Is culture/pop buildings worth it?

[Black watch]

I love my carnival set. It's producing almost all of my mana needs and I was able to sell off all my willows to make room for 4 burning pools to help augment the set. When the time comes, I'll upgrade my christmas set and move forward. That said, a good set, no matter what is worth it weight in gold.
If you find one that trips your trigger keep it and hold it and sing to it every night... ;D

 

[DeletedUser2870]

It depends on your playing style.
I used to have a bunch of them, but I have cut down and am cutting down a few more. I keep a few on hand in my inventory in case I suddenly need extra pop, but that's: for an emergency.
For my main city, I no longer need them. The culture/tile is not worth it compared to pure cultural buildings. I prefer the buildings that generate mana. (Used to like seeds as well, but my trader now seems to provide enough. Compared to the trader, all 5 other buildings I have together still product only peanuts in seeds).

Edit
The ones that provide goods I'm not sure about. Their yield is excellent for the building size, no doubt about that. I just feel that it has created a huge problem with goods and the value for them. Especially T3 goods seem to be overabundantly present and that causes huge amounts of cross-tier trades to appear at that ridiculous 16:4:1 rate because there are too many players who get too many T3 goods for free.
But that's just my opinion on that

 

[Deleted User - 312108]

@Dhurrin Currently I like the pop/culture buildings. Where I have it, I still have the jester's tavern. This event for the buildings that provide T3 goods and require a road, I am not opting to roll for them to get them purposely and I may or may not put them out as even where I do not have the tavern and only have 3 not even maxxed t3 buildings I typically have far more t3 than t1 or t2.

I don't think there is a straight answer. For some, it may be that they really love how a building looks (I am rather fond of mother dragon) for others it is a pure cost benefit ratio (as in Venar's Rocks 3 until it's not longer the best thing for me).

I go rebuild my city in Architect when I have a certain number of expansions gained or I have opened a new chapter to try and ensure I have the ability to upgrade my factories and workshops as needed. I like the event culture/pop buildings as they are easy for me to lay down and don't cost.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I have not had a culture-only building in my city since maybe chapter 7 or 8 and I am done with chapter 14 currently. I find they become utter trash and a waste of space if they do not give me something besides culture.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

I have not had a culture-only building in my city since maybe chapter 7 or 8 and I am done with chapter 14 currently. I find they become utter trash and a waste of space if they do not give me something besides culture.

True to a point for YOUR playing style. I do however seem to remember

It depends on your playing style.

Your style differs from mine and from others.
As I'm progressing I'm upgrading my MM and the WR. The two of them, with the spheric stub and 1 great auction provide most of the culture needed already. But I like having a reasonably high culture when I can. I don't need the extra pop. I don't really need the extra seeds. I have a few for the extra mana and have several wishing wells up. I have a few buildings that generate goods, plus the phoenix and stonehenge. Some of the 2x2s that generate kp instants and portal good instants. So the cultural ones are at the moment the most useful and will be sold when I don't need them anymore.
Point is, everyone will have to make a choice for what suits them best at this moment for this event.

 

[DeletedUser2959]

IMO culture/pop is a must. Chasing the culture bonus is a fool's errand. I see active cities with 2 year old culture buildings that haven't been upgraded and it makes me sad. Space is a premium. Culture only buildings do not give benefit enough to justify the space they take. Again, all this is MY OPINION. YMMV.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Each to his own . The combo of pop/culture is useless to me. I don't need more pop. And the culturebonus is nice when I do have it.

Besides, grow into the game, look at the AWs and you won't need culture buildings at all exept for the extra's they offer. Put up the MM (or Sanctuary for humans), together with the WR and the ToHM, and you will likely not need a lot of cultural buildings anymore.
WR and MM will each provide up to 40% of all NEEDED culture, the Throne will provide the rest, so at that point you will pretty much always have your needed 100% no matter what. So all you really will need is the cultural buildings that provide mana and seeds. And if one has the DA,a lot of mana can be generated at will.
Right now I'm at the end of the techtree, I have several of the evolving buildings up and have about 13000 pop to spare. Why would I want pop/culture buildings? Those don't do me any good. I have been selling the ones I have off, just keeping the ones I still have for now until I need the space. And will keep some in my inventory as a sort of emergency back-up. But other than that, I will prefer the cultural ones.

 

[Ashrem]

Useless is probably too strong a word, but for mana there are other - and better - options. Lotus is too small, not the top mana producer and can't be gained easily. It is still more efficient than regular mana producers, but it is just hard to get enough BLs to make a difference in mana production.

For a team that consistently gets one or two RRs a week, the mana hut gives you a good return on RR invested, and can eventually be turned into a seed producer fairly cheaply.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Right now I'm at the end of the techtree, I have several of the evolving buildings up and have about 13000 pop to spare. Why would I want pop/culture buildings? Those don't do me any good.

You have a bazillion of regular L33 residences at 3900 pop in 15 squares, so 260 pop per square. Venar's Rocks III in chapter 14 provides 8200 pop in 20 squares, so 410 pop per square. You can replace multiple residences with VR3s (or other culture/pop hybrids) and free up multiple expansions for more productive use. As a side effect, you will get millions of culture as a freebie, so you don't need to waste space on WR and Thrones.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

For a team that consistently gets one or two RRs a week, the mana hut gives you a good return on RR invested, and can eventually be turned into a seed producer fairly cheaply.

I assume you're still talking about Black Lotus and not Mana Hut Good return or not depends on what alternatives one has for RR use. Even as someone who gets max 15 RRs every week I found that I always have better use for those than upgrading small mana/seed producers (primarily upgrading select set buildings). But it depends on what one has in their city.

 

[Ashrem]

I assume you're still talking about Black Lotus and not Mana Hut Good return or not depends on what alternatives one has for RR use.

Yes, Sorry, the BL. It does depend on a couple of things, one of them your ability to resist spending RRs for several weeks while getting more than four. One thing that those of us who've been around a while often forget is that a large effect on player retention in early chapters is patience. Being able to easily upgrade a BL (or two or three), with it's attendant visible increase in return, every time you finish a chapter is a positive reinforcement. That, and they are fairly easy to squeeze in to unused space.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

You have a bazillion of regular L33 residences at 3900 pop in 15 squares, so 260 pop per square. Venar's Rocks III in chapter 14 provides 8200 pop in 20 squares, so 410 pop per square. You can replace multiple residences with VR3s (or other culture/pop hybrids) and free up multiple expansions for more productive use. As a side effect, you will get millions of culture as a freebie, so you don't need to waste space on WR and Thrones.

I could, but those buildings do not generate coins like residences do. And though I do feel there aren't enough different uses for gold (several possible uses have been suggested to the devs) I don't feel their worth is the same. Not to mention it is not exactly easy to get multiple of the VR3s. That strategy for me would only work if there was a steady, regular supply, otherwise they will be constantly eating RR spells, which I don't have in those quantities. Residences can be upgraded during normal play. (Besides, I have 40 residences, 7 of which are magical, which is a kind of long way off from a bazillion , just saying. And that number varies over the chapters, sometime I place some more, sometimes I sell some off, depending on my needs. Which brings me to the next point, at least for those I get coins and supplies back, unlike selling off VR3 or other buildings like it).
Also, though residences change size, at least they will all change the same way. Since residences are needed anyway, I prefer those because it makes it easier to plan my city-layout than have all kinds of different shaped pop/culture units.

Besides, the WR is not a waste. ALL the AWs contribute to the amount of seeds harvested everytime from the trader. As my number of AW-levels rises, the need for special buildings to generate seeds grows less, freeing up space. In fact, the harvesting bonus from the trader will always be the main source of seeds and can be greatly boosted by continuing to upgrade the AWs which also give other bonuses for doing so. Not to mention that the culture bonus it generates in itself frees up space as I will need fewer and fewer cultural buildings, whether they give additional pop or not. (btw, I don't have the ToHM up, it was just an observation on how it can be combined with the other 2 to remove all need for cultural buildings except the ones that generate special goods)

Edit
The pop/culture buildings like VR3 need to be upgraded with RR spells. At 20 each. I'm in a casual FS, so we get about 3-4 of them per week. So according to you I could place , oh say 3 or 4 to replace my residences, but each of those would mean 6-7 weeks worth of RR spells. I much prefer to use those on a few select buildings I feel will do much more good, not waste them in such numbers.
And like I said, the chance of actually getting 3 or 4 of them need to be considered. I've not seen any dependable, regular, supply and so they can never be part of my strategy. Chance always is a bad strategy in my opinion.
Since the rest of such buildings all come in different shapes, it would make planning much harder. Maybe that is an option for someone who doesn't have much else to do, but my time is at a premium, so I'm not going to waste that by creating an even more complicated puzzle for my city-layout.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

When you're end-game, a lot of points you make are superficial.

- Event buildings do not produce coins, that is true. Do you really struggle for coins in the end game? What for? How much a single sweep for neighborly help does net you? I haven't regularly collected from the residences in months, the coins just sit there for when I can't spare a few extra seconds to get to the map. Not to mention a zillion of coin instants that you should be getting if you do events at all. There are people who run with zero residences, so that's definitely not a requirement.

- Multiple high-level dailies such as VR3 are easy to get nowadays. If you complete an event to get to L10 evolution, you should be getting in the vicinity of 15-20 daily prizes at the very least. That's from a single event. In the end game you don't really need to worry about mana and seed producers and portal profits really.

- Buildings such as VR3 are so much more efficient than residences, that if existing pattern continues, VR3 would still be better (or at least comparable) than chapter 17 residences. Given the pace of new chapters coming out, I don't see why one would be overly concerned about upgrading these.

- More importantly, you don't even need to upgrade these buildings with RR - just replace them with new ones if those are more efficient. While VR3 might be a pinnacle of pop efficiency per tile per chapter, every single event there are buildings that are much better than residences of the same chapter. If you didn't stock up on VR3s in the last event, you could have snatched Crab Palace in this event. It is slightly worse than VR3, but is still much better than a regular residence. This cycling requires no RRs and is practically free as long as you play in the events.

- WR levels improving seeds production - you're at the end game, what do you need seeds for? Regardless, levels from a single AW such as WR have a very marginal impact on seeds production. More importantly, seeds production does not depend on which AW the levels are coming from. If you invest the same KPs into another AW instead of WR you still get your levels for seeds, won't need space for WR and still have tons of culture from the hybrids.

 

[DeletedUser5676]

levels from a single AW such as WR have a very marginal impact on seeds production

Kind of depends on play. I try to collect 6 times a day. My MH at 31 means every AW level gets me 186 seeds per day. My level 9 WR is worth more than 1500 seeds per day.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

When you're end-game, a lot of points you make are superficial.

I'll try to answer them one by one here.

- Event buildings do not produce coins, that is true. Do you really struggle for coins in the end game? What for? How much a single sweep for neighborly help does net you? I haven't regularly collected from the residences in months, the coins just sit there for when I can't spare a few extra seconds to get to the map. Not to mention a zillion of coin instants that you should be getting if you do events at all. There are people who run with zero residences, so that's definitely not a requirement.

I don't care whether or not other people have residences, the fact some are playing without is not an argument. Or rather, the same kind of argument as the fact some people play with magical residences only, which also saves space. It is not for everyone. Some players don't have armories but use orc-nests for their orcs. Fine for them, but again not feasable for everyone, even though it may save space.
I use coins for 1-2 rounds of the 'wholesale screw-up' each day, and buy a handfull of KPs each day. One needs gold at some point in the game anyway, I prefer a steady income over the use of instants. Those I reserve for emergencies or special occasions. Instants I deem to be more than I need I will disenchant for spellfragments to continue crafting the things I do want.
I -and others- have btw suggested several other uses for coins to the devs, since the things they can be used for are way too limited. But I've given up hope they will actually listen, they don't seem to give a hoot about their players feedback, neither here nor on beta.

- Multiple high-level dailies such as VR3 are easy to get nowadays. If you complete an event to get to L10 evolution, you should be getting in the vicinity of 15-20 daily prizes at the very least. That's from a single event. In the end game you don't really need to worry about mana and seed producers and portal profits really.

I can get daily prizes, but they are different in each event. I told you before I prefer to keep the layout simple and not complicate the puzzle by putting in all kinds of different sized/shaped pop/culture buildings that also will need to be upgraded at some point with RR spells. (or replaced by different shaped/sized ones). And as I said, I'm not interested in the pop/culture combination, so I don't go for them. (see another reason for that below).

- Buildings such as VR3 are so much more efficient than residences, that if existing pattern continues, VR3 would still be better (or at least comparable) than chapter 17 residences. Given the pace of new chapters coming out, I don't see why one would be overly concerned about upgrading these.

HELLOOOOOOO! there is NO dependable supply for them. I haven't seen one appear in my crafting ever and even if it did that hardly counts as a dependable source. I have not seen the VR3 often in daily prizes in events. And even if they are there, it still is a matter of chance. Not to mention that WWs and KP instants are much more valuable to me, so I prefer to go after those.
Yes, each event offers some kind of building, or several kinds. But as I said before, I do not want a complicated puzzle for my city with all kinds of different sized buildings with different yields. That also makes it much more timeconsuming to reorganize as one needs to check each building and weigh the space. Keeping things simple saves time.

- More importantly, you don't even need to upgrade these buildings with RR - just replace them with new ones if those are more efficient. While VR3 might be a pinnacle of pop efficiency per tile per chapter, every single event there are buildings that are much better than residences of the same chapter. If you didn't stock up on VR3s in the last event, you could have snatched Crab Palace in this event. It is slightly worse than VR3, but is still much better than a regular residence. This cycling requires no RRs and is practically free as long as you play in the events.

*sighs*...same argument again. That would only work for me if they were all the same size, which they aren't AND there was a regular supply, which there isn't.
Secondly, it requires me to play every event pretty intensively. I don't. Partly because I'm event-weary, partly because I just don't have the time, partly because the way Inno is not listing to it's player base, which has caused me to take a time-out from the game twice already. (And is chasing away many other good, once-loyal players. SoggyShorts comes to mind for instance, but I have seen many good players leave over this).

- WR levels improving seeds production - you're at the end game, what do you need seeds for? Regardless, levels from a single AW such as WR have a very marginal impact on seeds production. More importantly, seeds production does not depend on which AW the levels are coming from. If you invest the same KPs into another AW instead of WR you still get your levels for seeds, won't need space for WR and still have tons of culture from the hybrids.

Wrong on all accounts. I need seeds for upgrading the newer wonders for instance. Other than that, right now I don't need any, which is why I'm selling off those cultural buildings, except the ones I like for graphic effect as the rising number of AW levels makes other sources obsolete. But I can do that because of the increasing number of AW levels in general.
As for AW's, I have somewhere over 250 levels total as I keep investing in them, so I am well aware of that, thank you very much. But the WR at 20 spaces at lvl 11 for me right now provides about 44.000 culture, not counting the bonus it gives to the yield on other culture buildings. I doubt there is a single other building that does so well per tile (except perhaps for my MM). And that yield will increase with each level I add to it.

We can keep discussing this, but it comes to this
YOU apparently want to play with those buildings. Fine by me. I however do not and though your stats may be right they assume that someone
- constantly keeps actively playing, which I do not,
- spends a lot of time on the game, which I do not
- constantly is active in events, which I am not,
- expects a steady supply of such buildings, which I do not have
- expects a reasonable chance of winning such buildings in events, which doesn't work for me.

On that last, I seem to be on some kind of blacklist. I had that discussion with Soggy several times over, but in EVERY event I have kept track of results and I score consistently more than 2 standard deviations below average on random chances. Same with the WWs. There apparently is a 10% chance on getting diamonds. I went through 2 that each gave me diamonds 5 times or less in their entire 100 days. Right now I have 10 in my city, 2 of them have in the 79 days they are up not given diamonds at all yet and I average at harvesting 3x/48 hours, so that is 118 harvest for each of those 2, without diamonds for them, which statistically is extremely unlikely. True some have yielded diamonds more often than average, but nowhere near as often to correct that. Right now, the total for those 10 WWs on diamond yields is 7,48% which again is rather low and statistically nowhere near the 10% it apparently should be.
Same with daily prizes. I have had several events where on a single day I tried like 18 times on a 25% chance chest for the daily prize and ended up with only 1. One time 0 out of 15. I cannot trust Inno's chance-related prizes. Which btw is another reason I just don't play all events too intensively anymore. I look at the endprize. If that seems interesting enough I may go for it if I have time. Anything I happen to get in the manner of daily prizes is a bonus, but I don't count on getting anything I really want.

You may want to min/max the game, which is fine, but your targets are not the same as mine. So again, FOR ME, those buildings do not work. I don't like them, I don't want them. If someone else does want them fine by me, have at it.

 

[qaccy]

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of having normal residences simply for the coin generation as well. Lets me buy KPs regularly, not much compared to what I pull in each week from tournaments but it all adds up over time. If I went all-out and just demolished all residences in favor of exclusively culture/pop buildings, even if I came out ahead on those two numbers I'd be generating a heck of a lot less coin...and wouldn't really gain much else to make up for it.

However, if I'm filling up space that's too much of a hassle to get road connections to, I'll definitely be looking at pop/culture buildings before something that's just culture.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of having normal residences simply for the coin generation as well. Lets me buy KPs regularly, not much compared to what I pull in each week from tournaments but it all adds up over time. If I went all-out and just demolished all residences in favor of exclusively culture/pop buildings, even if I came out ahead on those two numbers I'd be generating a heck of a lot less coin...and wouldn't really gain much else to make up for it.

Indeed, buying KPs is pretty much the only use of coins end-game. But you likely can generate more coins from neighbors than from all your residences combined. End game you're likely to have 200+ neighbors to collect from (with 360 minimum provinces for Constructs + FS members). With maxed MH each can get you 69K per day. So we're talking about 14mm+ coins per day from just that.

Maxed residences get you 7.7K per hour, so less than 200K per day base. OK, there are culture boosts, so let's round it up and say you can net 300K per day from each. That's basically just collecting from 4 neighbors. And NH doesn't require space or culture - it's basically free. And it is on a better collection timer.

Sure, both sources add up, but it's not that you'll be lacking coins with no residences whatsoever. And with all the space that can be freed up you can dedicate it to extra troops and goods production that can allow you to get a little (or a lot) further in tournaments - netting you more KPs. Tournament KPs are sustainable long-term, unlike purchased KPs (due to price increase), and quite likely more efficient as well.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Indeed, buying KPs is pretty much the only use of coins end-game. But you likely can generate more coins from neighbors than from all your residences combined. End game you're likely to have 200+ neighbors to collect from (with 360 minimum provinces for Constructs + FS members). With maxed MH each can get you 69K per day. So we're talking about 14mm+ coins per day from just that.

Maxed residences get you 7.7K per hour, so less than 200K per day base. OK, there are culture boosts, so let's round it up and say you can net 300K per day from each. That's basically just collecting from 4 neighbors. And NH doesn't require space or culture - it's basically free. And it is on a better collection timer.

Sure, both sources add up, but it's not that you'll be lacking coins with no residences whatsoever. And with all the space that can be freed up you can dedicate it to extra troops and goods production that can allow you to get a little (or a lot) further in tournaments - netting you more KPs. Tournament KPs are sustainable long-term, unlike purchased KPs (due to price increase), and quite likely more efficient as well.

I buy two rounds of goods from the not-so-wholesale-wholesaler each day. That may to some seem a waste of coins considering the diminishing returns, but I look at it differently. The coins I have, so I can use them and at least that price is reset every day, unlike the cost to buy KPs.
And yes, even with a bit of help from my BTG at a reasonable level, the amount of goods per day is not great. But again, over a year it adds up. And those goods over a year are goods I won't have to trade for, so I see them as being saved from needed to trade for the non-boosted goods.
So the amount of goods gotten from the wholesaler I can pretty much translate 1:1 on boosted goods saved. Those savings I use at the start of a new chapter to buy enough KPs for boosted goods to completely finish the first research, sometimes even more.

And yes, I COULD easily collect a huge amount each day from doing all visits. I have 500+ provinces completed and another 15 or so scouted but not completed. But even with the app it just takes too much time for me to do that every day.

As for the tourneys, again, I could easily do more if I had the time. TIME is my main limitation, not resources. Even so, I rarely score less than 2500 points, usually around 3000 a week. And I get at least 100 KPs every week from the tourneys. 200 or more on weeks I actually am very active in them (like coming week as I need more elixer relics to keep on crafting). But again, doing more means either taking more losses due to autobattle, or spending way more time doing manual fights and time is the resource I have least available.

But for me, min/maxing is mostly about how much time I can spend and what I can get from it, versus, and this may come a surprise to you: the FUN and PLEASURE of both game and the interaction with my FS-members. Not the amount of resources gathered. That to me is a complete and utter secondary thing.
(edit) I never post 2-star deals on the trader. I always trade my boosted goods at 3-15% less than what I ask for, the larger the amount, the greater the discount I offer. And yet I often buy my own boosted goods for non-boosted goods to help FS-members get what they need, so I tend to trade at heavy losses. And you know what? It doesn't matter, as it all about the fun I get out of the game and seeing other FS members grow. I still have about 10 million of each of my boosted goods and about half that of each non-boosted good, so what if I trade at a loss?

Btw, I see tourney KPs as a steady source, but the bought KPs as well. As one progresses in the game the resources generated go up as well as the price goes up. Actually, that may be one of the best balanced things in the game.

 

[Deleted User - 312108]

@Dhurrin I also regularly purchase goods with supplies/coins from the wholesaler. It at least resets daily unlike purchasing KP.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

@Dhurrin I also regularly purchase goods with supplies/coins from the wholesaler. It at least resets daily unlike purchasing KP.

Exactly. I'm not averse to buying them for gold, as there are not enough ways to spend gold in the game. But as I explained above, the goods gotten that way I see as extra kp's bought in the long run at a time I really want to make a run to get started in the next chapter.
But at this point, KPs cost me about 1.7 mil gold each, so the amount I buy that way is rather limited.