Purpose of "Regular" Culture Buildings

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The one potential downside I see to this strategy is that pure culture buildings give more culture per square than culture buildings that also do other things (such as population). They are therefore much more efficient when boosted with neighborly help. It seems like it might be an effective strategy to have one or two large pure culture buildings that were regularly boosted by friends, more easily achieving a culture bonus.

I know people are dubious about the benefits of culture bonus in general (my goal is to be at 150% with neighborly help on a fairly consistent basis or at least when I collect my coins). But I wonder whether a combined strategy of having a couple large pure culture buildings along with culture plus buildings might be more efficient overall, given fairly reliable neighborly help.

Has anyone tried this out or run the numbers?

I am one of the ones who does not care about the extra culture boost and I do not care what kind of help people give me. But then, like I said, I am in chapter 14 now. Back when I was in the early chapters where it could matter more, coin and supply instants did not exist yet, so I had to have people polish my culture buildings for that bit of extra coins and supplies that the boosted culture gave. But because those instants exist now, I would think more players would worry less about it now than we did two+ years ago.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

The one potential downside I see to this strategy is that pure culture buildings give more culture per square than culture buildings that also do other things (such as population). They are therefore much more efficient when boosted with neighborly help. It seems like it might be an effective strategy to have one or two large pure culture buildings that were regularly boosted by friends, more easily achieving a culture bonus.

This only matters if you care about culture and culture bonus. In many cases, later in the game you either have more than enough culture via other buildings that you need (hybrids/sets/mana/AWs), or extra culture bonus just doesn't do much for you. Or both.

Later in the game coins are abundant to the point if being virtually useless, so this culture boost is largely irrelevant. Supplies boost is always nice because of troops production. But this boost only applies to workshops production and not other means. And later game you more and more focused on non-WS supply production because these are usually more space-efficient.

 

[Ashrem]

The one potential downside I see to this strategy is that pure culture buildings give more culture per square than culture buildings that also do other things (such as population). They are therefore much more efficient when boosted with neighborly help. It seems like it might be an effective strategy to have one or two large pure culture buildings that were regularly boosted by friends, more easily achieving a culture bonus.

There are a couple of things to consider in opposition to that.
1 - When you are getting pop and culture, you don't need as many residences, so the effective culture is higher.
2 - As a result of (1) you need less culture to get a higher culture bonus.

Since I switched to getting a lot of pop from combined buildings, it's rare for my culture to drop below 170, even if only one or two people help. For me, the only thing a helped building adds is a place to put an EE spell if I ever feel like it.

 

[Pheryll]

Rounding. If craftable buildings are 82% better or 117% better does it really matter? The point is reg culture buildings are nearly pointless.

It looked like you were doing a 3 way comparison; as a two way it does not matter at all, the regular culture buildings do not live up to what can be easily gained elsewhere.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But I wonder whether a combined strategy of having a couple large pure culture buildings along with culture plus buildings might be more efficient overall, given fairly reliable neighborly help.

Has anyone tried this out or run the numbers?

Too much depends on your other choices. If you go for powerful set buildings, smart wonders, and a strong military then culture doesn't have a very significant impact on your city.

I believe that the most efficient strategy is
Military>factories
Sets>factories
Hybrid>residences
Smart wonders.
If you make those choices then it's pretty easy to have max culture all of the time and not need to even think about it.

It looked like you were doing a 3 way comparison

Nah Just a "Everything including a poke with a sharp stick beats normal culture buildings"

 

[Ashrem]

Nah Just a "Everything including a poke with a sharp stick beats normal culture buildings"

Clearly you need to be poked with more sharp sticks.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Well keep in mind that hybrids>residences is really only true for event hybrids. Hybrids like the Dwarf Tavern (whatever its called) or the Woodelves Rest are pretty meh. They also come very late in a chapter, so chances are you're only holding them for a few weeks until a new residence upgrade is unlocked.
Event hybrids on the other hand are awesome.

I agree with OP that its unfortunate that there are dozens of really cool culture buildings that never get seen, because either they're blah stats or premium (and who buys premium Ch.4 3x1 buildings?). It would be cool if they found a way to repurpose some building art going forward.

As for the annoying quest of build-and-delete, yeah its annoying, but so are 90% of the guest race quests

 

[DeletedUser20951]

who buys premium Ch.4 3x1 buildings?

Since I never even really look at the premium culture, as I'd never buy any, I hadn't considered the implications of making them relevant again(-ish; they have always become obsolete faster than an idiot tumbling into a ravine), but you would think that it would be a good source of revenue for Inno if all of 'em were no longer a complete waste of diamonds. The more thought I give it, the more I want the tech cult scaled to Age.

 

[Deborah M]

Since I never even really look at the premium culture, as I'd never buy any, I hadn't considered the implications of making them relevant again(-ish; they have always become obsolete faster than an idiot tumbling into a ravine), but you would think that it would be a good source of revenue for Inno if all of 'em were no longer a complete waste of diamonds. The more thought I give it, the more I want the tech cult scaled to Age.

Not really. When I started this game it was like watching grass grow. So slow! Therefore, I have always had premium buildings in my main city. I also always enjoyed having some of the premium culture ones just because they looked cool in my city. I still have a few must keep because I like them or relate them to something in real life. I would not have liked this game at all if I couldn't have progressed at the rate I did. I had the funds to do so.and I improved my game experience.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

just because they looked cool in my city

I love cool-looking buildings, but not quite enough to suffer the efficiency loss of keeping them. I don't think we should be punished in order to stick with pretty things, and believe it should be made an undetrimental option for everybody, even those without the dough.

 

[Deborah M]

I love cool-looking buildings, but not quite enough to suffer the efficiency loss of keeping them. I don't think we should be punished in order to stick with pretty things, and believe it should be made an undetrimental option for everybody, even those without the dough.

So you think that those who spend a whole lot of cash on the game should have no benefit that free players don't get for free? Really? Then why would people like me spend cash and support the game financially so that free players even have a game to play?

I do wish we could upgrade premium buildings

 

[NightshadeCS]

Diamond buildings should be better than regular old culture buildings. You can't have everything!

But maybe diamond buildings could reduce in cost as you go on, so if someone REALLY wants to get artistic, they could have a grossly under-powered diamond building a couple chapters later.

 

[Ashrem]

So you think that those who spend a whole lot of cash on the game should have no benefit that free players don't get for free? Really?

Diamond buildings offer the ability to sidestep a bunch of time accumulating the materials to build regular buildings. Free to play games do best when there is a non-cash path to everything, but where spending saves large amounts of time and effort. Free players have to feel welcome, or the game will fold. The recent power tidal wave in event buildings is leading toward cities that consist of nothing but event buildings and event ghettos to get more/better event buildings plus a space for the guest race. I'm already seeing cities in mid chapters that have fewer than ten residences.

 

[Deborah M]

Diamond buildings offer the ability to sidestep a bunch of time accumulating the materials to build regular buildings. Free to play games do best when there is a non-cash path to everything, but where spending saves large amounts of time and effort. Free players have to feel welcome, or the game will fold. The recent power tidal wave in event buildings is leading toward cities that consist of nothing but event buildings and event ghettos to get more/better event buildings plus a space for the guest race. I'm already seeing cities in mid chapters that have fewer than ten residences.

I do have a couple of no premium cities. There is nothing 'needed' in this game that cannot be done for free. Like I said above "I improved my game experience" by not having to wait & wait & wait for what I wanted to get accomplished in my main city. If Elvenar keeps handing out those advantages we paying customers will no longer pay. That should be obvious. Then what? FYI it has gotten to the point I no longer have much if any reason to spend. I would speculate that is true for a lot of spenders.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

I do have a couple of no premium cities. There is nothing 'needed' in this game that cannot be done for free. Like I said above "I improved my game experience" by not having to wait & wait & wait for what I wanted to get accomplished in my main city. If Elvenar keeps handing out those advantages we paying customers will no longer pay. That should be obvious. Then what? FYI it has gotten to the point I no longer have much if any reason to spend. I would speculate that is true for a lot of spenders.

Even though I am an F2P player, I see Deborah's point. Outside of premium expansions, what is there to spend diamonds on nowadays? Upgrades to builders and MA can be easily covered with Wishing Wells without too much effort. And now we're getting event buildings that are better than maxed out premium buildings. I think Inno needs to offer a better value to premium players.

 

[Ashrem]

I do have a couple of no premium cities. There is nothing 'needed' in this game that cannot be done for free. Like I said above "I improved my game experience" by not having to wait & wait & wait for what I wanted to get accomplished in my main city. If Elvenar keeps handing out those advantages we paying customers will no longer pay. That should be obvious. Then what? FYI it has gotten to the point I no longer have much if any reason to spend. I would speculate that is true for a lot of spenders.

Even though I am an F2P player, I see Deborah's point. Outside of premium expansions, what is there to spend diamonds on nowadays? Upgrades to builders and MA can be easily covered with Wishing Wells without too much effort. And now we're getting event buildings that are better than maxed out premium buildings. I think Inno needs to offer a better value to premium players.

Please don't mistake me. From the start I've been in favour of event buildings never being more powerful than something you can get another way. I'm saying that there should be three paths to the equivalent of everything you can get from an event. Event building, Premium Building, and regular building. That regular building should be very expensive to make, and take a long time. The Jester's tavern should be similar to a building you can buy for diamonds, and similar to building you can build in game. The event version should take supplies to upkeep. The built-in-game version (Fools Tavern) might take 100,000 T3 goods and 96 hours to build, and maybe requires upkeep of 20,000 supplies per harvest. The Premium version (Merchant's Tavern) should be Fast, simpler, and carry no in game cost. It should be better than either of the other two in that respect. But if a player comes along who missed Carnival and doesn't buy diamonds, they should be able to build their fools tavern if they're willing to put out the effort.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

So you think that those who spend a whole lot of cash on the game should have no benefit that free players don't get for free? Really?

No. My wording was a bit clunky, but I would like to see the premium culture stuff receive the same upgraded benefit of a linked stage (as I stated previously), which would still give diamond players an edge (and more variety overall).

 

[ajqtrz]

I've always avoided pure culture buildings for a number of reasons. First, in my opinion, while they help to raise your culture bonus, that bonus effects coin and supply production. Now if your coins and supply production is so high that you are constantly having to use the wholesaler to shed some coins or supplies, the increased production of coins and supplies is a waste and the room is better used to increase something else.

Second, if you just do a good deal of visiting -- I do about 140 a day in my largest city -- you get about 25% of your coin supply just from that. With supplies it depends on the number of people who visit you, but an occasional supply instant fixes any short fall (I use one about every 2 weeks or so). Given you can craft the instants it's really not, in my opinion, necessary to have the culture bonus.

Third, is you don't have a need for more culture you can then use the space for more population, or better yet, mana and seeds production if you are at that level. Without the need for pure culture buildings you can be more efficient in other areas.

In the end it's all about using the space you have to produce the things you need most efficiently. Of those things coins and supplies are the easiest to produce and since pure cultural buildings only effect those two things, they waste space that could be used for other, more difficult, things to produce.

But of course, "to each his own," and there are probably as many strategies as players.

AJ

 

[Deborah M]

No. My wording was a bit clunky, but I would like to see the premium culture stuff receive the same upgraded benefit of a linked stage (as I stated previously), which would still give diamond players an edge (and more variety overall).

Then we are in complete agreement on this. I do feel like players who have bought premium culture items are being cheated since event buildings can be upgraded but premium culture cannot. So the RR spell advantage only applies to items that could have been received for free while the ones that cost real money are still stuck. I do cry foul on that move! I also think it is not too bright on Elvenar's part to blatantly ignore spenders when it comes to a sense of fairness. Just one more reason not to spend on premium culture.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

I do feel like players who have bought premium culture items are being cheated

I've thought the premium culture was flawed ever since the release of the game, given how quickly it becomes obsolete, and I believe premium should not only be upgradeable, but also provide a good deal more culture per square than regular and craftable. What I was trying to convey with my "pretty things", or however I typed it, comment, was that everybody should have access to more ways of improving their cities' appearance*, but not that they should have equal access to culture efficiency or every building without paying. I'm not quite participation trophyish enough** to lobby for no advantage for money spent.

*without making a huge sacrifice (i.e. keeping stuff that is detrimental to city growth)

**I'm not participation trophy inclined at all. That crap annoys the Hells out of me. XD