Culture Slider, Something I'm missing?

[Snoopaloop]

I've been playing civ4 since the day vanilla came out, and now I am playing Warlords successfully at the monarch level.

I am still not sure what real purpose the culture slider plays?

Obviously it is necessary in a culture victory.
I have also used it for a turn or two if a war has drawn out to long.

What other uses does it actually have?

Does anyone have an effective strategy [effective at higher levels] that demands a large proportion of income to be spent on culture?

 

[azaris]

The culture slider instantly turns money into happiness. Say someone backstabs you and you need to whip up an army quickly. Afterwards you suffer from bad whipping unhappiness all over the place, so a good solution is to run culture for a while to counter this effect and keep the cities productive.

 

[Samson]

As I see it, the culture slider has the following uses:

If you are playing a specalist ecconomy you can use it liberally. As your raw comerce is low, it does not cost you much to turn up the culture slider and have bigger cities.
If you are playing a cottage ecconomy, the culture slider costs you lots. Use it only towards the end of wars when WW gets serious but you do not want to make peace until you have taken the last few cites and your cities are too big for it to be worth whipping away the excess population.
If you are playing for a cultural victory tech to liberalism then turn the culture slider right up.

 

[VilleDick]

It'll increase your borders as well, allowing you to pop and gain valuable resources

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I had a HUGE modern day world war, with all 13 remaining civs eventually getting drawn in (and I didn't start it either)...my main opponents refused to talk for absolutely ages. I ended up running 50% culture 50% gold, to upgrade and keep my cities happy, which worked well. The 50% culture was keeping more than a dozen pop pts happy in my largest cities, while my spies reeked havoc, and enemies cities starved.

So that was one very potent use of culture that didn't involve a cultural victory.....

 

[LlamaCat]

one way to understand the effects of the culture slider is to go into one of your city screens. then move the culture slider in the top left of your screen up to 10% or 20%... you will see the happy faces for that city increase, and you can mouse over the happy faces in the top middle of the screen to see the reasons for happiness. you will have a new reason when the culture slider is used. obviously the culture slider at 10% is taking 10% of the money being made in that city and converting it to culture for that city (mouse over the culture bar on bottom left and you will see the conversion). But what might not be clear to some people is that culture in this case is also creating happiness. The cultural output of a city in other cases does not bring happiness. This can be very confusing.

 

[Bushface]

obviously the culture slider at 10% is taking 10% of the money being made in that city and converting it to culture for that city (mouse over the culture bar on bottom left and you will see the conversion).

Alas, no. The culture slider, like the other sliders, affects your whole empire. While it would often be useful to put up the culture percentage in some cities while leaving the rest to pump out research or gold, this can't be done.

 

[Snoopaloop]

one way to understand the effects of the culture slider is to go into one of your city screens. then move the culture slider in the top left of your screen up to 10% or 20%... you will see the happy faces for that city increase, and you can mouse over the happy faces in the top middle of the screen to see the reasons for happiness. you will have a new reason when the culture slider is used. obviously the culture slider at 10% is taking 10% of the money being made in that city and converting it to culture for that city (mouse over the culture bar on bottom left and you will see the conversion). But what might not be clear to some people is that culture in this case is also creating happiness. The cultural output of a city in other cases does not bring happiness. This can be very confusing.

I know how the culture slider works, but if you read my first post, I am just looking for reasons to use it. Drew Bledsoe (I'm a Pat fan, and still repect him btw ) showed an example in which it helped him continue and win a war. Thanks for your help though, even if it was a little confusing to understand, I knew what you were trying to get across to me.

For the most part, it still seems to me that forgoing the culture slider and spending the max amount of income available to science, still seems to be the best theory.

I originally wanted to know if anyone was successful decreasing science expenditure and increasing culture (for a larger happiness cap, and thus a larger empire population), and still staying competitive at higher levels.

Also, thanks Samson for pointing out the culture slider works better with the specialist economy.

 

[Jorunkun]

The culture slider is far less important than it was in CIV3, but there are still situations where it comes in handy. The two key points have already been mentioned:

1. To combat war weariness, especially in the endgame. In my games, this is probably 80% of its use right there.

2. To increase city culture and borders. Essential for cultural victories, but occasionally useful in other games as well. Two examples:

a) If you are first to drama and don't trade it, you can whip theatres in all cities near a border, run specialist entertainers and crank up the culture slider for a few turns. The effects are pretty huge in the early game (quick expansion) and even if you switch back to science or commerce, the lead and the land you claim through it stay with you for a long time.

b) If you are colonising a huge chunk of unclaimed land later in the game you can use the same tactic described above to flip other civs' colonies.

In general, it is probably more efficient to expand your borders or take enemy cities using military means, but "soft" cultural power is stronger than you'd think. Check the succession games subforum, there's one where Sulla conquers a small map entirely through culture, flipping capitals along the way. Quite impressive.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I know how the culture slider works, but if you read my first post, I am just looking for reasons to use it. Drew Bledsoe (I'm a Pat fan, and still repect him btw ) showed an example in which it helped him continue and win a war. Thanks for your help though, even if it was a little confusing to understand, I knew what you were trying to get across to me.

Sorry if I was confusing (probably a tired ramble), but always glad to be of any help

 

[futurehermit]

1) Obviously cultural victory, although I wonder about running an artist-driven specialist economy instead

2) To combat war weariness if a war gets drawn-out

3) If running a SE then it's a great alternative to hereditary rule for early happiness!!! 5 happiness for 20% culture slider with theatres and coliseums. This makes creative a nice SE trait, especially with the cheap libraries as well

4) Great for popping borders when going for a domination win!!! Also good temporarily when trying to flip a city