How does culture defense work?

VirusMonster · May 7, 2006

Hi, I am confused how the cultural defense value is calculated.
I once captured a +%50culture defended city and then when I next attacked their capital, the capital only had +%20 cultural defense. Should not the capital have higher defense in most circumstances?

Mutineer · May 7, 2006

Most lickly 50% was capital and other city become capital just befor, when you took original capital.

Cam_H · May 7, 2006

I'm sorry to reply to a question with an assumption as an answer, however ...

I have assumed that the culture defence level was linked to the culture level of the city in question. As the capital has a culture-producing building in the Palace, its culture value is typically higher. When you add in the Bureaucracy civic, the capital also tends to be most likely to knock out other culture-producing buildings quicker than the empire's other cities. If however, a city founds a religion, or happens to have high hammer productivity allowing it to build culture-producing wonders or buildings, then there's some chance that its culture would be higher than even the capital. There are other complicating factors such as whether the defenses were knocked down in some earlier war, or whether (... which I find most unlikely ...) that Great Artists or Specialist Artists have been used to bump up the culture of the non-capital.

I can imagine someone can point to a thread that has some lengthy mathematical formula to prove or disprove the mechanics however ...

GoodSarmatian · May 7, 2006

The culture defense increases by 20 whenever the borders of the city expand. If It's just the fat cross the city has a culture defense of 20%, then it goes 40%, 60%, 80% and finally when a city reaches legendary culture 100%.
A 50% defense bonus comes from city walls.
It's either culture defense or defense from buildings, depending on which one is higher.

Edit: Still weird that a capital has only a 20% bonus. It should be at least 40%.

DarkFyre99 · May 7, 2006

VirusMonster said:
Hi, I am confused how the cultural defense value is calculated.
I once captured a +%50culture defended city and then when I next attacked their capital, the capital only had +%20 cultural defense. Should not the capital have higher defense in most circumstances?

This sounds like it was really early in the game. Are you sure the first city didn't have walls built?

VirusMonster · May 7, 2006

Opps yea, city had walls. It is just like GoodSarmatian explained.

I fixed the article now.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169930

Mutineer · May 7, 2006

You need just 10 culture for 20% and 100 culture for 40%. (normal speed)

Capital by default produce 2 culture with out any other sources of culture.

So, if capital is less then 50 turns old it will have culture 20%.

If you add religion and any other culture building this number become small fast. So, the only conclusion that 20% capital is extrimelly early in game or a new capital.

VirusMonster · May 7, 2006

It was a marathon deity game where the AI needs 30/300 culture to increase his borders. 300/2=150turns. 15years=1turn in ancient era marathon. 150x15=2250 years. 4000BC-2250=1750BC.

I attacked the capital around 2000BC so the math works out alright. Luckily, the AI gets no bonus for culture defense at deity

Zanmato · May 8, 2006

Also, if you build the Chichen Itza it adds another 25% defense to all cities. Plus, don't forget the Castle which gives another 50%. But, walls and castle only provide defense against pre-gunpowder so I can't see them being added on the cultural defense value in any case as the GoodSarmatian explained with one value being higher than another. Such other bonuses will be added when defending I assume. I've seen cities with defense values of 125%-150% in mid-game. I've bombarded them, they drop to 50% then back up into triple figures again afterwards. It's like the game uses a base value first then adds any other bonuses afterwards.

gunkulator · May 9, 2006

Zanmato said:
Plus, don't forget the Castle which gives another 50%. But, walls and castle only provide defense against pre-gunpowder so I can't see them being added on the cultural defense value in any case as the GoodSarmatian explained with one value being higher than another.

Castles provide 1 :culture:

so in a very small way, they do add to the cultural defense.

Aegis · May 9, 2006

Ok, stupid-question time: So when I bombard a city's defenses with a catapult, I am in effect lowering both the cultural defense and defenses due to walls/castles/Chichen Itza? Or are Cultural defenses exempt from bombardment? It's the former, right?

Zanmato · May 9, 2006

Aegis said:
It's the former, right?

Wouldn't say it's a stupid question. I think it lowers both. If you attack a city with walls are those walls taken into account even though the 'cultural' defence is at 0%? Isn't the principle use of siege units to knock such man-made defenses down. Will have to look at the odds when I take another city with walls.

cabert · May 9, 2006

Aegis said:
Ok, stupid-question time: So when I bombard a city's defenses with a catapult, I am in effect lowering both the cultural defense and defenses due to walls/castles/Chichen Itza? Or are Cultural defenses exempt from bombardment? It's the former, right?

AKAIK it's both. In the end it's always 0

so it's most probably both

jimbob27 · May 9, 2006

cabert said:
AKAIK it's both. In the end it's always 0 so it's most probably both

I'm not sure if it does lower both. I think it lowers whichever one is highest at the beginning of the turn, and then checks again at the start of the next turn.

So.... if a city has 60% cultural, and 50% from walls, and you bombard it down to 35%, you've reduced the cultural defence, but at the end of the turn, the game will check and see it gains 50% from the walls, so at the start of the next turn it'll be 50%.

VirusMonster · May 9, 2006

Good question Aegis, but I am very confused now.

A city has +20 cultural and +50 walls defense. Does the total defense show up as +70%???

jimbob27 · May 9, 2006

VirusMonster said:
Good question Aegis, but I am very confused now.

A city has +20 cultural and +50 walls defense. Does the total defense show up as +70%???

No... it shows whichever one is highest, but this can change from turn to turn. If its got 60% from culture, and you reduce that down to 35%... the the cultural defense has been lowered. At the end of the turn, the game will look and see the city now has 35% cultural and 50% from walls, so it'll display 50% for the next turn.

VirusMonster · May 9, 2006

So, let's say I have cultural and walls defense? Don't they stack vs city attack? That is so lame. :eek:

Rathelon · May 9, 2006

GoodSarmatian said:
The culture defense increases by 20 whenever the borders of the city expand. If It's just the fat cross the city has a culture defense of 20%, then it goes 40%, 60%, 80% and finally when a city reaches legendary culture 100%.
A 50% defense bonus comes from city walls.
It's either culture defense or defense from buildings, depending on which one is higher.

Edit: Still weird that a capital has only a 20% bonus. It should be at least 40%.

The cultural defense is tied to the culture rating of the city. A city with 'Poor' or lower cultural rating has no cultural defense. At all the other levels they receive cultural defense.

Fledgling = 20%
Developing = 40%
Refined = 60%
Influential = 80%
Legendary = 100%

It's all defined in the Civ4CultureLevelInfo.xml

pigswill · May 9, 2006

I think the idea behind walls is that you can quickly establish a defence for a new city without waiting for it to build up significant culture; so in that sense walls are a stop-gap measure.

VirusMonster · May 9, 2006

pigswill said:
I think the idea behind walls is that you can quickly establish a defence for a new city without waiting for it to build up significant culture; so in that sense walls are a stop-gap measure.

Hmm, that makes some sense. I like to build walls in all my cities, especially if I have stone hooked up.

How does culture defense work?

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