As soon as we start playing Elvenar, we learn that Culture is required in order to grow our cities.

Culture is required for just about every type of building in Elvenar, and if we don’t have enough, we can’t build or upgrade more buildings.

Another aspect of Culture is just as important; the Culture Bonus.

SUMMARY

• What is Culture Bonus?
• How does it Work?
• What benefit does it provide?
• How can the bonus be increased?
  • Optimize culture
  • Neighborly Help
  • Ensorcelled Endowment Enchantments
• Ancient Wonders for Culture

WHAT IS CULTURE BONUS?

Having more culture than the amount required will help you achieve a culture bonus.

The more excess you have, the higher the bonus you can achieve.

Note that the % listed is the % bonus payout you will earn for having that bonus; it does not reflect how much excess culture you need to achieve it.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The icon to the right of the culture icon is the Culture Bonus. At this time, as we can see by the cloudy icon, there is no bonus active in this city.

This can be achieved either by adding more culture to our city, or by receiving neighborly help.

Now, see what happens once a fellow has polished a culture building.

WHAT BENEFIT DOES CULTURE BONUS PROVIDE?

The culture bonus amount determines the amount of the basic production that Residences and Workshops will produce.

With no bonus, or 100%, they produce 100% of basic production. With a 125% culture bonus, these buildings produce 125% of basic production. With a 150% bonus, they would produce 150% of basic, etc.

Note that the bonus will only apply to productions collected while the bonus is active. If the bonus runs out before you collect, either because you use more of your available culture to add or upgrade buildings, or because the neighborly help which is supporting it expires, you will not collect the higher amount.

RESIDENCE EXAMPLE:

To see more details about this bonus, click on the building to see the production screen. Note again the green up arrow and green text indicating a bonus is currently in effect.

In a city with 25 residences, achieving merely the first level of culture bonus makes a big difference!

25 x 6,250 = 156,250 more!

WORKSHOP EXAMPLE:

To see more details about this bonus, click on the building to see the production screen. Note again the green up arrow and green text indicating a bonus is currently in effect.

Imagine this bonus applying to even more efficient shorter production cycles! Hover over any production amount in the production menu to see the additional supplies that will be produced as a result of an active culture bonus:

Having an active culture bonus really adds up, and makes a big difference for how many supplies you can produce! Look how much more would be collected with 6 workshops over 6 hours, collecting every hour:

6 x 207 x 6 = 7,452 more!

Achieving and maintaining a higher culture bonus can help you require fewer residences and workshops to get the coins and supplies you need.

HOW CAN THE BONUS BE INCREASED?

Of course, the most obvious way to get a higher bonus is to have more culture. And it doesn’t stop there!

There are essentially 3 ways you can increase your culture bonus:

1. Optimize your culture
2. Get more/better Neighborly Help
3. Use Ensorcelled Endowment Enchantments

OPTIMIZE YOUR CULTURE

Of course, we don’t have unlimited space in our cities, so we can’t simply add more and more culture buildings in order to get higher culture. If we do this, we won’t have enough for our other needs.

We have to focus then on how to get the most out of the culture we do have.

HOW MUCH CULTURE DO WE NEED?

The answer to this question may vary from player to player, and it may depend on your play-style and preferences. But one thing that is true for all players regardless of their chosen strategies is that you can indeed have too much.

If we’re allocating too much space to culture, we’re not allocating enough space to production, or later on in the game, to our guest race settlement.

When do we know if we have too much? And what is “too much?” Here are some indications you could have too much space allocated to culture in your city:

• You are regularly buying Wholesaler goods to avoid hitting your coins and/or supplies capacity.
• You receive more culture polish from fellows and neighbors than it takes to hit the maximum culture bonus.
• You often find yourself low on goods, but not coins and/or supplies.
• You often find yourself low on population, but not coins.
• You have 20% or more of your city space allocated to culture.
  • You can see how much of your city space is allocated to culture in ElvenStats or ElvenArchitect.
  • The larger your city grows, and the further you advance in research, this may still be too high; you should be able to use Ancient Wonders and more efficient culture buildings to further optimize your culture.

REPLACE OLD CULTURE WITH NEW

Culture needs to be upgraded to get more efficient just like any other building in Elvenar. Of course, you can’t actually upgrade culture buildings, but you can replace older ones with newer ones.

CULTURE PER SQUARE

Culture-per-square is an important concept to keep in mind when choosing which culture buildings to have in your city. A building that is worth more total culture may not be the best option, if it gives less culture per square than another.

To have optimized culture, we want to get as much of it as we can for as little space as possible, which means we need each individual square to give the highest amount possible.

EXAMPLE:

Humans unlock the Monster Fountain in Chapter 4, about a chapter later than they unlock the Delicatessen Butcher.

At first glance, it may not appear to be a good idea to replace Delicatessen Butchers with these. This is only until we examine how much culture each building gives per square, however.

When we view the culture per square of these two buildings, we see the Monster Fountain is still a more valuable culture building.

Hate math? Use the ElvenArchitect culture index to see the per square values for all culture buildings in the game!

CULTURE PER SQUARE BY CHAPTER

This chart gives a general idea of how to assess the value of the culture per square of a building based on what chapter you are in.

A general rule of thumb that these numbers indicate is that most culture only lasts about a chapter, maybe 2 at most. If it’s older than that, it’s probably time to replace it with something better.

This chart is not meant to be anything but a starting point for analyzing the culture in your city that may be ready for replacement.

It is by no means any sort of declaration as to when a culture building definitely should or shouldn’t be sold.

UPGRADE YOUR ROADS

A very simple way to keep your culture optimized is to upgrade your roads at the end of each chapter. It can be expensive, sure, but the space it can save you without sacrificing the culture bonus you’ve become accustomed to is surely worth the price.

Roads are taking up space regardless, so we might as well make that space useful.

There’s no need to erase/delete the street; you can build the new blocks directly over the old ones.

NEIGHBORLY HELP

If you belong to an active fellowship, getting plenty of neighborly help shouldn’t be a problem, even if each of your fellows don’t visit every day.

Neighborly help can add a lot of culture for your city. A polished culture building is worth double its value (and even more with some Ancient Wonders!)

GET MORE NEIGHBORLY HELP

Considering how valuable Neighborly Help is for achieving a culture bonus, it is strategic to try to capitalize on this.

Of course, it’s not entirely up to us how much or what kind of Neighborly help we receive, but there are certainly things that are in our control which can help influence this.

ASK FOR CULTURE HELP

Many players in Elvenar use their city name to give their visitors a hint of which type of help they would like to receive. Use yours to tell your visitors you want Culture help!

To change your city name, just click on it! You can also click on your Profile Picture from the player panel in your city.

GET MORE VALUABLE HELP

When it comes to neighborly help, value per square of culture buildings doesn’t matter; we simply want clicks on high value culture items since the polish will double the value.

The most valuable building available is usually but not always the largest one. Even if not the best, large buildings are still a better choice than smaller ones if you have to guess.

We can’t control where our visitors click, but we can make it more likely that they’ll click where we want by making it more convenient for them to do so.

Place your most valuable culture buildings near your main hall. Place less valuable culture buildings further away.

BE IN AN ACTIVE FELLOWSHIP

Being in an active fellowship makes a very big difference for how much Neighborly Help you can count on. If you’re not in one, find one. If you can’t find one, post for one on the forums or in our Facebook Group!

This is the most effective way to get better results for regular culture polishes, and the most in your control.

GIVE MORE NEIGHBORLY HELP

As with most things in life, to get we must give.

Many people give visits based on those that show in their notifications.

Players also have a greater incentive to visit those who appear to them with Gold Hands, since they will get supplies in addition to coins on those visits, so keep your hands appearing Gold to as many players as possible!

USE ENSORCELLED ENDOWMENT ENCHANTMENTS

Ensorcelled Endowment Enchantments are extremely valuable for increasing your Culture Bonus. You should make and use them liberally!

HOW DO THEY WORK?

Ensorcelled Endowment spells enhance the culture bonus added by Neighborly help.

Note that the relics required to produce this enchantment may differ from player to player, as they are based on your boosts. To produce the Ensorcelled Endowment enchantment, you will need one relic of your first-tier boost -1, and one of your 3rd tier boost -1

This means that for each enchanted, polished culture building, 5% is added to the culture bonus you have already achieved.

Remember only polished, enchanted buildings add to the bonus. Add enchantments to buildings that have already been polished to get an immediate benefit from them.

It is also important to note that in order for it to be possible for the enchantments to enhance your bonus, you must of course have a bonus to begin with.

If you have not achieved at least the 125% bonus level, then the Enchantments will have no effect, even if they are applied to polished culture buildings.

HOW TO USE THEM

To make sure you get at least some benefit from them, apply Ensorcelled Endowment enchantments to buildings which have already been polished.

Don’t be afraid to use several at a time!

It makes no difference if they are applied to a high or low value culture item; each one polished will add 5% to your bonus, so use them on any building that has been polished, even if it’s not a high value one!

The enchantment will last for 48 hours. You can add multiple enchantments to the same building to extend the length of time before they expire.

Using several Ensorcelled Endowment enchantments, you can get your culture bonus over 200%! Even without having to have enough excess culture to get any higher than the 125% or 150% levels.

With a culture bonus of 200%, this means you will collect DOUBLE the coins and supplies as usual!

ANCIENT WONDERS FOR CULTURE

A guide about Culture Bonus would not be complete if it did not point out how much Ancient Wonders can help with optimizing culture in your city, and getting more out of your Neighborly Help!

WONDERS THAT ADD CULTURE

The Sanctuary/Martial Monestary, Watchtower Ruins, and Thrones of High Men all add directly to your city’s total culture, though in different ways.

% OF REQUIRED

The Sanctuary/Martial Monastery, and Watchtower Ruins both add culture to your city in the same way; it is based on a % of your required culture.

Each time your required culture goes up, so does the culture provided by these wonders. The higher they are upgraded, the higher % they give.

ANCIENT WONDER LEVELS

The thrones of high men adds culture for the total number of Ancient Wonder levels you have in your city. The amount given per Ancient Wonder Level grows as it is upgraded.

WONDERS THAT ENHANCE NEIGHBORLY HELP

The Great Bell Spire/Crystal Lighthouse, and Watchtower Ruins both enhance the benefits of neighborly help you receive, though in different ways.

ENHANCES DURATION

The Great Bell Spire/Crystal Lighthouse extend the length of time that Neighborly Help lasts for. The further it is upgraded, the more the time is extended.

The Neighborly Help will last for more than 10 hours, instead of its usual 8.

ENHANCES AMOUNT

Watchtower Ruins increases the amount of Culture that is added by Neighborly Help. The % increase grows as the wonder is upgraded.

The Neighborly Help is adding 960 more additional culture than usual thanks to the Watchtower Ruins bonus.

CONCLUSION

Achieving and maintaining a balance of culture, population, and production is a challenge we will face throughout the life of the game.

Understanding just how the Culture Bonus works is essential to managing this challenge well.

We hope you found this guide helpful for deciding your best strategy to do just that!

~Happy Gaming~