Effects of Espionage Mission "Spread Culture"

[yuizaki]

Hi guys,

I do not see much effect on the active mission command "spread culture". I thought the command will reduce enermy's culture and increase mine in percentage. I checked enermy city's culture level at 90% enermy and 10% mine. I executed the command, and it succeeded. However, it didn't change the culture percentage. I waited for 1 turn thinking that the effect may take 1 turn, but it remained 90% to 10%. So what's the effect of this command?

 

[Cutlass]

i had a city of another power stuck into the side of my civ after finishing a war with a 3rd civ.

the city was not originally of that civ, had no culture to speak of, had only 3 tiles of cultural border. was far from that civ's capital and had really nothing to recommend it. and my civ had many times the culture of the other civ.

i used 3 spys over and over and over again fomenting revolt and spreading culture and i could not make that pathetic little city flip to me. i probably did it 15-16 times.

waste of time unless it's a city that was taken away from you or it's only 1 point from flipping anyways.

 

[Refar]

The mission mouse over says "will add X " It's usially not much. This is vecause you will get some (5 iirc) % of the culture you already has there. So if there is nothing to start with...

Anyway - the mission is pretty useles, unless the target is alredy under heavy pressure from one of your cities, in which case it can help to speed up the things a liiitle bit.

You should also skip the "Formenting Revolt" part. Those 1 turn revolts have nothing to do with the "City Flip" revolt. As you know a city has to revolt twice: a "warning revolt", than the next time it will flip (if at all possible).
If you use a spy to make revolt, you technically prevent the warning revolt from happening... weird.
Also: the chance of a flip will be never higher than 10% each turn, and is lowered by troops in the city...

 

[Spitefire]

Spy games have been little more then an irratent sence civ1/2 where it was a real tool and if the comp could use it a real threat its been FIXED like so many animals at the vet and is now not even worth looking at in its natural form, too bad the programmers didnt have the guts to allow it to compete with the military but if thay did that thay might have to make the diplo victory realistic as well as adding the option of economic victory in the form of allowing stronger nations to try and bleed others of there power to hold there own useing trade of all kinds.

But i dont mind to much as i prefere my games without victory conditions anyway.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Also it only adjusts the Culture of the city tile... flipping the city is basically
Culture of Tile* Largest Population the city has ever been (proflipping) v. Troops there (antiflipping)

So a city that was always small (population wise) will be harder to flip

[also some cities can't be flipped depending on the game options]

 

[MarkM]

You should also skip the "Formenting Revolt" part. Those 1 turn revolts have nothing to do with the "City Flip" revolt. As you know a city has to revolt twice: a "warning revolt", than the next time it will flip (if at all possible).
If you use a spy to make revolt, you technically prevent the warning revolt from happening... weird.

I think you are missing something here. If you are at war and want to take the city, putting it in revolt one turn wipes out the city cultural % defense that turn (including walls/castle??? not sure). So have a spy in there, and the turn you want to launch attack try to create a city revolt, if you pull it off that's 5 cannons you don't have to use for bombard.

 

[pxpdoo]

I think you are missing something here. If you are at war and want to take the city, putting it in revolt one turn wipes out the city cultural % defense that turn (including walls/castle??? not sure). So have a spy in there, and the turn you want to launch attack try to create a city revolt, if you pull it off that's 5 cannons you don't have to use for bombard.

He just meant for Culture Flipping purposes, don't Incite Revolt. For war / defense purposes, of course, Revolt is useful.

 

[Blackpudding]

I tried to turn a city in my last game and it worked, i had a city with forbidden palace and lots of culture near, and sent maybe 50+ spies to spread culture AND destroy building that makes ennemy culture grow like library, temple, etc. The funniest thing is that when it turned it was the most cultivated city of my civilisation.

 

[PieceOfMind]

First of all, make sure you have the latest patch because the Spread Culture mission was broken (providing only 0.05% culture instead of 5%) in one or more of the earlier versions of BtS.

The spread culture mission IMO is only useful for spreading culture to cities that have a large amount of culture established already. Otherwise you risk spending a spy for very little culture gain (like 5 or so culture). Wait til it has 20,000 or so though, and each time you'll add 1000 culture. That's like a mini culture bomb.

In fact, with enough spies and enough espionage you can easily achieve a Legendary city by focusing around 20 or more (depending on the city culture established already) spies on a city before capturing it. This premise was even used in at least one forum game, where IIRC 3 cities were made Legendary by this technique.

What is cool IMO is that the spread culture mission can be "chained" through enemy territory. As the amount of culture you spread to a city builds, it flows into the rings of the city for each level. Once you have enough culture in one city, you will have a tiny amount of culture on another enemy city that you can then start culture attacking as well.

The funniest thing is that when it turned it was the most cultivated city of my civilisation.

Funny as it is, this is not surprising. Spread Culture is an excellent way to achieve a highly cultured city and it is arguably more efficient than having to spend hundreds/thousands of hammers in the one city and waiting a long time to build up culture the traditional way.

 

[Bushface]

Purely regarding trying to get a city to flip to you, spreading culture is usually not worth while (except when the city is already tottering on the edge of revolt and its owner doesn't care enough to send more garrison there). Suppose the city already has a respectable 50% of your culture and you perform a spread mission; does it then show you to have 52.5% ? No, because the city is generating culture for its owner; the amount of your culture has increased, but so has his. Then subsequent missions increase your culture, but at an increased cost of EPs each time and the risk of losing spies: even successful ones get sent back to your capital and must join the queue of agents on their tedious way to the target city.

 

[PieceOfMind]

All true, Bushface. However, consider that the older a city is, the more likely it is that the city's culture per turn is small in comparison to its already established culture. In these cases the effect of a single spy is more notable, and the effect of tens of spies provided sufficient points is significant.

Micromanaging the spy work is definitely tedious - high up on the list of most tedious things to do in the entire game.

 

[dirtyparrot]

Purely regarding trying to get a city to flip to you, spreading culture is usually not worth while (except when the city is already tottering on the edge of revolt and its owner doesn't care enough to send more garrison there). Suppose the city already has a respectable 50% of your culture and you perform a spread mission; does it then show you to have 52.5% ? No, because the city is generating culture for its owner; the amount of your culture has increased, but so has his. Then subsequent missions increase your culture, but at an increased cost of EPs each time and the risk of losing spies: even successful ones get sent back to your capital and must join the queue of agents on their tedious way to the target city.

I wouldn't say that it's useless if you have EP to spare. The majority of the time, I'm running spread culture to flip important tiles which will either allow me to grow quicker or allow me to park my stack next to their city. Also iirc, the amount of culture you put into that city you get once you take possession of it, so it can help to fight enemy culture (although most people usually just keep invading farther.

 

[viper_1986_1986]

I think you are missing something here. If you are at war and want to take the city, putting it in revolt one turn wipes out the city cultural % defense that turn (including walls/castle??? not sure). So have a spy in there, and the turn you want to launch attack try to create a city revolt, if you pull it off that's 5 cannons you don't have to use for bombard.

Yeah that is true.
I use that over siege...
Its rather funny its a one shot turn to attack.
After that the reovlt is over and you have to redo it..

It also stops them from whipping a unit in
Or draft i believe...