Rebalancing Proposal

[Thalassicus]

Extra cities increase our culture income - to a point!

The catch is when we run out of space to expand. Warfare drains a cultural empire. We divert resources away from science/culture, and peaceful empires have an easier time making friends for large research bonuses. Fast research unlocks new sources of culture sooner. Click here to check out more analysis on the subject.

 

[wobuffet]

So what's the formula? Each city raises the Culture cost of Social Policies by 15% (7.5% with Representation), non-compounded?

 

[Thalassicus]

15% cost per city normally, 12% with Representation. Since new cities also increase culture income, they speeds up policy rate if we invest in cultural buildings. However, warfare slows down policy rate, because resources are diverted to other tasks. So if you want to maximize policy rate (such as for culture victory) peaceful expansion speeds it up, and conquest slows it down.

 

[wobuffet]

Got it. I really don't understand, though, why Cultural buildings are left standing upon being conquered (from either a gameplay or thematic perspective).

 

[Thalassicus]

I see two benefits to targeting happiness/economic buildings instead of cultural ones:

• A big point of this thread is people say the game goes too fast. Destroying buildings slows conquest a lot more than destroying culture. We have to keep our above a certain threshold, but there's no such requirement for culture.
• Another goal of vem is for everyone to have about the same number of policies. Warfare is already bad for policy generation, even if we capture cultural buildings, so reducing it further would be counterproductive.

From a realism perspective, economic buildings have direct strategic importance and are likely to be targeted in wars. Cultural buildings are only targeted for psychological or political effect.

 

[wobuffet]

[*]Another goal of vem is for everyone to have about the same number of policies. Warfare is already bad for policy generation, even if we capture cultural buildings, so reducing it further would be counterproductive.

Very good point.

If a player manages to have tons of World Wonders as well as having all Cultural buildings built and manages to conquer tons of puppets for Culture too (what I was worried about), more power to that player.