I tend to like to be expansionist, however in my first (yeahhh) game, the culture was chosen so I had to choose Zhou. Same thing in next era, I lost out and had to take Maurya instead of Persian. Now I'm finally ahead and about to go to next era, but...

But... to expand you need influence. And Aesthete cultures are the ones who get massive influence. So actually I'm expanding pretty good. And I don't see what's the benefit of expansionist cultures? Can anybody help clarify? Shouldn't Expansionist be better and expanding than Aesthete?

Thank you.

On top of that, Aesthete makes you more likely to be culture converting your neighbours. I still haven't found an element of the UI that tells me the downside/cost of being converted or the bonus of being the converter. Seems like Aesthete and Agrarian might be unintentionally optimal/meta styles, based on other posts I've read