Slightly off-topic but that last message reminds of of an episode of the TV show The Twilight Zone (or was it The Outer Limits?). Anyway, a guy comes to your house and delivers you a box with a button on it. All that you have to do is press the button and one million dollars (or pounds or whatever currency your country uses) will be instantly delivered to you and the box will be taken away.
Of course, the box then gets delivered to the next person in line and the same promise is made... guess where the one million in currency comes from? That's right--you press the magic button and someone is killed off, giving you their money... at least until the next chap comes along and presses that button, hahaha!
As for my game, I'm going for Culture. However, I'm sucking badly. I built an early Worker that was going to build a Road-based Trade Route between our two eastern Cities, by connecting-up the two Rivers to each other. Of course, my Warrior was out of position, so I got started on the Road 1 turn early (i.e. one turn before my Warrior could arrive there). There was only 1 unfogged square, and do you know it, that square not only contained a Panther, but the Panther just happened to move into range of the Worker, eating my Worker after it had only Farmed a single square (i.e. really early in the game)! Ouch!
Of course, the next turn, my Warrior was able to avenge the Worker's death... or not... the Warrior died, too! So then, I ended up having to build 3 extra squares' worth of Road with a different Worker in order to do so "safely."
Islam wasn't spreading well at all, either. I sent out two early Missionaries at great cost, with one of them making it to the east but failing to spread, while the other one died to a Barb Warrior that hadn't been there two turns prior when the first Missionary had walked through the same area.
The first Missionary had been moving slowly, 1 movement point per turn, in order to stay safe from Barb units, but the second one trusted the first one's scouting, only to die as a result. Sigh.
As for other Religions, I was either building too many or too few Missionaries... I had to delete some that spread well while others just refused to spread.
Oh yeah, I also sling-shotted Civil Service, but I may as well not have. I pulled a very common "trick" for my games... I saw a different Civic that I wanted to run (in this case it was Organized Religion, but often it is Hereditary Rule), so I delayed switching into that Civic until I learned Bureaucracy. Of course, game after game, I get all micro-intensive right before The Oracle is built and I tend to look at my F3 Civics screen and say things like "oh, I should have already switched into that Civic by now, let me switch into it..." Oops! Okay, so that means that getting The Oracle next turn gives me 4 turns of waiting until I can switch into Bureaucracy. Of course, I checked after 2 turns and after 3 turns but forgot after 4 turns and I think that, several turns later, after losing about 7 turns worth of Bureaucracy, I finally made the switch!
Also, since Hatty beat me to a Religion, her Cultural pressure has been high and my City to the east of her capital has suffered as a result.
At least I built The Great Wall, so I am unlikely to lose a City due to my random acts of inattentiveness.
It feels nice not to have to decide whether or not to chase Divine Right for an additional Religion, but since everyone else gets this same benefit, it doesn't really help me, does it?
BTW, I built SH in the capital too, so I got what I deserved...
). There are many articles in the strategy forum showing that converting food into hammers is more efficient than working hammers themselves, especially if you have a granary. What is important is to know when and how to do it. I've had up to +10
or more in my fastest cultural games, a problem that magically goes away once the culture slider goes to 100%.
hummmm Thank you for the Management level reasoning. 
