Culture Guide

[Oaty]

Max culture penalty is 50 percent

Governors class buildings : will always have a 20 percent cultural influence. So if you take an Egyptian town as a Roman and all the buildings are Egyptian it will be at 50 percent cultural penalty. But if you were lucky and sometimes you are, you might have taken it as a town but the population just hit 6000 and you can upgrade it to a minor city. As soon as the next level of governors building is built the Cultutr penalty will be reduced to 30 percent.

The other thing with governors houses is if you take a town as the Romans and it needs another 4000 people to hit minor city you can slowly reduce the culture penalty by razing buildings and building roman 1's "this land is now Roman". but because the governors building is not Roman it will always have a minumum of a 20 percent cultural penalty. The other way to kill this penalty is to bring in 4000 imigrants so you can upgrade the governors building.

You do'nt have to Romanize the whole town as I have some towns with foriegn temples and other buildings with no cultural penalty.

What buildings effect the cultural penalty. Roads, farms and city walls effect this along with everything buildable.

Cultural penalty per building. It seems that all buildings effect the cultural penalty by 5 percent even temples, but when you raze a building the results will not show up until next turn

Also if you have already built some of your own cultures buildings you can quickly reduce this penalty by razing the other cultures buildings but the results will not show up until the next turn.

Ownership. I had Cyrene a good bit of time to develop it and had every building built but stables and a town wall and had killed the cultural penalty. The Egyptians come by and take the city. Well it took me 4 years to take it back and in that time they managed to build stables. So I get it back and see that there is a 5 percent cultural penalty since they had got there hands in the development. I then built a woodenwall and all penalties were gone.

Anyways if the land keeps changing hands it may never culturally developed for either faction. So when you sell a city make sure you do'nt want it in the future or try to build it so that when you do get it back there is a minimal cultural penalty.

Hope this helps all those cultural questions out there

[TimDogg]

Very helpful, I just used to destroy the Temples of foreign gods, now I will have to destroy everything, more work...

[Oaty]

Very helpful, I just used to destroy the Temples of foreign gods, now I will have to destroy everything, more work...

you do'nt have to destroy everything just build enough of your own culture buidings to reduce it to 0

[Basileus]

so by micromanaging this you wont need to exterminate all the citys your conquer eh?

[Spino]

Certain buildings should not have any negative cultural impact on a city's Order rating. The fact that the penalty applies to all structures of a different culture implies that this cannot be changed on a per structure basis.

What idiotic barbarian would prefer a dinky wooden stockade over an epic stone wall, a dirt road over a paved road and a muddy stream just outside the city to an aqueduct that brings in water from a river a mile away?

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

[Tamur]

Great info, thanks oaty. I'll have to stop my happy practice of extermination or slavery for every town I take

[RedKnight]

Hey thanks Oaty... good stuff!

If I could put some pieces together - correct me if wrong -

If the total is 50%, the guv's house is 20%, and each building is 5%, this is kind of implying that one has to replace 6 additional buildings, for the Penalty to be totally gone (50%-20%=30%, at 5% each = 6 buildings). Putting in your experience with Cyrene, it sounds like there's a "building counter" that adds one for each building a culture makes (max 6). Does this sound logical?

I personally had a strange situation - Kydonia (an island) had 4k people but only a guv's house - not any other buildings at all. It was owned by rebels and had several different factions' armies standing around blocking each others' movement, including a big stack of rebels outside the town - perhaps they got locked in a negative cash flow somehow; couldn't get back in the town?

Anyway, I just spent a lot of time playing with Culture Penalty (CP) after taking Kydonia and found that:

1) CP is 50% when I take Kydonia, but if I make a Villa it goes to 0% just like that. So, for oddball situations like this (very few buildings), there's probably a rule that "if there are no more foreign buildings, CP becomes 0".

2) Otherwise, any building I made (of any type, including walls and barracks) caused a decrease of 0 to 10 CPs. Usually 5, but sometimes 10, and a very few times, 0. Shrines were no better or worse than other buildings. (Known exception: governor's building, which is 20.)

3) The very first thing I built always got a +10 CP reduction. So I was often at only 35 CP (10+5) or even 30 CP (10+10) after my first building, never less than 35.

The above holds true for seven reloads and building various things until Kydonia was to 0%.

4) In reviewing the rest of my cities though, I see that a few of them are at 45 CP. They are all massacred towns which have not had time to reach their next level, and all I've built (probably) was to replace their temple.

Putting all this together, I'm thinking that there is some randomness in how much each building will lower CP. Also notice that you didn't have to replace the Egyptian stable in Cyrene, specifically - a new wall fixed the problem. So it may not matter which building, it's just a building "count". Which may very well mean you don't have to scrap old buildings - if you can build new ones (not yet built before), that's probably just as good. Of course, any upgrades serve the same purpose.

Also, one of two things is true (or both):

Either the proportion of "other" buildings matters, thus Kydonia acculturated pretty "fast" because it had VERY few (and also, my first idea, about "does that mean we only need 6?", is wrong),

and/or

Various other cultures are treated differently and acculturate faster or slower. Like, Romans may be "close" to Greeks (and easier to "convert"; needing fewer buildings), but "far" from Egypt. This could extend to the initial reduction, too. So, Kydonia was a "close" culture to me, but some of the other ones are not. (I know this is not a distance thing per se, because a couple of the 45% CPs are pretty close to my capitol.)

***

Okay, there are some more observations. Anybody else want to spend some time reloading a lot of games?

[sapi]

I'm not 100% sure, but i think that upgrading to the next level of city will upgrade all buildings except temples to that of your culture.

Great info, thanks oaty. I'll have to stop my happy practice of extermination or slavery for every town I take

I woundn't go that far!

[Silver Rusher]

Thanks oaty, this will be used within my Settlement Management guide.

[Quillan]

Red, in my last campaign, when I took Kydonia, the only building in the city was the governor's house, and the culture penalty was 50%. I spent one turn building a shrine, and that reduced the culture penalty to 20%. The 30% from the other buildings is based on a ratio of their buildings to your buildings. Half yours/half theirs is 15%. All theirs is 30%. All yours is 0%. One of yours to 5 of theirs would be (5/6)*30, or 25%. It seems to round into 5% increments, but I haven't done enough math on it to see if it rounds up, down, or drops fractions.

[RedKnight]

Right, thanks, Quill! Since then I've learned how to use the cheats so if I find the time, I might play with this issue some more.

[Weirwood]

One little thing that isn't yet explained: I recently started a Numidian campaign, and the town of Siwa had 20% cutural penalty, despite no foreign buildings being there. Those 20% also didn't go away when I built up the province.

I speculate this might have something to do with the Pyramids in the adjacent province.

[Silver Rusher]

Yeah, I think there was a large Egyptian culture there which was made more disloyal by the pyramids. Remember that you are a phoenician culture, not Egyptian.

[Tamur]

Is the "wonder penalty" consistently 20%, and does it ever disapate? Anyone checked this out thoroughly?

[Megas Alexandros]

1.)
So, if I occupy a foreign city, my first step is to burn down their temples. Second: to build a Shrine to one of my gods. I usually keep all other buildings intact, but upgrade every bit of them over time.

Practicing this "strategy" would erase CP if I am right, pelase correct me if I am wrong.

2.)
All in all every foreign building is upgradable with one of your own culture's building, every one of them, save temples. Right?

[sapi]

Yes - that seems right to me, and i think that that's the way to go

[player1]

What a bump?


Actaully, culture penalty depends from the amout of foreign culture buildings in city compared to your culture buildings.

With goveror hourse weighted the most.

[Oaty]

@Megas Alexandros

That's correct for most circumstances.

To answer # 1 destroying a temple right away is mot the bet solution, especially of it is close to rioting. You don't want to destroy a temple that is giving 30 percent happiness when the happiness is currently 90 percent on low tax rate wich would drop it down to 60 percent risking rioting and revolt. Find other means to raise happiness so when you destroy it you are above 75 percent.

2 most temples aren't upgradable from different factions but therea are some that can be upgraded between differnt factions. Just check first under the tech tree icon and it will show wether or not you can upgrade that temple into your faction.

[pezhetairoi]

A bump is a 'useless' post that doesn't say anything, just moves the thread up to the top of the table again where people will notice it.

I say we go one up and sticky this. This is something I am sure a lot of newbies will find interesting to take note of.

[Oaty]

Does'nt really need a sticky as it can be accessed through the useful links if RTW.

Wich apparently some junior members use

[player1]

But most infro in not really valid, since the real explanation is done by one of the developer in Ludus Magnus. It's also pre-1.2 patch, when you could not see culture tag for buildings.

Anyway,
Culture depends from % of your buidlings compare to other culture, with governor building worth more then other buildings.

[player1]

We already have way to many stickies.
I think more then 50% of them need to be desticked, but with links to them in sticked forum index thread.

[pezhetairoi]

ah I see... as you can see I'm guilty of not actually reading the useful links thread :-p But then again I'm not a newbie :-D ...i hope.

[Marcellus]

Very good guide, Oaty, very useful. Well done.

[Megas Alexandros]

Yes, definitely you are right.

Anyway, I also learned, that there are co-addictive factors as weel: if I am to raise the tax in the city, the culture penalty goes up, too.

[guineawolf]

i also do some test,i played as scythian,capturing an pontus city(Sinope),it got 45 percent culture penalty,i demolished barrack,next turn still 45,building muster field(scythian barrack),drop 5 % at turn it finished,i demolished stable and building scythian stable again,it still 40 percent at turn it finished.This time i demolished spice road,next turn still 40%.Then armourer next,i demolished it and built scythian blacksmith,next turn still 40%,when it finished,it show 35% then.......... i X(X=delete=demolish)grand bazaar,build trader,finish?35%.X dockyard,built port,finish?30%.X spice roads and secret police HQ,next turn?30%.what left is pontus large stone walls,pontus communal farming and pontus road(cannot demolish)


this time i try next city(Ancyra),i X cavalry stables,build stable,finish?from 45% to 40%.Then i just X spice roads and executian square,pontus barrack,bazaar,pontus archery range,then it drop to 35% next turn,what is left pontus is large stone walls,roads,communal farming....

[guineawolf]

But most infro in not really valid, since the real explanation is done by one of the developer in Ludus Magnus. It's also pre-1.2 patch, when you could not see culture tag for buildings.

Anyway,
Culture depends from % of your buidlings compare to other culture, with governor building worth more then other buildings.

i think i would agree with this 1
Culture depends from % of your buidlings compare to other culture, with governor building worth more then other buildings

If we play barbarian faction,we will stuck with Culture penalty problem in late game coz most city are minor or large,or hopelessly huge(we can't upgrade it).....

[Caius]

Holy thread revival, Batman!

[Vincent Butler]

Personally, I think the best time to destroy the temples is right after you capture and exterminate. Public order will be high still, giving time to build up your temples. Some temples I leave in place, mainly the ones that give upgrades to weapons/armor, or that increase trade, provided it is not a shrine or temple, usually has to be large temple at least for me to leave it standing. Check out the public order to determine when is the good time to put your own temples in.

[Myth]

You can't really wait with foreign temples, unless their bonuses you can't get from anywhere else. PO problems are the main reason why a Rome campaign was so tedious in the later stages. @ReluctantSamurai has a ZPG guide somewhere whcih can achieve blue faces in all cities on the map, but I don't think it can be achieved with every faction.