Culture too hard to gain now?

[miked1991]

Now that the Ampithetre, Opera House and Museum only give 1 culture now giving great work slots instead, I'm finding it really hard to actually gain enough culture to make an impact on the social policies track. Is anyone else finding this? I'm thinking the policies should be made easier to gain now.

 

[chazzycat]

it's all about getting those 3 guild buildings up and the slots filled as early as possible. The specialists provide culture themselves and then they create great works. If you really want to focus on culture you'll probably want some Wonders, but in a non-culture game those specialists & great works should suffice. City states are still good options too.

 

[VainoValkea]

I'm not noticing much of a difference early on. Building the artist guilds and keeping them occupied produces plenty of culture and allows unlocking policies at a swift pace, less than 20 turns per policy. Later on, though, I've noticed that the phase where I used to buy an SP every 6 or 8 turns is gone, but that's good because typically at that point of game I'm already purchasing the powerful ideology tenets that aren't supposed to be too cheap.

 

[weregamer]

I also am not noticing much of a lack - the first few policies seem to roll in faster than in G&K (which makes sense given that there are now more policies to buy). But I do tend to build a few key wonders early on, playing on Prince.

My big problem is that, as a policy whore, I tend to win cultural victories while I'm in the process of shoring up my intended victory condition via aggressive culture/policy selection. I strongly suspect this would not happen on a higher difficulty .

 

[djm_jm]

I disagree. In my game with poland, though i get victory with diplomacy, my civilization completed the social policies of the liberty, racionalism and freedom, beyond half of the comerce too.

 

[Snuffleupagus]

They did make policies easier to get, BNW dramatically reduced the cost increase for policies due to founding new cities.

 

[Yzman]

Yeah culture isn't any harder, it has just been moved around. You now need to create great works which will give you that culture as well as tourism.

 

[MrCynical]

They've also reduced the cost of policies though - in the early stages I'm finding I get policies at about the same pace as before. In the later stages (once artifacts from archaeology are available) it seems far faster than before. There's also more bonuses to culture and free policy chances available (e.g. world fair, and some of the other world congress options).

 

[joncnunn]

Also, I should note that unless you are playing an OCC (or Venice) you should spread your Guilds around.
In fact if you are planning a 4 city empire with your capital working all academy tiles, the capital wouldn't have a single Guild while each of the other 3 cities would have its own Guild.

It also appears that the rate of increase of cultural policies is somewhat lower after the first 10 or so.

 

[Matthew.]

It is actually easier. Well, assuming you are able to spare the few citizens to work culture slots.

GWAM acquisition doesn't interfere with each other or the other GP generation, so you should be getting quite a few culture GP even if you are playing science or whatever. Different than vanilla/G&K where you'd generally ignore culture GP unless you were going for a culture victory.

You should at the very least end up with the same number of policies, but more likely end up with more on average than in G&K.

 

[Buccaneer]

I'm not really emphasizing culture much (trying out things) in my Immortal game (because Ethiopia is way, way ahead there) but I'm still getting over 200 cpt. I don't have any cultural wonders, I don't think but did build Guilds (cheap), got specialists, opera and museums along with 3-4 cultural city-states. No Aesthetics but did get Archaeology fairly early and will have 6 digs within my lands done, just for the fun of it. I don't know what it will take win Cultural at Immortal, though, against the likes of Ethiopia.

 

[Calouste]

Also, I should note that unless you are playing an OCC (or Venice) you should spread your Guilds around.
In fact if you are planning a 4 city empire with your capital working all academy tiles, the capital wouldn't have a single Guild while each of the other 3 cities would have its own Guild.

It also appears that the rate of increase of cultural policies is somewhat lower after the first 10 or so.

Depends on what your capital is like. Spreading Guilds out means that only one of them gets the benefits of the National Epic and Hermitage (and Alhambra, if you care about that).

 

[Matthew.]

I'd need to play some more culture games, but so far I get the impression that great writers are low priority in the early game, so you can put them off until later when you'd have the population/policies to work a crap ton of specialists in your capital without screwing yourself over.

 

[_hero_]

Artifacts are your friend.

+2 culture +2 tourism a pop. I have no trouble getting 10-20 of them in my games through various means.

Also, there's a lot of free culture/free policies in BnW that weren't there before.

Kremlin= 1 free Social Policy.
First to get an Ideology=2 Free Social Policies for your ideology.
World's Fair = Free social policy and +100% culture per turn for 20 turns for first place.

Great Writers can be burned for nearly 1 free social policy if you don't want to use them for tourism.

Prora= 1 free social policy (Autocracy only)


It's not so much that we are getting less policies. What's changed is that they've added 2 policy trees and more doubled the number of "policies" in Freedom/Order/Autocracy. If you manage to fill out of your ideologies completely, that's 14 policies. More than 2 trees. Add that to the 2-3 social policies trees you manage to fill out and you have every bit as much or more policies than before.

 

[spfun]

Also, I should note that unless you are playing an OCC (or Venice) you should spread your Guilds around.
In fact if you are planning a 4 city empire with your capital working all academy tiles, the capital wouldn't have a single Guild while each of the other 3 cities would have its own Guild.

It also appears that the rate of increase of cultural policies is somewhat lower after the first 10 or so.

I disagree with this, you want your capital to have guilds because your capital gets the most food bonuses. +3 from maritimes and 10% +2 food from Tradition. Also its always the most developed city which can make use of extra slots. Water cities are good too, due to cargo ship food trades.

In a standard 4 city tradition empire my other 3 cities have trouble growing due to scientists, they can't normally take any more slots until late game unless they are in really good locations.

 

[Buccaneer]

I was wrong about the changes they made to Social Policies. I am finding, despite lowering costs and getting more, that I am having a hard time choosing. There are so many good choices. For example, I wondered about Hidden Sites only to find out that it is in the Exploration finisher, a tree I had not touched. Same thing with a Reformation Belief - did Liberty and Patronage first before starting Rationalism and Order.

 

[Yzman]

Also, I should note that unless you are playing an OCC (or Venice) you should spread your Guilds around.
In fact if you are planning a 4 city empire with your capital working all academy tiles, the capital wouldn't have a single Guild while each of the other 3 cities would have its own Guild.

It also appears that the rate of increase of cultural policies is somewhat lower after the first 10 or so.

I disagree. Use your capital as your production heavy ( or another large city you have) and use a food heavy city with a lake/river for producing GWAM. There are quite a few bonuses to growth that only apply to one city so you do want to put all your eggs in one basket in this case.