Can you encourage factions to go to war?

**Ludens** · 10-26-2005, 14:31

Originally Posted by Herakleitos

Culture penalty is indeed based on the buildings in a city. Destroying existing buildings (or upgrading them with your own version) helps in lowering the penalty. I believe the governor's building has the most influence, but you're not allowed to pull that one down I'm afraid.

Correct, except that temples also give a big cultural penalty. Tearing down foreign buildings is not necessary: upgrading works just as well. You can even upgrade certain foreign temples to temples of your own, provided you have the right temple type (fun, trade, war, horse, etc.). But this does not always work: you cannot upgrade the temple of Nike to the temple of Mars or vica versa, even though they have identical effects (I assume temple type differs).

There is a Spanish/Gaulish temple than can be upgraded to a Pantheon that is not otherwise avaible by the Scipii and the Brutii, but getting the Spanish to build the Sacred circle of that temple is quite tricky.

**Herakleitos** · 10-26-2005, 15:33

The impact of temples sounds reasonable. I have also modded my game so you can upgrade all temples that belong to your culture. For instance the Julii cannot build a shrine to Mars but they can upgrade it to a temple and further.

**dismal** · 10-26-2005, 16:20

Originally Posted by Ludens

Correct, except that temples also give a big cultural penalty. Tearing down foreign buildings is not necessary: upgrading works just as well.

I'm not sure that temples have that much effect on culture penalty.

The governor's building dominates. If you have the wrong governor's building, it seems very hard to get culture penalty below 40. Max is 50.

Tearing down foreign law/happiness buildings to improve culture penalty will generally hurt you until you get your own governor's building built.

I tend to immediately knock down buildings with no order benefit that I'm not going to use (e.g., military buildings and blacksmiths in a city I don't want to use for troop production). This gets a little cash, starts the re-culturation, and makes the city less valuable to the enemy should you lose it. I might knock down the temple if it's near the low end because it can be quickly rebuilt, and then grown beyond what it was. I might knock down the market if the build queue is idle, but I can often just overbuild it. After I get the opportunity to build a new governor's building, then I will usually take the final steps to purge the old culture. The primary exception being those temples which give huge experience bonuses, which are great to keep.

**Dutch_guy** · 10-26-2005, 16:37

There is a Spanish/Gaulish temple than can be upgraded to a Pantheon that is not otherwise avaible by the Scipii and the Brutii, but getting the Spanish to build the Sacred circle of that temple is quite tricky.

yes, you mean the temple of Epona, if the gauls / Spanish built the sacred circle of Epona , you can( as a Roman ) upgrade it to the Pantheon of Epona, giving you a +5 experience bonus , meaning you can churn out 2 silver chevron cohorts,

**Jonnyuk** · 10-27-2005, 09:37

Thanks for all the help, chaps.

Herakleitos, you hit the nail on the head about looking for a subtle way to pull this off.

Although I do like the fleet idea it feels a tad like an exploit. I really hoped there would be some way a skilled diplomat could cause some trouble by maybe travelling to a border town of theirs and carrying out a "they eat babies, that lot." campaign.

**Ciaran** · 10-27-2005, 09:45

In theory, you could ask them to ask a certain faction, but for some reason that almost never works. The other way round, offering to attack an enemy of your ally, is usually declined as well, unless you offer it as a gift. The diplomatic system is, well, weird.

**PseRamesses** · 10-27-2005, 09:58

Originally Posted by Ciaran

In theory, you could ask them to ask a certain faction, but for some reason that almost never works. The other way round, offering to attack an enemy of your ally, is usually declined as well, unless you offer it as a gift. The diplomatic system is, well, weird.

Agree. However every one have its price and could with a heafty money gift be convinced to attack the foe of your choosing. The main problem with this is that after receving your gift they never have to actually declare war on your foe since there´s no penalty for this behaviour. As you said: The diplomatic system is, well, weird.

**Uriel** · 10-27-2005, 10:49

In 1.3 Julii campaign I had a diplomat ask the Scipii to attack Carthage just after they'd taken Sicily (they were already at war). They wanted 500 denarii per turn for something like 15 turns, which seemed a bit steep so I didn't go for it. If they don't move after a few years (as seems to be the case) I'll try again.

**Ludens** · 10-27-2005, 14:37

Originally Posted by dismal

I'm not sure that temples have that much effect on culture penalty.

Ahem, I just checked the developer's post on that and you are absolutely right. My apologies.

Originally Posted by Dutch_guy

yes, you mean the temple of Epona, if the gauls / Spanish built the sacred circle of Epona , you can( as a Roman ) upgrade it to the Pantheon of Epona, giving you a +5 experience bonus , meaning you can churn out 2 silver chevron cohorts,

I have just checked my files and they have removed it for 1.3. The building entry is still in the export_desc_building.txt, but no faction can build it anymore. I thought it was limited to Brutii and Scipii in 1.2 only.