The Great General Citadel - Now with a Culture Bomb!

[Xger]

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere yet but it happened to my boundaries last night.

America used a Great General to culture bomb and steal my ivory!

First, I don't think I can recall a single instance in the past in vanilla of an AI doing a culture bomb, ever. Secondly, it was a Great General. So I decided I had to shore up a trade route and sure enough the Citadel can now be used just as a Great Artist used to be.

So I guess the discussion is, how often would you use this, and will it affect your play?

I'm considering leaving a unit in front of a city-state for exp to get more generals, though I know some people considering that form of exp gain to be weak/cheap.

 

[Big J Money]

Weak or Cheap? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I read it as Cheap. Declaring war with a City State has diplomatic repercussions, doesn't it? So it's not like the XP is free. And if you are referencing realism in any way, what better way to keep troops trained than to send them on easy, pointless, violent wars of subjugation and oppression? Keeping an army costs money, too. That unit could be costing you 4gpt over 100 turns, couldn't it?

Also, that's super cool about the AI bombing you!

 

[Cymsdale]

I think it's an awesome improvement to a feature I never used much in vanilla. I really like how the re-balanced the great people in G&K.

 

[Xger]

Weak or Cheap? I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I read it as Cheap. Declaring war with a City State has diplomatic repercussions, doesn't it? So it's not like the XP is free. And if you are referencing realism in any way, what better way to keep troops trained than to send them on easy, pointless, violent wars of subjugation and oppression? Keeping an army costs money, too. That unit could be costing you 4gpt over 100 turns, couldn't it?

Also, that's super cool about the AI bombing you!

I meant weak as in slang for cheap.

When Washington bombed me I didn't evern understand the notification at first, especially since it said the great general did it

 

[Babri]

New GP changes are nice except that free GPs are not really free anymore as they increase thresholds for spawning new GPs.

 

[Landstander]

I dearly miss the old fashioned culture bomb (I may be the only guy who used them regularly), but this is a great way to make the Great General more useful. Especially now that you can't burn them for Golden Ages.

 

[joncnunn]

In one of my vanilla games, and AI culture bombed me. But it was more common for me to cultural bomb the AI.

Yes; Great Artists no longer cultural bomb, they can either build a landmark or trigger a GA.

Great Generals can no longer trigger GA but their citadel now also has the cultural bomb power.

 

[Rishara]

In my current game, I used my excess GGs to drill a tunnel into Hiawatha's territory. He was way ahead of me in tech, and I had the Great Wall, so it drastically slowed down his invasion plans. Then, once I finally had artillery, it made it pretty easy for me to march down and slaughter him. Having that tunnel in his territory allowed all my units to heal that much faster and kept him from rushing my attackers due to the Great Wall.

 

[MaximusK]

I did the same tunneling technique against a stronger foe w/ Great Wall. I had 3-4 to spare for this endeavor (i had already conquered 3 civs before this).

Maybe they should change it so the GG has to "build" the citadel over a couple turns.

 

[Sleepless CiVr]

I was just GG bombed twice in one 2-hr session by my southern neighbor Atilla. So, I just GG Bombed him back and he's just itching to DoW on me. I'm so used to using Great People for Goldens as I did this in vanilla all the time it's so weird to not use one for the actual purpose it was created for. My southern border now is littered with citadels and I have never seen one before in the almost 2 yrs since vanilla.

 

[cccv]

Question-- is it possible to farm over a citadel, or are you stuck with a tile you can't improve each time you use it?

 

[Pokeylope]

You can replace the citadel with other tile improvements.

 

[Depravo]

Great that the AI now knows how to use citadels. I swore by them even in vanilla, they're great against the AI which doesn't (didn't?) properly take them into account when on the attack.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I used this change to great effect just today. Playing as Attila, I only had one neighbor on my landmass (Alexander, how I hate him). I decided my strategy would be to conquer him, take over my whole landmass, then go to space. Unfortunately his capitol was in a MOST non get-atable place, several mountains right next to him and a lake so I only had a few tiles that I could actually attack it from. Luckily he built a second city which was easier to conquer, so I took that first then used a spare great general to culture bomb putting a citadel on a hill 2 tiles away from his capitol. Parked a defense unit up on there and Alex stupidly fired at him over and over as I moved my archers and battering rams into place. Once I had that citadel in place the unattackable capitol became very attackable and it was easy.

 

[Olleus]

Huh, so the concensus seems to be that citadels are actually quite good to attack from as well, and can be used aggressively. Pretty cool.

As a european without the game, exactly what are the rules for culture bombing? Do you have to be in your own territory to do it? 1 adjacent? Can you use allied city states to culture bomb from?

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Think it's the same rules as Great Artist culture bomb used to be. Have to be inside your territory OR one hex outside of it, but if you're outside of it it can't belong to anyone else, can only do it outside your territory if it's unclaimed ground.

 

[Olleus]

Pity, I was trying to think of a way of using citadels to protect an amphibious invasion by exploiting a 1-tile unclaimed territory on another continent. Never used GA culture bombs.

 

[Sleepless CiVr]

In the game I just finished, I GG Culture Bombed in Atilla's borders during wartime twice. All in all, I saw 8 Citadels, 5 by me, three were his, all along the southern border and I starting doing this once I was tipped off by China that he was attacking my coastal city of Cologne. There were no citadels between us at that point. But hey, he started it with one, I answered with two and then back and forth the whole game the same stretches of land were traded back and forth. It was one hell of game and I don't even care that I lost. It was awesome. Time to start another...

 

[Zeekater]

Pity, I was trying to think of a way of using citadels to protect an amphibious invasion by exploiting a 1-tile unclaimed territory on another continent. Never used GA culture bombs.

Or place one next to some remote resource you desperatly need without having to build a new city

 

[Rishara]

You CAN use the GG in enemy territory as long as it's just adjacent to yours.

Unfortunately, the AI doesn't understand the rule that it loses 30 pts for ending its turn near your citadel. I had Greece next to me in my current game and they just kept marching a unit into my territory, next to a citadel. It'd take the 30 pts, they'd march out then march back in the following turn. So they basically just killed themselves over and over again. Rather stupid.

They do seem pretty good about culture bombing with it though. When I landed on the other continent, I saw one of Japan's cities basically surrounded by Catherine's citadels and territory.

I haven't given them the chance to use them on me yet.