Limiting culture accumulation early doesn't really get anywhere. You always want policies 1-6 in Tradition or Liberty, since those finishers are stronger than anything that comes early in the other trees. And it's easy to reach the medieval era in time for policies 7-12. Problem is that policies 10-12 come so slowly when you're conquering, squeezed on both ends by ramping the costs and not building any culture.
The Freedom finisher isn't a target to race to for culture, it only helps once you've got all those settled artists. I found better speed going to Representation and Reformation for the culture discounts first, then up through Freedom.
And you can't really starve puppets since you don't control their citizens. Best you can do is convert all their farms to trading posts, but the puppet AI will continue to work the 2-0-1 trading posts and not starve.
The Freedom finisher isn't a target to race to for culture, it only helps once you've got all those settled artists. I found better speed going to Representation and Reformation for the culture discounts first, then up through Freedom.
And you can't really starve puppets since you don't control their citizens. Best you can do is convert all their farms to trading posts, but the puppet AI will continue to work the 2-0-1 trading posts and not starve.