To win a Culture Victory in Civ 6 you’ll need to generate enough foreign tourism to surpass your rivals’ domestic tourism before their civilizations become too culturally entrenched. This guide offers detailed instructions with narrative explanations to help you achieve this goal efficiently.
The Early Game: Exploring and Expanding Your Empire
In the first eras, your priority is to expand and explore. This phase is about laying the groundwork for your eventual tourism explosion, even if tourism isn’t yet a factor. Check out this article on How to expand.
- Exploration: Meeting all civilizations early is critical in planning your victory path. Identifying strong culture civs early, like Russia or Greece, is important so that you can concentrate your efforts on them early. Trade routes to other civs give a +25% tourism modifier later in the game, and you’ll need access to every civ to take advantage of this bonus. You also would need open borders agreement for another 25% tourism modifier.
- Scouts are indispensable for uncovering the map, and for coastal starts, send Galleys or even Builders with remaining charges to explore shallow waters.
- For maps with separated continents, aim to unlock Cartography by the Medieval Era to continue exploring with Caravels.
- Expansion: Aim to settle four cities by the end of the Classical Era. Founding cities with access to luxury and strategic resources should always be a top priority. Additionally, look for cities that will position you near neighboring civs and civilizations on other continents. These cities will serve as trade route hubs and, later, as Rock Band launchpads. Watch on how to use Rock Bands effectively and strategically.
- Economy: Trade luxuries, strategic resources, and Diplomatic Favor aggressively with AI civs to generate gold. Early-game gold can fund your infrastructure and, more importantly, let you purchase Great Works from AI civs. Many AI civilizations undervalue their early Great Works, making this an excellent investment.
- Happiness: Try to keep your empire at the ecstatic level of happiness to earn 20% to all yields. Especially your capital that will become the culture/tourism power house. Read more on city growth and amenities here.
Districts: Building Your Cultural Engine
Your choice of districts sets the tone for your Cultural Victory. Focus on the following:
- Holy Sites: Faith is the most important resource for a Cultural Victory. It allows you to purchase Naturalists and Rock Bands in the late game. Place Holy Sites near mountains, woods, or natural wonders for stronger adjacency bonuses, although it is not paramount. Build Shrines and Temples early, and adopt the Scripture policy to double adjacency bonuses, especially if you picked an adjacency pantheon. Read more on how to choose a pantheon.
- Commerce Hubs: Trade routes are essential for both early growth and late-game tourism modifiers. Build Markets as soon as possible to unlock additional trade routes and generate Great Merchant points. If you’re a coastal civ, Harbors can supplement Commerce Hubs, but the latter should remain your focus.
- Government Plaza with all its buildings is an essential district in every game. Diplomatic Quarter is optional depending on the number of city states under your control.
- Theater Squares: These districts are your primary source of Great Works slots and culture output. Build Amphitheaters and Museums to house Great Works of Writing, Art, and Artifacts. Theater Squares should be prioritized after you establish a stable economy and faith production. Once your city has a Theater Square, consider running Theater Square Festival projects to generate Great Artists points even faster.
- Optional Districts: If your science output falls behind, add Campuses to your plans. However, the focus should remain on faith, gold, and culture districts unless science becomes a bottleneck.
Capital City as a Culture and Tourism Powerhouse
Your capital city often ends up as the powerhouse of yields in Civilization VI, and this holds true in Culture Victory games when it comes to generating culture and tourism. The capital’s unique starting advantages make it the ideal location to centralize your culture and tourism efforts. By focusing on Great Work storage, leveraging Pingala, you can turn your capital into a cultural juggernaut, significantly accelerating your path to a Culture Victory.
Pingala’s Curator Promotion
Once you start earning Great Works, positioning Pingala in your capital with his Curator promotion becomes essential. This promotion doubles the tourism output from Great Works of Writing, Art, and Music. Given the capital’s natural role as a hub of Great Wonders and Great Work storage, this synergy is a no-brainer.
Capital’s Great Work Slots
The capital city begins with a Palace that holds 4 Great Work slots, giving you a head start. To amplify this, focus on building wonders like Apadana and Bolshoi Theater, which provide additional slots, as well as all buildings from Theater Squares, culminating in the Natural History Museum for even greater capacity.
Tip: Post a spy on the counter mission in the capital to prevent AI from neutralizing Pingala losing you turns in valuable tourism.
Art Museums Over Archaeological Museums
To maximize tourism in the capital, prioritize Art Museums over Archaeological Museums in your Theater Squares. Pingala’s Curator promotion does not apply to artifacts, so Art Museums allow you to fully leverage his bonus. Moreover, theming the Great Works of Art (i.e., ensuring each work is of the same type but created by different artists) doubles the tourism output, creating a significant advantage.
Technological and Civic Progression
Your technological path depends on your strategy:
- Printing is an early priority. It doubles the tourism output of Great Works of Writing, making it a critical milestone.
- Flight and Computers are essential for increasing tourism. Flight unlocks tourism from tile improvements like many city-states ones or Seaside Resorts, while Computers provides a 25% empire-wide tourism boost.
- Steel is an alternative focus if you rely heavily on National Parks. The Eiffel Tower boosts tile appeal, making more land viable for parks and Seaside Resorts.
Civics also play a key role:
- Theocracy (via Reformed Church) is the best mid-game government. Its 15% discount on faith purchases makes it invaluable for buying Naturalists and Rock Bands.
- Conservation unlocks National Parks, which are massive tourism generators. This civic is a game-changer and a critical milestone.
- Cold War gives you Rock Bands, allowing for a late-game tourism surge. Use Rock Bands strategically, targeting the civ with the highest domestic tourism.
Generating Tourism: Great Works, National Parks, and Rock Bands
Tourism is your primary currency for a Cultural Victory. Here’s how to maximize it:
- Great Works: Produce Great Works of Writing, Art, and Music through your Theater Squares, as well as Theater Square projects.
- When possible, buy Great Works from AI civs using gold. Selling luxuries and strategics to fund these purchases can give you a significant edge.
- Use faith to purchase Great Artists for theming purposes
- National Parks: These provide some of the highest tourism per turn. To build them, you’ll need faith and high-appeal tiles. Plant woods and remove undesirable features to boost appeal. Building the Eiffel Tower after unlocking Steel further increases appeal, making National Parks even more powerful.
- Rock Bands: These units are your late-game trump card, this is how you close a culture victory in Civ 6. Purchase them with faith and send them to the civ with the highest domestic tourism. If that civ is far away, consider settling or conquering a city nearby to serve as a launchpad. Use railroads to speed up their travel if necessary. Rock Bands with the right promotions can generate massive tourism spikes, so prioritize venues with high tourism modifiers.
- Walls: Yeah, sure, especially if you have Valetta suzerainty or playing as Georgia. Otherwise, it is not a deciding factor, but rather a secondary assist in generating tourism.
Trade Routes and Diplomacy
Trade routes are a vital tourism modifier. To establish trade routes with every civ:
- Expand strategically: Settle or conquer cities on new continents or near distant civs to establish trade posts. This is particularly important if key rivals are far away.
- Diplomacy: Open borders with every civ. This provides another tourism boost and strengthens your relationships for alliances and trading.
- Commerce: Use your trade routes domestically at first to grow your cities. Transition to international trade routes as tourism becomes significant, taking full advantage of the Online Communities policy card (+50% tourism to civs with trade routes).
Countering High Domestic Tourism Rivals
Certain civs, like Russia, Greece, or Ludwig’s Germany, are formidable cultural opponents. If a rival’s domestic tourism becomes insurmountable:
- Go to war. Conquering their high-tourism cities reduces their domestic tourism and disrupts their infrastructure. Even if you don’t aim for total conquest, targeted strikes can make a significant difference.
- Accelerate tourism generation. Focus on Rock Bands, Great Works, and National Parks to outpace their domestic gains.
- Religious conversion. Spread your religion to rival civs to reduce tourism penalties from religious differences. However, balance this against the need to save faith for Naturalists and Rock Bands.
Wonders to Prioritize
Certain Wonders can elevate your cultural strategy:
- Early Wonders: Build the Oracle and Apadana to boost Great People generation and provide Great Works slots.
- Mid-Game Wonders: Focus on the Kilwa Kisiwani, Forbidden City, and Colosseum for powerful bonuses to city-states, policies, and amenities.
- Late Wonders: The Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor amplify National Park and Seaside Resort tourism, making them crucial for late-game strategies. Bolshoi, Opera House,
Cultural Domination Benefits
In Civ 6 Gathering Storm, once you become dominant over a civ then you gain various benefits to the dominant civilization. So it pays to dominate as early as possible for the benefit of flipping cities, for example.
- Trade Route Trade Routes to foreign cities you culturally dominate provide +4 Gold Gold.
- Spy missions in foreign cities you culturally dominate are completed 50% faster.
- Your Citizen Citizens exert 25% more Loyalty pressure on foreign cities you culturally dominate.
Tourism Modifiers
Tourism modifiers are huge and range from techs and civics to great people to game mechanics like trade routes, open borders and culture alliance level 3.
View the list of all modifiers you should consider.
How to Track Cultural Victory Progress
For players serious about achieving a Culture Victory, Sukritact’s Tourism Overview Screen mod is practically indispensable. Whether you’re a seasoned deity player or a beginner exploring the intricacies of cultural domination, this tool equips you with the insights you need to optimize your gameplay. If you’re not already using it, it’s time to head over to the Steam Workshop and elevate your Civilization VI experience. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2953909938
Winning a Cultural Victory requires balancing long-term planning with adaptability. Expand wisely, generate faith and gold, and establish strong trade and diplomatic networks. Build Holy Sites, Commerce Hubs, and Theater Squares to fuel your economy and culture. Stay flexible in your technological and civic progression, and use every tool—National Parks, Rock Bands, and even war—to achieve dominance. With the right approach, your civilization will shine as a beacon of cultural excellence.