Theatre district - when do you build them?

[redwings1340]

The district system has been fun to play around with, but in my first game, I didn't build many theatre districts because their adjacency bonuses were just straight up weaker than the bonuses for other districts. World wonders are not easy to spam, and 1 culture for two surrounding districts is not that impresive. So, my question is, are they just powerful enough to be worth building without an adjacency bonus? The civics tree itself is very useful, so they might be, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

 

[King Jason]

You need to factor in the fact that they'll store works, which is likely why they have poor adjacency bonuses. Their buildings still provide culture boosts so the great works on top of that increase the overall yield of the districts themselves. To say nothing of tourism.

As to when to include them in your empire - I haven't figured that out yet, honestly. Usually by the industrial era is when I start putting them around, mostly because my culture output lags by that point. I haven't experimented with bothering to get them online earlier.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

I get them after my first government.

First game, they worked well, didn't even need that many and I still overran my science research.
Second game, everything is kind of ancillary to simply rolling everyone. Still have a lot of culture, some of that is city state related (I took sole possession of my continent, which pretty much made me suzerain of 9 city states by default. At that point the Raj policy is crazy nuts. So I have two theatre districts. One came with Dehli, one I built for Rome (I'm playing Sumeria- warriors do not stand up to war wagons. Though, uh, elephants do. Those things are sick). Both are archaeological museums and I spread out discoveries so I can theme them both. That is a lot of culture right there.

One thing is at least on Prince, culture seems the default victory. Once you get into the swing of things (and push into the late game with resorts, parks and all the policies, its just a matter of passing turns. Minimal irritations other than dealing with missionary spam.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

They are pretty good. Getting an early writer helps a lot with boosting your Culture Tech progress - and I'd argue that the strongest non-military effects actually come from that tree (Feudalism, Gov Types and Policies, Civil Engineering, Neighborhoods, etc.).

Also remember that their presence will also boost all the districts they are adjacent to, so even if THEY don't GET any extra yields, they might PROVIDE quite a few.
...and on top of that you obviously also get the regular buildings you can add to them.