Dumb question but how do you "save" culture for Social Policies?

[Diplomat32]

I see people talking about saving up culture and buying several SP's at the same time. How do you do that? When I play, the game changes the "end turn" button into a "Adopt policy" button and I can't seem to end my turn until I pick a policy. Thanks.

 

[WickedSick37]

You can right-click the notification to remove it ^^

 

[Duo]

Right click the purple, circular adopt policy button. Click "next turn".

 

[PestWulf]

I actually wonder if this is not a bug. Perhaps would be a bit different game if people couldn't save up culture and insta-buy a powerful SP later in the game.

 

[Abegweit]

It was obviously intended. After all, there is a message explaining how to do it.

 

[Diplomat32]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I kinda think this is might be either a bug or an exploit. The game definitely plays differently when you have to buy a SP each time you reach the next culture level.

 

[Ahriman]

Its not a bug or exploit.

If you were forced to buy policies immediately, then you would have an incentive to *avoid* accumulating culture in the early game, to prevent yourself from being forced to purchase the (generally inferior) early game policies with your first picks.

 

[Diplomat32]

Its not a bug or exploit.

If you were forced to buy policies immediately, then you would have an incentive to *avoid* accumulating culture in the early game, to prevent yourself from being forced to purchase the (generally inferior) early game policies with your first picks.

I feel like I've been handicapping myself because I would always buy a SP when I get the necessary points because I thought I had to. But this would mean buying lots of early SPs and then struggling to have enough culture to buy the late SPs I really want. This will change how I play the game.

 

[Ahriman]

Yes, it changes how you play. But this still doesn't mean its a bug or an exploit.

 

[budweiser]

I save them sometimes. it depends on what I am doing. The only problem is not knowing how many you have in the bank if you start saving them.

 

[lissenber]

Its not a bug or exploit.

If you were forced to buy policies immediately, then you would have an incentive to *avoid* accumulating culture in the early game, to prevent yourself from being forced to purchase the (generally inferior) early game policies with your first picks.

But then again during later game you might have more cities and the policies will cost more culture.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think it might be better for Social Policies to work more like Techs, instead of buying outright, you put culture into the one you have chosen.

 

[eric_]

Wow...I feel like such a n00b!

So glad to read that you can save culture points and wait on adopting SPs! It's been a bit annoying feeling like I had no choice but to adopt something as soon as I hit a culture threshold.

Krikkitone, I kinda like that idea, but think insta-adopt should still be an option in case you have to suddenly refocus, say from econ or science to military, for example. It could maybe come with a gold and/or anarchy penalty, in addition to the culture cost inherent to researching the policy you're looking to insta-adopt.

 

[Polish]

I tried this the other night and does not really seem an instabuy to me since the additional policies still go up in culture cost. I am not sure that I really see any advantage to waiting, unless you are waiting for a policy tree like Order that does not become available till the Industrial. The problem I have is that I can't seem to avoid acquiring cities. It seems either to be a case of resources I just NEED to have or not being able to bring myself to raze captured cities. I always start out with the intention of trying to go with the 5-7 cities I see people talking about, but I always seem to wind up with more like 25! So, as the empire grows the points I have saved become less valuable because the city cost keeps inflating the policy price.

 

[tibbles]

Puppets dont add to cost. But yeah, the cost can rise substantially if you wait.

Which is why being able to save up points is clearly not a bug. It forces the trade off decision of cheap policies when their effect is greatest vs saving the points for more costly better policies later.

Not letting you end your turn until you purchase or discover the right click trick is the bug.

edit: oh, another hint that saving up is very unlikely to be a bug: There's a free policy counter on the screen. So it's even intended for you to be able to save free policies from wonders etc.

 

[Rittmeyer]

Funny how people worry and discuss if avoiding policies is an exploit, when the best tree to actually wreak havoc and abuse the extremely weak AI in this game is actually Honor, which is available from the start.

Not going four horseman + honor crazy right in the beginning is already choosing the hardest path (in order to give the AI a chance and have any challenge up to IMM - I can't talk about Deity yet).

 

[neptune2000]

I tried this the other night and does not really seem an instabuy to me since the additional policies still go up in culture cost. I am not sure that I really see any advantage to waiting, unless you are waiting for a policy tree like Order that does not become available till the Industrial.

Or if (for example) you want to beeline Civil Service/Theology and unlock the Patronage tree. Waiting for a later tree and then grabbing a couple/few policies right away can be quite an advantage.

 

[aimlessgun]

Funny how people worry and discuss if avoiding policies is an exploit, when the best tree to actually wreak havoc and abuse the extremely weak AI in this game is actually Honor, which is available from the start.

Not going four horseman + honor crazy right in the beginning is already choosing the hardest path (in order to give the AI a chance and have any challenge up to IMM - I can't talk about Deity yet).

You can argue that saving for Rationalism is better. 400 BC Rifles and 0 AD Artillery are more of a guarantee than a horse rush. Plus you don't even need honor for your warrior/sword/longswords to steamroll over the AI.

I think saving vs. not is well balanced for a 'normal' game where you will be building more cities. But for a conquest game where you have maybe 2 cities and the rest are puppets not adding to your SP costs, saving becomes more effective.

 

[PestWulf]

Yes, it changes how you play. But this still doesn't mean its a bug or an exploit.

My point about it being a bug has more to do with the way they implemented it. I would have expected them to implement it a different way if it were a "feature". The way it gives you no information about how many policies you have stored up or how much progress you are making on the next one, etc. smacks of it not being implemented intentionally but rather being a documented bug that became too much of an issue to fix and so became a "feature".

I wonder if it really was intended this way, or if it's something they shrugged their shoulders on and let it slide, choosing to document it after that fact rather than either fix it or update the UI to properly support the design.

 

[neptune2000]

My point about it being a bug has more to do with the way they implemented it. I would have expected them to implement it a different way if it were a "feature". The way it gives you no information about how many policies you have stored up or how much progress you are making on the next one, etc. smacks of it not being implemented intentionally but rather being a documented bug that became too much of an issue to fix and so became a "feature".

I wonder if it really was intended this way, or if it's something they shrugged their shoulders on and let it slide, choosing to document it after that fact rather than either fix it or update the UI to properly support the design.

It could be a bad design (I don't think so) but I don't think it's a bug. In fact, iirc the "Adopt Policy" button has a "Right-click to skip" -type message and I doubt they paved over an inability to keep you from skipping the action with a tooltip. The lack of info you mention would more likely be the bug; perhaps they ran out of time to implement. There is a lot of information missing from the ui, some of which they're actually fixing in the next release.