Culture Question

Colonization

Hi,

I've recently picked up Sins and have played a few games. I think I have got the hang of most of the basic things however culture is still a bit of a mystery to me.

I've run into situation where I have beaten a planet's defences and bombed the infrastructure to smithereens so that the planet is in a "neutral state". However on the information display for the planet it occasionally says something along the lines off "cannot colonize due to higher culture".

When I look at the player information (I think it was in the diplomacy window) I see an overview of player stats regarding, among others, culture. My opponent would have culture 2 and I would have culture 1. Is this the reason why I can't colonise / take over the planet?

I've also seen a type of buildings that boost your culture (media hubs) or research that makes it harder for your enemy to take over planets. Do media hubs in adjacent gravity wells prevent me from taking over planets?

I guess it boils down to how do I counter my opponents culture?


With regards,

-Luhaine

 

 

 

2,750 views 3 replies
Reply #1 Top

Do media hubs in adjacent gravity wells prevent me from taking over planets?
End of quote

Yes, media hubs project cultural influence along the phase lanes (watch the color change).

I guess it boils down to how do I counter my opponents culture?
End of quote

By building your own media hubs (don't bother building too much of them in the heart of your empire), improving them through research and so on. Advent can also use their super weapon to deliver their culture to far away planets.

As for a planet you bombarded and can't colonize due to enemy cultural influence: If you have some capital ships in your fleet (they repell enemy culture) and have destroyed all media hubs in the gravity well, just wait a while. If enemy culture doesn't creep back still, you might have to jump to the next planet and destroy the mediahubs there.

Hope that helps!

Reply #2 Top

Hostile culture can be countered in two ways - your own culture, or capital ships.

Using your own culture, you simply need to build Broadcast Centres/Temples of Communion/Media Hubs at your planets. Each one provides 10.0 culture/sec from that planet, distributed equally among its outgoing phase lanes (this can be increased through researching culture spread rate). You can check the progress of your culture versus hostile culture by looking at the coloured portions of phase lanes. Planets that are surrounded mostly by hostile culture will be uncolonizable to you until you can eliminate or reduce that influence.

Capital ships are able to repel a certain amount of culture, depending on their level (and for Vasari, a certain research topic). Capitals begin with a repel rate of 0.3 per second at level 1, increasing by 0.05 per level until 0.75/sec at level 10. Vasari capitals can have their repel rates increased by 12.5%/25% by the Shock and Awe research topic. However, these repulsion values apply only in friendly gravity wells. This value is halved in neutral wells (such as uncolonizables or unclaimed planets/asteroids) and is equal to zero at hostile locations.