Culture/Loyalty Question

Max allegiance diminishes with every jump, so having some far-away planets at 35% is unavoidable. The "floor" is actually 25% I believe, and you get the 10% from having culture and that's how you get to 35%. If you play the Advent, they have a high-end civic tech that increases max allegiance by another 10%, so you can squeeze 45% out of your far-away planets.

Broadcast towers do help your planets, both by repelling enemy culture (which lowers allegiance), and by raising it. The cap is 10% higher then what the planet starts at, so your capital can actually go to 110% (120% for Advent).

Otherwise it's as Annatar said. The maximum is figured out based on the total jumps between the world and your capital. For really big maps, far off worlds will cap at 35%, and nothing can raise it except the Advent tech.

One trick is if the map has a lot of stars, move your capital to a world that connects directly to the star. The star counts as a jump, but since the star connects to all other stars directly, it really helps planets in other systems. If your capital is 3 hops from the star, any planet in another system is going to be pretty crippled resource wise.

Ok, great. Thanks for the quick answers!

The only stackable effect of broadcast stations is the rate of culture spread. Simply put, 2 broadcast stations have 2x the culture output of one station.

Apologies.. I answered my own question..

Well, the rate of culture spread drops off with each jump. The more culture you output, the more is left after a jump so it can go longer before it slows to an unnoticeable crawl

dang, did u just post right after i answered my own qn? sigh.. sorry about that.. but i thot that what Infinitevoid said was right, it is rate of culture spread, not distance. Rate is not distance right?

I'm like totally confused now..

No, rate isn't distance, but they're related! Let's take some random numbers. One broadcast center produces something like 5 culture/sec. Let's say to make it easy that each jump halves the culture rate.

If you have 1 building, you have 5/s to the next planet. Then 2.5/s, then 1.25/s, and .625/s and you probably stop noticing it moving after that. So it's probably good for 3 jumps or so, though even 1.25/s is pretty slow crawling.

Now you have 4 buildings, so you have 20/s to the next planet. Then 10/s, 5/s, 2.5/s, 1.25/s, .625/s and so on. So now it spreads decently fast for a few more jumps, before it starts crawling.

Note that half is just what I used for easy math, I'm not sure on the actual reduction.

The exact value of culture spread rate is 10.0/sec for each broadcast tower (with normal spread rate), divided equally among all outgoing phase lanes (so 2 lanes have 5.0/sec each, 3 lanes have 3.3 each, etc). Research can increase this value up to 12.0/sec for TEC and Vasari, 13.0/sec for Advent, and the Manifest Dominion artifact can increase this a further 2.5/sec.

There is also culture resistance to factor in (though I don't know how this works), since Manifest Dominion gives 10% to culture resistance and the Advent tech Wall of Faith can increase culture resistance up to 40%.

TEC also have Critical Mass, which reduces how much spread rate is lost when your culture passes through a gravity well.

Ah ha! I geddit! You da man! I gotta try and counting some of this stacking effect next.. I usually just add on one broadcast center every other jump or so.. But clearly, the strat should be to load up on broadcast centers at key intersections to help boost signal strength.. Damn, running out of logistics slots at these key intersections.. crap..