Best way to achiveve cultural victory?

[AppleTheMan]

What is the best way to achieve cultural victory?
I've been mulling a few things over... The most ideal would be an industrious + philosophical civ, but there are none. Which do you think is best to have: Industrious to pump out the culture producing wonders quicker? Or philosophical to pump our great artists? I used to try it in vanilla with Alexander, because he always started right next to marble and it was so easy to build the Parthenon and pump out the artists right away, but not the parthenon is harder to get to.

Is wonder pumping the best way to do it? If so I would guess it's best to pick an industrious civ, pick a start next to stone and get the pyramids for GEs.

Also, if I'm going for cultural victory, should I focus so much on war and creating a big empire? Or will a few good cities with good diplomacy (maybe with missionaries) do it? If I expand to 10+ or so cities early on, I fall way back in science. This is normally not such a big deal, but if wonders are the key I'm going to miss them all. On the other hand, if I keep it to 6 or 7 cities it's easier to keep up, but I fear that later on in the game I'll fall way behind unless I have a super science city.

[MoonWolf]

I personally would go for an industrious civ. Without doing the mathematics for it, I would assume the pay-off is higher for IND and PHI as you can secure more wonders. Also, try to spread as many religions as possible to your cities so you can build cathedrals in your 3 cultural cities (+50% )

[wodan11]

Wonder pumping is "a" way to do it, but IMO the easiest way is via religion and specialists. Second easiest is via corps, and third via wonder pumping.

As for which is "best" that's subjective.

Wodan

[rah]

set up a great artist farm and go crazy. It's not hard. On top of relgions and a few of the culture related wonders, run the culture slider, and you don't really need anything else.

Except for a modest army to guarentee survival.

[snoopy369]

The easiest way to win a cultural victory, pre-BtS:

1. Found at least 4 religions. Typically this is (one of the first 3) plus (Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity), and Islam if you don't get one fo those. (You can get Islam anyway of course for a bonus...)
2. Build at least 9 cities.
3. One of your three culture cities (your capital) should build a few wonders in order to get culture; your second city should build a lot of wonders for culture; your third city should be a culture-producing city via Artist specialists, with a ton of food. It also of course will produce Great Artists, which you will hold on to if built after ~AD 1500. (They can settle if built before then.)
4. All three cities should have all four religions' cathedrals in them as early as is reasonable.
5. Of course, build the three culture wonders - Hollywood, Rock and Roll, Broadway - usually 1 in each city, or 2 in one if one city is much stronger and one much weaker.
6. National Wonders:
Capital: Oxfords (usually), any other culture one based on need or Hermitage if Capital is the slow city (not usually)
Wonder City: Hermitage (unless Capital needs it), Ironworks or Forbidden Palace if optimal
GA City: National Epic, Globe Theater

Wonders to key on:
NO MATTER WHAT:
Notre Dame
Stonehenge
Great Library
Eiffel Tower
Oracle, if you can; use for Theology
Parthenon
Sistine Chapel (possibly the most important)
Taj Mahal

IF YOU HAVE STONE:
Angkor Wat
Spiral Minaret
IF YOU HAVE MARBLE:
Hagia Sophia
Temple of Artemis

Try to build most of those, if you can; I only include ones that are specific to cultural victory, of course Colossus is nice and such, but not especially nice for a Cultural victory. I also included several 'easy' wonders if you have the bonus resource (that are not keyed on by the AI); those 6 to 8 culture wonders are very nice to get if you can, even if their effects aren't that useful.

You probably 'need' about 6 of those wonders, Sistine being the most important; if you can get 10 of course, more power to you

[jbp26]

wonders are nice, but not critical. the only one you really need is the sistine chapel, though theres plenty of others that are quite helpful.

your first goal should be getting to 9 cities (so ultimately, you can build 3 of each cathedral) and getting any of those key early wonders. then start pumping out great artists, and spreading as many religions as you can to each city. then build temples, cathedrals, etc, run free speech and culture, and you're good to go.

[snoopy369]

I suggest the wonder method because most newer people are more comfortable with the wonders I think it's actually a bit more challenging to do it solely via specialists, while keeping your economy functioning, for a newer player. I don't think it's practical for a newer player to solely do it via culture building.

During BtS, corporations is of course the easiest way to go. Sid's Sushi and Civilized Jewelers (and one more, I forget the third that you can run with those two) together, both housed in your Wall Street city, only spread to the three cities that you want to win with; then caste system, all GA's in all three cities, and trade for lots of resources You can probably win in 50 turns with that setup (optimized).

[couerdelion]

My highest score was via a cultural victory fuelled by wonders in which I captured an early capital with a single Quecha and then made sure that my first cities grabbed plenty of early wonders.

Compare Hanging Gardens (costs 120 hammers with Stone and IND) for a base culture of 12 culture per turn to a settled Great Artist with a base culture of 14 culture per turn (with Sistine Chapel). The marginal cost of the Great Artist is a good deal higher than that of the early wonder.

Between them, Stonehenge, Pyramids, Oracle, Parthenon, Temple of Artemis, Colossus, Great Library and Hanging Gardens will give 120 culture per turn before multipliers or the equivalent of nearly 9 settled Great Artists

Of course, all those wonders are not going to be easy to grab and I’d think that the key to this would be to get both sets of resources or a just to have a few strong production cities with woods. For my money, Huayna is the best one to try this with because the Quecha are great for capturing another strong city quickly while Mysticism and Fin gives you a strong shot at an early religion.

If you locate the first few wonders well you might also find that a few GE appear quite early and this will help to capture some of the more tricky wonders.

[martin mcmartin]

I don't know about the use of specialists, I use them mainly as nice extra's and as "tricky wonder builders". I am more and more even trying to avoid this way of winning because of the sad and abrupt ending in my view, a book with an open end...

if I am going for it though, I just save up a s**tload of money, pull up the cultural slider at a certain point and watch my three best cities go, most of the time they are already pretty on their way by themselves. there is of course enough wonder material, cathedrals/temples/Uni's/libs, specialists and so on available in lots of cities, so that almost always does the trick for me (on Immortal). maybe I should try a more specialist aproach though to once, but wouldn't that ruin my tech discoveries though, and my golden ages, my Tour d'Eiffel!!? no way man, not yet! can't do without them yet.

Mc

[joncnunn]

I've personaly found that if I found Sushi's early enough I can acheive cultural victory without even trying.