Captured city borders?

[Quechua]

Does anyone know the mechanics of how borders work after a city is captured? Some tiles which are in the cultural radius of the defending civ's cities will become neutral for a couple turns, while some other tiles which aren't in any city's radius are temporarily kept by the defender.

I had the frustrating experience of capturing a capital, but not being able to defend it since my reinforcements were a few tiles away, and couldn't use what I assumed would become neutral roads. I had to sue for peace to keep the city, which I don't like because it feels like I'm exploiting the AI's stupidity.

Here's a screenshot with the weird border pattern:

Spoiler :

A few tiles around Madrid become neutral, but Spain keeps many of the tiles that used to be in it's radius, even though it has no other cities to maintain them. In the north, Salamanca picks up a few tiles, but a couple tiles to the west become neutral instead.

I have read a great article on Culture Mechanics, but they never got around to discussing this there.

 

[Gooblah]

Okay...
Until the culture kept by the opponent Civ (in this case, from Santiago) is removed, the city radius will be minimized. Thus, if Santiago is yours or razed, Madrid will have the full 8 tile radius after resistance.

Also, even though you have Salamanca and Madrid, the problem is Isabella's culture still surrounds the city due to the fact that her Civ has not been wiped out yet. Once it is, her culture is dead, and your culture takes over.

 

[oyzar]

On the turn you capture a city only the culture in the imeadiate area around will change sometimes. This may or may not be a bug...

 

[Quechua]

Okay...
Until the culture kept by the opponent Civ (in this case, from Santiago) is removed, the city radius will be minimized. Thus, if Santiago is yours or razed, Madrid will have the full 8 tile radius after resistance.

Either I'm misunderstanding or I think you missed the point... I never expected to get the tiles SW of Madrid since they're clearly in Santiago's radius. But I did expect that pink arc of tiles north and east of Madrid would be neutral. She has no cities left to claim those tiles, but she's kept them for now, though presumably in a turn or two she'll lose them.

I'm not complaining so much as wondering how this works (any ideas are welcome, sorry if I misunderstood), so I don't make a tactical mistake again.

 

[Quechua]

On the turn you capture a city only the culture in the imeadiate area around will change sometimes. This may or may not be a bug...

But what's weird is that some tiles outside the immediate area did become neutral also, like near Salamanca and some of the sea tiles in the east. So the very distant and near tiles became neutral, while the tiles in the middle didn't change

 

[KMadCandy]

But what's weird is that some tiles outside the immediate area did become neutral also, like near Salamanca and some of the sea tiles in the east. So the very distant and near tiles became neutral, while the tiles in the middle didn't change

it's really weird and i don't understand it. in warlords (but before the BtS-timed patch to it actually, haven't tried since) i've used a great artist to bring a capture city out of revolt instantly. even in that case, some tiles that you'd expect to be under your control often remain no-man's-land, while tiles past them become yours ?

i've only noticed that "GA not getting me the tiles i expected" weirdness when the city i've captured was previously fighting a culture war with some other city. like, egypt and germany shared a border, so the tiles were under egypt's control but had some %age german culture. it fixes itself a couple turns later (but not the very next turn), it's as though the game needs a while to catch up, or i need a few turns to "earn" my right to those tiles despite the culture bomb. quite annoying.

i don't see any evidence of a culture-battle for those tiles between izzy and some other civ on your screenshot tho.

 

[DaveMcW]

not being able to defend it since my reinforcements were a few tiles away, and couldn't use what I assumed would become neutral roads.

I think it was designed this way to make blitzkrieg warfare harder.

 

[Quechua]

i've only noticed that "GA not getting me the tiles i expected" weirdness when the city i've captured was previously fighting a culture war with some other city.

I think the presence of a third civ's culture is a big piece of the puzzle. Cyrus does have a new city to the north, which is affecting a few tiles west of Salamanca.

I finally got around to playing that game again (why I didn't follow up till now), so I saw what happened in the following turns. Here's another screenshot from the turn of the capture:

The blue line is what should be the border of Cyrus' city in the north, which just popped to radius 3. The pink lines show the former northern border of Madrid, which had radius 5, and Santiago which is at 3. There's also a Spanish city to the south but I don't remember exactly where and what the radius is, but I'm pretty sure it's northern boundary is the tile just south of Madrid.

It looks like the turn of the capture, any tiles which I uniquely own change to what you would expect. So Salamanca gets all the radius 1 tiles which aren't contested by Cyrus, and Madrid gets the tiles which aren't overlapped by Spain's remaining cities.

The next turn, all of the remaining tiles that aren't in any city radius became neutral. So that pink arc north of Madrid goes away, but the tiles west of Salamanca that were contested by Persia and Spain remain neutral. And the second turn after the capture, Cyrus' culture moved in to fill this area, and the borders finally make sense.

So I would guess that you get any tiles you own right away, and it takes 2 turns for borders which are contested by a third party to move in. It seems I've noticed the 2 turn thing before, and maybe it explains KMad's culture bomb weirdness? Finally, there's some weird border decay mechanism that explains the remaining tiles - maybe to make attacking harder as Dave suggested.

I don't get the border decay at all though, it doesn't fit neatly into a radius pattern. Does anyone have any ideas or counterexamples?

Edit: Maybe the border decay is based on the amount of culture built up in the tile, not the radius. Izzy had a city across the water in the east that I razed, that could explain why the northern border receded more than the eastern one.