great person question and one other

[merdyl]

1) when i choose to place a great person as a super specialist, does that count toward my population?
IE if i have all the population tilling the land and i make a great person join as a super specialist, do one of my farmer/miner people go away?

2) how does the game calculate the culture boundary?
IE If i capture a small city within an enemy's large cultural boundary, will i ever get the 'fat cross' of the captured city if i place a great artist inside and drop a culture bomb.

thanks

 

[KMadCandy]

#1 no, the super specialists are free, and don't require any food. they're not added to the population of the city. i think of it as they just kind of live there but have their official residence in an offshore island with no taxes. in fact, great merchants even provide one food to the city when they settle, although they still eat none themselves. nice way to boost the population in a city that can't grow much by itself, or in OCC.

#2 there are some pretty detailed formulas i've seen around here but i can't point you to them atm. the simple answer is that yes you can get the fat cross of the captured city over time, depending on how strong the cultural border of the remaining enemy city is.

keep in mind that early buildings provide more culture as time goes on (for example, libraries and temples double at a certain point, etc.) so it can be hard to overcome that initial advantage without putting in a serious effort.

culture bombs can be very handy but you can't count on them getting the full fat cross right away if the enemy culture is strong nearby. another handy thing is that if you take a GA along and culture bomb the newly captured city while it's in revolt, you not only get the 4000 instant culture, the city comes out of revolt instantly as well. double benefit.

 

[Andorim]

#2 also depends on when and where you take it. If it is the middle ages or later, you will have trouble getting the fat cross to be fat. More importantly, if the city is close to the other civ's capital, it may be impossible to get any sort of fat cross happening. A capital city has a huge area of cultural influence, and it is very hard to push back. If you are too close to the capital, you may have to capture or raze the capital, just to make your first city viable.

 

[svv]

#1 no, the super specialists are free, and don't require any food. they're not added to the population of the city. i think of it as they just kind of live there but have their official residence in an offshore island with no taxes. in fact, great merchants even provide one food to the city when they settle, although they still eat none themselves. nice way to boost the population in a city that can't grow much by itself, or in OCC.

I think it's more that the Great Persons represent just one person, while regular specialists or citizens working the terrain squares represent thousands of people. One guy's not gonna eat as much as thousands of people, no matter how "great" he is.

 

[Sisiutil]

#2 also depends on when and where you take it. If it is the middle ages or later, you will have trouble getting the fat cross to be fat. More importantly, if the city is close to the other civ's capital, it may be impossible to get any sort of fat cross happening. A capital city has a huge area of cultural influence, and it is very hard to push back. If you are too close to the capital, you may have to capture or raze the capital, just to make your first city viable.

In addition--while I'm not a guru on the mechanics of it by any means--I've seen tiles gained from a culture bomb erode over time. Per-turn cultural output, therefore, makes a difference, especially long-term. You might be better off settling that Great Artist in the city under cultural pressure for 12 culture points per turn, as well as putting some culture-generating buildings there.

 

[Winston Hughes]

another handy thing is that if you take a GA along and culture bomb the newly captured city while it's in revolt, you not only get the 4000 instant culture, the city comes out of revolt instantly as well. double benefit.

A culture-bomb border-push in this situation can also have the advantage of giving you what ChicagoCubs refers to as 'breathing room' (see the 'Beachhead' thread); it can give you/deny your enemy the use of roads and rails, making it easier to defend the newly captured city, and to move your troops towards the next target.

 

[johnny_rico]

It's been my own experience that the culture bombing a freshly captured city has little to no value. It's wonderful that you can flip the city instantly and begin working it. On the flip side, it sucks because the city is starving because half of the BFC didn't flip and is still 'owned' by your opponent.

I usually build a theatre upon capturing a city and, even at the cost of starvation, work an artist specialist or two to generate some culture, getting to 100 will usually allow the city to stagnate while moving towards 500 culture to make the city productive.

Someone mentioned culture over time and I believe that is also a difference maker though I don't have the math nor have I perused the xml files to prove it.

 

[Elandal]

I just whip until they stop starving, whining, and complaining.. Whip seems to be quite the general medicine for any illness Starting with the theatre so that I can run artists (unless they need to be whipped to size 1).

When the captured city produces culture, it seems to me that they convert faster to my nationality if I whip them to small size first, and if the city has high food tiles for growth, this may get them to reasonable size faster (as the motherland unhappiness will be lower). No idea about the mechanics involved.

Because of the above, I'm not really concerned about the city having it's full BFC anytime soon. Not like there would be pop to work the tiles soon when I'm done whipping. They'll have had a healthy dose of Elvis before that, so when they grow to need the tiles, they probably have the culture to get them as well.

 

[spoooq]

My understanding of how borders work is that there are two mechanisms. The total culture level reached by the city decides the maximum possible range of your borders. Every tile in that radius then collects culture -every turn-. So when a city is far away from other civs, none of the tiles popped will have any opposing culture collected, giving immediate ownership. This is the famous initial 'border pop'. If two civs have overlapping tiles, then the tile goes to whoever has collected the total amount of culture in that tile. This explains why capital cities are so culturally powerful - they get a big bonus from the palace, and they have a long time to build up their culture in the tiles around them. It also explains why artist bombs may or may not be useful - although 4000 culture sounds like a lot, the tiles nearby may have built up many thousands more culture turn-by-turn during the entire game. 12 culture per turn from settling, on the other hand, may not be enough to grab tiles back, but it will at least slow down or stop any further loss of tiles. IMO, the only real way to make late-captured cities useful is to raze the closest enemy cities, and rely on the maximum radius not being enough to touch the ones you want to keep.

 

[DaveMcW]

My understanding of how borders work is that there are two mechanisms. The total culture level reached by the city decides the maximum possible range of your borders. Every tile in that radius then collects culture -every turn-. So when a city is far away from other civs, none of the tiles popped will have any opposing culture collected, giving immediate ownership. This is the famous initial 'border pop'. If two civs have overlapping tiles, then the tile goes to whoever has collected the total amount of culture in that tile. This explains why capital cities are so culturally powerful - they get a big bonus from the palace, and they have a long time to build up their culture in the tiles around them.

You are almost correct. Culture collected is given by the formula:

culture = culture_per_turn + 20 * (border_size - border_position).

For example, the tiles next to a city (border_position=1) with 100 total culture (border_size=3), and 1 culture/turn, collect 41 culture per turn!

It also explains why artist bombs may or may not be useful - although 4000 culture sounds like a lot, the tiles nearby may have built up many thousands more culture turn-by-turn during the entire game. 12 culture per turn from settling, on the other hand, may not be enough to grab tiles back, but it will at least slow down or stop any further loss of tiles. IMO, the only real way to make late-captured cities useful is to raze the closest enemy cities, and rely on the maximum radius not being enough to touch the ones you want to keep.

Compared to the 20 culture/turn for each border expansion, 12 culture/turn from a settled artist really isn't that great. You should bomb the city with your first artist if your goal is to control more tiles.

 

[spoooq]

You are almost correct. Culture collected is given by the formula:

culture = culture_per_turn + 20 * (border_size - border_position).

Wow, that changes everything. It's not just the cities current output that you need to beat - as well as tiles building up over time, in effect city culture output gets it as well! Popping borders is more important than I thought, and being inside the established culture borders of an old opposing city is a serious problem, even if you have a better culture-per-turn. So yes, an initial artist bomb would be valuable to get your city borders popped quickly, and provides much more than just the nominal 4000.

It may be worth noting that the outermost ring doesn't get any bonus. Is there a maximum border size at Legendary?

 

[cabert]

dave said it all
culture bombing is the way to go, with one thing to remember : you need at least 1cpt to make the "overall" culture level having any effect.

So you should : set the city to build a culture item (temple, monastery, monument, whatever), culture bomb it then whip the item.
It's often beneficial to leave the "wanabee culture bombed" city in a revolt, while taking/razing the next city.
If you don't you'll have to let it starve or whip it dry.