Theme

Can someone explain to me exactly how the themes work? I can't figure it out.

You mean theming bonuses?
Well, let's take the Sistine Chapel as example.
It has a theming bonus when you place two works of arts in it from the same era and civ.
So, when you place two paintings from the Celts in it, both made in the Medieval age, you get a +2 bonus for your tourism and culture. +4 when playing France. Other wonders and building have different requirements, like the Oxford University, which requires two works of art from different eras and civs.

This.

Just decided to add: to see which condition the specific building and/or wonder has to get a theming building, just hover the mouse over the +0 right besides the slots - that is the current theming bonus, and hovering over it will tell you how to maximize it.

Buildings with only one slot, like the Amphitheater, never have a theming bonus. All buildings and/or wonders with more than one slot can always have a theming bonus if the correct conditions for that specific building are met.

Swapping Great Works will help you immensely to get these bonus!

Remember that it is not the real life counter part of the great work that matters, but the in-game one. So Shakespeare is English and created Macbeth in 1603 in real life, but that doesn't matter if, in-game, it was created by The Huns in the Classical Era. THAT is what counts for the theming bonus! Hovering over the Great Work will tell you it's name and author (not used for anything other than identification), the civilization that created it and the era it was created in.

Also keep in mind that the "real world" works themselves are irrelevant. This threw me off for the longest time because I thought I was getting a +1 theming bonus for having two Asian watercolor paintings together, when in fact the bonus was for having two paintings from the same (in-game) era.

After I realized you could hover over the +0 to figure out how theming works I went on to went a culture victory. Amazing how much a bit of vital information can boost your performance so. Wish the advisers had made theming and how it works more clear.

JSMCAG said:

This.

Just decided to add: to see which condition the specific building and/or wonder has to get a theming building, just hover the mouse over the +0 right besides the slots - that is the current theming bonus, and hovering over it will tell you how to maximize it.

Buildings with only one slot, like the Amphitheater, never have a theming bonus. All buildings and/or wonders with more than one slot can always have a theming bonus if the correct conditions for that specific building are met.

Swapping Great Works will help you immensely to get these bonus!

Remember that it is not the real life counter part of the great work that matters, but the in-game one. So Shakespeare is English and created Macbeth in 1603 in real life, but that doesn't matter if, in-game, it was created by The Huns in the Classical Era. THAT is what counts for the theming bonus!

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From my admittedly short time playing, a thing to note is that each theme can only be used once, at least for museums. It states that you gain the theming bonus for obtaining two artifacts or pieces of art from the same era from either two different civs or same civ. This provides themes such as 'Museum of Ancient French Warfare' or 'Museum of World Classical Art'. You cannot, however, obtain the same theme for two different museums, i.e. you can have four Ancient French artifacts and stick them into two different museums but only one will be called the 'Museum of Ancient French Warfare'. The other will be called 'Museum of French Warfare', with the former providing +2 and the latter +1. I can of course be wrong about this, given how I've only had such a short time to play (curse you slow internet!) but it seems reasonable, seeing how given two major museums with similar specialties, we would likely see one less popular than the other.

Worlds_Crossing said:

i.e. you can have four Ancient French artifacts and stick them into two different museums but only one will be called the 'Museum of Ancient French Warfare'. The other will be called 'Museum of French Warfare', with the former providing +2 and the latter +1.

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Are you sure the second museum has both artifacts from the Ancient Era? I find that very odd, as I'm pretty sure you can have museums like that (I might be misremembering it though - and I have just reached Archaeology in my game, so I wasn't able to play with museums yet)
But if that's the case - then Swapping those artifacts might do you good!

I'm pretty sure I had like three "Museum of Ancient World Warfare"s. Don't remember what kind of bonuses they gave, though, so it might just be +2 themes that are unique. It doesn't seem like this would scale all that well based on map size, though.

CoolLizy said:

I'm pretty sure I had like three "Museum of Ancient World Warfare"s. Don't remember what kind of bonuses they gave, though, so it might just be +2 themes that are unique. It doesn't seem like this would scale all that well based on map size, though.

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Just did a recheck, you guys were right so my apologies. You can have multiple Museums with similar themes (I wish what I had stated earlier was true though, as it encourages trading and is quite realistic) and it was a minor mistake on my part.

Worlds_Crossing said:

You can have multiple Museums with similar themes (I wish what I had stated earlier was true though, as it encourages trading and is quite realistic) and it was a minor mistake on my part.

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I'm not sure I'd say it's realistic. I mean, how many "Museum of Natural History"s are there in the world?

It would be sort of neat if museums dedicated to certain civs got an additional +1 if you made museums themed around them, based on who was powerful in the early game, sort of similar to how popular Egyptian artifacts were around the turn of the 20th century. Although this would probably discourage trading more than encourage, unless the "in vogue" civ could also fluctuate every x turns, but then that's all the more micromanagement.