Culture Conversion - how to?

[Thuycidides]

So, what are the best tips for culture conversion in EB2? I've been playing with Baktria again and I am a bit disappointed with the unit selection. Culture conversion is very, very slow. To establish hellenic military colonies you need a metropolis, and to get a metropolis you need about 70% hellenic culture. Since I've managed a 1% conversion every 80 turns, then starting from 45% hellenic culture, I would only need about 25,000 turns to get to 70%.

I probably won't play as Baktria again.

Here are some things that seem to make a difference:

Schools/academies speed up cultural conversion, at least when your faction's culture % is very low.
Factional governments instead of allied democracy/oligarchy
Factional military colonies

On the other hand, my understanding is that native military colonies work against culture conversion. They'll say "1% culture conversion bonus," but that is against the direction you want it to go.

What else can help to speed up culture conversion?

[V.T. Marvin]

There is always a theoretical option to just conquer one of the Hellenistic metropoleis to get a reliable source of Hellenes to speed-up (actually to enable) further cultural conversion. I can imagine setting a horde of Baktrians on a rampage through Asia all the way to Ionian coast might be a lot of fun (and plunder on the way!)...

Historically the Baktrian Greeks were essentially abandoned exiles living amid quite foreign peoples.

Anyway in the further releases they are supposed to get a script event giving them a bunch of "free" colonists to let them jump-off the bottom. Less historical, but perhaps better from game perspective.

[Jervaj]

Colonies and some sopecifics goverments and temples give you the culture. Otherwise the culture conversion is always very low.

Baktria is great but they do definetely have an issue with culture. They have things yet to add. Their independence is gonna give them extra colonist acording to Quintus so you could get the metropilis in Baktra a lot faster and from there go on.

There is also a submod that puts extra Poleis and one of the changes is baktra starting wih metropolis. Though that wont be updated to be compatible till we got the summer release I think.

PS: Seeing previous post, they did form a nice and rather powerful kingdom after their independence and that ingame becomes difficult without the conversion. So even if they werent a colonizing power the mechanism lets you achieve what they did (or more )

[Genghis Skahn]

So, what are the best tips for culture conversion in EB2? I've been playing with Baktria again and I am a bit disappointed with the unit selection. Culture conversion is very, very slow. To establish hellenic military colonies you need a metropolis, and to get a metropolis you need about 70% hellenic culture. Since I've managed a 1% conversion every 80 turns, then starting from 45% hellenic culture, I would only need about 25,000 turns to get to 70%.

I probably won't play as Baktria again.

Here are some things that seem to make a difference:

Schools/academies speed up cultural conversion, at least when your faction's culture % is very low.
Factional governments instead of allied democracy/oligarchy
Factional military colonies

On the other hand, my understanding is that native military colonies work against culture conversion. They'll say "1% culture conversion bonus," but that is against the direction you want it to go.

What else can help to speed up culture conversion?

This thread has been a long time coming--however there seems to be a major problem whenever this issue is discussed. Namely, the fact that factions with colonists and cultural change buildings are always mentioned but other cultures that lack them/have less prominent ones are forgotten.

How the hell do the celts/germans increase culture over time, besides the above? Why don't they have culture conversion bonus buildings? I've only been able to ever build the migration structure once, at tylis, and during that playthrough I had all of northern europe conquered.

[Seleukos_I.]

This thread has been a long time coming--however there seems to be a major problem whenever this issue is discussed. Namely, the fact that factions with colonists and cultural change buildings are always mentioned but other cultures that lack them/have less prominent ones are forgotten.

How the hell do the celts/germans increase culture over time, besides the above? Why don't they have culture conversion bonus buildings? I've only been able to ever build the migration structure once, at tylis, and during that playthrough I had all of northern europe conquered.

Having a governor with high influence helps. Culture is also affected by the dominant culture of neighbouring regions.

[Thuycidides]

Having a governor with high influence helps. Culture is also affected by the dominant culture of neighbouring regions.

I knew about neighboring regions, but I wasn't aware that governor influence has an effect. Sadly, my FMs usually have the weakest traits of any faction on the map.

[QuintusSertorius]

I knew about neighboring regions, but I wasn't aware that governor influence has an effect. Sadly, my FMs usually have the weakest traits of any faction on the map.

That's because you're the human player, and don't get special AI-only traits.

[QuintusSertorius]

Anyway in the further releases they are supposed to get a script event giving them a bunch of "free" colonists to let them jump-off the bottom. Less historical, but perhaps better from game perspective.

Baktria is great but they do definetely have an issue with culture. They have things yet to add. Their independence is gonna give them extra colonist acording to Quintus so you could get the metropilis in Baktra a lot faster and from there go on.

Just on this point, in 2.03h I've tacked that on as a final reward for independence, just to check the mechanics work. The actual final implementation isn't ready yet.

This thread has been a long time coming--however there seems to be a major problem whenever this issue is discussed. Namely, the fact that factions with colonists and cultural change buildings are always mentioned but other cultures that lack them/have less prominent ones are forgotten.

How the hell do the celts/germans increase culture over time, besides the above? Why don't they have culture conversion bonus buildings? I've only been able to ever build the migration structure once, at tylis, and during that playthrough I had all of northern europe conquered.

Everyone has cultural conversion buildings available to them.

Sweboz from their migration buildings - you can build up to three of those. Lugia from the Subject government type. Celts and Iberians through the migration government building.

KH, Bosporans, Pontos, Parthia, Hayasdan, Saka, Saba and Taksashila can through their government buildings. Romans and Carthage through their colony buildings. Numidia and Nabatu through the nomadic farms building.

Lots of factions can through the Native Garrison, which increases rel_c (Eastern Imperial). So not good for Hellenistic factions (who are rel_h), though in some places it might be the only way you can get decent troops (so it's a choice).

[nvm]

Everyone has cultural conversion buildings available to them.

Sweboz from their migration buildings - you can build up to three of those. Lugia from the Subject government type. Celts and Iberians through the migration government building.

KH, Bosporans, Pontos, Parthia, Hayasdan, Saka, Saba and Taksashila can through their government buildings. Romans and Carthage through their colony buildings. Numidia and Nabatu through the nomadic farms building.

Lots of factions can through the Native Garrison, which increases rel_c (Eastern Imperial). So not good for Hellenistic factions (who are rel_h), though in some places it might be the only way you can get decent troops (so it's a choice).

Note that last time I played Numidians, they had no way to change their culture. The farms only work to spread the Eastern Tribal culture which allows them to sedentarize, but after that their culture stays as Arid Nomadism. Would that be still the case?

[Von Pressburg]

How about Sarmatae? Which of their government buildings increase nomadic culture? I just tried a Sarmatae campaign, conquered few provinces in Pannonia but so far it is quite tough to keep them under control. The conversion is about 2% after 40 turns or something.

[Genghis Skahn]

Is there no cultural requirement for building the migration structure? ie. you only need military pacification? Just curious.

[QuintusSertorius]

Is there no cultural requirement for building the migration structure? ie. you only need military pacification? Just curious.

You need the Sweboz migration government.

[Mantaprey]

How the hell do the celts/germans increase culture over time

For the Areuakoi you can build "migration government" if Euro Tribal States is i think under 40%. It works quicker at the cost of happiness, so you need to keep the province on lock down. Then if i remember correctly confederation has conversion too.

[V.T. Marvin]

Sadly as we now have no Numidian historian who would concept a cultural conversion for them it appears as if it has to remain as it is for the time being...

[nvm]

They do need a temporary substitute at least, being the only faction who will likely suffer from 50% cultural unrest penalty and be unable to get rid of it for a very long time...

I propose having all of their government buildings (besides tribal administration as that would intervene with trying to achieve reform) giving a cultural conversion bonus to Arid Nomadism in this case.

[Mantaprey]

How about Sarmatae?

For camps the 'herds' increase nomadic culture and the farms increase Eastern Tribal Culture. For settlements i had the same problem at Antiochea-eschate the only faction gov option was 'Indigenous Settlements' and i could not build 'Alasta Karse' migrations. I had to change to an allied government for recruitment.

I think its because when a nomadic population moved into settlement eventually they settled down instead of the other way around. like the Bulgars, Magyars, Sakas, Pathians, Turks.

[Barnabas]

I'm no historian but being able to convert any kind of settled culture to a nomadic one sounds very illogical for me, except maybe mass killing them and forcing them to exile which shouldn't be represented by cultural conversion aspect of the game (more like repeated extermination of a settlement?)

[delra]

Could use a strategy guide on this. I only actually understand Roman and Greek culture conversion myself. :-|

Even for Carthage that I played quite a bit, I am not really sure how to maximize the number of colonists or what to build in each city that'll be later required for the next level of colonisation...

[QuintusSertorius]

Could use a strategy guide on this. I only actually understand Roman and Greek culture conversion myself. :-|

Even for Carthage that I played quite a bit, I am not really sure how to maximize the number of colonists or what to build in each city that'll be later required for the next level of colonisation...

It's the number of carthage_council buildings you have that determines how frequently colonists become available, it Carthage's equivalent of the Greek polis_three. You only start with the one in Kart-Hadast.

[Jervaj]

With Romans only Civitas gives colony points no? Ius latinorium gives not?
And the two negotatiorum buildings, till what level the boost conversion? They seem effective. Though Im having problem to see the limits both for those and the roman colonies as culture seems to go up everywhere at a decent rate. Mainly due to high influence roman governors