Cultural Domination

[Munterpipe]

Let's see if there's any interest in this baby.

Leader: TBD
Map: Pangea
Size: Small
Difficulty: Noble or Prince
Victory conditions: All on except culture, we must win by Domination.

Sounds easy so far, right?
Game settings:


That's right, we can never declare war, but must win by domination. Do you think it's possible?
It's been said that it's to hard to flip cities in Civ IV. We'll find out just how hard. We'll discuss leader, settings and tactics first, and then I'll roll up a start.
For players, I think ability to win at Monarch is required, since this won't be an easy ride.

Roster:

Munterpipe
Rex Tyrannus
Foolonthehill
GreyFox
Atlas
Xerol

Alternate:
Ruff Hi

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I was a big fan of the "passive aggressive" variant rule Arathorn had invented for Civ 3, and so half a year ago I tried exactly what you are trying to do here in this SG. Unfortunately, it doesn't work (or at least it didn't work with my strategy). Flipping cities is extremely hard in CIV, and only works if you manage to surround an opponent's city with your culture from all sides. That won't be possible once borders are established. Then there's no propaganda option like there was in Civ 3, and even if you manage to flip one or two cities at a given border (which can be done), you won't be able to overcome the mature cultural borders from the cities behind, even if you use multiple culture bombs like I did.

Maybe you come up with a more creative idea of how to do it, but I don't think it's possible.

-Kylearan

[Munterpipe]

Originally Posted by Kylearan

Hi,

I was a big fan of the "passive aggressive" variant rule Arathorn had invented for Civ 3, and so half a year ago I tried exactly what you are trying to do here in this SG. Unfortunately, it doesn't work (or at least it didn't work with my strategy). Flipping cities is extremely hard in CIV, and only works if you manage to surround an opponent's city with your culture from all sides. That won't be possible once borders are established. Then there's no propaganda option like there was in Civ 3, and even if you manage to flip one or two cities at a given border (which can be done), you won't be able to overcome the mature cultural borders from the cities behind, even if you use multiple culture bombs like I did.

Maybe you come up with a more creative idea of how to do it, but I don't think it's possible.

-Kylearan

Should I take that, as a "Count me in!" or don't you have the time? I'm sure people thought it impossible to win a game with no millitary units, or with no research, but you showed the opposite.
What difficulty did you try the game on?

[Rex Tyrannus]

I was thinking...would it be to our advantage to overstuff the map? Standard map with 18 civs or something. This would keep any one civ from having too great of a cultural defense. Of course, this would also mean more capitals to flip.

I like how Ky made a Great Artist machine in his 3cc cultural victory. We really want to take care to not have any impurities in our GP farm.

Also, does the difficulty setting do anything for flip-rate? Obviously, easier difficulties will make it easier for us to beat AI to wonders and critical techs, but any other advantage?

I'm undecided on the possibility of this venture, but I really want to try it.

[FoolontheHill]

Really great idea for a variant Munterpipe!

I still don't have a win on Monarch (missed a cultural by three turns in the GOTM), so I guess I'll have to lurk.

Couple of ideas though from what I've seen messing around with cultural:

• Early land grab will be critical, what if you place early cities a long distance from the capital to act as bases for future clusters of cities to put pressure on surrounding borders? I would assume they would be safe from the AI with the always peace variant. Initial maintenance costs will be a problem though.
• I've found that, as Kylearan states, it takes multiple cities to cause a border city to flip, so it may make sense to create as many cities as possible, even with quite a bit of overlap to add to the pressure. Again, financial issues of this would have to be dealt with.
• A creative civ seems essential, what would be the best secondary trait?
• Don't build any wonders that don't generate artist points? I'm not sure about this one as I've not found culture bombs to be as effective in flipping cities as I expected. It seems the per turn cultural output of the city is the bigger factor. Merging them into border cities might be better. Running caste system and tons of artist specialists might help too.

[SpriteSODA]

you need a philosofical/spiritural leader - saladin methinks.

[pholkhero]

the thing about settling vs great works is that w/the merged one, you get a constant +14 cultural pressure amplified, whereas the GW only adds the points for a one time bonus. I think in this game, unless you're dealing with tiny cities, merging the GAs will be worht much more.

another idea might be running lots of farms, even all farms, to run more specialists.

Creative/Philo might be better; who's that Bismarck?

unfortunately, the flipping system may be broke, as Kylearan alluded to. Check out the RB19 thread. On the last page or so, there's a pic of a German city being scrunched by their Big Three Cultural cities and it STILL hasn't flipped. As others have said, this may not be possible with the current system.

[SpriteSODA]

then Fredrich - creative/philosophical.

[ChrTh]

lurker's comment: I played a similar game on Chieftain level a little while back to test some things, and I was able to culturally assimilate the entire Chinese empire (except for a city on the far side of the continent). However, I came nowhere close to getting the land area required for domination. I don't think there's enough turns in the game to do so.

[Rex Tyrannus]

Are we turning time vic off too?

[Strauss]

Looks like another interesting/crazy variant from you Munterpipe. I would have liked to join in on this, but I already have lots of things going on in CivIV, not to mention still having to start on Oblivion which has been on my desk for over a month now. So I'll just wish you good luck and I'll definately be lurking.

lurker's comment: It does seem like you need to turn time victory off to win this one, although Tiny map size may go a long way as well.

[Conroe]

lurker's comment: Just to echo what Kylearan and others have noted, this variant isn't possible on the current patch. I have not had any cities flip since going to the 1.61 version. The AI only needs about 6 to 8 units in a city to stop any flips.

ChrTh's success in flipping the Chinese empire is probably due to the difficulty level. On Settler, the AI was not able to build troops fast enough to compensate for his quickly building culture improvements.

You might give this variant another shot after the next patch comes out.

[ChrTh]

lurker's comment:
Not to disagree with Kylerean, but in CTIV-9, Mansa caused Philadelphia to flip without surrounding it with culture; however, the fact that we were culturally pressuring it from the other side may have been a factor.

[Munterpipe]

Originally Posted by Conroe

Just to echo what Kylearan and others have noted, this variant isn't possible on the current patch. I have not had any cities flip since going to the 1.61 version. The AI only needs about 6 to 8 units in a city to stop any flips.

I'm sure that this will be hard, but I'm not buying that it's impossible. If you think it is, all the more reason to try it and make you eat your words

Originally Posted by Pholkhero

unfortunately, the flipping system may be broke, as Kylearan alluded to. Check out the RB19 thread. On the last page or so, there's a pic of a German city being scrunched by their Big Three Cultural cities and it STILL hasn't flipped. As others have said, this may not be possible with the current system.

If we have indeed surrounded a city with culture, much of the job is done allready. The hardest part will be to get the land, not the population I think.

Originally Posted by Foolonthehill

Really great idea for a variant Munterpipe!

I still don't have a win on Monarch (missed a cultural by three turns in the GOTM), so I guess I'll have to lurk.

Couple of ideas though from what I've seen messing around with cultural:
Early land grab will be critical, what if you place early cities a long distance from the capital to act as bases for future clusters of cities to put pressure on surrounding borders? I would assume they would be safe from the AI with the always peace variant. Initial maintenance costs will be a problem though.
I've found that, as Kylearan states, it takes multiple cities to cause a border city to flip, so it may make sense to create as many cities as possible, even with quite a bit of overlap to add to the pressure. Again, financial issues of this would have to be dealt with.
A creative civ seems essential, what would be the best secondary trait?
Don't build any wonders that don't generate artist points? I'm not sure about this one as I've not found culture bombs to be as effective in flipping cities as I expected. It seems the per turn cultural output of the city is the bigger factor. Merging them into border cities might be better. Running caste system and tons of artist specialists might help too.

You're on the roster fool. I like your ideas. They were pretty much what I had in mind. Early land grab and extremely tight city placement sure is absolutely critical. To hell with finances. We are probably going to do this on Noble, so we won't stay to far behind. Caste system will be the civiv of our choice too.
About the Creative trait I'm not so sure. Spiritual would be better since religion bodes for more culture than the creative trait does. Indoustrious for wonders could be helpful. Especially those early wonders are good culture providors. Financial to help finances would be viable. Organized as well. Philosophical for mass GA is a choice too. Aggressive is oviously out.

Originally Posted by Rex Tyrannus

I was thinking...would it be to our advantage to overstuff the map? Standard map with 18 civs or something. This would keep any one civ from having too great of a cultural defense. Of course, this would also mean more capitals to flip.

I like how Ky made a Great Artist machine in his 3cc cultural victory. We really want to take care to not have any impurities in our GP farm.

Also, does the difficulty setting do anything for flip-rate? Obviously, easier difficulties will make it easier for us to beat AI to wonders and critical techs, but any other advantage?

I'm undecided on the possibility of this venture, but I really want to try it.

Eighteen civs will make it much harder I think. No room for early land grab, and a lot of capitals to deal with. The domination limit will be smaller though. I don't think difficulty will have an impact on flip rates.

[pholkhero]

hold on here...you do make a great point munter. All this time we've been concentrating on FLIPPING the cities, when all you need is the land around them. it doesn't matter if there are islands of cities as long as it's in a sea of your culture.

though the dom limit is a bit higher, it may be better to go with archipalego to slow down AI expansion a bit.

no barbs would be good, too.

[FoolontheHill]

Originally Posted by pholkhero

hold on here...you do make a great point munter. All this time we've been concentrating on FLIPPING the cities, when all you need is the land around them. it doesn't matter if there are islands of cities as long as it's in a sea of your culture.

Oooo. I hadn't thought of that. It is hard to take tiles from an established capital, but taking significant tiles from other cities should be quite possible.

Also, would it be possible to creep borders in on the other civs by continuing to found cities closer and closer to them? Or would there be too great a risk of losing them in the early years from flipping to the other civ.

[FoolontheHill]

Originally Posted by Munterpipe

You're on the roster fool. I like your ideas. They were pretty much what I had in mind. Early land grab and extremely tight city placement sure is absolutely critical. To hell with finances. We are probably going to do this on Noble, so we won't stay to far behind. Caste system will be the civiv of our choice too. About the Creative trait I'm not so sure. Spiritual would be better since religion bodes for more culture than the creative trait does. Indoustrious for wonders could be helpful. Especially those early wonders are good culture providors. Financial to help finances would be viable. Organized as well. Philosophical for mass GA is a choice too. Aggressive is oviously out.

Aye, aye! Reporting for er, um, uh, culturing?

As for creative, it could help quite a bit with the early landgrab, but I can't argue against the advantages of spiritual and grabbing an early religion(s). If we are starting on Noble, I'm less concerned about the early grab anyway, and we would probably be able to easily snag stonehenge or even whip/chop obelsisks if needed to stretch those early borders.

I'm slipping off now to reread those threads on how cultural influence is calculated........

[ChrTh]

lurker's comment:
If you're not going to be able to flip the cities, you're going to have to focus on your own population growth to reach the Dom limit. Might I suggest an Expansive Civ?

[Atlas]

Ah what the h*ll!! Sign me up!

I have toyed with this idea for a while (apparently like everyone else ).

Let us now consider Civ 3 style war settlers (ultra aggressive settlements)...

[SpriteSODA]

You can do it in a tiny islands large map. that way you might get around the cities.