Border Cities

[Teeps]

I was hoping to get some advice from the experts here on border cities. Lets say you have cities bordering another civ and you are not planning on being agressive towards them. The goal here should be for your borders to expand and envelop their territory and cities. So the questions are:

1. Should this be a production/commerce/GP farm city?
2. What type of buildings should be put here (theaters, libraries, factories, wonders, etc...)?
3. Is culture rate the number one deciding factor in border expansion?

Thanks in advance!

 

[petey]

1) Depends on the terrain of the city

2) Theatres, libraries, etc. Anything that gives a culture boost to the city is good to have. Running artist specialists helps in this too, since they give +3 culture/turn to the city

3) It is the number one factor. It's also the number two, three and four factors, since that's the only thing that's calculated to determine who controls the space. The number five factor is your military units razing or capturing the city that you're competing for control of the tile with.

 

[ElJojo]

1) Usually having too much cottages near the border can be dangerous. You may not want to attack your neighbour but maybe he does. Cootages take time to develop. GP are nice because theu often produce culture (always with sixtine chapel), so a GP farm could be good idea especially a Great artist farm.
2) You have to maximize culture, so librairies, theaters etc. And a good garrison so that your neighbour won't be tempted to seize this nice spot (but you can produce your garrison city somewhere else).
3) culture rate for slow growth and culture bomb now and then. But a culture bomb is really useful if you can match it with a good rate after.

 

[punchandpie]

3) culture rate for slow growth and culture bomb now and then. But a culture bomb is really useful if you can match it with a good rate after.

Culture bombs are the best way to expand the borders early and quickly, but the explosion of your borders with this method depend on how "old" that city is i.e. how long that city had been around.