I have yet to win a culture victory.

[Dinner]

I guess you have to keep your empire tiny in order to win a culture victory because the culture points requirements seem to go up almost exponentially as you get more cities in your empire. Can anyone give me any tips about how to win a culture victory?

[Boracks]

I've done it with a small (3 city) empire as India and a large conquering empire as France. The main point for a large empire is you only want 5 cities of your own, conquer the rest and do not annex them, leave them as puppets. Your core cities will build your military, the rest do buildings.

The other point is to steer your research and culture policies towards boosting culture and reducing policy costs.

Any time you can get allied with a culture CS, do so. It all adds up. And a military CS to help build the army is useful, especially was when I did it as India.

[Supr49er]

Siam with 3-5 cities is also good to try, you just need to ally with every Maritime and Cultural CS you can.

[mkorin]

Playing the Polynesian scenario is a way to win a cheap culture victory as that is the only victory available for that scenario. I personally find culture victories to0 boring.

Mike

[ElDonReal]

Did that with the french in the last game. At the end I was making about 700-800 culture per turn. It wasn't too difficult, except that you shouldn't conquer a lot. I had 5 core cities on a Standard map and later added one city I conquered, plus a city state. I think I could have made the victory earlier if I just would have let those be puppets. I also maintained a strong military throughout the game (I think it was the largest in the world even). Because of the military cash was also a thing I looked after and also because allying with the cultural city states costs money.

In the end of the game it was really boring as it was just about pressing end turn over and over. Once you have your culture flow coming in and your cities set up for culture there's nothing you can do except waiting until it accumulates for the next policy. Of course this is where "one more turn" comes from, but you never have the option to really do something with the turns you waited. I prepared one city for building the final project by increasing production output, but that was about it. The utopia project finished and I won. Because I felt it was really boring I fought some wars and eventually conquered the Greek (razed all their cities though).

Cultural victories would be more interesting if culture interacts with foreign affairs and builds a common victory path with a diplomatic victory. Bringing these two victories closer together would be fun. Here are some ideas:
* Have the equivalent of a research agreement, maybe some sort of mutual cultural licensing where each civ loses some happiness (or pays gold), but gains culture.
* Have the ability to generate "cultural products" like musical hits. Once "researched/invented" they're available for the next x turns and can be licensed to foreign civs or used just by yourself.
* Get a happiness penalty when you denounce Civs with superior cultural value which increases with the difference. Denouncements and demands against cultural civ should negatively affect the own happiness.
* Culture could affect the rate at with city states influence de- and increases (e.g. you buy influence with money, but the rate at which it degrades you "buy" with culture).
* Culture could be used to pay off for negative modifiers in diplomatic relations.
* Culture could be used to put cities into super-growth mode.
* Culture instead of money could be used to rush wonders.
* Maybe also making conquering cities with high culture also a rewarding task so that the negative impacts of warring a high cultural civ also have some pay offs (risk vs reward).

If you can maintain a more positive relationship with other civs through culture there's also not so much temptation to war with them. But there's still the possibility of back stabbing which shouldn't make this path too safe.

[Dinner]

I just did it with France with about 15 cities. It's kind of dumb because I could have won a space race victory about 50 turns before and a diplomatic victory about 25 turns before.

[mkorin]

Waiting for a victory is the only way I've been able to win a culture or diplo victory.

I get too bored waiting and end up sending my armies out to crush the world.

Mike

[Guynemer]

I usually win by culture.

I usually top out around 4-5 core cities, and puppet the rest. The puppets don't contribute to higher culture threshhold, but they will build cultural buildings, so puppets are always a net positive.

Hoard Wonders like a miser, and aggressively pursue alliances with cultural CSs.

[thyrwyn]

My experience is similar to Guynemer's - I usually win by culture. Largely because I really like the Social Policies and want them all

I typically do it with a large puppet empire, regardless of which civ I am playing. I consider Tradition & Liberty musts - Honor is optional (though it syncs well with Tradition - no upkeep garrisons that add 1 happy and 2 culture are kinda nice. . .)

Large puppet empires not only help you keep tech wise (lotsa pop for beakers), but they build your economy which will fund your City State vassals. Puppets also like to build culture buildings (and defensive buildings which makes Honor attractive) but do not increase your Social Policy costs.

I typically avoid Maritime City States in order to keep my puppet populations under control.

I almost always play on Large maps at Epic speed - YMMV.

[gdijedi7]

My first game was a Culture win with America.

I had a world spanning empire, and would have won the next turn by eliminating the last civ.

Use Freedom (now, use Freedom and Piety), build culture buildings (later culture buildings rack up multipliers), use Great Artists.

The more cities you have, the more culture you can pump out. It takes more culture to get policies, but if you focus on filling your empire with culture buildings, you can more than make up for it.