Having figured out the Vasari pretty well I have moved onto Advent and I have to say, I am underwhelmed by the cultural power focus. I like that it provides a no colonize zone when your culture has expanded and the whole taking down of the allegiance thing, but the problem is that doesn't really do to much to help someone win. Taking down the allegiance of a planet seems slow and easily countered by an aware enemy, hence, not really useful.

Now I know we can't have culture flipping planets or cap ships, that would make it way to powerful. But what about culture flipping things like crystal extractors or perhaps a small group of frigates in a system with no capital ships? Some potentially cool ideas around using captured enemy frigates in your fleets, perhaps they don’t count against your fleet cap? Perhaps in an expansion Sins would allow for reverse engineering and acquiring certain adversarial technologies?

It wouldn't be a game ender for the enemy, but it would make fighting the culture battle a hell of a lot more annoying as well as provide some immediate gratification for someone who focused on culture. You would have to scramble some fighters, or fleet ships, take out the rebelling mining installation/fleet and then spend the resources to rebuild a new one/ones all the while the cultural player is reaping the resources of the flipped extractor or new ships.

I think a small tweak like this could make culture more of a viable early strategy and certainly would put it towards being on equal footing with the TEC's economic advantage and the Vasari phase mastery advantage.