City defences

[Crowqueen]

Can someone tell me how the percentage defense bonus in a given city is calculated? I spread my state religion to a newly capture city and its defense went up.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Cultural defence is based on total culture... normal speed figures:

0 - 10: 0%
10 - 100: 20%
100 - 500: 40%
500 - 5000: 60%
5000 - 50000: 80%
50000+: 100%

I think...

Plus: Chichen Itza: +25%
Walls: +20 or 25% (dunno, never build 'em) EDIT: Gunpowder troops ignore walls and castles
Castle: Maybe another bonus?!

EDIT: Spreading state religion gives +1 culture per turn, if no state religion or free religion it is +1 per religion per turn. A holy city is +4 or +5 culture per turn too.

 

[Crowqueen]

Thanks.

Where is the best place to "build" culture (ie set city production to Culture)? On the borderlands (where it can best influence rival territories, or in the heartlands? I'm assuming building culture only affects local boundaries, so the logical answer would be on the borders, but I'm just guessing.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Generally speaking you'd only want to build culture if you were going for a culture win. You could also use it to try and get a couple border pops in a newly founded or captured city, although there are better alternatives-- whip a quick theatre into the town if you're under slavery, or better yet just give the city one artist specialist if you're under caste system. Border pops come very quickly with just a single artist specialist.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Builing culture is quite useful when other culture is stealing yor towns, mines and bananas.

 

[InFlux5]

Yeah, building culture has its place, but let's be real: in most games you will never build culture. There are many other options for culture which also provide other benefits.