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🎭 Culture & Development

4 culture levels28 gated wonders30 gated buildings25 gated units

Every city has a culture level: Weak → Developing → Strong → Legendary. Culture accumulates per city from buildings, specialists, projects and events; when it reaches the level's threshold the city advances (and fires a culture event). Higher culture is worth more Victory Points, unlocks better wonders, buildings, units and projects — but each Citizen consumes more to sustain the lifestyle.

The four culture levels

Level Culture to advance VP per city Governor XP/turn Citizen consumption Level-up project
Weak 100 1 4
-1 Food/Pop
Council I
Developing 500 2 6
-2 Food/Pop -1 Iron/Pop
Council II
Strong 2,000 3 8
-3 Food/Pop -1 Iron/Pop -1 Stone/Pop
Council III
Legendary 5,000 4 10
-4 Food/Pop -1 Iron/Pop -1 Stone/Pop -1 Wood/Pop
Council IV

Culture to advance is iThreshold — the culture a city must accumulate to leave that level (100 to go Weak → Developing, … 5,000 to advance past Legendary). Beyond Legendary each further culture step costs 5,000 × (steps + 1) and is worth +1 VP apiece (countCultureStepVPs). Governor XP/turn is the XP a governor earns each turn from the city's culture level (culture().miXP). The level-up project (Council I–IV) is the city's default/shortfall project at that level.

What each level unlocks

Culture prereqs across the rest of the XML, grouped by the level that gates them. Tiered city projects (Council, Festival, Decree, Inquiry, Hunt, Olympiad, Convoy) require the city to be at exactly that level; Treasury / Forum / Archive tiers require at least that level.

Developing

Wonders
Urban buildings
  • Cold Baths · Baths
  • CourthouseCourthouse
  • Grocer · Market
  • LibraryLibrary
  • Mahabodhi TempleTemple · Holy Site
  • SteleStele · Aksum Stele
  • Stronghold · Garrison
  • The Adur Burzen-Mihr · Holy Site
  • The Cao'an · Holy Site
  • The Church of the Holy Sepulchre · Holy Site
  • The TempleTemple of Solomon · Holy Site
  • Theater · Odeon
Units
Projects (exactly this level)
Convoy IICouncil IIDecree IIFestival IIHunt IIInquiry IIOlympiad II
Projects (this level or higher)
Archive IIForum IIOpulenceTreasury II

Strong

Wonders
Urban buildings
Units
Projects (exactly this level)
Convoy IIICouncil IIIDecree IIIFestival IIIHunt IIIInquiry IIIOlympiad III
Projects (this level or higher)
Archive IIIForum IIITreasury III

Culture-tier units come in pairs: the Developing-tier version (Battering Ram, Hoplite, Hastatus…) goes obsolete at Strong, replaced by its Strong-tier upgrade (Siege Tower, Phalangite, Legionary…). Buildings and wonders also need their tech and other prereqs — only the culture gate is shown here.

Capture & assimilation

Level Extra capture turns Extra assimilate turns Assimilation per turn
Weak +0 +0 −1
Developing +1 +10 −2
Strong +2 +20 −3
Legendary +3 +30 −4

A captured foreign city starts at 20 base assimilate turns plus the founder's culture bonus, and yields are modified by -50% until assimilated; the countdown ticks by the city's current culture level each turn — higher culture assimilates faster (City.cs, doPlayerTurn). Extra capture turns stack on the base 2 — full formula on the City Capture Mechanics page.

Development — what development.xml actually is

Despite the name, development.xml has nothing to do with city development. It defines the Development game-setup option (advanced start): how developed existing (AI) nations are when the game begins — average cities, capital population and free techs — plus how many turns the AI holds off building wonders and founding religions.

Setting Avg cities Capital pop Free techs AI no-Wonder turns AI no-Religion turns Notes
Default — — — — — The player receives the default number of Cities and Technologies for the currently selected game options.
None — — — — — Existing Nations don't start with any extra Cities or Technologies.
Fledgling 2 2 2 5 4 Existing Nations start with an average of 2 Cities and 2 Technologies.
Established 3 3 3 10 8 Existing Nations start with an average of 3 Cities and 3 Technologies.
Advanced 4 4 4 15 12 Existing Nations start with an average of 4 Cities and 4 Technologies.
Massive 5 5 5 20 16 Existing Nations start with an average of 5 Cities and 5 Technologies.

Source: culture.xml (thresholds, VP, XP, capture/assimilate modifiers, EffectCity, Council projects), effectCity.xml (per-Pop consumption), improvement.xml / unit.xml / project.xml (CulturePrereq, CultureObsolete, RequiresCulture, MinimumCulture), development.xml, globalsInt.xml; semantics from City.cs (growCulture, canDoProject), Player.cs (countVP) and Character.cs (governor XP).