Cultural Dominance & Conquest

[LordQulex]

I've read the forums a lot and can humbly say that I am a Civ4 intermediate. I have won the game a number of times the easiest ways on many speeds and difficulties. The problem is, my score was never very high. Then I beat the game for the first time using the cultural victory (I have never done it before because a game of peace and city building is rarely appealing to crushing your enemies beneath your iron shod boot heal) and noticed that I had been rated the highest possible leader and had an awesome score. So I decided to try some of the other victories using culture, primarily domination and conquest. I have tried this a few times and have handily gotten my rear stomped.

My question is this - have any of you ever dominated the globe by culturally converting cities, and after that have you wiped out all enemy cities doing the same thing? I'm not so certain it's possible. I have read a lot about culture bomb cities and good city placement to take over enemy cities, but since the cultural swap is nothing more than a 1/10 chance I don't know if this is a reliable enough mechanic to win the game.

So I'd like to start a forum dedicated to peacefully converting enemy cities to dominate the globe (since I did and search and couldn't find a similar topic).

 

[Orzio]

Duel map+ creative leader and you could win peacefull domination win. BUt on larger maps on higher difficultys you wont be abel to get domination win by just peacefull culture.

 

[Boom12389]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210279
A game using culture to conquer.
http://www.garath.net/Sullla/pahatty_1.html
Cultural Domination

 

[Cam_H]

A couple more games for your viewing pleasure;

• Cultural Domination
• Silk02 - Passive Aggressive Pangeaic Cultural Domination (unfortunately a loss, but not too bad a loss).

 

[dirtyparrot]

With the new patch restoring some of the power of the spread culture missions, I'm sure that it could be done with enough EP (with the Sistine Chapel and enough religions). The AI still doesn't seem to react too well to protecting cities on the verge of flipping.

 

[vicawoo]

With the new patch restoring some of the power of the spread culture missions, I'm sure that it could be done with enough EP (with the Sistine Chapel and enough religions). The AI still doesn't seem to react too well to protecting cities on the verge of flipping.

Unfortunately spread culture mainly affects the city culture and adds 20 twenty turns of tile culture, based on borders (and not culture production alone). The alternative, pumping in culture from a nearby city, will benefit add culture each turn from border and culture production.

 

[dirtyparrot]

^ I by no means know the finer aspects of the culture mechanics, but I believe that it adds 5% of the city's culture to you. It also increases your culture in the tiles nearby. With enough spread culture missions, you can speed up the rate at which you flip cities. Plus, I believe that the culture that you accrued through the spread culture is your initial culture ofr that city once it flips to you.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It can be done with spread culture + sistine. I'd imagine if you manage to involve apostolic palace resolutions it's even faster still.

But it is still a very slow snail pace compared to even the slowest war era (trebs + whatever). Trebmace can wipe out an entire empire in 40 turns even if it has castles. culture...will maybe get a city in that time .

Definitely abuse marathon if you want to try this role play out.

 

[vicawoo]

I read the code and I made a post about this.

It adds 5% to the city culture. City culture and tile culture are separate. The city square has tile culture, and the city itself has city culture.

It adds tile culture the same way a city culture with 100 culture, but 0 culture per turn adds tile culture.

Example 1: city has 0 culture, adds 0 culture per turn.
You get your inner square. Each tile, including the city square receives 0 culture per turn.

Example 2: city has 500 culture (culture level 4), adds Pi culture per turn. Yes, culture has to be integer values, but this makes it easier to distinguish where the culture is coming from.
Border pops three times, so you have inner square and three more rings. The city square and 8 inner squares (ring 1) receive 20*(4-1)+Pi culture per turn.
The second ring, that is the outer workable tiles, receive 20*(4-2)+Pi culture per turn.
The third ring receives 20*(4-3)+Pi culture per turn.
The third ring receives 20*(4-4)+Pi=Pi culture per turn.
After 10 turns, your inner square, including your city tile, has accumulated (60+Pi)*10=400+10*Pi culture per turn.

So you're spread espionage mission doesn't just have to overwhelm the Pi culture per turn, which accumulated should be the city culture, it has to overwhelm the 40 per turn in the city tile, which is over 10x as much.

This sounds inefficient, but the way spread culture mission works, it's still harder than it looks.

Example 3: City has 2000 culture (culture level 3). You perform your first spread culture mission.
What is the total culture spread? 2000/20=100.
How much tile culture is spread? Well, the added tile culture is calculated the same way as the BTS culture bomb. It will not actually add the culture spread to the tiles directly
First it will divide the added culture into 20 groups. After it adds the culture, it will update the tile culture for one turn.
So turn 1: 100/20=5. The enemy city now has 5 of your culture. You need 10 culture for the first border pop, so exactly 0 culture is added to surrounding tiles, including the city square
Turn 2: 5 x 2=10. The enemy city has 10 culture, so it receives its first "border pop", and is culture level 2, although you will not see it. The inner square receives 20*(1-0)+0 culture per turn. It does not add any of the spread culture culture
The out cross receives 20*(1-1)+0=0 culture. Not that chunk of 5 culture, 0.
Turns 3-19. Exactly the same as 2. Even though the city itself (but not the city square!) is accumulating 95 culture, your outer square gets absolutely no tile culture. The inner square is receiving a constant 20 culture per iteration.
Turn 20: City accumulates 100 culture. It is now culture level 3. Inner square receives 20*(3-1)+0=40 culture. The next ring finally receives 20*(3-2)+0 culture per turn, and the outer square gets absolutely nothing.

Example 4: The creator of the better AI mod creates the new self-aware HAL 9000 AI. After killing the creator, it poses as him and is adopted onto your computer. The HAL 9000 AI knows how to use worldbuilder and edit its own xml files.
It gives its city 100 billion culture.
How much tile culture will you receive?
Well, you will receive 5 billion city culture, divided into 20 chunks.
Iteration 1: Well, the first chunk provides 250 million culture. Unfortunately, culture only goes up to legendary, level 6 culture. So your inner square receives 20*(6-1)+0=100 tile culture, not 250 million culture.
Iterations 2-20: Same thing.
So your spread culture mission has added a nice 250 million city culture, but a completely much less impressive 2000 tile culture.

So if the city is recently settled but outputting low double digit culture, spread culture will work best. But better yet is if your nearby city can pump in culture to the tiles directly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's all true, but inefficient though it may be, it is the only way to transfer "culture based commerce" from cities that do not border the AI to cities that do.

15-20 spread culture missions gives most cities enough of your culture that if you are outproducing them/turn, you'll have a chance to flip.

Even under ideal settings (sistine artists + religious buildings, AI in different religion than your state, AP, spread culture, etc) it is still really slow. Doable though if you're on like monarch or less.

 

[vicawoo]

If you want to flip it, you only need as many missions as required to get it to the desired culture level. This will equalize the city's 20x bonus per turn. Any more is a few more turns.

Otherwise culture bombs and spread culture adding to tile culture make them much more useful for cultural victories. If you do 20 culture missions on a legendary city, you'll probably have no chance of setting a revolt, but if you conquer it you'll get your own legendary city. Save your espionage to steal his 2nd legendary city.