7 of the Best Civilization 6 Leaders for Winning a Cultural Victory

Culture is one of the five victory conditions you can play for in Civilization 6. Selecting one of the best cultural leaders will give you a better chance of winning a cultural victory from the outset. When choosing a leader for a cultural game, the best ones to select are those who offer great person, tourism, or other culture-related bonuses, civ abilities, or infrastructure. These are seven of the best Civilization 6 leaders to select for winning a cultural victory from the base game.

Pericles (Greece)

Pericles of Greece is perhaps the best cultural leader in Civilization 6. His Surrounded by Glory leader bonus is a good one for increasing cultural output for unlocking important civics faster. This bonus gives you +5% more culture for each city-state you establish suzerainty. The 5% figure might not sound that big, but it stacks up to a more significant cultural bonus for all the more suzerains you establish.

Greece also has the best unique infrastructure for securing a cultural victory in the form of the Acropolis. This is an alternative Theater Square you can build in half the time, and each one you build will give you an envoy. More envoys will enable you to establish more suzerains for maximizing Pericles’ Surrounded by Glory leader bonus. Sending envoys to cultural city-states will increase your culture yields even more when playing as Pericles.

Gorgo (Greece)

Gorgo is similar to Pericles because she shares the same unique Greek infrastructure and abilities. You can build the Acropolis with Gorgo as you can when playing as Pericles. Gorgo also has the same Plato’s Republic civ ability that gives you an additional wildcard slot. This is a good civ ability for cultural victories because it enables you to select an extra policy card that boosts tourism or culture yields.

The Thermopylae leader bonus is the only difference between Gorgo and Pericles. This bonus gives you culture boosts for killing enemies, amounting to 50% of a defeated unit’s combat strength. That bonus makes it better to wage war for accumulating culture when playing Goro. However, it doesn’t synergize with the Acropolis district like Pericles’ leader bonus.

Tsar Peter (Russia)

Although Tsar Peter might offer more direct religious advantages, he’s also one of the best Civilization 6 leaders in the game for winning cultural victories. This is primarily because Russia’s great Lavra religious district generates more great writers, artists, and musicians points for shrines, temples, and worship buildings. The Lavra also expands a city’s border (tiles) for each great person activated in it. Thus, the Lavra has great synergy value with standard Theater Squares for securing cultural victories.

Aside from the Lavra, Peter’s Grand Embassy leader bonus can be used for increasing cultural and science yields via trade. This bonus gives you +1 culture for every three civics a civilization you trade with is ahead of you. For example, one trade route to a civilization that has nine more civics than you will generate +3 culture yields.

Mvemba a Nzinga (Kongolese)

Mvemba a Nzinga is one of the best Civilization 6 leaders for cultural victories, mainly due to the Kongolese Nkisi civ ability. This civ ability gives you +2 food, +4 gold, +2 production, and +1 faith yields for each artifact, sculpture, or relic in a city. Three artifacts in a museum will significantly increase a city’s yields by +6, +12, +6, and +3. Stuffing museums with artifacts makes securing a cultural victory with Mvemba somewhat easier.

However, Nzinga’s leader bonus also has other, more significant advantages when playing for cultural victories. Most notably, it gives you 50% more great artist and musician points, enabling your civilization to attract such great persons somewhat faster than others. This leader bonus also adds four more great works slots to your capital city’s palace.

Pedro II (Brazil)

Pedro II is the leader of Brazil in Civilization 6 who can amass more great persons for cultural victories somewhat faster thanks to his Magnanimous bonus. This bonus refunds 20% of the patronage points cost for great people. That refund always makes it faster to get the next great person when playing as Pedro II, which is an invaluable bonus when pursuing cultural victory.

You can further increase Pedro’s great person point accumulation by building his unique Street Carnival districts, which enable you to complete Carnival projects. Carnival projects give you extra great person points for authors, artists, and musicians when completed. Building more Street Carnival districts for Carnival projects can give you an even bigger person points advantage with Brazil, which is crucial for cultural victories.

Catherin Di Medici (France)

Building wonders is important for securing cultural victories, and few civilizations build them better than the French. Although Catherine de Medici’s leader bonus is of little cultural value, France’s Grand Tour civ ability is invaluable. That ability gives France a significant +20% production bonus for building wonders from the Renaissance, Medieval, and Industrial eras somewhat faster. This civ ability also doubles the tourism generated by all the wonders built in France. Thus, France can be a cultural powerhouse with a wonder-oriented game plan.

You can boost your tourist industry further with France’s unique Château tile improvement. Château generates at least +2 culture and +1 gold, but you can increase its cultural yields by adding it to a tile beside wonders. A Château will amass tourism equal to its cultural yields with the Flight technology researched.

Victoria (England)

Victoria is among the best Civilization 6 leaders for winning cultural victories because of England’s British Museum civ ability. This civ ability enables you to build unique British Museums that can include six artifacts rather than the usual three. That effectively enables you to build twice the number of archeological museums at the same time, when playing as Victoria. Those double archaeology museums also get automatically themed with six artifacts included, which can turn them into massive tourism magnets.

So, take your pick from those Civilization 6 leaders whenever you start a new game with a cultural victory objective in mind. Those leaders and their civilizations offer some of the best bonuses, civ abilities, and infrastructure for winning cultural victories. However, there are also other strong cultural leaders players can select in additional Civ 6 DLC packs, like Rise of Fall, Gathering Storm, and Frontier Pass.