Does Anyone Use Culture Bombs?

[kiitos]

I use them all the time when I play OCC. Sometimes when I'm feeling cheeky I'll use several of them in the same spot over the course of a game to make a "tunnel" into someone else's land.

 

[UrbanX]

I use them sometimes on pangea maps, if for nothing else to piss off the AI neighboring me. but usually its to pick up a luxury or strategic resource.

 

[JoeBas]

Yup, as mentioned above, to grab resources or natural wonders just across the border.

The benefit of culture bombing vis a vis golden age popping is increased once your golden ages are down to only 5 turns each...

 

[TehLove]

I generally only use them (as people have already stated) to steal resources from other Civs. It's always kinda funny to piss off your neighbors and take their land though

 

[JoeBas]

Right, that's the thing... if you're sharing a border with some little 2-city civ who's been denouncing you every time he can, the second his last one expires, and his only 2 wines are right on your border, I fail to see the down side of relieving him of them.

 

[lordsurya08]

Culture bombs are beast. I love them. It's extremely satisfying to settle a city next to some poor leader then steal his city's resources with culture bomb. It is also useful during war, when you cap an AI's city that is sharing borders with another of that AI's cities then use Culture bomb to grab any resources you couldn't get - or even to grab their strategic resource tiles and give them a 50% combat penalty.

 

[RedRover57]

In addition to sometimes using them to grab resources I once used one to grab the last remaining bit of land on my island on an archipelago map. I was playing an OCC as Siam and had very large cultural borders, but I was alone on a big island and I could see another civ eying that small bit of uncovered land so I grabbed it up. I didn't want them to plant some garbage city there since I was playing it completely peaceful. Their settler was just offshore when I did it too.

 

[Pouakai]

Only when OCCing, to get resources. Or occasionally to provoke war while in a defensive pact.

 

[cccv]

I don't bother using them on other civs. If you're going to CB someone you'd better be prepared to go to war soon, and if you are, then why not just DoW on them for the resource? City States are another thing. You can nab resources from them without getting the extreme warmonger hate that comes with conquering a CS, and they won't DoW on you for it.

but yeah, it's situational. If you've got a CS you share boarders with and can take a resource from it's useful. Otherwise, not so much.

 

[tomplum68]

to capture resources I dont have that are in enemy territory or to take a resource away from an enemy out of spite.

but always to take something from another civ

 

[ColinTH]

They can also be useful if you want to stop paying that nearby city-state in order to get its luxury resource. Just culture bomb into the luxury reaource and you're saving yourself a good chunk of gold.

If an AI civ was allied to the City State you culture bombed for said luxury, would it affect your standing with that AI civ?

Thanks Randall Turner - Nice to know that we can culture bomb outside the max perimiter.

Good thread - There are some interesting ideas here, MadDjinn as usual has the most unusual and very tactical idea!

Thanks to all.

 

[eric_]

I use them occasionally, usually to either grab a resource I need or to create a cultural isthmus if unclaimed lands between two of my cities stands to be grabbed by someone else.

 

[Randall Turner]

If an AI civ was allied to the City State you culture bombed for said luxury, would it affect your standing with that AI civ?

Yep, -30 iirc.

How do I know? Had to do it, doofus ally of mine wouldn't move his "guard" unit for me to put a connecting road through his City-State territory, India had expanded & broken a trade route to 4 cities and they (India) were ALSO an ally of mine, I was like... son of a...

 

[_hero_]

I have on rare occasions. There are times when you can steal a resource from another player or CS that you lack. This is rare. There are other times where you can go grab a resource that is too far away to buy tiles up to rather then building a new city and slowing down your SPs.

One time I used the 2 GAs from The Lourve to carve a road pathway through a narrow land bridge that an "ally" had settled in to connect my trade route. Harbors weren't an option at the time as it was all puppet cities on the other side and none were coastal.

Another time I used GAs to culture bomb into an enemy that I was having very much trouble fighting and plopped a citadel near his capital. That was fun.

 

[SKILORD]

About as much as I use the citadel, honestly. Both have their uses, but those specific uses of a great person are really specific in their utility. I still like to have them when I can use them, I just know I won't use them a lot.

 

[blasto]

Doing a CB is one of the most satisfying things in the game IMO. Its like, I haven't heard from so and so for a while, lets tick 'em off! Then proceed to steal their best assets.

 

[MAntoninus]

Yeah, it's all about theft of strategic resources and luxury resources.

City States get pilloried this way.

"Oh, I'm sorry you're allied with Alexander. You won't be needing those Spices or Uranium anyway"

 

[Celevin]

I used one in conjunction with buying 2 tiles to take the Fountain of Youth away from a city state in a game recently. The resulting culture area looked hilarious.

 

[jonny5300394]

I've never used a culture bomb, since I go for science. I would rather have the golden age bonus instead.

 

[Randall Turner]

I've never used a culture bomb, since I go for science. I would rather have the golden age bonus instead.

I might use some of them that way too, but usually a Golden Age is a better use for a Great Merchant (if you have a reasonably large empire you'll get more $$ than for a City-State mission), plus I get a lot of generals, more than I need - so I pop them a lot. <shrug>