Culture expansion

[Cranium]

I am sharing borders with the Greeks. I'm trying to expand my culture in my cities along our common border so I can gain a few tiles on their side of the border, or maybe even take over a few of their cities with culture.

So I'm building all the cultural improvents in those cities (temples, library, cathedrals, universities and coliseums) but my culture still won't expand for another 100-200 years in those cities.

What I am doing wrong? I am building them too quickly one after the other? Do you need to leave time before building another cultural improvement? Or maybe I'm too late in the game to start building cultural improvements that would make a difference? Is there somekind of rule to follow?

These cities are actually pretty far away from my capital but I just built in one of them the Forbiden Palace so they are all very close to the FP.

I'm playing Regent. I am the Egyptians. I'm in 900 AD and the cities I'm talking about are between size 6 and 12.

 

[Ville]

Borders change by culture only when you have more culture than AI civ in the city. And you won't get areas like in 1. or 2. culture levels areas, you need many times more culture for them

 

[Renata]

Border expansions only happen when your city reaches certain cultural levels: 10, 100, 1000 and 10000 culture points. Your cities are probably in the >1000 but < 10000 culture range, in which case you'll have a while to wait.

Generally, the only tiles that you can flip from one culture to the other by building more culture are those which are equidistant from both cities. For example, if there are three tiles in your city radius that are two tiles from your city and also two tiles from the foreign city, whichever city has more culture accumulated will control those three tiles. You can use the embassy to investigate the enemy city and find out how much culture they have, in order to find out whether or not building more culture yourself is likely to do any good.

For tiles which are closer to one civ than another, I suspect, like Ville said, that you need to have a large ratio in culture over the other city to gain control over them. I also suspect that the necessary ratio increases the closer the tiles are to a city. For example, I have never seen encroachement into a city's original nine tiles from any city that was more than 2 tiles away (i.e. a city taking a tile that was 2 tiles away from the disputed tile taking it from a city which was right next door to it). I have however, seen it happen at greater distances (a city three tiles away taking the tile from a city two tiles away).

Renata

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by Renata
For tiles which are closer to one civ than another, I suspect, like Ville said, that you need to have a large ratio in culture over the other city to gain control over them. I also suspect that the necessary ratio increases the closer the tiles are to a city. For example, I have never seen encroachement into a city's original nine tiles from any city that was more than 2 tiles away (i.e. a city taking a tile that was 2 tiles away from the disputed tile taking it from a city which was right next door to it). I have however, seen it happen at greater distances (a city three tiles away taking the tile from a city two tiles away).

It's not possible to take over tiles that are closer to another civ's city than yours, as long as their city has enough culture to contest those tiles. IE say you have a city 5 tiles from an enemy city. Your city has 4 expansions already and theirs doesn't have any yet. Their city will only control their first ring, while you control their second ring. But as soon as they get 10 culture for their first expansion they will take over the second ring tiles, even though your city already has over 1000 culture and theirs only has 10. Just because the tiles are only 2 away from their city, while they're 3 from yours.

 

[Cranium]

OK Thanks Renata,

The 10, 100, 1000, 10000 makes sense, it explains everything.

So basically, after I have built all the cultural improvements, I just have to keep researching advancements and building as many wonders as possible and just wait.

Is there anything else I should do to increase my culture? How does building a wonder affect the culture of the other cities besides the one it is built in?

 

[Renata]

@ Shillen - I could've sworn I just saw the thing I was talking about in SP6. Unfortunately there's no screen shot in the thread that shows the northern side of Dallas clearly enough. I try to remember to check it out later and post back.

@ Cranium - I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish. If you're trying to grab the tiles from the Greeks and you've already built all possible culture, all you can do is wait, on the off chance the Greeks have not built everything yet, and that you'll catch up. Investigating the Greek cities should tell you that. If you're trying to flip the Greek cities, all you can do is wait, and you may never be successful, especially if the cities are at least as close to the Greek capital as they are to yours, and especially if you are using PTW (the AI civs do a better job garrisoning flip-endangered cities, supposedly).

If you're going for a cultural win, then yes, build as many wonders as you can get and wait. You can check your progress on the F5 screen.

(Wonders do not affect the city culture of any city they're not built in, but they contribute to your overall civilization culture.)

Renata

 

[Sirp]

Renata: No, how Shillen says it is correct. See my lesson on preventing culture flips in the thread.

The only way you can have cultural control over a tile that's closer to their city than yours, is if their city doesn't exert any cultural control over that tile at all (e.g. you have had two border expansions and they have had none, then you could gain control of a tile two spaces from their city and three from yours)

-Sirp.

 

[Renata]

Yep, you're both right. I just re-checked and I was mis-remembering something. Apologies for the mis-information.

Renata

 

[Chieftess]

If the search feature wasn't disabled, I'd find the culture flip thread.

There is an alorithm for it:

P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/ D

The base value for D is 2000 and can be modified by a factor of 0.25 – 4.0 depending on relative distance (so possible values are from 500 – 8000 ).

where:
P = probability that it will flip this turn
F = # foreignors, with resistors counting double
T = # working tiles under foreign control
Cc = 2 if foreign civ has more local culture than you, 1 otherwise
H = .5 for WLTKD, 2 for disorder, 1 otherwise
Cte = Total culture of the foreign civ
Cty = Total culture of your civ
G = # garrison units
D = factor based on relative distance to capitals

Now reorganizing this gives the required garrison as:
G = (F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty)

What it's basically saying is: The more tiles you have over the AI's cities, the more culture you have than the AI, AND the closer their city is to yours, there's a greater chance the AI city will flip.

Here's an example:

Your city of Mephis borders the Russian city of Sverdolosk. Your city's culture border covers five of Sverdolosk's city tiles. You have 50,000 culture, and Russia only has 10,000. The city is 30 tiles away from your capital, but 40 away from Moscow. So, there's a chance that Sverdolosk will flip. However, say there's 20 units in Sverdolosk and it's in a WLTKD. It might not flip at all.

 

[Sirp]

Chieftess, I know that that's the formula, but I understand that they changed the formula at some stage. Do you know if that's before or after they changed it?

-Sirp.

 

[MadHatter]

Originally posted by Shillen


It's not possible to take over tiles that are closer to another civ's city than yours, as long as their city has enough culture to contest those tiles. IE say you have a city 5 tiles from an enemy city. Your city has 4 expansions already and theirs doesn't have any yet. Their city will only control their first ring, while you control their second ring. But as soon as they get 10 culture for their first expansion they will take over the second ring tiles, even though your city already has over 1000 culture and theirs only has 10. Just because the tiles are only 2 away from their city, while they're 3 from yours.

So the trick to tile-grabbing is to place your cities as close as possible to theirs an even number of tiles away and jam on the cultural improvements... In about 25-30 turns you could reach 100 culture pts for your city, after that, there ain't much you could do...