

Spoiler :

I've got Aesthetics running at full throttle and got all the tourism and happiness bonuses from Freedom. Alex is ruling the world congress at the moment and made autocracy the world ideology, which doesn't help. I've managed friendly relations with every civ this entire game through clever spy and congress work, trading luxes for as much happiness as possible, and I've got all my guilds pumping out GWAMs with as many bonuses as I can obtain (including arts funding).

Spoiler :

At this point, there are just so many options before me I'm not sure where to go. I've stopped making GWoAs and have opted to start pumping GAs as often as possible, but even with 40 happiness a natural GA just takes way too long. Should I turn up the science and get airports online? Should I spread tourism using GMs? Haven't tried that mechanic yet so I'm not sure how well it works. Should I try to grab hold of the world congress and break down autocracy as the world ideology? Or should I just go for broke and prepare to bring the war to Alex himself?

I've only got 3 cities since Theodora and Washington ate up land pretty quick, and my early wonder building, GW creating, and GWAM birthing left little time to build up an army. I also didn't want to risk breaking all my trade routes and lux deals in the early game. Did I screw myself by staying so tall?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Oh yeah, I did manage to flip 15 pop Corinth around turn 450, which was pretty awesome given that I wasn't aware that was even possible (haven't followed much BNW news since I didn't want to spoil all the new features).

 

[Zezima]

And I only just realized that open borders, trade routes, diplomats, and shared religion can all increase your tourism output to other civs. >_<

Think I know why this game has been dragging out for so long now.

 

[Sabrina]

That was exactly my situation on my recent game as Portugal (my problem was Monty instead of Alex) and a few more civs. I had only 3 cities, focused on tourism buildings and wonders, the art bonuses slots all filled (except for one little mistake in too much excavating). Was dominant with all the civs but still my influence with Monty was rising slowly. The fact that I kept the world congress leadership the entire game helped a lot... world fair and international games give huge tourism boosts and, in the end, I just send 2 GM to his lands to finish the deal.

 

[newarkinvaders]

Great Muscians , send 2-3 into greece and you will win . They are huge .

 

[Zezima]

Yeah, as a matter of fact I had also received the first place bonuses from both the world fair and the international games. I popped a few GMs in Alex's territory towards the end, which definitely helped.

But what I really needed was those multipliers from open borders, diplomats, etc. I could have been compounding my culture much earlier had I known about those.

 

[spellfire]

i think the "mistake" that you did in this game is that you tried to win a culture victory with the G&K mentality of culture victory, i mean that you didnt expand too much. from what i can see you only had two cities? well on one point of view thats actually good for your culture output so u can keep getting those social policies up fast, but since they nerfed the city spam policy penalty , i think you actually needed at least two more cities so u can plow through alex's culture fast enough. on my own culture game on emperor, (normal speed) i had influential with everyone in 300 turns with 4 cities. i think i had a little less policies than u have but that didnt matter that much. i also had a runaway on culture but as soon as i got to the airport technology i had the money to instantly buy them , timed the world fair with a carnival and then had my culture output around 1300 per turn without the percentage bonuses for each civ. 1 great musician would have 13.000 tourism strength, and by that time (atomic era) my runaway civ had around 58.000 culture amassed throughout the game.