Does anyone actually use the culture slider?

[vincentz]

Is running it at 20-30% at the moment. China (my ex bff) and their weak vassal Sumeria (wormtung) declared war against me and my thrustworthy Roman vassal, and regained the land of the spanish which was now a Ottoman (me) colony, then brought in the Khan, so I went to Mansa for a warally, but he needed help against the sneaky, but advanced japanese who were already fighting against the brits. Long story short: WW1
Even though I'm a religious fanatic despot, I still need to keep my holmes happy, and with all the boys at war a little bling bling at home seems to do the trick.

I cannot live without books luxuries - Vincentz

edit : Just found a screenie from the beginning of the war.

Spoiler :

 

[Ataxerxes]

Remember that with Jails, Police State and Mount Rushmore you eliminate War Weariness. If I find myself in a long, late war I'm usually using this to get rid of the war weariness problem. I find it more efficient than running the culture slider at 20-30% while running Representation.

I never use the slider except for Culture victory.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Remember that with Jails, Police State and Mount Rushmore you eliminate War Weariness. If I find myself in a long, late war I'm usually using this to get rid of the war weariness problem. I find it more efficient than running the culture slider at 20-30% while running Representation.

I never use the slider except for Culture victory.

The problem is that PS/Rushmore requires fascism which is often a bit too late for my first major wars that are sure to cause massive casualties. In fact, I rarely have time to get democracy before them. Culture slider just needs drama.

In fact fascism always feels so out of the way to tech in place of important military techs that I almost always try to trade for it.

Though I only play on Noble-Monarch, where it's mostly just Lib/Cur/Cav timing attacks or GTFO.

But it's true that I forget to build jails... I just find it more convenient to have 10% culture slider and just keep building units.

 

[Ghpstage]

I was playing a random civ game tonight and got the Greeks, and I was thinking there seem to be a number of UBs that give a happiness bonus from using the culture slider.

As far as i'm aware the only UB that boosts the power of the culture slider is the Hippodrome.


Culture wins go without saying, but for happiness I use it quite a lot, usually at low slider levels (up to 20-30%).

Its particularly effective for those widespread unhappiness hits, namely emancipation and resolution defiance. War wearriness too, but as has been mentioned you can usually avoid this becoming a big problem through planning and infrastructure.
For smaller civs in the mid game a big draft war may take a huge toll on your happiness levels which the culture slider can help with.

You can always use it as a general happy source too, though its obviously best if your not taking the cottage spam route.

Its an instant acting source of bulk , that requires relatively little investment and is independant of your civics, at the very least its a handy back up, though I find myself using it quite often.

 

[jtb1127]

I only use it if I am directly going for a culture victory. But most the time I view science as more important.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Depends on what you are trying to do. Because if you are telling me that there is another way of gaining the "enemy's" cities while at peace, I'd like to hear it.

1. Build culture
2. Artist specialists
3. Spread culture espionage mission (easily the most powerful and fastest way)

Not only is there another way that's better, there are THREE other ways that flip a target city faster without crushing your commerce distribution empire-wide.

But the espionage method stands out in particular. It is much, MUCH more dominant of a method...to the point where if you're just trying to flip cities, you run 100% espionage, not culture.

 

[vorlon_mi]

OK, it's a blunt instrument because it affects many cities. That's the main attraction for me, esp. right after a war when I'm consolidating my gains. The newly conquered AI cities are not producing any culture yet, while they build a theatre or temple. Pumping up the slider a notch or so helps them get a border pop several turns earlier than waiting for the building to finish. All of them, without worrying about whether there are forests left to chop or enough food to grow back after whipping.

I think of it as investing 10% (not 40, 50 or higher) in securing the whole frontier. It's a tactical move, esp. if the newly conquered cities could be under cultural pressure from a different neighboring AI.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

In some situations like this it makes sense to put a Colosseum in the city and run the slider at either 20% or 40% to get more happiness bang for the buck out of the slider.

Likewise, when initiating the final push to 100% on the culture slider for cultural victory, make sure you get a Colosseum in your 3 cities targeted for 50K culture before you crank up the slider.

 

[demon123]

To get land or win a cultural victory

 

[AJ11]

1. Build culture
2. Artist specialists
3. Spread culture espionage mission (easily the most powerful and fastest way)

Not only is there another way that's better, there are THREE other ways that flip a target city faster without crushing your commerce distribution empire-wide.

But the espionage method stands out in particular. It is much, MUCH more dominant of a method...to the point where if you're just trying to flip cities, you run 100% espionage, not culture.

You don't really read someone else's replies, do you? I already answered this.

 

[HorribleHarald]

More than spying slider, I usually keep it 10-20% from the middle of the game and then gain more living space from others. If I later I decide to go for cultural victory, it gives more capital for it.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

In some situations like this it makes sense to put a Colosseum in the city and run the slider at either 20% or 40% to get more happiness bang for the buck out of the slider.

Likewise, when initiating the final push to 100% on the culture slider for cultural victory, make sure you get a Colosseum in your 3 cities targeted for 50K culture before you crank up the slider.

How often do you have unhappiness problems with 100% culture slider? :crazyeyes: I've normally traded away all my happiness resources for cash long before then

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You don't really read someone else's replies, do you? I already answered this.

^ Quoted post doesn't make sense, I was responding to:

Depends on what you are trying to do. Because if you are telling me that there is another way of gaining the "enemy's" cities while at peace, I'd like to hear it.

If you search this entire thread for the world "espionage", it certainly has never been mentioned by you. In other words, you didn't answer it, and espionage absolutely spanks the culture slider for city flipping. It isn't even close.

You also didn't address the others. In a previous post, you said something about "the AI already does these things" to culture buildings/multipliers...but the AI rarely builds culture or runs artist specs specifically for culture, and both of these things are slider independent and stand a high chance of producing more culture in a border city than the culture slider.

You said you wanted to hear better ways, so I gave you a few, and now you claim you addressed them when that hasn't happened ...

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

How often do you have unhappiness problems with 100% culture slider? :crazyeyes: I've normally traded away all my happiness resources for cash long before then

That's right. There is no unhappiness with the culture slider at 100%. I think he was talking about what you can do after a war with a lot of unhappy citizens.

 

[fyermind]

People talking about using the culture slider to pop borders are also using a very blunt instrument. Unless you are spiritual you should be in either slavery (whip theater immediately upon capture, run two artists until first border pop), or caste (max out artists). During war (and recovery?) 100% gold may also be a good idea until science multiplier buildings have been built in your new commerce cities.

One reason I use the culture slider though is to deal with happiness as I am winning a war. For example in my last game as Augustus of the Romans real world map (emperor), a late praetapult war was slogging it's way through africa and my captured cities had -5 "we yearn to rejoin the motherland" and -4 war weariness. As population 12 -14 cities in the nile river valley coming up with 21+ reasons to be happy is challenging. A few turns of running the culture slider until my HR solutions came rolling in along with theatres and forges got them caught up in infrastructure in time to push me into liberalism. It also allowed me to continue steamrolling the rest of egypt and mali without fearing WW in my core.

 

[AJ11]

^ Quoted post doesn't make sense, I was responding to:



If you search this entire thread for the world "espionage", it certainly has never been mentioned by you. In other words, you didn't answer it, and espionage absolutely spanks the culture slider for city flipping. It isn't even close.

You also didn't address the others. In a previous post, you said something about "the AI already does these things" to culture buildings/multipliers...but the AI rarely builds culture or runs artist specs specifically for culture, and both of these things are slider independent and stand a high chance of producing more culture in a border city than the culture slider.

You said you wanted to hear better ways, so I gave you a few, and now you claim you addressed them when that hasn't happened ...

Look up "nail" instead.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Look up "nail" instead.

I read every post you put here a 2nd time including that one after the cute and inaccurate assertion that I didn't.

You haven't addressed what you claim and that's a fact:

- Espionage was not mentioned in the thread quoted
- If the implication (which still doesn't exist, mind you, so I'm pre-empting here) is that you max out on espionage, that is ALSO definitely wrong, because you're kind of implying to use the culture slider...and you can't max both of them.

Why don't you show us how much better the culture slider is, in a game that's already been posted right here on general discussions?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=371536&highlight=culture

Hammer that nail down, and do it without espionage since you didn't mention it. No EP, all culture. Show use the 1700's conquest win, or earlier, using that culture slider.

Please feel free to "hammer that nail down", and show me that a) I'm wrong and b) the methods I presented were already addressed (even though they obviously weren't) and that I simply didn't read it properly.

Finally, "maxing" on specs and on culture slider has some anti-synergy; the slider does absolutely nothing to benefit artist specialists or culture produced via "build culture", so strictly speaking those were never addressed either, despite claims to the contrary.

 

[AJ11]

Show use the 1700's conquest win, or earlier, using that culture slider.

You know, once again, you prove that you don't read anyone's posts, as I don't think that your failure to read my posts are unique to me. You seem to have forgotten the word "peaceful".

But just to have a bit of fun, here is a similar game with the same settings. More than half the continent by 1750, and I was playing via virtually random clicking.

Inefficiencies abound. Heck, I spent half the time wandering the tech tree instead of beelining. I only ever built 3 workers. I whipped maybe 4 times, and chopping was whenever the worker reached the tile. Calculating overflow? What's that?

Not even the best of starting positions and I never moved my capital. Note that while Creative Con and Civ Jewels have been researched, I never built them because all my Artists have been joined to cities. Heck, even Sushi was luck, since I didn't save my Merchants.

Why? Because I can't be arsed. I knew that it wasn't hard to prove you wrong. Mind you, I will admit to one thing. After playing Deity Marathon for so long, Settler Normal was... interesting. Being that far ahead in techs is... novel...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why? Because I can't be arsed. I knew that it wasn't hard to prove you wrong.

Prove me wrong? What a joke. Did you think I wouldn't look at the save? Posting that save up as a "proof" of any kind is iffy. Posting that game up as a 1700's AD conquest win using the culture slider? That would be a lie, so SURELY that wasn't your intention.

Not only did you actually employ spies, but you haven't won conquest yet. Can't win conquest, in the 1700's. You have EIGHT rivals left. At least one of them doesn't even have your culture in his capitol. Screw the 1700's, you won't even beat my 1st attempt where I had an inferior leader over a year ago with this nonsense save. You might break 1900, maybe, depending on revolt luck and how quickly in particular you an get at least some culture on the last AI.

You seem to have forgotten the word "peaceful".

Explain to me how flipping a city w/o war one way vs another makes one way "peaceful" and not the other...especially when both are valid in "always peace" formats.

Anyway, it's all well and good that you played inefficiently and got a subpar result, but if you're trying to demonstrate the superiority of the culture slider, you just lost.

It's pretty interesting to actually see a position posted where you have only flipped just over 1/2 of your opponents as "proof" though.

If you want some fun, post your 4000 BC save or ACTUALLY WIN BY THEN. Until then, rather than proving me wrong, you've only demonstrated just how right I am by failing to even meet the conditions of the culture conquest. You literally can't claim a thing until you finish that game, and you aren't going to finish it in 20-30 turns.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

There is no "I" in team, only "me".

But "bummed in the gob" has both.