Culture penalty ?

[Alexanderos]

Is there any way i can reduce culture penalty ?

ex: I'm playing as the brutii and i'm fighting a big war against macedon , but it annoys me that when i conquer a settlement it riots due to culture penalty even if i exterminate them

And if i destroy every greek building in the city , and i build roman ones , the culture penalty drops but the income drops , i can't recruit units..

[Aymer de Valence]

Ah the reason why the income may drop is because you might be destroying higher level buildings than those you then construct (e.g You are destroying a Greek market, but building a Roman trader). The culture penalty will decrease over time as the people begin to accept the new Roman culture, but that may take about 5 years or so

[Primo]

Just counter the culture Penalty:

• Get a big garrison (up to 80% Happiness Bonus!)
• Conquer the Statue of Zeus (+4% Loyality of every Settlement)
• Good Governor (raises Happiness and Income)
• Build as many buildings as fast as possible. That will boost your income as well reduce the culture penalty.

[dude21862004]

Just make sure you destroy the temple as soon as you conquer a city. That way the temple has no culture penalty against you and does nothing but good.

[anycolourfloyd]

early game culture penalty is fine because you can upgrade over it, but lategame it's annoying as hell

you can't destroy the farming/palace/road upgrades, so if they reach a point beyond where you can upgrade them to your faction's own buildings, you're stuck with them. so when you capture huge cities and take down as many buildings as possible, you can still only reduce it from 50% -> 30%

[Alexanderos]

Culture penalty my ass from now. After i take a city , i'll let it rebel and exterminate and exterminate again and again until there are no dudes left. I'll show em who the boss then

[Lethe1]

2 remarks:
1: enslaving is better as it provides a one time source of population growth for your settlements with a governor (while enslaving), it provides your cities that trade with the newly conquered region with population growth bonus due to slaves import and the slaves are traded, providing a higher income. It also reduces resistance (although slightly less than exterminating) but it allows you to grow better.
2: culture penalty is due to buildings from another culture. Upgrading buildings of a different culture will reduce the culture penalty at a lower cost than having to reconstruct everything. Also, do not blindly demolish temples: if your faction worships the equivalent god, you can just upgrade them (eg temple of Hermes on Rhodos, which you can upgrade to temple levels of Mercury).

I know my methods aren't the short term solutions, but they will enable you to grow faster in the medium/long run.

[Drustan]

The Statue of Zeus pretty much counteracts culture penalty.