gdt5016 said:
I want to try and go for a cultural victory in Civ 5, what's the best way/general tips to do that?
Social policies are important for a cultural victory:
-Start by opening Tradiation
-Then open Liberty
-Next choose Collective Rule (free settler) and find a new city spot (don't expand past 4 cities though, you need to stay small)
-After that you'll want to open up all of the piety tree
-While you're going through the policy trees, try building a wonder in each city. As this will increase a city's culture by 33%. If a smaller city is struggling to build a wonder, use your capital to create the Hagia Sofia and use a free Great Engineer to rush build the wonder in the other city.
-You should be building wonders anyway. Important ones: The Oracle, Hagia Sofia, Sistine Chapel, Louvre. Semi important ones (for cultural): Hanging Gardens, Great Library and Porcelain Tower.
-Every few turns, see if you can sell luxury resources to other civs. When a deal runs out, immediately talk to the civ again and sell. You should get 240g for each luxury (or 200g if they don't like you)
-Hopefully by now, you'll have found some cultural city states, gift them some money, enough to become allies. You'll need to stay allied with them through the game. Keep selling luxuries and gifting the money to city states. Try to keep your happiness above 8 though.
-You need to find as many city states as possible, so have a unit out exploring the map.
-Cultural buildings are your friends, build them before anything else.
-Don't build opera houses though. Instead, wait until you have temples in all of your cities and you've unlocked the Acoustics tech. At this point, choose the Legalism policy to get free opera houses in all your cities.
-Once you have opera houses in all your cities and the archeology tech, build the Hermitage in your capital.
-At some point, you'll need to start growing your capitals population. I'd suggest around the time you're able to open the Freedom policies, put your capital on food focus.
-After you finish unlocking the Piety policies, the next group is Freedom. Finishing off Freedom gives you a huge boost to culture, due to the following...
-Throughout the game, your cultural buildings and wonders will keep giving you free Great Artists. When ever you get one, settle them someone on your capital's borders to create a landmark, giving you six culture. This doubles to twelve with the Freedom finisher! Note: it's best to settle on grassland. Avoid placing landmarks on hills.
-Just keep focusing on the above. 12 culture per landmark + all your wonders + your cultural buildings x hermitage bonus = lots and lots of culture from your capital.
-After Freedom is done, the next polices aren't that important, but I tend to open Patronage, then choose philanthropy.
-After that, finish Liberty, finish Patronage and finish Tradition.
-Build the Utopia Project.