Culture and courts, worth the investment?

[talon54]

Anybody try loading up on culture and courts to see if you can win some without using your armies for every takeover?It seems like with diplomats,I am pretty much sneezing in the wind as far as effectiveness,even grouping them together.It is difficult to invest in cult,courts with the other things you have to develop.I think knocking the textile requirement for dips might help especially in a shorter game.

[Ralegh]

Culture is definitely worth it even in short games - it doesn't take textiles to build, and it contributes to getting upgrades (and is worth a bit of glory, which does add up).

Courts are only worth it for the long haul at the moment. In a long game, build up courts in one or two cities. Building a diplomat at a level 9 or 10 court city gives you someone with FABULOUS ratings (about 270 points spread across the 3 attributes, if I remember correctly). Besides that being wonderful to us in its own right (and making some of their harder actions really frequent), it adds so many VPs to a surrender that it pays for itself that way easily.

Planned enhancements to the game may increase what courts and/or culture are good for v.v. waste - watch this space.

[Hard Sarge]

sounds good

but, how are you able to build any diplos ?

in all of my games so far, I have only had 1 turn, where I had 100 Tex in stock (and was short of something else I needed to be able to build one, the next turn, I was under again)

HARD_Sarge

[marirosa]

my games so far, I have only had 1 turn, where I had 100 Tex in stock (and was short of something else I needed to be able to build one, the next turn, I was under

The 100 textiles are not so hard. To upgrade courts you need luxuries, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, ...

If you are able to save luxuries to reach Court 10, then 100 little textile are easy to get.

[ian77]

I have never built my courts to high enough levels yet, but IIRC from the manual a level 7 court gives you an extra diplomatic action, and you get another extra at level 10.

Do these work, and if you are an empire does this mean you get four diplomatic actions per turn?