Culture -- what exactly does it do??

[kctanzen]

Greetings!

So .. I understand a bit about the culture bonus in that it is a boost to gold and supplies production in my city.
Please fill me in on why I might need to concern myself with keeping culture pumped up?
I'm nearly always at 150% without neighbor boosts now and I honestly don't remember when I was even at the 125% mark.

I have an elf city on Faelyndral (and I realize I can't spell!!) almost to the point in dwarfs where I can unlock my dwarf type main hall.
If I'm interpreting the info correctly, I have 27 more expansion blocks to unlock and place before my city is totally full.
Life circumstances at the moment preclude me from spending much money on the game in the foreseeable future - so diamonds aren't really an option.

I'm having some serious space issues in my city (which is no where close to being filled out), I just progress pretty slowly with the expansion process due to enjoying the game and trying to save the scouting for events progress
Population and space to add residences / hybrid buildings is another bottleneck - I think if I took the space I have now to max, will get me to about 200ish free population.

Was debating taking out my Ancient Grounds in order to get another granite mine or two, and possibly a copper foundry going.
I have maxed out my portal and have 8 level 4 mines now, along with 4 copper foundries in various stages between 2 and 4.

Thanks very much for the inputs!

 

[SoggyShorts]

For culture you can aim for 125% and get to 150% with visits if you are in an active fellowship and ask for culture buffs.
It's also a good idea to keep your roads updated, and get rid of any old culture buildings.
Are you only making boosted goods, or are you trying to make all 9 types yourself?

I don't have an account on F server so I can't see your city. There is a city design tool you can use and if you like you can provide links to your city with it.
Also the fan site https://www.gamersgemsofknowledge.com/dwarves-chapter-vi has some great tips for each chapter.

Hope that helps

 

[kctanzen]

For culture you can aim for 125% and get to 150% with visits if you are in an active fellowship and ask for culture buffs.
It's also a good idea to keep your roads updated, and get rid of any old culture buildings.
Are you only making boosted goods, or are you trying to make all 9 types yourself?

I don't have an account on F server so I can't see your city. There is a city design tool you can use and if you like you can provide links to your city with it.
Also the fan site https://www.gamersgemsofknowledge.com/dwarves-chapter-vi has some great tips for each chapter.

Hope that helps

I have puttered around with the elvarchitect application a bit -- still trying to figure out exactly what I'm doing with it though!
I hit up the gems of knowledge site quite a bit for references, especially events / tourney tips.

Other than 2 non boosted tier 1 shops, both at level 1, I only do boosted goods.
Most of these are not leveled all the way up though...
9 steel -- 4 scrolls -- 3 elixir
I generally cater / negotiate fights because that seems much more cost effective to me and pound out as many as I can get when a match with my boosts is going -- the last scrolls tourney took me from 520ish% to 653% now.

I'll keep dinking with the architect tool and try to figure it out.

Thanks very much for the infos!!

 

[SoggyShorts]

9 steel -- 4 scrolls -- 3 elixir

Even if you are negotiating everything those numbers are quite high. If you are a free player that has not purchased additional expansions and/or have not scouted a lot of extra provinces on the world map, you will have a very difficult time maintaining that many factories.
I'd recommend going down to
5 or 6 steel
3 scrolls
2 elixir
until the very end of chapter 7, and then dropping 1 or 2 steel for a third elixir.

You really don't need many Tier 3 goods until chapter 8.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

To piggyback off Soggy's general comments, there's always a trade-off between culture and supplies (because gold is fairly meaningless as a speed limiter if you play efficiently).
If you maintain a high culture, you can get away with fewer workshops. But you have to be consistently upgrading cultural buildings, and getting neighborly help, and collecting during "high culture" times. For my playstyle, that wasn't working. So I devoted more space to workshops, and less to culture. I am generally hovering around the culture needed to get the 125% boost. I had 8 max-level workshops through Dwarves, and added a 9th in Fairies.

Another general point is on hybrid buildings. The event ones are usually great at saving space, but all of these buildings come with the downside of becoming a crutch. I think Ancient Grounds in particular is a crummy building. I built it for the quest then immediately deleted it.

 

[kctanzen]

To piggyback off Soggy's general comments, there's always a trade-off between culture and supplies (because gold is fairly meaningless as a speed limiter if you play efficiently).
If you maintain a high culture, you can get away with fewer workshops. But you have to be consistently upgrading cultural buildings, and getting neighborly help, and collecting during "high culture" times. For my playstyle, that wasn't working. So I devoted more space to workshops, and less to culture. I am generally hovering around the culture needed to get the 125% boost. I had 8 max-level workshops through Dwarves, and added a 9th in Fairies.

Another general point is on hybrid buildings. The event ones are usually great at saving space, but all of these buildings come with the downside of becoming a crutch. I think Ancient Grounds in particular is a crummy building. I built it for the quest then immediately deleted it.

Thanks for the infos, Soggy and Tedious.

I have completed 146 provinces, with several more scouted and ready to collect bits from as needed for this event == almost have enough done for one more expansion plot -- intend to put a couple more residences on that one.

I'm hesitant to sell off factories during the event because of the 'collect x' or build x number of tier 1 boosted' tasks, so I'll just leave it be for now == I am making notes and trying to learn the architect tool to help with my planning for after this winds down though!

 

[DeletedUser5800]

I've ran my culture at the line with no bonus since before dwarves and never had a problem at all. I used to have 6/5/4 T1/T2/T3 factories but went to 6/5/6 around orcs and just went 6/6/6 at the end of D&S. Have kept 12 WS forever, make P.o.P. spells around the clock (with a level 4 Academy) and keep city named MH so nobody waste help on cult. Spend all the free gold on Kp and have kept a good pace the whole time (went from the middle of the FS when I joined around dwarves to way ahead in the tech. tree and points without all that worthless cult wasting space). Never missed the bonus except maybe around orc upgrades when I went a couple of weeks gold shy from upgrading to fast with 4 builders... now with instants if you hold a few good gold ones that isn't even a thing. I'm fairly certain the supply instants also made a cult bonus even less worth having if you grab several of them you can pivot to manufacturing spells more often and use instants instead of P.o.P. for a while.

Now there may be an argument to be made (and I would like to hear it) that it takes less space to have a 50% bonus than it does to keep the WS and houses... I haven't done the math but my instinct is that if I sold 3 WS and the Res. that go with them and changed my city to name to culture I could possibly come out ahead but I would lose the points, be reliant on help, lose the gold help for Kp, ect... I'd rather have the points and not really care if anyone stops by.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I used to have 6/5/4 T1/T2/T3 factories but went to 6/5/6 around orcs and just went 6/6/6 at the end of D&S.

I can''t imagine fitting 6/6/6 in my city...Premium expansions?

 

[DeletedUser5800]

Premium expansions?

Only 9... and they were from over a year ago.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Only 9... and they were from over a year ago.

Ah that makes more sense then.

 

[Thistleknot]

Culture is truly only important for upgrading buildings. Beyond that, anything is a bonus to be utilized. I have finished Halflings. I run 10 workshops and 5 of each manufactory. I also have 17 ancient wonders. I currently have a cultural bonus of 125% that occasionally jumps up to 150%. I could get that higher, but I am using the space for events and the Fellowship Adventures. I have not bought any expansions. All my come from research and conquering. I currently have 420 provinces conquered.

As for excess coin and supplies, these usually go toward buying more goods. I do keeping a standing army and will use supplies to increase that or resupply after I have fought some battles.

So find a play style that you are comfortable with. I would recommend fewer manufactories, but maxing the level on them. Make sure that you are regularly upgrading your roads and cultural buildings. And keep working with ElvenArchitect. It has been a great tool for me to try different setups without having to actually destroy my city to find out what works and what doesn't.