Which is more important: Science or Culture?

[Hellenism Salesman]

So, out of the two main researching resources, I was curious to hear which people found more important in a general sense. I'm sure that priorities change based on difficulty level and other factors, but I want to hear your answer as to which is better in most situations. I personally lead towards Science as technologies and their unlocks of units and improvements are just things I find to be more impactful, but I'm hardly an experienced player so I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on this.

 

[tsf4]

I voted science, but I find both are almost equally important. Even if you are not going for a certain victory, they are both useful! I tend to have a bit more science at first, then culture grows in middle part and then science comes back around to finish the game off. I also tend to choose science and culture policy cards more than others.

 

[TigerBulkRate]

Speaking as a Diety-only player, it's easily culture, at least with non-science victory conditions. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that many of the things unlocked by the culture tree do not cost anything: new government types, new policy cards, all of the benefits from these things can be yours for a click. Science, on the other hand, usually requires you to pay in some way for the new stuff you've got, beyond a few tile improvement buffs. This is especially true in the early game, where unlocking your first real government comes with huge benefits that you pay nothing for.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Both.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I think it depends on playstyle. For warmongering science is essential for strategic resources and unit upgrades. If you are playing more peacefully, culture can be more dynamic. Civic tree gives cards, governors or governments which the player can use for increasing its science output. The tech tree on the other hand does not really have much for compensating a lack of culture.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Civic tree gives cards, governors or governments which the player can use for increasing its science output

International Space Agency is one of the most, if not the most, important policy card for Science Victory; and it is deeply buried in the later half the Civic Tree.

The tech tree on the other hand does not really have much for compensating a lack of culture.

Moon Landing does give a bonus culture income, but it is just a one time thing so yeah. People usually use that bonus to get International Space Agency card.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Culture. Your science is pretty useless without Policy Card slots

 

[tedhebert]

Science for me. I can be way behind in culture and not have any worries about losing the game. Not so for science, as being too far behind leaves you open to attacks from AI civs with one-shotters because of the unit strength disparity. I find that you can start working on culture starting at mid game and still be dominant. Of course,
I always play huge maps so there's hardly ever a runaway in culture.

 

[greenOak]

For domination victory: science
For culture and religious victory: culture
For science victory: culture early game, science late game
For diplomatic victory: both

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Early game is all about culture. Even for early war, the policy cards unlocking the 50% faster production for archers and horses are extremely critical. Political Philosophy is also a huge milestone for a game since it unlocks huge production boosts for your empire and unlocks the Ancestral Hall, probably the single most important infrastructure building. You do want a decent amount of science early if you are going for a Horseman rush though. But Faith might be the second most important yield early, if you can get enough of it for Monumentality. Classical Monumentality is just so strong, it's basically impossible to lose if you have enough space to settle and a good classical Monumentality golden age.

After the early game, I think it depends on victory type. Science and Domination Victories are the ones where priority shifts from culture to science the earliest I think. It used to happen after rationalism for Science, but might be earlier now that rationalism has been nerfed (I haven't played much in the last 3 months). Domination victories value Science much more after political philosophy, especially in multi-player. Tech advantage wins wars but in single player, I think the best domination games start so early than all yields become somewhat irrelevant.

Religious Victory obviously doesn't care much about science, and for culture victories, science is less important than culture but not by much, since Printing, Flight and Computers are so important. Diplio victories need production the most, preferably via chops, so either science or culture to boost chop value should be pretty important, but I don't really play much Diplo so I'm not sure.

I don't think Culture is ever that far behind science though, even in the victories where science matters most, and early culture is so much more important than early science, that I voted for culture.

 

[hhhhhh]

For domination victory: science
For culture and religious victory: culture
For science victory: culture early game, science late game
For diplomatic victory: both

This is the best answer so far. Early game culture is everything, then science become important for domination and science victory.

 

[Linklite]

If you're talking about focus, I'd say science. Culture just seems to come - my last game, my science was perpetually trailing my culture, despite building campuses etc while doing nothing for culture.

 

[leandrombraz]

It depends on the victory you're going for, but overall, culture, mainly because culture will give you tons of science eventually and let you catch up in the tech tree, even if you leg behind considerably. You only need science early if you're being aggressive, since you want to keep up with the AI in unit upgrades. If you don't care about unlocking new units, science loses it's value considerably. However, Campus is a way more valuable district than the Theater Square, unless you're going for a cultural victory, and even then, Holy sites are more important. There are other sources of culture that will be better than theater squares for most of the game, so even when focusing in culture, you'll be better off investing in a couple of campuses early than in Theater Squares.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Early game is all about culture. Even for early war, the policy cards unlocking the 50% faster production for archers and horses are extremely critical. Political Philosophy is also a huge milestone for a game since it unlocks huge production boosts for your empire and unlocks the Ancestral Hall, probably the single most important infrastructure building. You do want a decent amount of science early if you are going for a Horseman rush though. But Faith might be the second most important yield early, if you can get enough of it for Monumentality. Classical Monumentality is just so strong, it's basically impossible to lose if you have enough space to settle and a good classical Monumentality golden age.

After the early game, I think it depends on victory type. Science and Domination Victories are the ones where priority shifts from culture to science the earliest I think. It used to happen after rationalism for Science, but might be earlier now that rationalism has been nerfed (I haven't played much in the last 3 months). Domination victories value Science much more after political philosophy, especially in multi-player. Tech advantage wins wars but in single player, I think the best domination games start so early than all yields become somewhat irrelevant.

Religious Victory obviously doesn't care much about science, and for culture victories, science is less important than culture but not by much, since Printing, Flight and Computers are so important. Diplio victories need production the most, preferably via chops, so either science or culture to boost chop value should be pretty important, but I don't really play much Diplo so I'm not sure.

I don't think Culture is ever that far behind science though, even in the victories where science matters most, and early culture is so much more important than early science, that I voted for culture.

Political Philosophy is the most important card in the game, period

I find that faith + monumentality basically gives me free builders as I need them, city spam is by far the best strategy, and city spam without Ancestral Hall is painfull

One thing I did not expect is how much the pantheon River Goddess is a force multiplier for the above

It gives you 2 housing AND amenities per holy site to let your cities expand faster and grow bigger, and then the faith feeds your builder spam for monumentality so you can increase yields and the whole thing just snowballs from there

Combo this with Germany so every city has room for a holy site and you are swimming in faith

Eventually you get a religion, take the Crusader and scripture belief, once you don’t need builders you use all that faith to spam missionaries to convert neighbouring cities, with Scripture causing a runaway snowball of religious pressure

The Crusade gives you a redonkulous +10 combat bonus in combat

Once you can build the Grand Chapel, all that faith can now become military units to GOD WILLS IT your neighbours with a +10 bonus

It’s unbeatable

 

[Sixty_Three]

I voted for culture, as my preference is to play for a cultural rather than a scientific victory.

However it’s interesting to look up the points value of each researched civic & technology for a score victory. For the vanilla version of the game, each scores 2 points. But for R&F onwards, a civic scores 3 points, whilst a technology is worth 2 points. And the number of researched civics is the first tie-breaker to differentiate equal scoring players.

 

[CoconutTank]

I personally lean towards science, but also find a lack of culture to be very painful. XBows and Muskets (and having a military in general I guess) are difficult to field en masse w/out Feudal Contract, Professional Army and Conscription.

 

[Deadly Dog]

I picked Culture as more important but as others have pointed out there are many sources for Culture but less so for Science.

So, in general, Culture > Science BUT Campus > Theatre Square. Although TS don't forget provide 3x the GPP that Campus does, though they're split into 3 different pools of course.

Also the civics tree has this weird split where you can ignore everything after Mercantilism for a while and just beeline Conservation, opening up a Parks & Tourism strategy that works well for certain civs. You still want Flight of course in such a case but you sure don't need Rocketry.

I don't know for domination victories. I imagine for some players a tech edge can clinch it and with pillaging and rotating peace deals you can fund world conquest as an Oligarchy.

 

[Abaxial]

Science first, then culture later on in the game.

 

[Kotofei]

Unless you're going for SV, science is completely unnecessary. But every victory condition either requires good culture, or is made much easier by it.

I don't build campuses anymore. If I need them I'll just snag them from my neighbor.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think Culture is more broadly useful, but falling behind in Science is more dangerous. I find that if I'm not pursuing a Science Victory, an excess of science is wasted. There's no point in unlocking a unit I'm not going to use, or a piece of infrastructure I don't have the production to build. otoh, there are places in the tech tree where falling behind in technology is really risky. Culture's secondary value is in claiming map hexes, but it's applicable to all civs and all victory types. Culture also has a tertiary, defensive value, as your Culture - domestic tourists - is the the benchmark another Civ has to meet in Tourism in order to win a Culture Victory. This defensive value is also a slow build, a function of the total Culture your Civ has generated to date. The Science your Civ generates doesn't frustrate another Civ's Science Victory, although falling too far behind can create a sudden, life-or-death crisis in the form of a superior army or a "runaway" Civ you can no longer whittle down.