Culture Victory

As we said previously, the way you win a Culture Victory is through winning in Tourism. There are a number of ways you can do this, but in essence if you have things that will attract people from other Empires, and which will be so attractive to your own people that they will stay home you are well on your way to a victory. Whenever the total number of foreign tourists in your Empire exceeds the number of domestic tourists another player has, you become Culturally Dominant over them. And as soon as you are Culturally Dominant over all other players you win the Culture Victory. Attracting tourists from abroad is your offense in this competition, but keeping your people at home is your defense against any other player who may attempt a Culture victory. After all, if your people stay home, the other player cannot accumulate the numbers they need. But you must always keep in mind that other players will be going for their victory, so you want to make sure you keep up in Science, maintain a strong military, and defend your religion while you are pursuing your Culture Victory. Among the ways you can accumulate Tourism are:

• Great Works
• National Parks
• Ski resorts
• Seaside resorts
• Relics
• Artifacts
• Wonders
• Rock bands
• World Games competition

Great Works

The earliest opportunity you have to start gaining tourists is by gaining Great Works of Writing. You do this by first building a Theater Square (+1 Great Writer points per turn), and then building an Amphitheater (+1 Great Writers points per turn). When you have enough points, you get a Great Writer, but note that the “price” of each Great Writer goes up over time as you recruit more. Each Great Writer can produce two Great Works of Writing. And each Amphitheater can hold two. Since the Theater Square is available to build from the very beginning you can start gaining Great Works of Writing very early. And the Amphitheater becomes available when the Drama and Poetry civic is discovered, and it is a Classic Era civic so it comes early.

In the Renaissance Era the civic Humanism can be researched, and that allows you to build an Art Museum in the Theater Square, as long as you already have an Amphitheater there. That will generate 1 Great Writer point per turn, and 2 Great Artist points per turn. When you have enough points (and again the price goes up over time) a Great Artist appears, and is capable of creating 3 Great Works of Art. And the Art Museum can hold 3 works. And when you research the technology Radio you can build Broadcast Center in your Theater Square. This will generate +2 Great Musician points per turn. And like the others you can earn Great Musicians by accumulating neough points, and the price goes up over time. Each one generally can produce 2 Great Works of Music though some can produce 3. And the Broadcast Center can only hold 1, so there is a bit of a bottleneck there. Fortunately there are Wonders that can hold more, such as Bolshoi Theatre (+1 slot), Broadway (+2 slots), and Sydney Opera House (+4 slots).

An important issue is making sure you have the slots to display your Great Works. You need to manage your Build Queues to produce enough Museums, etc. since you don’t get any tourism until your Great Works are on display.

Theming Bonus

Art works come in four different types:

• Sculpture
• Religious
• Portraits
• Landscapes

If you can manage to create a theme in any of your museums you can double your Tourism yield from it. And you can do this by having all of the works be of the same kind, but by differant artists. You can do this by moving works around in the Great Works Gallery, which is accessed by an icon on the upper left once you have obtained Great Works.

There is a similar theming bonus for Archaeological artifacts. You need to have all of the artifacts come from the same Era, but from different civilizations. And City-States, Free Cities, and Barbarians count as civilizations for this purpose.

National Parks

National Parks are some of the most powerful drivers of Tourism, in addition to providing Amenities. They are unlocked when you discover Conservation. You then can build the Naturalist unit which can then establish the Park which consumes the Naturalist. So you need to produce one Naturalist for each National Park you wish to establish. (Note: Canada can use a Mountie to establish a National Park). When you have a Naturalist unit, you can see available Parks in a vertical diamond-shaped group of 4 tiles. They need to follow these rules:

• Each tile must have an Appeal of Charming or better. You can increase the tile’s Appeal by planting a Forest (unlocked by discovering Conservation) using one of your Builder units. Or you can remove negative features like Marshes or Rainforests, then plant a Forest. You can see the appeal of each tile by using the Appeal Lens, on the lower left.
• All 4 tiles must belong to the same city. But you can sometimes swap tiles between cities in the City Management screen.
• No tile can have an improvement or district on it, though Roads are allowed.

This comes relatively late in the game, but it is pretty important for getting the Victory. And you should also plan to build the Eiffel Tower Wonder, which grants an additional +2 Appeal to every tile in your empire.

Ski Resorts

This is unlocked when you discover Professional Sports, and allows your Builders to construct a Ski Resort on a Mountain if they are next to a Mountain. The limitation is that you cannot have two Ski Resorts next to each other, so when you are planning your Resorts you need to take this into account and choose your spots to maximize your opportunities.

Seaside Resorts

This is unlocked when you discover Radio, and lets you place a resort on any flat Coastal tile that is Grassland, Plains, or Desert, and which has an appeal of Breathtaking. Obviously, building the Eiffel Tower Wonder will help here as well. Also, look at adjoining tiles. If you are next to a Mine, for instance, it lowers the appeal of the tile. And if you plant a forest on an adjoining tile, boosting its appeal, it will increase the appeal of the tile you want to put a resort on. You create the resort with your Builder. And if you have a chance to do several in one city, consider building the Golden Gate Bridge. It adds +4 Appeal to every tile within the city. Of course, it is a bridge, so you have to be connecting two land tiles that are separated by water. And Cristo Redentor doubles the Tourism output from all Seaside Resorts in your Empire.

Relics

Relics are religious artifacts, and you may get one from a Tribal Village. Otherwise, if you have an Apostle with the Martyr promotion and it dies during Theological Combat, you get a Relic. Each Temple has one slot for a Relic.

Artifacts

Artifacts can be recovered from archaeological sites or shipwrecks and displayed in an Archaeological Museum. These museums are unlocked when you discover Humanism, same as Art Museums, and can be built in a Theater Square. But you can only build one Museum in a Theater Square, so you need to decide if you want an Art Museum or an Archaeological Museum. If you have an Archaeological Museum in a city and it has open slots, you can produce an Archaeologist, which can go to the Archaeological site or Shipwreck and retrieve the Artifact, which consumes the Archaeologist. Note that if you have open borders with another player you can go in and retrieve an artifact from their territory, but they don’t like that. And you can always retrieve artifacts from any location that is not part of another player’s territory.

Wonders

We have already mentioned many of the top Wonders for adding to your Culture and Tourism, but in addition we could mention:

• Hermitage – Gives you Great Artist points, but importantly has 4 slots for Great Works of Art.
• St. Basil’s Cathedral – This is a specialized one. It gives you 3 slots for Relics, and doubles the Religious Tourism for the city that builds it. Russia or Canada can get the best benefit because it also adds to the Food, Production, and Culture from all tundra tiles in the city that builds it.
• Mont St. Michel – Gives you two Relic slots, and gives all Apostles the Martyr promotion.

Rock Bands

Unlocked when you discover Cold War. They must be purchased with Faith, so as a practical matter you won’t get them unless you have a religion. They go locations in another player’s empire and perform. Their album sales add to Tourism from the player you targetted, but pretty soon they will get the ability to block your bands from entering. This can be a fun thing to do in the late game, but in my opinion they won’t win you the game unless you are already very close to victory.

World Games Competition

This is primarily something you go for if you want to win a Diplomatic victory, but for Tourism coming in second is actually just as good as it gives you +2 Tourism for every Stasium or Aquatic center you have built, while coming in first gives you +2 Tourism for each Campus. Those boosts are not enough to make you devote resources to this competition unless you were going to do it anyway, and they do make an addition.

Tourism Lens

There is a Tourism Lens in the lower left that will display the tourism you are generating on each tile. This is helpful for deciding where to place Pingala as Governor. With the Curator promotion he doubles the Tourism from all Great Works of Art, Music and Writing in the city.