Culture Penalty

[tureytron]

Is there any way at all to get rid of culture penalty? I've tried destroying all the buildings in a city and rebuilding them so they're my own culture's buildings... and that's after massacreing a city, but they still suffer from culture penalty.

also what creates squalor and why do my family members suck at running cities?

[Flogger]

Probably the people in the city causing all the trouble - exterminating only gets rid of 3/4 of them.

[NobleNick]

Is there any way at all to get rid of culture penalty? I've tried destroying all the buildings in a city and rebuilding them so they're my own culture's buildings... and that's after massacreing a city, but they still suffer from culture penalty.

tureytron,

My understanding is that culture penalty is based on the number of buildings in a city that are NOT of the culture of the city. Razing or upgrading the buildings, as you have done, should take care of the culture penalty. It might not be cross-culture penalty that is causing you problems. Remember the following:

1.) The official culture of the city is not neccessarily the culture of your faction. Almost always it is; but if you have, for example, a general whom you bribed away from a rival faction of a different culture, the general may set the culture of the captured city (I forgot the exact rules).

2.) There is a PO penalty for conquering a city, IN ADDITION to the PO penalty for a different culture. The "conquered" PO penalty typically dissipates over several turns; but there is a difference in how fast, based on which district you conquered. If I remember correctly, the Germanic tribes and some of the far eastern Mediterranean provinces are especially teancious at holding a grudge.

3.) Razing an advanced temple immediately after conquering a city might not be the best idea: Such a temple might be giving you, say, a 10 point PO cross-culture penalty and simultaneously giving you the temple's 40 point happiness bonus. Razing this build gives you a net LOSS of 30 points PO. I almost always raze cross-culture temples, advanced or not; but I wait for the "sweet spot," after the conquering penalty has gone away and I have razed/upraded some other buildings, but before population has increased to the point where squalor has built up.

4.) Damaged buildings lose ALL their capability to help PO. So repair public health buildings, temples and the like.

5.) Enemy spies and/or assassins can inflict a PO penalty. Assassins do this by damaging buildings. I am not sure how spies do it, but I think they do; because I often see my PO plummet after an enemy spy enters a city.

6.) Mercenary units or even your own general might be part of the problem. I have seen PO increase when I moved a mercenary unit out of town. In my current game, I have a particularly snotty general who gives me a -15 PO penalty to any town he enters.

also what creates squalor and why do my family members suck at running cities?

Population creates squalor, period. I could give you some more complex formulas; but it might be easier to think of squalor as a point system: 3000 population ("POP) gives you one point of squalor. So a town of 9000 has 9000/3000 = 3 points of squalor. Each point of squalor contributes -1% to POP growth (PG) and -10 to PO. You did the right thing when you took over the city (massacre), because you eliminated much POP and therefore much negative PO. However, your POP will re-grow, bringing back squalor and its attendant negative PO. So you need to build colesiums and temples while you can.

Why do your family members suck at running cities? Don't know. Don't even know which faction you are playing. But I have a guess or two at how you can do better:

First off, your generals are born with good/bad character traits. It's the luck of the draw, and I don't know that there is much you can do about it. (Specifically, I do not know whether or not jusdiciously choosing your faction heir can have an impact.)

You can choose who marries the daughters in the family. Don't choose old fogeys with bad stats. I always get these 47 year old lecherous loons with 1 star and nothing else, that want to marry my 14 year old. Hit the road, Jack! However, a 30 year old with 1 or 2 good attributes is acceptable, and 3+ good attributes in a 20 year old (or younger) is a great deal.

Building a variety of temples gives you a variety of advisors with mostly good traits. (I've been told to stay away from the temple of Bacchus.)

Your governors need to get out and fight a battle every now and then. What I do is take them along on an outing and let them chase down enemy troops that are routing. That way they get in a kill without getting exposed to too much danger.

If you get too much money (about 50K denarii or more) your family starts getting corrupt. As I approach that point, I queue up multiple buildings in all my cities, to get the money deducted out of treasury.

Finally, the academies and scriptoriums (academy upgrades) will help to ensure your family (in that city) gets good traits instead of bad.

Hope that helps.

[Slimshoom]

when theres a large culture penalty in a settlement, there is usually an enemy spy or other type of agent in your settlement train a spy or send one into that settlement and 8 out of 10 times, the enemy spy will be forced to leave.

[Red Harvest]

It is way simpler than all of the above: Until you can build the next level of settlement, you can't get rid of all of the culture penalty. When you conquer the culture penalty starts at 50%. When you upgrade the settlement to the next level most or all of the culture penalty should disappear (some left over building might still give you a pip or two.) This makes it particularly tough on barbarians who cannot upgrade settlements as far as other cultures.

In the interim, you can reduce down the penalty by destroying and/or replacing any buildings made by other cultures, but some things can't be destroyed. So until the settlement is upgraded you will be stuck with a minimum of ~25% culture penalty.

[NobleNick]

It is way simpler than all of the above: Until you can build the next level of settlement, you can't get rid of all of the culture penalty. When you conquer the culture penalty starts at 50%. When you upgrade the settlement to the next level most or all of the culture penalty should disappear (some left over building might still give you a pip or two.)

In the interim, you can reduce down the penalty by destroying and/or replacing any buildings made by other cultures, but some things can't be destroyed. So until the settlement is upgraded you will be stuck with a minimum of ~25% culture penalty.

Red Harvest,

I think we are saying roughly the same thing, which makes me wonder that you say:

It is way simpler than all of the above...

As I said before ..."culture penalty is based on the number of buildings in a city that are NOT of the culture of the city. Razing or upgrading the buildings ... should take care of the culture penalty..."

When you "upgrade the settlement to the next level," as you put it, how do you do that? Bingo. You build/upgrade the governor's mansion; i.e., by "...razing or upgrading the buildings... ," which is what I and others have said you must do. Yes, that usually means a wait until population increases to where you can do the gov's upgrade. Upgrading the governor's mansion can eliminate a good chunk of the penalty, but not all. Even afterr you upgrade the mansion, you still have the cross-culture penalty for all the other cross-culture buildings.

You are the second person I've heard say that the governor's mansion is weighted more heavily than most other buildings; and I think the other person was the author of a walkthrough, so I am beginning to believe it. I think I have heard the same thing about the temple, but haven't confirmed it. That is why I had the caveat in my original message.

I don't know for a fact; but I have heard and highly suspect that you can eliminate culture penalty by razing all buildings. Drastic, yes, but it is an option; which means upgrading your newly captured settlement to the next level is not the only option for eliminating culture penalty.

And it is not just as easy as you imply; because spies, assassins, general's retinue, general's character traits, general's faction, garrison size, town size, building mix, building damage, and probably other things of which I am unaware all affect PO; and at least three of these also affect cross-culture PO penalty.

By the way --> something that I did not explicitly state in my original post; but hinted at: After taking a town, or recovering from a riot/revolt, go to the "repair" tab in the town's construction screen and take a look at the temple. If it is damaged even in the slightest, you are NOT getting any PO benefit from it; in fact, you are likely getting a net negative PO, due to the cross-culture penalty. This can be very good news: If the town is not in riot territory, then you have the choice of either leaving the temple alone (bad idea), repairing it to instantly get the PO benefits from it (better idea), or razing it for --NO-- further PO penalty, and rebuild your own factions temple (best idea). When you rebuild the first level temple, you get the new temple's PO bonus, PLUS you eliminate the old temple's cross-culture penalty. The net effect is that the first temple build can be worth a large gain in PO bonus (and it only takes one turn to build).

Hope that helps.

[Hader]

usually for me, my generals can't run a city worth crap. I found that moving bad governaers out of the town really helps,

but then again, I never pay attention to trait increases and retinue expansions. these have a huge effect on a general, and if you feel like paying attention to them, your generals will not suck so much. However, i'm too lazy to carethat much.

[hellheaven1987]

I have suffered the same thing too, and I find out the only way to remove culture difference is when you upgrade your city to next level... So it means, barbarians fictions can't kill culture difference when they occupy a city which has reached third level.

[Red Harvest]

Nick,

You can't raze the governor's building, walls, farming upgrades, and probably some others that I can't recall at the moment. Therefore, there is no way to raze all the buildings. Anyway, the governor's building has by far the largest impact, and you can only upgrade it if you have a culture that is able to build the next level (which of course does not apply when already at the max city level.)

The foreign temple is usually the first to go. Typically the only times I don't raze them is when I want to take advantage of specific upgrades for a time, or make it the center for building certain upgraded units permanantly.

[NobleNick]

Well, you are right that you can't raze farms: upgrades is the only thing you can do; and that ONLY if the upgrades are available, and then ONLY if you are willing to deal with the extra 1% PG and the eventual extra -10% PO penalty that will eventually bring.

I'll grant that razing all the other buildings AT THE SAME TIME might be stupid. However, I believe it is possible (even the governor's mansion). For someone who desparately wants to keep a town for strategic reasons, ripping down everything except the walls (and, of course, the farms) might be a viable option.

EDIT: Red Harvest, you are correct (in your post below) and I was wrong: Governor's Mansion cannot be razed.

[Red Harvest]

There are certain structures you can't destroy. Otherwise the first thing most of us would do is destroy the governor's building and start with a clean slate.

[Slimshoom]

There are certain structures you can't destroy. Otherwise the first thing most of us would do is destroy the governor's building and start with a clean slate.

you would...that would seem kind of odd. Anyway, all i ever destroy are the temples and (playing RTR) some of the military buildings.

[Red Harvest]

you would...that would seem kind of odd. Anyway, all i ever destroy are the temples and (playing RTR) some of the military buildings.

I bet you would...if you could destroy the governor's palace and remove at least half (and perhaps all) of the culture penalty in a single turn you would be far better off. Cutting the culture penalty from 50% to 25% or even zero in maybe two turns would be a pretty hefty reward for doing so. It would more than offset a few turns of increased squalor for construction time. As it is I destroy little other than temples and taverns. Usually I upgrade other structures when I can.