% for research???? Does culture matter?

[Jim0322]

I always set my research on as high as posssible and still maintain a positive cash flow with the exception of early game when I maintain at 100% research until I have a deficit.

I never put anything into culture until the last several turns. Am I being too simplistic? Is there much value in allocating resources for culture? My cultural borders seem to expand pretty well without spending anthing. I also seem to barely keep up technologically even when most of the game I am at 90% tech. Am I missing something? I play at noble level.

Jim

[Arrian]

Culture can effect happiness (with theatres and/or colosseums). I don't generally use it until my cities get really big and have those improvements in them.

As for your research rate, bear in mind that the key is 90% of WHAT. 90% of 100 = 90. 80% of 200 = 160. So there is more to keeping up in tech than running a high research rate.

-Arrian

[xxFlukexx]

You put % in culture for 2 reasons:
1) Because you are going for a cultural victory
2) Because you have lots of unhappy people from a war. Theatres and Colosseums and later on broadcast towers give happys for % in culture.

I guess maybe you could push some % into culture if a border city is getting close to flipping(anything below 50% nationality is in danger of being flipped) but that is a big waste to take 10% of your income for just one city.

[Quillan]

I'd imagine that, like so much else in Civ 4, it's situationally dependant. With the right buildings, it will help make the populace happy. Theatres give 1 happy face for every 10% culture, and colisseums give 1 happy face per 20% culture. It can also give you that edge when your cities are butted up against a Creative civ. I'm like you. I rarely put anything into the culture slider. If I can get super specialists and/or a widespread religion, I'll run at 100% science. If not, I keep science as high as I can get it without going broke. I'll run at a deficit for a while as long as I have a large treasury and I'm in a race for a particular tech (like Liberalism).

[vmxa1]

Culture is another way to boost happiness. So if you were playing on say Monarch and found you did not have enough land to get enough lux, you may need to bump culture.

It is probably only something I would do on Noble if it was AW. I have used it then until I got the civics to get 50% WW.

Then again late in the game on a conquest or AW type game, you pump culture as there is no reason not. At the point that oyu have gotten the upper hand on all civs and are razing towns and have a large chunk of land, you do not care about extra reseach.

[Drachasor]

Increasing the culture percent is essential if you are going for a late cultural victory. In a good trade city (say 100 commerce), hollywood, rock and roll, the Eiffel Tower, some other wonders, and 5 or 6 religions (with the special +50% culture building for each), you can pump out:

(100+3+2+5+3+1+20)*(1+250%+150%)=670
Commerce + Library + Uni + Temples + Theatre + Castle + Wonders (Global Theatre would give you 8). This is increased by 250% for the 5 special religious buildings, another 50% each for Hollywood, Rock and Roll, and the Eiffel Tower.

So in 60 turns that generates 40k of culture. So if you have this set up, 10k of culture (not to hard to have), and 80 or less terms of game time left then you can easily get one city to 50k.

Naturally you'll need two other cities with much more culture (more than 20k each since they can't depend on 2 of the three wonders that give +50% culture). Still, this makes things a lot easier -- especially since one of those other places can have the hermitage.

-Drachasor