Does anyone else do this?

[sercer88]

I wonder if anyone else does this, because I have never seen it advocated.

If I need a cultural expansion, but it's not on the very outside of my empire (i.e. not next to an opponent's city) then I just build the cheapest culture and then after the border expands to the Big Fat Cross, I just sell the improvement. I do this so I get the BFC, and I don't have to pay the maintenance!

 

[Mursi lives]

In that case, the cheapest culture is a settler.

 

[Aabraxan]

No, but I've seen others discuss it. Just about the only time I'll build a temple, allow borders to expand, then sell is if I need the border expansion to grab a fish or whale -- settlers don't reach there. Otherwise, I usually send a settler to grab tiles.

 

[sercer88]

Yeah, that's basically whenever I do it, too: when I need to grab a fish or whale, but sometimes if builing more cities will increase my overall corruption too much, I'll do what I said.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Yes, I do this sometimes if that city is on the border I am expecting attacks from units with a movement of two. A cultural border of two tiles means that knights and horsemen can't reach your city from outside the border, which means you won't have to soak up attacks, which is good against WW.

 

[vmxa]

I would expect all will do that, if they need an expansion. Often it is better to just slap another town down and not have any culture. Just depends on the stage of the game and the corruption of the towns.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

In a recent games, I made a few temples to push culture in some times to keep them from flipping. If you have a town near a very high level AI, chances are that some of their cities will have culture of 100 or 1000 taking some of your spaces. Your culture of 10 will take those spaces back and the AI can never get them, thus reducing flip chances.

 

[sercer88]

Your culture of 10 will take those spaces back and the AI can never get them...

I thought the city with more relative culture wins the "battle" between tiles more than 1 away from a city center...

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I thought the city with more relative culture wins the "battle" between tiles more than 1 away from a city center...

Tiles won by a second expansion (distance 3) can never take away tile won by a first (distance 2).

 

[LordJacky]

I don't even know how to sell a wonder.

 

[JDAllison]

I don't even know how to sell a wonder.

Not sure where that came from! No, there is no possible way to sell a wonder.

 

[Golden Fleece]

Plus there's no point as wonders don't require any maintenance.