Minimum requirements for Culture Victory

[man_in_finance]

So I've read a lot of strategy guides about Culture Victory - some I agree with and some tips seem completely misplaced. Personally I don't support the following ideas:

• "Build tourism early since it starts accruing from the moment you meet a civ": complete rubbish because the later game modifiers exponentially encompass any early gains.
• "Build lots of wonders": hmm not really, most of my Culture Victories are without wonders and wonders are hard to build at higher difficulties anyway so not guaranteed.

And the most controversial piece of strategy I'm going to suggest here is don't actual focus culture early. Technically you don't need "culture", you need "tourism". Yes they go somewhat hand in hand but theres no point having tourism until you have exponential modifiers, which means you can spam it later.

So what are the very basic requirements that you need for a Culture Victory? I don't know so I'm going to form some basic assumptions the community can collectively argue about...

Basic Assumptions:

• In an 8 player game (standard map normal speed) you still have 7 foreign civilizations in the game around turn 200 to output tourism to.
• You can build 10 cities and in those cities acquire the below items in the image. Importantly you need 5 theatre districts, progressed to museums, filled and themed, and acquired 5 great writers en route.
• By turn 200 you have computers and all the civics needed to apply modifiers, and you slot them.
• You have no wonders and no great people capable of modifiers (great merchants or Mary Leakey)
• You can get trade routes to 4/7 civs, open borders to 4/7 and the same government as 4/7.
• No religious tourism at all.
• The top ranking foreign civ has a culture per turn equal to the turn number, i.e. 50 at turn 50 etc..
• You start with zero visiting tourists at turn 200. (i.e. assume to have acquired 0 lifetime tourism)

Now as we progress from turn 200 with all of these items and tourism output our visiting tourist base builds at about 4 tourists per turn, whilst the leading foreign civ continues to build total tourists at a rate of about 2 per turn. We can't quite reduce his growth but combined with our performance against other civs after about 80 or so turns our total visiting tourist base is about 350 and surpasses the domestic tourists of the leading civ.

The power of Mary Leakey is so strong that she gets the job done in less than half the time, around 30 turns, if you are able to put in a lot of effort to patronising her.

So the question to the community is which of these assumptions are most questionable and variable?
Do the buildings and Great Works/Artifacts I have posted seem fairly easy to acquire?

 

[Mr. Shadows]

The Apadana and The Great Library both have slots for Great Writing, which doubles at printing. That can be leveraged into a CV before you unlock either archaeology or Seaside Resorts.

 

[Elric of Grans]

I find I generate more Great Writers and Great Musicians than I can find slots to put their works. I have the same problem with Great Artists if I build any Archaeology Museums. I always make a point of picking up the Apadana and Great Library for their extra great work slots. A lot later on, but I also pick up The Hermitage, Bolshoi Theatre, and Broadway (one in each of my three best cities), and more often than not also pick up Oxford University (more Great Writings). Similarly, you probably have a Government Plaza, so the extra slots provided by the National History Museum help.

I have found the doubling from Computers is game-changing. I usually have six of the seven civs beat, but one holding out: Computers launches me ahead and beats that last civ in a few turns. I think getting to this tech in the shortest space of time might be critical to an easy Culture Victory.

 

[man_in_finance]

The Apadana and The Great Library both have slots for Great Writing, which doubles at printing. That can be leveraged into a CV before you unlock either archaeology or Seaside Resorts.

Yes good point about timing of acquisition, this might well get you into a good position for the final push provided by computers, and a reason for building 'writing buildings' a bit earlier than I might otherwise...

I find I generate more Great Writers and Great Musicians than I can find slots to put their works. I have the same problem with Great Artists if I build any Archaeology Museums. I always make a point of picking up the Apadana and Great Library for their extra great work slots. A lot later on, but I also pick up The Hermitage, Bolshoi Theatre, and Broadway (one in each of my three best cities), and more often than not also pick up Oxford University (more Great Writings). Similarly, you probably have a Government Plaza, so the extra slots provided by the National History Museum help.

I have found the doubling from Computers is game-changing. I usually have six of the seven civs beat, but one holding out: Computers launches me ahead and beats that last civ in a few turns. I think getting to this tech in the shortest space of time might be critical to an easy Culture Victory.

Yes but archeology is so powerful with Mary Leakey that its worth it, probably even just on the chance you get her. You have to beeline for computers. Thats the clincher, I agree!

 

[Aurelesk]

With Kongo, you can have a really early Tourism Victory with the Writings. The Palace have 5 slots, the Amphitheatre have 2. If you have the Apadana and the Great Library, it's 4 more, so 11 Writings. 13 if you manage to get the Merchant that give 2 slots in the Bank.

Each Writings have 4 Tourism, and go to 8 with Writing Press. With Reyna Curator, you have 16. 13 Writings × 16 Tourism = 208. Nobody have that much Culture per turn in the early game.

Kongo really make this "easy" because he also have +50% toward great Writers (and Merchant, because you will want that trade route).