Okay, so I am getting used to Civ3 now, and I have battle and strategy and most things pretty well covered. I almost have near highest score online, win a lot, etc. But I have one MAJOR problem. My culture is terrible! I build Wonders and have temples, city improvements etc. but my culture is so bad its barely on the histogram! Can I get some advice please?
Need Culture Help Bad
- Thread starter Rainbow
- Start date
Corkmaster
Warlord
Rainbow said:
If you build the right cultural improvements and build them early enough the only two possibilities that I can think of are
1 that you are at war most of the time. You sound like you may be playing an aggressive stategy. Culture accumulation is halved whenever you are at war. At least that was true with vanilla Civ3 and I dont think it has been changed.
2 Are you tendng to playing the same opponents; religious and scientific civs accumulate culture more quickly. If you play them and you are say militaristic your score will be comparatively low.
Corkmaster said:
Not true, and wasn't true in vanilla, either. Culture accumulation is halved if you're mobilized, but not otherwise. (Culture also doesn't accumulate during anarchy, and one of the C3C govs (fascism?) also slows it down, but I don't remember the details.)
Rel/sci civs tend to accumulate culture more quickly than others only because their cultural buildings are cheaper; there's no intrinsic difference in how culture is accumulated.
What level are you playing at? If it's Emperor or above, your culture generally will be a blip compared to everyone else (especially at Demigod/Deity!). You won't have the luxury of building every single cultural improvement available as soon as it's available, at least not if you want to win.
If you're playing at a high level and winning anyway, I wouldn't worry about lack of culture.If it is bothering you, though, or negatively affecting your games, you could post a .sav; someone will be sure to help.
Renata
Corkmaster
Warlord
Renata said:
Your quite right; I meant mobilized; not at war; my mistake
Renata said:
Exactly; these civ's opponents will be at a cultural disadvantage; which was my point; I did not specify how they got this advantage
Renata said:What level are you playing at? If it's Emperor or above, your culture generally will be a blip compared to everyone else (especially at Demigod/Deity!). You won't have the luxury of building every single cultural improvement available as soon as it's available, at least not if you want to win.
If it is bothering you, though, or negatively affecting your games, you could post a .sav; someone will be sure to help.
Renata
I assume this was addressed to the original poster. I agree; unless you are going for a cultural win or culture is so low that flipping becomes a real problem. Actually at Diety I do build temples fairly early mainly when I need a border expansion.
blackhalo14
Chieftain
First thing I try to do, is put a few temples in, early. I don't believe EVERY city needs a temple early on, but put temples in the bigger cities, especially if you don't have that many luxuries. Also put libraries in. Libraries are necessary for 99% of your cities in the early stages. The only time you don't want a library, is when a city is fully corrupt, and only productively using one shield and one gold. Build marketplaces and banks to get you some gold, and put universities in too. Then put cathedrals in your cities. Also try to build at least ONE wonder. Just go from there.
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Under Fascism, cities do not accumulate culture unless they've got a majority of your own nationals. (I do not recall whether exactly half the pop is enough.)Renata said:
I play on Monarch and Emperor, occasionally regent when im feeling like an easier game.
But even on Regent, my culture is around half of everyone elses, i build almost every improvement possible, and i average about 7 or 8 wonders at the end game. But that pesky culture hates me, lol.
I play an aggressive game in one sense. If someone attacks me, (and they often do) on higher difficulties. I will not negotiate peace with them until i carry out my revenge. so..wars can last a long time for me. But about 50% of the time im on very good terms with everyone.
Could my lack of culture just be bad luck?
But even on Regent, my culture is around half of everyone elses, i build almost every improvement possible, and i average about 7 or 8 wonders at the end game. But that pesky culture hates me, lol.
I play an aggressive game in one sense. If someone attacks me, (and they often do) on higher difficulties. I will not negotiate peace with them until i carry out my revenge. so..wars can last a long time for me. But about 50% of the time im on very good terms with everyone.
Could my lack of culture just be bad luck?
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Well, no, it can't be due to bad luck. You must be doing something wrong if you systematically fall behind the AI in culture on Regent despite trying to keep up.
In what order do you build improvements? Maybe you're building alot of non-culture producing ones before you build ones with high cpt.
Or maybe you're just alot smaller than the big AIs? The easiest way to high culture is plenty of small cities with a Temple in each.
In what order do you build improvements? Maybe you're building alot of non-culture producing ones before you build ones with high cpt.
Or maybe you're just alot smaller than the big AIs? The easiest way to high culture is plenty of small cities with a Temple in each.
First off Last Conformist I just wanted to tell you that when i read about your Civil War scenario, i got very excited. im really interested in the civil war and the map is astounding! Your team did a great job on it and im downloading it as soon as i clear some memory on my computer!
so.. back to the topic at hand.
well this is my usual strategy for city improvements
1.walls
2.barracks
3.granary
4.aqueduct
5.temple
6.marketplace
and after that i just do what is needed, i usually get the aqueduct by the time i am fully settled im a serious empire builder. then again i also like a compact lil civ on an archipelago with large cities. but mainly i build large empires.
Last Conformist i think your right about the building non culture buildings first, i also think that the main problem might be that i am starting to build the culture buildings too late, and that by the time i start that, i am concentrating on defending from the militaristic civs.
Oh and Corkmaster, my fav opponents are - Rome, Zulu , Persia , Japan , China , Germany , England. So i have a far mix in there of characteristics. That was a good point tho.
so.. back to the topic at hand.
well this is my usual strategy for city improvements
1.walls
2.barracks
3.granary
4.aqueduct
5.temple
6.marketplace
and after that i just do what is needed, i usually get the aqueduct by the time i am fully settled im a serious empire builder. then again i also like a compact lil civ on an archipelago with large cities. but mainly i build large empires.
Last Conformist i think your right about the building non culture buildings first, i also think that the main problem might be that i am starting to build the culture buildings too late, and that by the time i start that, i am concentrating on defending from the militaristic civs.
Oh and Corkmaster, my fav opponents are - Rome, Zulu , Persia , Japan , China , Germany , England. So i have a far mix in there of characteristics. That was a good point tho.
Corkmaster
Warlord
Rainbow said:
Nothing wrong with that Rainbow; but perhaps is does help explain the v.low culture. 5th represents quite a late date for temple builds in terms of starting to accumumate culture.
One suggestion if are you are going for aqueducts quite early and there is no immediate threat miss the walls out. They will be redundant as soon as you hit size 7 anyway (cities). At least some earlier temples would make a difference.
SirPleb
Shaken, not stirred.
I suggest that problem#1 for many players is having a "my usual strategy". The greatest beauty I see in this game is that there is no usual best strategy. To my mind the best strategy is always dramatically affected by what's available in the start region on any given map. It is also strongly affected by your goal, further affecting the optimum opening sequence.Rainbow said:
Having said that I would suggest that your usual strategy would be improved by:
1) Never build walls. They're nearly the worst bang-for-the-buck of any possible improvement. (Colosseums might be worse.) If you are finding that walls are useful then you need to work on your "best defense is a good offense" thinking, and should read lots of the strategy and war academy articles on this site. Once you get rolling walls will be a waste of time.
2) Do not build barracks until you are in a position where they matter. I.e. a position where you will soon be building military units in that town. Building barracks before that time just results in a maintenance cost with no corresponding benefit.
3) Build granaries only in towns where they gain more food per turn than building a settler. Sending out a settler and founding a new town gains two food/turn when the settler founds a town. So only build granaries if they gain more than that, either because you're out of expansion room and you have a lot of growth still possible (implies a lot of other things such as many luxuries - this will not usually be true), or a town has a food bonus it is working such as cattle, wheat, or game.
4) Don't build aqueducts until you need them. Earlier is a waste of shields and of maintenance income. When possible avoid the need for aqueducts by settling on rivers and lakes.
5) Temples are only occasionally worthwhile. Build them only where either:
a) Border expansion is a priority and you are not a scientific Civ, or
b) You are going for a cultural victory
6) Treat Marketplaces as a high priority in core cities, i.e. in cities which are not totally corrupt. As long as you control or can trade for at least 3 luxuries, a Marketplace will gain as much happiness as a temple, and will gain gold too! And if you have 4 or more luxuries the Marketplace gains more happiness than a temple. The Marketplace is a very valuable improvement. If you are not at war it should usually rate higher than the other five you list.
7) Libraries should usually come before many of the improvements listed. Libraries give more culture than temples and increase your research capability dramatically.
Scratcher
Emperor
I don't think that is true. If you conquer a wonder you get the benefits but do not receive the culture points.
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Rainbow said:
Just to add a little to what SirPleb wrote. You original question was "why does my culture suck?" or something similar. Your build order gives *an* answer immediately.
The amount of culture generated by a qualifying improvement/wonder doubles once it is 1000 years old. In the early game, each turn is 50 years, and in the late game only 1. So building culture early gives you more culture in three ways. First, you have the building for more turns, secondly you have the building at double culture for more turns and thirdly you get to double culture much quicker.
Your build order means each town is generating 250+ shields before it gets it's first cultural building, and this must take an age. The effect of this is that when you do build a temple or a library, it is hanging around for a large number of turns before it "doubles".
Just to reinforce what was said earlier... it is a bad idea to have a fixed build queue for all cities. My preference is to give each city a job instead. So a city with high food potential might build workers and settlers, high production cities build units, high commerce cities get science and commercial improvements early and so on (without making it a hard and fast rule - there are always exceptions and often it depends on your game objective). Therefore, in your core cities you would expect most to have libraries by turn 100 at the latest.
Another reason you may be culturally weak is that you don't expand enough (just guessing). The more cities you have, the more places you have to put cultural buildings. If you have 20 cities with libraries at 60cpt then obviously 40 cities with libraries will generate 120cpt from those buildings alone.
It might be a good idea to play for a 100K at monarch and aim for a victory date of around 1600AD. If you can do this (and it is done regularly by many players), then you will no longer have a cultural problem except maybe a deity game for a couple of hundred turns.
P.S. You cannot capture culture. Normal improvements and small wonders are ALWAYS destroyed when you capture a city. You retain Great Wonders and their benefits, but they will not produce culture for you.
gunkulator
Emperor
I will somewhat disagree with the "never build walls" advice. They can occasionally be useful in border towns that are very corrupt and have no hope of growing to size 7 any time soon. No other improvement can be built in a reasonable time and often they are offer no benefit anyway. After walls, you just build whatever artillery unit is available.
Often, the AI will bypass your border cities and head for a poorly defended inner city. Walls can help here too if the AI must pass by your border cities since walls give ZOC.
Often, the AI will bypass your border cities and head for a poorly defended inner city. Walls can help here too if the AI must pass by your border cities since walls give ZOC.
Corkmaster
Warlord
gunkulator said:
I build walls in similar circumstances but SirPleb who offered this advice can acheive higher scores at higher levels than almost anyone else certainly far higher than I can even imagine.
I think he does this by acheiving early military dominance (among other things) so perhaps he never needs extra static defence. I would never build them in an inner city; delays building more important things. Probably depends on other factors though. e.g. I always play on huge maps and usually expect my core cities to be size seven by the time the AI are close enough for a serious attack. Must be different on a tiny map.
hIdDeN_eViL
{кοтоя дѕѕαѕѕїй}²
this is wierd
i normally OWN culture by heaps, but suck in power until later game. (when i've conquered everyone)
i normally OWN culture by heaps, but suck in power until later game. (when i've conquered everyone)
CrackedCrystal
Where am I?
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gunkulator said:
I agree. I always build them in border towns. Even with a 1spt city, you can get them without rushing fairly quckly, plus they have no maintance cost.
As for culture, the best thing you can do is build the culture building early. The culture bonus will kick in sooner and you'll rake it in. Also, do you tend not to have many cities? If you have only a handfull, but the AI has bucketloads, that may be why. They will build culture everywhere.
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