This should be a short and sweet question. Are the buildings you can make with any of the great people (academy, fortress, whatever the artist can make, etc) ever worth it? They seem grossly underpowered to me compared to the other abilities of the great people, particularly the scientist and engineer. But maybe I'm missing something.

This should be a short and sweet question. Are the buildings you can make with any of the great people (academy, fortress, whatever the artist can make, etc) ever worth it? They seem grossly underpowered to me compared to the other abilities of the great people, particularly the scientist and engineer. But maybe I'm missing something.

Landmark (culture) isn't bad, does the merchant get one? I hardly ever get great merchants. Agreed on the scientists and engineer. If you are going rationalism, the great scientist tile actually has the same output as a scientist, + the base tile instead of the 3 great scientist points.

I like the academy. The great engineer building seems underpowered, but still worth building occasionally. The great merchants is just bad... I don't think the extra gold per turn will ever be better than a golden age.

I would never use the Engineer for that, better rush a Wonder. But the other guys, sure - They make perfect for desert tiles

See, when I look at the math I can't see how using a great scientist to put an academy in a desert tile makes sense. You can use him to instantly research a tech regardless of cost. Lets say you use a great scientist to research a tech costing 1800 beakers... do you know how many turns you'd have to be working a desert tile with an academy to make up those 1800 beakers?

I suppose an argument could be made for the landmark early on since it's the only way to get a tile which produces culture and popping a few social policies earlier is useful... but later on I'd absolutely rather have a golden age, even a 5 turn one, than a sucky tile which produces 4 culture. A 5 turn golden age later on means what, 1000 extra gold and 1000 extra hammers, give or take? And that's a 5 turn one. Every extra turn just makes it that much better.
Similarly, using a merchant for a trade mission is crazy. You get 30 influence and a chunk of gold... but you'd get a lot MORE gold by starting a golden age unless it is very earlier and 30 influence is nothing. 250 gold will do that.

So I can't see the point. You're far better off using an engineer to hurry a wonder, a scientist to get a free tech (particularly since you can choose the tech), and artists and merchants to start golden ages. I use great generals for golden ages, too, once I have two of them. Maybe on a huge map I'd want to keep 3.

This seems counter intuitive. Why give the great persons cool abilities if using them is actively detrimental. The trade-off seems like it is supposed to be about a smaller payoff instantly versus a bigger long-term payoff... except they got the numbers backwards. The instant payoff is actually hugely bigger than the long-term payout.

The way to fix it seems obvious to me. Nerf the instant payouts and increase the long-term ones. My suggestions:

1) Great Scientist - Make academy bonus scale with era. 1 hammer + 4 science in ancient. 2/6 in medieval. 3/8 in industrial, 4/10 in future. Obviously these numbers might need tweaking but you get the idea. That would make using the academy more appealing. Now to make science pops less overpowering. I suggest making the tech which gets researched random. No more saving up 2 scientists and slingshotting into Industrial era on turn 200 because CONGRATULATIONS your great scientist just poppsed Iron Working instead of Biology or whatever.

2) Engineers. They already provide a fixed instant hammer pop as you can see by using them on very expensive wonders. So that's fine. The engineer building needs a huge boost. Like the Academy, it needs to scale with era. Start at 4 hammers/2 Science in ancient. Increase to 6/3, 8/4, and 10/5 over time. And as before, I'm pulling the numbers out of my butt but it should be straightforward to figure out what the numbers need to be to make it a tough choice as to what to use the GP for.

3) Artist. I dunno, I think GP bombs are cool as is. They're VERY situational but thats not a problem. Maybe just make the landmark scale with time and provide a bit of gold. 4 culture/2 gold in ancient, 6/3 then 8/4 then 10/5 over time.

4) Merchant. Seems obvious: The trade mission needs to provide a bigger inluence bonus and more gold. Remember, to make it worthwhile the gold bonus needs to be significantly more than the gold you get from a golden age because the golden age also provides a big hammer boost. I suggest +90 influence and... well I don't know how the current gold boost is calculated but I'd suggest making it based on era. Something like 300 gold in ancient, 600 in classical, 1000 in Medieval, 1400 in Industrial, and 1800 in modern.

The building should be the inverse of the Artist, provide a bunch of gold and a little culture. 4 gold 2 culture - 6/3 - 8/4 - 10/5 or whatever.

5) General. The fortress sucks. Terrible. I'm not sure how to make it better. Increase the range of its auto-damaging ability to 2 hexes? Make it bigger... like 3 hexes you can lay down in any configuration to make a Maginot line type deal? That would be cool but I suspect impossible to do in a mod.

Dunno if the great general fortress thing is possible. Other than that it should all be trivial to do. We know that tile yields can change based on techs and policies so having them change based on era can be done. The actual numbers might need tweaking but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with these ideas.

Also, this is what happens you post when you cant sleep.

I've been using GP buildings up until now, since I've been playing settler difficulty so things haven't been tight. They've provided a nice variety, but at higher difficulties where things get tight, I can see how crunching the math might reveal they don't hold up.

- re: scientist tech random? I don't want to see that. There's nothing more annoying than burning an important GP and seeing something crappy come out of it that you didn't even want. If tech popping needs to be nerfed, I'd rather see beakers capped, like they have for engineers -- if the building is too many hammers, then the great engineer can only complete part of it. Similarly a great scientist might only complete part of the beakers for an advanced tech. I'd much rather see that than random techs.

- re: artist culture bombs. These are awesome, and especially in a crowded map they are practically a must have. In fact I find that the number one most important thing for my entire civilization strategically is to have a good artist pump city. But that may be because I always played C4 with cultural tile grab strategy and GAs are the only way I can continue my favorite strategy in C5.

- re: GP buildings. It'd be nice if you could relocate them somehow. What if later on you find aluminum or uranium under an Academy? You'd have to basically raze and throw away the entire GP to get at the resource. It'd be nice if a worker build a mine in the same tile that already holds a GP, then it'd respawn the GP upon completion of the improvement.

See, when I look at the math I can't see how using a great scientist to put an academy in a desert tile makes sense. You can use him to instantly research a tech regardless of cost. Lets say you use a great scientist to research a tech costing 1800 beakers... do you know how many turns you'd have to be working a desert tile with an academy to make up those 1800 beakers?

360 turns base. Combined with up to 4 buildings (one national wonder) that give +50% each you can get something like 15 beakers per turn from that one tile (plus whatever the terrain gives) and pay off the price in 150 turns.

Also, this is what happens you post when you cant sleep.

Eh, I've done worse. :)

Samy: I think the GP buildings have to provide strategic resources in the hex. Otherwise it is, as you say, very risky to use them. As to the scientists, I'm not sure capping the beakers would work unless you cap it at a low enough level that they become worthless later on.

The biggest reason they are overpowered is not because you happen to spawn a scientist and, hey, you decide to grab whichever tech you were going to research next... it's if you deliberately play the game with great scientists in mind. Also remember that you can save them up and use them all at once. So you can beeline a few techs right from the start, save up two great scientists, and then enter the Industrial Age absurdly early, well under 200 turns into the game. That means you can open the Order or Autocracy policies WAY early. Think about going down the order tree that early! It's crazy.

That's only one way to abuse them. You could slingshot into Riflemen while everybody else is using Swordsmen instead. Or whatever.

But if you cap the beakers low enough to prevent that, it because pointless to use the scientists to pop techs past the classical era.

360 turns base. Combined with up to 4 buildings (one national wonder) that give +50% each you can get something like 15 beakers per turn from that one tile (plus whatever the terrain gives) and pay off the price in 150 turns.

Yeah, which is obviously virtually never worth doing. The 150 is such a best-case scenario and so late in the game that I don't think it's really worth discussing. Around 300 turns is a more likely scenario. And, of course, you can use them to pop techs worth way more than 1800. Basically building the Academy never pays for itself even before you take into account that help now is far better than help later. The later you get the scientist, the more absurdly tilted away from the building the equation becomes.

Yeah, which is obviously virtually never worth doing. The 150 is such a best-case scenario and so late in the game that I don't think it's really worth discussing. Around 300 turns is a more likely scenario. And, of course, you can use them to pop techs worth way more than 1800. Basically building the Academy never pays for itself even before you take into account that help now is far better than help later. The later you get the scientist, the more absurdly tilted away from the building the equation becomes.

The full bonus may be late game but your example of 1800 science costs are only seen with the introduction of Electricity which has a base cost of 1900. If you get a GS during the earlier turns you'd see costs more around the lines of 440 (education) and 680 (gunpowder). In the long-term you could still end up ahead by using the GS to build an academy... discounting any sling-shot strategies of course.

Late game however there's practically no reason to build the Academy as you'll never catch up to the 3300 techs near the end before the game is over.

On pure number of beakers over the course of the game, yeah, you can end up ahead if you build an academy earlier. But even then the advantage of being able to select a tech instantly is likely significantly more advantages than a 1% increase in your beaker total spread through the rest of the game. All of the beakers from popping the tech show up instantly. And, of course, you've got to work the tile for the Academy which means you aren't working some OTHER tile or running a specialist. That's not a trivial cost.

But yeah, the earlier the scientist shows up the less bad the Academy is. Ditto the Great Merchant where if he shows up any time except right at the beginning, making his building is a ridiculously bad idea.

In the long-term you could still end up ahead by using the GS to build an academy... discounting any sling-shot strategies of course.

Except for the cost you incur in working the tile with the academy rather than running a specialist or working an ordinary tile: would you rather have 6 research or 3 research + 3 great scientist points?

Except for the cost you incur in working the tile with the academy rather than running a specialist or working an ordinary tile: would you rather have 6 research or 3 research + 3 great scientist points?

it's less than half a scientist in practice
make the academy on tiles you don't get +2 food from

I had a great scientist pretty early in my current game so I spent some time looking at tiles, research costs, etc to check if I was miscalculating early Academies and their usefulness. It's true that an early enough academy can increase your science output by more than 10% which seems like a big deal on the face of it. Except I realized something we overlooked.

Unlike Civ IV, overflow beakers when you finish researching a tech are lost. What that means is that the extra 10% science is actually wasted a lot of the time. A quick made up number example:

Lets say you are putting out 44 beakers early and an Academy would bring your beaker count per turn from 44 to 49. Now lets say you start researching a tech which costs 350 beakers. Without the Academy it would take you 8 turns to research and you would spill over 2 beakers, which are lost. WITH the Academy it would take you... wait for it... 8 turns to research and you would spill over 42 beakers. Which are lost. You produced 40 extra beakers in that timeframe but because beaker overflow is discarded, you actually ended up WORSE OFF than if you had no Academy since the tile you are working is worse than a non-Academy tile apart from the wasted science.

Obviously that is a worst case scenario. But it should clearly illustrate that for every tech you finish researching a turn earlier because of the Academy, there will be other techs where the extra Academy beakers are just discarded as overflow.

I think this realization is the nail in the coffin on academies for me. The level of micromanagement it would require to make sure you aren't wasting the academy science would be terrible. You'd have re-jigger the tiles you are working every time you are about to research a tech and then put them back the way they were the very next turn. Every time.

That overflow thing really does diminish the effectiveness of science focuses. Shame how it wasn't a problem in Civ 4 but got re-introduced with the latest iteration. Anyways, the Great Person buildings could probably use a boost, but I think it's important to not dismiss their improvements entirely. In my personal mod I plan to nudge them a bit so getting a Great Person improvement feels as though it's a good move. Maybe +1s/+1p, +1p/+1w, +1c/+1w, +2w... Those yields should be fine given the multipliers that become available as the game progresses.

5) General. The fortress sucks. Terrible. I'm not sure how to make it better. Increase the range of its auto-damaging ability to 2 hexes? Make it bigger... like 3 hexes you can lay down in any configuration to make a Maginot line type deal? That would be cool but I suspect impossible to do in a mod.
Ok, now I disagree.

Fortress ROCK. They're just very situational.

I remember playing as China and conquering the Iroquois. After the war, I was pretty weakened, so Elizabeth decided to invade my empire (wise decision, a glympse of inteligente in Civ's AI). Ok, the battle was tough, I lost a city, but the peace came and that's it. I didnt liked the outcome, so I reloaded and started the war against Eliza again.

This time, I put the genereal - who was inside a city, suporting units - to make a fortress in a choke point that I knew a lot of Eliza's troops would come.

The outcome: I didnt lost any city. In fact, she gave all she got. Her forces were crushed and the biggest military power turned in a weak one. I lost a pikeman, that's all I lost in this war.

Did I say I was playing with the chinese? So yeah, 45% bonus to troops. But the fortress was better.

I tell you really why fortress rocks. The AI dont use water tiles.
So, they can evade the fortress, try a naval battle and reach your cities. But they preffer the hard way and go straigth to damage. 3 damage for everyone...

Also:
Now to make science pops less overpowering. I suggest making the tech which gets researched random. No more saving up 2 scientists and slingshotting into Industrial era on turn 200 because CONGRATULATIONS your great scientist just poppsed Iron Working instead of Biology or whatever.
Or a fixed number of beakers that could increase by Era. Like engineers who could help, but not finish wonders, scientist could just boost without researching.

Dudu42: Have you considered that the Citadel gives a 100% defense bonus... and a Fort with a nearby Chinese Great General gives a 95% defense bonus? Plus the 45% attack bonus? Plus the GGs radius is 2 hexes in every direction and he can move if he has to run away, or after the position is no longer necessary?

A 100% defense bonus just doesn't seem worth it to me when a regular fort + great general is nearly as good, and is probably better when you're talking about a Chinese great general.

I thought Citadels were useless until I had a game where I teamed up with Alexander and Bismarck to invade the Aztecs. The Aztecs surrendered and gave me four cities. This shot my score up very high, which made Alexander and Bismarck declare war on me immediately.

My army was good but Bismarck had a sea of Landsknecht, and other units. At least 50, really the largest army I've seen in a game yet.

I built a Citadel on a hill next to a city where I had a chokepoint. I put a Longswordsman in the Citadel, and a Chu Ko Nu in the city with a Great General. Turn after turn, that Citadel helped me just obliterate his massive army.

So yeah, it was very situational, but it was pretty amazing.

In OCC games, or other games where you intentionally limit your expansion, you might find yourself without anything useful for your Engineer to hurry. I would choose GA over the tile improvement, but since I was Persia and already in an endless GA, I used four (yes, four!) engineers to trade excess food for increased production.

Dudu42: Have you considered that the Citadel gives a 100% defense bonus... and a Fort with a nearby Chinese Great General gives a 95% defense bonus? Plus the 45% attack bonus? Plus the GGs radius is 2 hexes in every direction and he can move if he has to run away, or after the position is no longer necessary?

A 100% defense bonus just doesn't seem worth it to me when a regular fort + great general is nearly as good, and is probably better when you're talking about a Chinese great general.
You're forgeting about damage.

3 damage is pretty weak, but it damages EVERYTHING around it. Considering almost every tiles had a british troop, that was a lot. The Cho ko Nu in my city could kill the weakened musketeers (or rifleman, I dont remember, but Im almost sure they were musk). Usually, its better to weak 2 units than kill one and let the other full. The weakened units had no chance against the pike and were easy spot for Cho Ko Nu.

You should see 5+ units taking 3 damage per turn at the same time. Of course, if the AI knew to use the water (and Im talking about Elizabeth, who should use water a lot) they could avoid the fortress. So maybe fortress are useless against a human player...

I feel the Great Person buildings are very weak - they just provide too little compared to the alternatives.

They are a good idea, they just need a major tweak. The Academy should in the long run be significantly better than burning the scientist immediately (good things should come for those that wait). The manufactury, should rock, then a Great Engineer strategy might make an interesting option for production. The landmark, is again too weak to make it better than getting a Golden Age, the culture bomb however depends on whether there is a resource just over the border that you must have.

As for the Citadel...I've yet to build one...I agree with the poster that using the Great General with the defender and a fort does a great job and that I like keeping open the option of having a golden age, that is lost as soon as the citadel is bought. Personally, I've also found the AI very willing to embark to go around bottlenecks. Their problem is the production rates for units mean that the AI eventually run out of units are are then screwed.

On pure number of beakers over the course of the game, yeah, you can end up ahead if you build an academy earlier. But even then the advantage of being able to select a tech instantly is likely significantly more advantages than a 1% increase in your beaker total spread through the rest of the game. All of the beakers from popping the tech show up instantly. And, of course, you've got to work the tile for the Academy which means you aren't working some OTHER tile or running a specialist. That's not a trivial cost.

But yeah, the earlier the scientist shows up the less bad the Academy is. Ditto the Great Merchant where if he shows up any time except right at the beginning, making his building is a ridiculously bad idea.

You should put the Academy on a bunch of cows or deer.

Why you would put it on a tile with the lowest baseyield, instead of the highest baseyield is beyond me.

You should put the Academy on a bunch of cows or deer.

Why you would put it on a tile with the lowest baseyield, instead of the highest baseyield is beyond me.

You're right of course.

If only I could put a farm on my cow :)

Citadels are very useful in certain situations. Landmarks built by Great Artist can be useful I think but the improvements of Great Scientists, Merchants & Engineers are pretty useless compared to their other uses.

I think that pretty much covers it. I will give the Citadels another look; perhaps I am underestimating the usefulness of the -3 damage to adjacent enemies. The 100% defense bonus is a little underwhelming by itself since a regular fort + great general gives 75% and the great general gives attack bonus as well, in a radius, and can move. The landmark can be situationally useful.

ALL OTHERS = FAIL.

I think that pretty much covers it. I will give the Citadels another look; perhaps I am underestimating the usefulness of the -3 damage to adjacent enemies.

The citadel can be brilliant, but things have to be right. I had a map where I shared my peninsula with a Civ I forget because I wiped them out very quickly, then blockaded the access with two citadels on both ends of a mountain range. This was as England, where I had longbowmen backing them up. Nothing could touch me. In a different game as China, I used citadels to block the passes through a long, long mountain chain. Amazing.

Once (if) they fix the AI, the usefulness will go done slightly -- haven't seen the AI try to invade from the sea yet -- but in the right place at the right time, they're great.

I agree with several who've posted that burning the specialists tends to be better (even in the long-run) than constructing special buildings--the exception is the Great General, who's nice to carry around on fighting missions. Just make sure you protect him, as despite all his armor he can't fight back against even a lowly warrior. :P

Only one I see as being more useful than the other ability is the artist's, because the culture bomb is extremely situational.

I'd like it the artist could be adjacent to one of your tiles instead of having to be within borders, personally.

Likewise. And on an abstract level it just doesn't make sense--how can an artist convince the mining operation of Russia to hand itself over to the glorious Siamese empire? Artists are much more political in this game than in real life. :)

The paintbrush is mightier than the sword! Why? Because a paintbrush started the war! Right after triggering a culture bomb, reporters stated that Czarina Catherine visited Ramkhamheng and declared war on him!

Artists are much more political in this game than in real life.

This comment makes me think of the FBI claiming John Lennon was a threat to national security. I agree though, either in a game, or in real life, its pretty silly.

You should put the Academy on a bunch of cows or deer.

Why you would put it on a tile with the lowest baseyield, instead of the highest baseyield is beyond me.

Bananas would be the best choice, since putting a plantation on bananas actually makes the tile worse (as it nerfs production).

Culture Bomb can be REALLY nice in certain situations. Here are a couple I've had:

1) A lot of times, I've had Oil, Coal, Uranium or Aluminum appear/be discovered just outside the borders of my Empire. But too far for me to expect Culture to naturally engulf it anytime in the future. I've used Culture Bomb to reach those resources. You can also do it just to grab a Luxury resource, but that might be a bit of a waste. I've had to do this a couple of games where I didn't have something I needed, and nobody was willing to trade with me.

2) This is also sort of specific but if you don't have open borders, you can use it to block people. I was on an Archipelago map and I blocked the two hex space between two loooooong skinny landmasses with a culture bomb, which forced people to take a long long route around. I don't guess it's that important, but I enjoyed it.

They're all highly situational, really. Near the end of the game, I just start gobbling them up for golden ages, hurling great person after great person into the hungry maw of my empire, sacrificing them to the fires of progress.

Culture Bomb's radius is still MEH though. I agree it might be useful in certain situations, but good luck finding them. I've never seen a situation where I needed/wanted to use one as a Bomb.

And Great Artists being used this way in V is sillier than in IV, even--in IV, the Great Artist border bomb made sense because you were culturally converting the cities at a certain rate (if your culture was high enough)--including annexed enemy cities. In V, not so much. The overall concept is missing, and so people seeing a "Culture Bomb" for the first time in Civ will be thinking like this:

:confused:

Only one I see as being more useful than the other ability is the artist's, because the culture bomb is extremely situational.

I'd like it the artist could be adjacent to one of your tiles instead of having to be within borders, personally.

Agree. Right now the artist behaves like a badass commando unit, which you have to infiltrate into enemy land.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Great Scientists are BORING when used for slingshots.

Believe me, I understand and have practiced slingshot games but honestly with as easy as it has been to climb to Immortal in CiV, I almost feel it to be an exploit. It's just not fair. Furthermore, coupling that industrial slingshot with Marilame states really pushes the boundaries of exploitation.
I know that technically, through definition, these are not exploits... but it feels around the same level of ease and cheese. Honestly I prefer to play the game WITHOUT sling-shots (and it is possible). I only pop single techs late game and settle most of my early game scientists simply because it's a more challenging method of gameplay and forces city specialization (which I love).

Also, if I play with City States enabled, I only ally with one of each kind. I refuse to double Marilame states.

ONE THING people fail to take into account is the ease with which a civ can grab education and really harbor the benefits of settled scientists through universities. Also National College should be taken into account, which brings the total to +10 science per scientist per turn.

HOWEVER, the two biggest problems are that settled scientists really aren't that much better than Rationalist trading posts on a jungle, which are surprisingly easy to attain, and that they don't pay off enough in the long run. With a bonus of +6 science instead of +5 I think settled scientists would be slightly more attractive. It bordering on excessive.


*edit*

I feel as if Great Merchants and Great Engineers are too hard to get to be of any use, and their buildings leave something to be desired (particularly the engineer).

If you put a mine on a hill you get +3 production. If you put a mine on an Iron Hill, you get +5 production. If you put a great engineer on a hill you get +5 production.

If you mine Gems on a river, you get 7 gold. If you erect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqtzhxzJzMI) (lol) a plantation on a river, you get 4 gold. If you settle a great Merchant on a river, you get +5 gold.

See what I'm saying? The bonuses just aren't extravagant enough to warrant even bothering to produce these specialists, not to mention settling them. Thankfully the engineer specialist is being buff, let's see about the Merchant. THEN their buildings as well. And then possibly the Merchant's trade route...

Ok, now I disagree.

Fortress ROCK. They're just very situational.


Agree 100%. If you have a control point where the enemy has to funnel into your territory, fortresses are awesome. I'll specifically build cities that take advantage of mountains, particularly if it is an outlying city that is in between another civ. 2-3 adjacent units that are on guard... impenetrable.

The Landmark is exceptional when you are going for a cultural victory. My main cultural city will have 6-8 of these puppies, raking in tons of culture.

The GMerchant building is pretty useless, imho, particularly since the benefits of a city-state trade route are so nice.

The GMerchant building is pretty useless, imho, particularly since the benefits of a city-state trade route are so nice.
Merchant means only one thing to me: Golden Age. The other bonuses are meh.

Scientist can also give GA, but slingshoting through Eras makes them - maybe - the best great people out there.

About Landmarks... Ill give it a chance. Sounds promising.

The full bonus may be late game but your example of 1800 science costs are only seen with the introduction of Electricity which has a base cost of 1900. If you get a GS during the earlier turns you'd see costs more around the lines of 440 (education) and 680 (gunpowder). In the long-term you could still end up ahead by using the GS to build an academy... discounting any sling-shot strategies of course.

Late game however there's practically no reason to build the Academy as you'll never catch up to the 3300 techs near the end before the game is over.

Education is 440, and so would take 88 turns for an academy to equal to. However, it's worse than that, because that's only when you'd make up the science cost, what about 88 turns of being behind as it is? You'd have put that science into use building things and USING the tech you go.

The citadel is very situational, the others are useless (perhaps except a landmark early, or when going for an achievement, i.e. Bollywood).

Landmark (culture) isn't bad, does the merchant get one? I hardly ever get great merchants. Agreed on the scientists and engineer. If you are going rationalism, the great scientist tile actually has the same output as a scientist, + the base tile instead of the 3 great scientist points.


Merchants gets custom houses, which gives +5 gold

Education is 440, and so would take 88 turns for an academy to equal to. However, it's worse than that, because that's only when you'd make up the science cost, what about 88 turns of being behind as it is? You'd have put that science into use building things and USING the tech you go.

Plus the missed production, food or gold from the tile.

When you calculate the long term value of a stored scientist you have to consider that it is maintained just like other units.

Only one I see as being more useful than the other ability is the artist's, because the culture bomb is extremely situational.

I'd like it the artist could be adjacent to one of your tiles instead of having to be within borders, personally.

He does not have to be within your borders, just adjacent to them and in a neutral, unclaimed hex.

Needing to be adjacent to your territories makes sense....that said, my point about the disappointing radius of the so called "bomb" still stands. :P

I never use culture bombs against other civilizations, but I'll use it against city states. If some other civ has land I want, I'll just grab the controlling city. But I can grab some good tiles from a CS while retaining the friendship bonus.

He does not have to be within your borders, just adjacent to them and in a neutral, unclaimed hex.

Ahhh, I must've had him in a claimed hex when I tried it before.

Incidentally, if you don't want to take the apparent diplo hit, culture bombing someone is a great way to instigate a war.