Cultural Expansion Doesn't Work

[joyous_gard]

I need oil. On the edge of three of my puppet cities borders is oil. The manual or someone, somewhere says "Cultural expansion expands intelligently based on what your civilization needs." Every civilization needs oil. That is what the 20th century was about. Oil.

The game's cultural border expansion is either broken or it's intentionally trying to avoid oil. It doesn't make any sense.

Oil that is further than 3 squares away from city is impossible to get except by cultural expansion and my cultural expansion is headed towards desert, forested mountain, mountain. But it doesn't expand to oil? That is just ridiculous.

 

[learner gamer]

Completely agree...the logic used to decide border pops needs refining. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen borders pop to include completely useless tiles (whether from a yield or resource or strategy / landblock perspective) – and completely overlook popping borders to gain access to a much more valuable hex in the third ring of a BFH. IMHO, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to allow the gamer to choose the tile gained from a border pop, given that the border pop logic is so defective. At least that would allow the gamer the option to reserve the decision to buy a tile for those times when speed is important (ie. they must have that hex now), as opposed to having to use their gold to buy tiles to compensate for poorly written code.

 

[snarzberry]

Why not just let us control which tile is next?

 

[stethnorun]

Why not just let us control which tile is next?

Maybe it's trying to add a little bit of randomness...sort of simulating your city's citizens exerting their free will?

 

[eris]

Why not just let us control which tile is next?

You do that by buying the tile you want. Free tiles are arbitrary. Directed tiles cost you. This does not seem a bad trade off.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

If you can't buy, culture bomb !

 

[joyous_gard]

You do that by buying the tile you want. Free tiles are arbitrary. Directed tiles cost you. This does not seem a bad trade off.

Free tiles were not supposed to be arbitrary, they stated that cultural expansion was going to expand to things your civ needs. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. It will expand to a second cow instead of a 1st iron. I've seen it expand to 4 tiles away on nothing special while avoiding a 6 iron within 3 tiles, of which I had none.

 

[Pawninthegame]

In a way I like that it is random, because it adds some unpredictability to it all. But early on in the game it can be frustrating as the difference between getting a luxury or not affects your expansion and usually you don't have a lot of gold to purchase tiles.

 

[Civsassin]

I need oil. On the edge of three of my puppet cities borders is oil. The manual or someone, somewhere says "Cultural expansion expands intelligently based on what your civilization needs." Every civilization needs oil. That is what the 20th century was about. Oil.

The game's cultural border expansion is either broken or it's intentionally trying to avoid oil. It doesn't make any sense.

Oil that is further than 3 squares away from city is impossible to get except by cultural expansion and my cultural expansion is headed towards desert, forested mountain, mountain. But it doesn't expand to oil? That is just ridiculous.

I suspect that the programming forces border expansion onto tiles that you can use before it expands to tiles that you cannot use. If the oil was more than the three tile radius from you capital, it will not expand to the oil until it has used up all tiles that are available for your civilization to work. Like it or not, it makes sense.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

I see only good coming from your ability to pick which tile YOUR civilization is going to settle/expland on next. It adds to the fun and the planning aspect of the game and allows you to literally race your neighbors to early growth. Keep it in the hands of the player. You want randomness...add random events again....which I would support wholeheartedly!

 

[jagdtigerciv]

I see only good coming from your ability to pick which tile YOUR civilization is going to settle/expland on next. It adds to the fun and the planning aspect of the game and allows you to literally race your neighbors to early growth. Keep it in the hands of the player. You want randomness...add random events again....which I would support wholeheartedly!

How would this work though? Would you end up queuing hundreds of border expansions across your empire? I wouldn't like this idea one bit. Personally, I agree with what another poster said: that the game is fine with buying the tiles you want directly and leaving cultural expansion to the randomness.

If I could direct regular cultural expansion, I would never buy a tile. If I needed a quick luxury, i'd buy a Monument instead and direct it accordingly (especially since Tradition and Liberty's bonus' are a given opening now).

I like the way the current system works in regards to border expansion. Perhaps, you should be able to buy Puppet state tiles? Although there's already too many reasons to do nothing but puppet currently, this would have to come after some sort of puppet-annex balance.

 

[snarzberry]

I don't hate it the way it is, but in a game that can often starve the player of 'things to do' this is one way to give some more decisions.

 

[Lyoncet]

The game's cultural border expansion is either broken or it's intentionally trying to avoid oil...

Oil that is further than 3 squares away from city is impossible to get except by cultural expansion...

These two sentences contradict one another. From what you've seen, you could easily draw the conclusion that tiles outside what a city can work are de-emphasized, but instead you decided that the game is broken or intentionally avoiding oil.

Should a strategic/luxury resource that's 4 tiles away be de-emphasized? Probably not. Should the parameters be tweaked to encourage that chance? Sure. Does what you've seen support your conclusions? Not in the slightest.


I'm personally fine with cultural border pops being the way they are, both from a gameplay and a realism perspective. There are two ways that a political entity expands into new land: natural migration of people to work the land (culture pops - those people are going to be grabbing the riverside grasslands before anyone ventures into the plains hills) or government sponsored programs/forced relocation (purchasing tiles - you go where I damn well say!). If you really want a gold tile that's in your third ring, I think it's completely legitimate to make the player decide if they want to invest that gold to get the resource more quickly or if they want to save it for an RA. That's the kind of decision that should be encouraged - weighing what you can do with what you have on hand and the benefits and potential consequences of each decision. Maybe tile purchases are on the expensive side, but if you're smart with your city locations (starting city notwithstanding since you usually can't get a good idea of your surroundings then) it's really seldom going to be completely prohibitive.

The people saying that they don't like a system where the player has no control over border pops are completely ignoring the tile purchase aspect, which was put in for the exact reason of giving the player control over borders if they're willing to invest in it. You can argue that it's too expensive, but implying that there's no player control of tile spread is entirely unfair.

 

[TPQ]

In my opinion the current system for cultural expansion is fine. I haven't experienced any significant problem with it.

Within the city's 3 hex (in each direction) sphere of influence I find that the vast majority of the time cities expand culturally into useful tiles.

I also think puppet culture expansion should stay as it is too (no buying).

In my current game (as of this post) I needed more horses to upgrade my Indian War Elephants to Knights and a recently puppeted city expanded out to them, even though they were at the limit of it's cultural sphere of influence. This is usual in my experience.

Sometimes the hex chosen for cultural expansion can seem an illogical choice, but it has been rare in the 835 hours (as of this post) that I've played the game. I think the code does fairly well.

 

[learner gamer]

Maybe tile purchases are on the expensive side, but if you're smart with your city locations (starting city notwithstanding since you usually can't get a good idea of your surroundings then) it's really seldom going to be completely prohibitive.

Whilst I agree that the tile purchase cost isn’t usually prohibitive (although I do think that tile costs are expensive) I also think that the very issue you raise – choosing city locations – highlights beautifully the flaws in the border pop logic and just how far reaching its consequences can be. Your experience meanwhile TPQ also illustrates precisely how much false difficulty the randomness of border popping introduces into gameplay...because it completely contradicts my Civ 5 experience.

To put it simply, I’ve lost count of the number of times when I’ve seen what would be a monster city site containing a luxury and / or a strategic resource or two in what would be the city’s third ring. However, because the border pop logic has chosen to de-emphasize expanding borders to prioritise securing those valuable third ring hexes - in favour of selecting completely useless tiles in the second ring - the benefits of those resources have not been available to my civ until very, very late in the game. The result has been that I have been forced to either (i) buy those tiles if I want to access them or (ii) split the area into two cities. Neither of those choices is optimal because (i) sees the gamer being forced to expend precious gold just to work a hex the city was deliberately settled to obtain, whilst (ii) sees the gamer incur the extra costs associated with social policies for settling an extra city. In effect, the gamer isn’t being rewarded for playing optimally when choosing their city sites – and this is an absolutely key issue IMHO in a strategy game which rewards you for securing resources.

Of course, you’re absolutely spot on meanwhile to make the point here:

If you really want a gold tile that's in your third ring, I think it's completely legitimate to make the player decide if they want to invest that gold to get the resource more quickly or if they want to save it for an RA. That's the kind of decision that should be encouraged - weighing what you can do with what you have on hand and the benefits and potential consequences of each decision.

In other words, IMHO, the key is to recognise that it is absolutely right to present the gamer with this choice when speed is of the essence. As it stands however, the propensity for borders to pop onto completely useless tiles in the second ring of a BFH and fail to see the extra value of tiles in the third ring of a BFH means that, IMHO, the gamer is being presented with this choice when speed isn’t an issue, but poor border pop logic is.

 

[joyous_gard]

If a city is filled out 3 tiles around... and oil is in the 4th row, why would it emphasize everything but the oil? It's broken.

I have seen culture go 4 tiles away for a second incense when it could have stayed within 3 tiles to get a first iron.

It's definitely not working right.

They should just change their claim of "intelligent culture expansion" to something like "random culture expansion" or "non-military culture expansion." I have seen it go for a wheat 4 tiles away before going for iron 4 tiles away. It doesn't make sense.

 

[jojorah]

If a city is filled out 3 tiles around... and oil is in the 4th row, why would it emphasize everything but the oil? It's broken.

I have seen culture go 4 tiles away for a second incense when it could have stayed within 3 tiles to get a first iron.

It's definitely not working right.

They should just change their claim of "intelligent culture expansion" to something like "random culture expansion" or "non-military culture expansion." I have seen it go for a wheat 4 tiles away before going for iron 4 tiles away. It doesn't make sense.

I dunno, but heres something you cn do to make the game more enjoyable for yourself, pretend that the people choose where they settle, theres a lot more a person could do for them selfs with weat than iron

 

[Brichals]

Since I read this thread I decided to take more notice in game. I can remember in my last one I was waiting a bit longer than I would have liked for oil. But just now one city expanded 5 tiles out to get coal even though I had two fish 3 tiles out which hadn't come into my borders yet. I thought I would never get the coal, was a bit surprised.

So maybe it is an oil thing? Bug or just bad luck. I will keep an eye on it in future.

 

[snarzberry]

Yeah the auto chooser has a definite distaste for water tiles, even ones with resources.

 

[joyous_gard]

The first image shows an example of bad cultural expansion. I still have tiles within the 3 ring radius. There is Iron (of which I have none) and Cow (of which I have 2) on the 4th radius.

Rather than expand within the 3 ring radius, as some have suggested is done, the "intelligent cultural expansion" is expanding to the 4th ring. It doesn't expand to iron, which I need, it expands to cow which is useless as a 4th ring resource.

The second image shows where the "intelligent cultural expansion" is going next. This time it is within the 3 ring radius. Why it didn't go there first, I don't know. I assume it is bugged. Now as I let the "intelligent cultural expansion" keep going I am sure it's going to start picking up tiles in useless ocean and elsewhere before it picks up my first iron.

I believe that the "intelligent cultural expansion" is bugged or poorly programmed. They tried and it doesn't quite work. It works for the first few expands - picking up a early luxury, picking up early wheat, etc. - but it fails as the game goes on.

It does a mediocre job in the early game as well - expanding to incense rather than gold when mining is researched and calendar is not.