Expansion by culture

[Wizball]

I'm starting to feel I am doing something very wrong.

In my current game (playing Russian) I am well in front of my neighbours in the culture race, so when I found where the french dwelled, I started to expand in that direction. Problem is, I never get any cities defectiong to me! We have been to war a few times, with france on the losing side. I have taken one size 5 city from them, and razed a few small ones - mainly to whip them into submission and make them agree to peace. I want to keep ahead in science and culture, so my wars are kept short.

I have a few guesses:

1) France hates me. Really, really hates me. Does that prevent the cities from defecting to me? I thoght it was only culture that mattered.

2) Although my civ has a very high culture rating, the cities bordering to France aren't that advanced. Mainly because they are severly crippled from corruption - but is it the culture in the border city thats making cities jump ship? In that case I have to do some re-thinking... My knights are but at short ride away!

/Henrik

 

[eMarkM]

I think you need to build culture in the border cities. Build Temple and other culture inducers. I know it's hard though with corruption, you can try the IFE trick if you have the spare workers. I think that's the only way you'll absorb them. If those cities are close to his capitol, it will be tougher still, if not impossible.

e

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Expansion by culture is overrated, only works if the AI 'suddenly' builds an odd city very near to your cultural heartland. If you want their cities that badly, send in the troops.

 

[SpacemasterDK]

Originally posted by SKM
Expansion by culture is overrated, only works if the AI 'suddenly' builds an odd city very near to your cultural heartland. If you want their cities that badly, send in the troops.

I think you are right in many ways, but this can actualy be used to your advantage. I'm playing the Bab's in north america where the Persians have settled too. I wanted to try out the culture point of combat so so I stretched my borders very thin never connecting my cities. So the persians came and setteled inbetween ... big mistake as I smoothed them in the diplomacy and waited for them to join my superiour culture. It took about 1000 years but around 100 AD all of the cities the AI had build next to mine were bab cities. He had a few remaining on the east coast but that was no problem for 80 rifelmen, oh yeah science rocks too

So you _are_ right in that culture is not that great if you play the game with nice tight borders and defence, but thats not what culture is about for me, it's the sneaky influence that creeps in through suprime diplomacy and tatics.

One problem I had with the strategy was I had a hard time getting resources and a hard time waiting for cities to join me if they had say a godly iron supply, but it was worth the wait

What next? mmm, my 80 rifelmen and 40 cannons are marching for southamerica into my bottleneck at Panama, time to kick some Zulu behindooo...

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Kick some Zulu butt on my behalf too; got bad memories of them fr Civ2.
Anyway, I dun have that kinda patience to wait a 1000 yrs for them to join me peacefully. If they get in my way, either they get out or I'll kick them out. Otherwise, enemy cities within your territory will disrupt your internal lines of communication and supply and trade routes. Worse if they are being used as staging points for mass forces to come pouring out, cutting off your cities and generally wreaking hell.

 

[Wizball]

Originally posted by SKM
Expansion by culture is overrated, only works if the AI 'suddenly' builds an odd city very near to your cultural heartland. If you want their cities that badly, send in the troops.

Well, they aren't that great, so I guess they are more hassle than they're worth then... But if they sneak attack me once more, then I'm razing Paris!

 

[godot]

I am still in my first game on wimp level but have had about 5 cities defect to my side. Granted, I grew my civ in a rather concentrated way (just to learn the mechanics) and I pushed less on absolute expansion and more on cultural improvements.

Virtually all my border towns have all cultural improvements, but I've now come to the point where my civ is pressed up against other civs that are similarly cultural (apparently). Now, I am persuing military expansion.

I've wiped out the Greeks and got a Great Leader out of the campaign and am going to use the Cavalry army I created to chew up some Egyptians so I can have a victorious army and build the military academy and create armies at will.

Culture war does work to a limited extent and it also means you can ignore cities a civ places in a nook in your oown civ because, with patience and time, it will be yours.

One change to the culture model that might be beneficial is for it to spread more evenly through your civ as you develop things like Printing Press, Roads, Railroads, etc. These developments (in the real world) allow for culture to be more swiftly and completely dispersed throughout even large regions.

 

[damunzy]

I have good experiences with expanding by culture. In my first game (Chieftain) I took over mass amounts of cities and came close to a culture victory (94k+ culture) in 2012 AD before I finally won by Domination.
In my current game (One difficulty level higher) I have taken in 4+ cities so far from the French and 2 or 3 from the English and Germans. In both games I concentrated on building culture makers, Temples, Libraries, Catherdrals, Universities, Collesiums, and Wonders that give a lot of culture (Great Library!).
In both games I am the Japanese(Militaristic, Religious).

Culture Tip: When making structures for gaining culture, and using a Religious culture, build in this order: Temple(easiest to build), Library(more culture than Cathedral and +50% research), Cathedral(easier to build than university when in a religious culture), University(more culture than collesium), Collesium(only time I would build this before any of the others is b/c 1)you haven't the correct science advancement to build others or 2)You have lots of rebelion problems).
Happiness Tip: When you have more than 2 types of luxuries coming into a city it is benificial to buld a marketplace to get the extra happy faces. Example: If city X has 3 different luxuries coming into it but doesn't have a marketplace then it only gets 3 happy faces. If city X does have a marketplace and 3 different luxuries then you will get 4 happy faces. See chart below:
With Market Place:
1 Luxury = 01 Happy Face
2 Luxury = 02 Happy Face
3 Luxury = 04 Happy Face
4 Luxury = 06 Happy Face
5 Luxury = 09 Happy Face
6 Luxury = 12 Happy Face
Without Market Place:
1 Luxury = 01 Happy Face
2 Luxury = 02 Happy Face
3 Luxury = 03 Happy Face
4 Luxury = 04 Happy Face
5 Luxury = 05 Happy Face
6 Luxury = 06 Happy Face