I have read mesages from several posters who are confused by the effect of using the Great Artist as a culture bomb to rapidly expand your borders. This technique is very effective at capturing resources or expanding in tight spots as theses images show. Here are a few screenshots to show you before and after shots.
First shot is an after shot in which I now surround an opponent's city.
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This next shot is a city I created just to use a culture bomb. The city was created in a narrow strip between two civilizations and as you can see is now surrounded.
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Here are two shots after the bomb. The second shot is an illustration of just how far the borders expanded to the west. Notice how I have "stolen" two resources buy using this technique: The "cows" and "iron".
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Thats nice and all, but how did you get your city to build there in the first place? World builder?

Thats nice and all, but how did you get your city to build there in the first place? World builder?

Does it matter??? it was just to show how the culture bomb worked:rolleyes:

Saw the resources and just decided I wanted them and no I did not use World Builder. Sometimes it is just fun to push the other civilizations around, bully them like this, be the meanest SOB in the valley.
I have read some other posters who have used the Great Artist to help get the three city cultural victory. Anyone else have any good ideas on how to use the Great Artist??

I've found that the great artist boost is great for pushing your borders when you need to acquire that certain precious resource that lies one square outside of your control.

Often the easily capturable resource is more valuable than going after an enemy city.

It can be usefull to use a Great Artist after you take a Barbarian city. They are usually in open land and it will prevent another barb city from spawing too close. I used this technique on a Terra map to help me get to Domination.

It's also useful if you're going for a domination victory, and it's late in the game and there is no space left for building cities.

If you have an ally that you don't want to trounce, and you need .5% or so more land to get the victory, the bomb can get you the land.

Great preists also work. But i don't think they can build greatworks as often(somethign to do with religions your civ have). someone want to confirm this?

Great preists also work. But i don't think they can build greatworks as often(somethign to do with religions your civ have). someone want to confirm this?
Great Prophets cannot build great works. They build shrines.

Another good use of the great artist is in a OCC game. Using the great artist to expand your borders in this type of game is very useful and important because you need as many resources and as much land as you can get. I don't know how well this would work on higher levels, but it has worked for me on warlord.

Well, the culture bomb worked well for me on Noble (esp. when philosophical, of course). I sometimes threw several of them on one city, stole resources and flipped cities easily.
But in the higher difficulties (as in: high enough to be a real challenge) you don't get that many wonders in the first place, thus much less Great People points. (I never played an industrious civ, this would probably get you some wonders.) You also have more trouble managing your cities, so you won't have that much spare population to make specialists.

I was afraid after the first games that the culture bomb might be unbalancing. I'm not so sure anymore, you have to be way ahead scorewise to really get a lot of Great People. So if you can use them, you would win without them anyway.

There's also another potential issue: Has anyone seen the AI use the things ? Effectively?

One thing to remember is that to maximize the Culture Bomb's effect DO NOT WASTE IT ON A BORDER where the opponent has had his core cities generating culture since the beginning!! Pushing 4000 culture into a 12,000 culture barrier will only make you mad! :D

Playing my first game on whatever the default diff. is (Noble?) and I culture bombed an isolated city that one neighbor had taken from another neighbor. It revolted once unsuccessfully and I thought it was just a matter of time and it would flip. Then they culture bombed me back in that city, effectively blocking my bomb. I thought that was cool.

I've done virtually the same thing shown in these maps--the neighbor AI had two young cities near our borders that had a few unclaimed spaces in between because the AI culture hadn't expanded yet. I sent my settler, along with two protectors and a great artist, into the gap together and soon had an instant-culture city. Eventually, both AI cities flipped. Which started a war, but that's a different story.

thanks for the screen shots - very effective demonstration

Thats nice and all, but how did you get your city to build there in the first place? World builder?

His city is three away from the neighboring cities. Cheating probably wasn't involved.

Great "culture bomb" pics by the way.

This looks great.

n00b question: How exactly did you do that? Like I mean, what did you build in that city to get it to "culture bomb"?

If you get a Great Artist, you bring it to the city and make it build a Great Work. That is the actual culture bomb, not anything you build.

In addition to MSTK's statement- the Great Artists can provide 4,000 culture points...

Just move the Great Artist to the city you want to "bomb" and pick the icon with the painting in it. You'll automatically get 4,000 points added to city's culture total. Otherwise you'll get added culture per turn (which in most cases won't equal up to 4,000 points in the end)- it's a great strategy for a huge cultural boost to a city.

One thing to remember is that to maximize the Culture Bomb's effect DO NOT WASTE IT ON A BORDER where the opponent has had his core cities generating culture since the beginning!! Pushing 4000 culture into a 12,000 culture barrier will only make you mad! :D

That's exactly what happened to me. TWICE. :mad: I guess the civ3 mentality hasn't quite come off yet. I thought I'd at least gain access to the 9 squares but the border didn't budge at all.

That's exactly what happened to me. TWICE. :mad: I guess the civ3 mentality hasn't quite come off yet. I thought I'd at least gain access to the 9 squares but the border didn't budge at all.

I had that happen as well, didnt enjoy it one bit at the time...

live and learn i guess