Rival civs absorbing my land at the borders

[TheDervish]

I was playing a singleplayer match with the AI, and I noticed with one civ, I was taking their land little by little (over the course of 100's-1000's of years), but another civ was taking MY land. And I noticed nearby, it would say "57% Persian" for example. So what causes this? I figured my culture was very high, but perhaps they were better propagating culture. Or are there other attributes at work? Please explain this concept to this poor Civilization newbie

[Brota]

Do you have same religon as they do? And who has the holy city?

[TheDervish]

I think the civ in question that stole my tiles were Buddhists, and made their holy city. Does that causes tiles to get absorbed? Any countermeasures against this? Fortify nearby city with my own religions and religious landmarks help at all?

[Brota]

If you have the same state religion as they do and they have the holy city then you are gonna get lots infulence from them. Best counter-measure is to found or switch to another religion, but then they'll hate you for having different religion blah blah blah.

[TheDervish]

Thanks ... race to convert people :P

[popewiz]

actually ... the only thing affecting your borders is culture, just make sure it is high and you're getting a lot of it per turn on your border cities. This can relate to religion a little though, as holy cities get a lot of culture per turn.

[fauteuil7]

Not just holy cities, but don't temples and monasteries spread culture? If you build a Taoist monastery in a city next to an opponent's city which has Taoism as their state religion, does this give that and other Taoist buildings cultural bonuses? If you're a Buddhist, you may not be so impressed by the cultural signifigance of a Christian temple.

[Astat]

i still dont get this culture thing in civ4 - it was easy in civ3, but no idea how it works nowadays..

i mean, i can have a newly-captured city that is situated right at the border of my empire due to highly-developed enemy cities being nearby, allright. since i am a very cultural empire (civics etc.), i station a huge garrison in the city to prevent riots and start hurrying culturul building.. city's making 50 culture per turn rather soon - i can even add a culture bomb.. however, the damn border won't move a single tile away from my city, even though the next enemy city is 4 tiles away.
in the end, i am one level under legendary ("xxx of 75000 culture" on epic!), but the city's still surrounded by borders on 3 sides, rioting around like mad.
how does all this work?

[atreas]

Holy cities and religions have nothing to do with this case. The only thing that matters is CULTURE produced by the cities in question. For every turn each city "puts" on each tile an amount of culture. As long as your "total amount" is bigger than the "enemy total amount" the tile is yours. But if your opponent is continuously putting a bigger amount of culture than you, then eventually he will probably surpass you in total number and the tile will flip.

Countermeasures are: buildings that produce culture (like temples, libraries, etc, and especially cathedrals), Free Speech (doubles the culture in all cities), Hermitage (doubles culture in the specific city), or the use of a Great Artist either for a "culture bomb" or for putting him into the "city in danger".

If things become dangerous and they eventually "eat up" all tiles until the central city tile, then your city will probably revolt and after the 2nd revolt will flip side. This can be somehow countered by stationing many units into the city.

[Lord Chambers]

Originally Posted by Brota

If you have the same state religion as they do and they have the holy city then you are gonna get lots infulence from them. Best counter-measure is to found or switch to another religion, but then they'll hate you for having different religion blah blah blah.

What makes you say any of this?

[Willem]

Originally Posted by TheDervish

I was playing a singleplayer match with the AI, and I noticed with one civ, I was taking their land little by little (over the course of 100's-1000's of years), but another civ was taking MY land. And I noticed nearby, it would say "57% Persian" for example. So what causes this? I figured my culture was very high, but perhaps they were better propagating culture. Or are there other attributes at work? Please explain this concept to this poor Civilization newbie

The Persians are Creative so they get 2 culture points right off. They also seem to really like developing their culture. So you'll have to work harder to out-culture them.

[warpus]

In a nutshell, a tile between your city and a rival city will slowly convert to the culture of the city whose rate of change of culture is higher.

[Astat]

Originally Posted by atreas

Countermeasures are: buildings that produce culture (like temples, libraries, etc, and especially cathedrals), Free Speech (doubles the culture in all cities), Hermitage (doubles culture in the specific city), or the use of a Great Artist either for a "culture bomb" or for putting him into the "city in danger".

that doesnt quite answer my own questions, sadly.
as i said, once some borders are set, i see no way of moving them, regardless of my own culture. so even if i am one level short of legendary, the borders will be next to my city, making it revolt every other day (with the enemy city being 4 tiles or so away).

hmm i should probably open up a new thread on this one..

[Astat]

Originally Posted by atreas

Countermeasures are: buildings that produce culture (like temples, libraries, etc, and especially cathedrals), Free Speech (doubles the culture in all cities), Hermitage (doubles culture in the specific city), or the use of a Great Artist either for a "culture bomb" or for putting him into the "city in danger".

so it's not about total culture, but about culture per turn? if so, what is it with culture bombs?!

[dalessi12]

Originally Posted by Astat

that doesnt quite answer my own questions, sadly.
as i said, once some borders are set, i see no way of moving them, regardless of my own culture. so even if i am one level short of legendary, the borders will be next to my city, making it revolt every other day (with the enemy city being 4 tiles or so away).

hmm i should probably open up a new thread on this one..

It sounds like the nearby enemy cities are also very cultured. The "level" of culture (legendary, influential, etc.) doesn't specifically matter. The total culture matters. If the neighbors' cities have more culture than you (no matter what your "level") they will have more of the land between cities. If they found earlier, have a cultural civ, have cultural civics enabled, or build more culture improvements it may well be impossible to win the tug of war (short of multiple culture bombs).

The bottomline is, if your RATE is higher (you are increasing faster than them) even if you are lower in total, you will gradually see the "in between" spaces go from 60% them/40% you to 50/50, to 49/51 and so on, once the square is "more yours than theirs", it will be under your borders. It is very hard to affect cultural borders when you capture a medium to small city, mid- to lategame, that happens to be near a huge, old, cultured enemy city. After all, you have to start from scratch, and build a lot of buildings before yours will even start producing significant culture. This whole time, the other big enemy city is churning out serious culture every turn. (i.e. you fall more behind)

In short, note the "percentage" yours vs. "percentage" theirs on any square. After several turns check back, you will be able to see who is winning the tug of war, and this can help you decide whether you need to boost the city's culture or not.

[katank]

If the AI culture is really THAT strong, then rather try to win the possibly hopeless culture fight, build an army and sack their city. That removes that city's culture and gets your city some breathing room.

It's funny how despite all this talk about different victory conditions, most things still boil down to war.

[[Comrade]RaVE]

Spies work wonders for turning a decent-city on it's back. Atleast that's the way it seems for me. I managed to reduce Alexander's influence massively just by repeatedly bombing his theatres.

Of course you need to be at war for this to really work to your advantage. Seeing as how they're putting the pressure on you anyways, it might not hurt to get a force mobilized and do some damage.

[Depravo]

Originally Posted by Astat

so it's not about total culture, but about culture per turn? if so, what is it with culture bombs?!

They're very useful for claiming land in unsettled or newly-settled areas. If you're in a land grab situation, they kick arse.

[atreas]

Originally Posted by Astat

that doesnt quite answer my own questions, sadly.
as i said, once some borders are set, i see no way of moving them, regardless of my own culture. so even if i am one level short of legendary, the borders will be next to my city, making it revolt every other day (with the enemy city being 4 tiles or so away).

hmm i should probably open up a new thread on this one..

First of all, you don't need to open a new thread - there was one thread exactly on this subject, but sadly I couldn't find it (it was about a month ago).

Now, you are misinterpreting two different things: TOTAL CULTURE on a distant tile and TOTAL CULTURE on the central city tile are two different things. The story goes (as I have understood from the article and noticed in my games) the following way:

in each turn your city produces culture, and thus you are "putting" some culture points on each tile that your city can access (whether this tile is yours or not). The exact amount is determined by a) the distance from the city center (there was in fact a debate about the influence of this parameter) and b) the cultural output of the city. The same is done by all other civs. The civ that has put the most "total culture" on the tile AND has access to the tile through one of his cities occupies the tile. (Proof of that: when you conquer a city and the opponent civ has not another close city, some city tiles will not be 100% yours, even though they are in your occupation). That is repeated for each round.

When you use the "culture bomb" you are putting a huge amount of culture on the tiles, again according to distance from city center (that means, if your Artist gives 6000 "points" in the center, it doesn't also give 6000 points to each of the more distant tiles). That's why your city center may be almost legendary but the other tiles to be "outgunned". Also remember that the fact that you did once put an amount of culture doesn't guarantee that in the next turns you will continue to put culture (because of course the total culture depends on the culture you put per turn), so the tiles will tend to flip again.

[Astat]

i see.. it's really complicated nowadays, yet still much better than in civ3.
i see that they tweaked any border-related problems i saw back then (like, having damn AI civs found a ciy just next to your border, which would then result in the border moving a tile in his favor and, soon, a second tile until his city radius was complete.. you couldnt do much against this except for razing the city).

actually, civ4 tweaked so many problems ive often been thinking about, just as if the devs were looking into my mind. and they even fixed problems i never consciously perceived, but now realize to have been a constant annoyance (no idea if that was proper english..)
hmm such a brilliant job from those guys.

and thanks for the replies.