Emperor level. How much culture do you need just to get by?

[Artifex]

How much culture do you need just to get by? Is it bad too neglect your culture? Or can you get away with it? Playing as Carthage. I am busy rexing and getting settlers, barracks and military units churned out. Right now I haven't built one cultural building and I find it a nuisance to do it. I don't need temples. I have enough luxuries right now to keep my peeps happy. I am just not crazy at all in wasting shields building a bunch of temples. Is this wrong?

I am playing a game on emperor as Carthage and I am not worrying much with any buildings. I haven't built one temple yet and it's 825 BC. I have about 12 cities. Greece has about 6, Rome has 8.

Greece is on my border. They are "dismissive" of my culture. My question is. How many temples should you build or what is the minimum culture startegy in the ancient and early medieval age so you won't have your cities rebel to other empires? Wonders are generally out of the question becasue I am usually busy building settlers and military units for basic defense. I always get beat to wonders usually by a few turns on emperor so I have started writing off building any wonders in the ancient age at least. It's just not worth it. So I can't count on any culture from them.

I usually rex with the 3 tile strategy and don't care much for temples since I don't play religious and I think they are a rip off, unless you are religious. Also I hook up enough luxuries to get by.

How do you emperor level players usually handle culture if your on a continent with alot of other civs?

[notyoueither]

I usually switch to city development about where you are, except 12 cities sounds a bit small.

First thing I build is a Temple when I switch.

I mostly play Rome in SP.

[Artifex]

Well a city just flipped to the greeks and it was a crucial city with my only iron resource. So apparantly you have to build temples early. I built 5 temples right about that time you say its good to switch over. Doesn't looked like it helped me.

Hmm looks like I might quit this game. Next time I guess I'll have to build a temple first thing in my capital to build culture..so my cities don't flip left and right to the greeks.

Maybe build temples in my first 3 or 4 cities? Damn that will kill my expansion efforts since I don't play the religious civ expensive temples ouch! But I can't have crucial cities flipping like this..what to do..what to do..

[Fosse]

How close was your city to Greece's capitol? It may be that you're doing fine culturaly, but you just got way to close. If any of my cities are going to be near a cultural powerhouse AI city (capitol, wonder city, etc) then I make sure that a temple goes in right away.

[badams52]

If you watch the culture histograph, you can tell how much and how quickly your AI opponents build their cultural buildings. If you stay even with them, most of your cities will be fine. I usually build early because I hate flipping

[Theseus]

If you don't build for culture, then you must build for war... and not stop.

[Jawa Jocky]

Having low culture has one main drawback, IMO. Its hard to fight small wars without culture. You pretty much have to completely take out the other side or deal with flipping. With that said my typical Emperor games are played without much culture.

Culture is nice but not neccessary.

[Dominae]

Ha! Funny how I was practically the only one saying that early Temples are not "all that" just a few months ago...now everyone seems to think Culture is not that important.

Validation aside, I usually skip out on the early Temple. When time comes to build, I get the cheapest cultural building (Temple unless Scientific or not Babylon) done in all my core cities. A Temple here and there makes me feel like I'm not sure what I'm doing. The key IMO is to have a cultural presence (because no Culture can be very bad), but it is not something to prioritize.

Other than that, Theseus' advice makes a lot of sense, from a practical point of view.


Dominae

[badams52]

Jawa and Theseus pretty much sum it up

[Master Zen]

Temples in my core cities would of course be of lower priority than Granaries. Depending if they are well within my borders then they might be of lower priority than even Libraries.

But core border cities would get their temples build ASAP if only to avoid the culture flip. Helps if there are forests for chopping nearby.

[Catt]

I value early culture because I feel it offers me more flexibility later. But if you're playing Carthage, have 100% and 50% more cities than your opponents, and have been pumping out barracks and units -- just go kill them. Build later.

I don't have an answer for what is the minimum needed (except perhaps 0) -- because it all depends on the specific circumstances. Remember that culture flipping is a result of the RNG (as well as factors you control) -- had you built several temples (and slowed your REX), there is no guarantee that you still wouldn't have lost a city to Greece. I don't think the lesson from this one instance is for you to automatically prioritize early culture in subsequent games.

Slightly off-topic: @ Artifex -- recognize that civ is a complex game and a bunch of variables play on your strategic and tactical choices. There is not one answer to each question that works for all situations. There is not a clipboard with a series of yes or no answers, the culmination of which is victory. Most of your recent threads have a "yes or no" feel to them (Flood plains taboo? Non-religious temples? Barracks for militaristic? When playing Rome attack Carthage? Irrigate cows?) -- good for a discussion starter, but in most cases not a straight-up answer.

Catt

[metalhead]

I happen to think that some culture is necessary, but I would never recommend getting that culture through temple building, unless religious. I generally forgo culture until I get literature, and then start building libraries like a madman. It seems to me that Literature comes at the tail end of my REX (I go for it early, but not to build the GL), which makes for a perfect time to build up culture, as my troops that I have been amassing in between Settlers are itching to attack my neighbor, and I'm trying to get the infrastructure built up for the switch to Republic.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Catt
Slightly off-topic: @ Artifex -- recognize that civ is a complex game and a bunch of variables play on your strategic and tactical choices. There is not one answer to each question that works for all situations. There is not a clipboard with a series of yes or no answers, the culmination of which is victory. Most of your recent threads have a "yes or no" feel to them (Flood plains taboo? Non-religious temples? Barracks for militaristic? When playing Rome attack Carthage? Irrigate cows?) -- good for a discussion starter, but in most cases not a straight-up answer.

Catt

If this is slightly off topic in this thread, that's forgivable because it basically sums up this whole strategy forum... nothing is 100%. Not which civ to pick, not the city placement, not when to war. At best, what we come up with here are guidelines and rules of thumb... and everyone needs to break them in some circumstances some of the time.

All of the "either, or" discussions are interesting and valuable, but if we're going to be good players, then we must realize that the answer is invariably "maybe."