Culture

In Interstellar Space: Genesis, Space  Points (SCP) are used to acquire new culture perks.

Each level gained in  allows the selection of a new perk. Most levels contain 2 choices to pick from--this choice is permanent, and the one not picked can never be obtained.

Perks are divided into Adventure, Wealth, and Knowledge--many  require a certain level in a category.

Culture is gained from Colonies and from some  skills. It may be enhanced my increasing its  on the Galaxy Map.

## Things to Consider--Opinion Section

Each culture level becomes progressively more expensive to achieve. However, each time a level is achieved it costs no more to pick a perk at the end of a branch than one at the start of a branch.

So on your 6th perk pick, you can have 3 tier 2 picks, or 1 tier 6 pick if you specialized in only one branch up to that point.

Specializing in Knowledge, for instance, would net you by your 6th pick:

* Astronomy Culture to allow  2 sectors at once;
* Cosmic Wisdom to reduce Remote Exploration time by half;
* Theory of Everything for 2 free random techs (kind of meh, but needed to progress);
* Planetary Consciousness to **double** the  and  bonuses of Ecology Level;
* Universal Academia for a little research bonus and a tech leader;
* Cosmic Society, the payoff, with a +25% to --combined with a couple of leaders with the  secondary skill (like the one you got from Universal Academia), you will progress very rapidly through the tech tree.

Another possibility would be to specialize in the Wealth branch aiming for the 5th tier Interstellar Geology, which grants +2 of every  you have at least one other source of. Strategic Resource bonuses are very powerful once the requisite techs have been researched.

Of course specializing to such an extreme means missing out on some of the lower tier picks from the other branches that can really help in the early game granting free ships, leaders, extra production, etc., potentially hindering your early growth--there is an argument to be made that all 3 branches have very powerful first tier picks. In the Adventure branch there is Space Fervor for a free , something it takes a long time to build in the early game, and every new colony starting with 2  instead of one. In Wealth, both Overmining for an extra 1  per pop empire-wide will help early colonies and benefit the empire for the entire game; or Space Rush for an immediate 2  and half off building new ones for early  whose production can be directed wherever it is needed. And in the Knowledge Branch, we've already mentioned the first 2 tier picks that drastically speed up  revealing valuable information about known systems and revealing --Astronomy Culture and Cosmic Wisdom.

As with most decisions in the game--and there are a lot of them--there is a good balance where you don't have to feel like you're gimping yourself if you don't make **the** right decision--there isn't one.

Min-Max players could debate the merits of each approach, and which of 2 perks to pick at a given tier in a given branch, and have good arguments on each side--and even then the maximal options would depend on starting position, etc. If there's a particular late tier perk you want, beeline for it (I'm partial to the Wealth 5th tier Interstellar Geology perk myself as my personal goal is to find and exploit every  in the galaxy to the maximum extent possible); if not, there's nothing wrong with going as a generalist early for those great tier 1 and 2 perks in all 3 trees. You're not going to ruin your game either way.