What are the best Culture packs.

[GOTLAG_99]

Have some left over money to spend and was wanting to know which culture pack is the best.

[Teh_Diplomat]

I own them all apart from the 'new-ish' Desert Faction DLC, and I would say I have only used factions from two of the packs extensively.

Greek Culture Pack
Black Sea Colonies

I haven't really spent a ton of time with the horse archers from the Nomadic pack, nor any time spent with the Illyrians from the Coastal Raider pack.

I would simply suggest that you find what you enjoy playing as and purchase them based on relatability.

Also, the Desert DLC does look very interesting, but again, this is due to preference.

[Benjin]

I've got all of the Culture Packs and have played most of these factions to the mid-game. It's mostly down to personal preference, but this is what I think of them (in order of most to least liked).

• Desert Kingdoms - The most recent, and probably the most fleshed out culture pack compared to the rest. Not only do you get to play as four totally distinct factions (own technology trees, own buildings, very different rosters from one another) located in desert / semi-isolated locations which can feel kind of comfy, but you also get quite a lot of unique events / incidents with a few different graphics relating to the factions you play as which adds more flavour to the faction you're playing as. If you care about cinematic movies, Kush actually get a few unique desert-themed ones (e.g. male + female funerals, ending cinematics) to further immerse you - no need to worry about watching those same old Eastern ones again.

• Greek States - The first culture pack released for the game, included as a pre-order, which satisfies your thirst for your traditional Greeks ("SPARTAAAAANS!!"). Definitely recommend this one if you liked the Successor Kingdoms and other freely releases Greek factions (e.g. Massilia), and wanted even more Greek action.

• Iberian (incl. Hannibal at the Gates) - They're kind of like Gauls, but they have a more... distinct feel about them in the way that they play. All of their melee units act like ranged units first (giving you the option to attack from a distance, with range cones etc), and they have access to quite a few units with the "guerilla" ability (i.e. deploy outside of the normal deployment boundaries). I like their starting positions' biomes / terrain map tiles, and I like their more sneaky rosters. If you want to play as a more sneaky style of Barbarian faction but with lots of dry, Mediterranean starting areas, fighting against Punics in the south and a different culture group / religious building tree, you'll like this one. Getting the "Hannibal at the Gates" mini-campaign along with this is also pretty decent.

• Pirates & Raiders - Get this if you want to play some of the hardest, most challenging factions you'll ever play as in vanilla. They're pretty hard partly because they were designed somewhat poorly (underpowered compared to their neighbours, such as Macedon), but mostly because all of their starting positions are pretty precarious with enemies everywhere and their culture group (Balkan) always trying to be replaced with Celtic / Hellenic. The Ardiaei I found are especially, completely, ridiculously crappy unless you know how to make use of their naval-related abilities (e.g. raiding, sacking). Your early game may feel a lot like Total War: ATTILA where you're hopping your armies / navies from one province to another just to avoid your most powerful, bitter enemies, or you'll be waiting / defending for loads of turns until you feel ready to become an attacker. You'll actually feel like you've achieved something on the "Legendary" difficulty, especially with difficulty mods.

• Nomadic Tribes - For a Barbarian subculture group, they do feel pretty distinct - they've got all new buildings and have an interesting play style about them since they have got access to great melee / ranged horse units, but are pretty terrible at everything else. This makes them the weakest during provincial capital (i.e. walled settlement) sieges, especially when as an attacker. It's advised to get artillery and/or mercenaries during those types of battles and to dismount your cavalry units.

• Gallic (incl. Caesar in Gaul) - Basically more Gauls to play with. Nothing special about these guys when you've already got the Arverni, Iceni and a few other freely added factions which I've forgotten were made available already. Only get this if you really want to get some more Celtic factions to play as. The only reason I place this before Black Sea Colonies is because they come along with the mini-campaign "Caesar in Gaul", which is alright as an extra campaign option but - yet again - not much different from the vanilla Grand Campaign experience compared to some of the other ones.

• Black Sea Colonies - Basically more Greeks to play with. Nothing special about these guys when you've already got the Successor Kingdoms and the Greek States. Only get this if you really like to play Greeks but with a slight twist to them (i.e. they're mainly Greeks, but they also have access to some of the units from cultures or buildings of their neighbours, so they're sort of like hybrid factions).