Bast said:
Why would you go to war when you can convert other cities and make money and build wonders.
I haven't been able to convert any cities using either culture or religion. I tried sending out Missionaries, but usually the rival Civ already had a State Religion, so I mine had limited influence. As for my Culture, at one point I nearly had a rival Civ's city enveloped by my cultural border (7 out 8 tiles of the city radius) but nothing happened. Eventually I declared war and just took the city -- sometimes I wonder if I waited longer if I would've eventually converted it, but it was much easier to simply conquer the Civ.
I find that the AI plays the Culture war much better than I do. They certainly appear to produce more Great People than my Civ; I suspect they set their cities to emphasize Great People because I just can't imagine them producing them so frequently without emphasis. Also, I often don't use Great People right away, which I know is a mistake. On the rare occassion I've produced a Great Artist and used them to produce a Great Work ("culture bomb") it didn't expand my borders enough to convert a rival city, so it was kind of a waste. I've found a Great Artist's culture bomb is more useful to repel a rival city's encrouching culture border so it doesn't infringe on my city's radius -- then my city can maximize its city radius and optimize its growth, production, and commerce.
I also produce Wonders, but my Wonders are typically built in my "Core Cities" and not on my borders, so they don't permit cultural conversion either.
No, conquest is the way for me. Conquest is especially handy in securing a majority vote in the UN and preventing another Civ from stealing a Diplomatic Victory. I like that Civs have a certain amount of votes based on their size (I'm not sure what exactly determines the number of votes a Civ is entitled to; I just know as the dominant Civ I've always had the most votes, and often the majority), unlike in Civ3 where each Civ had one vote, so all too often the goody-goody pascifist Civ won a Diplomatic Victory. But with Civ4's representative vote, I can dictate what resolutions to enact. Sometimes I'll even vote in another Civ as Secretary-General and then vote no on anything I don't like, just to give the illusion of democracy. Once my puppet Persian SG tried to enact the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but I voted it down; even my long-time ally and greatest rival, the Egyptians, voted against it -- I suspect because I already had a small arsenal of nukes and as far as my spies could tell they didn't have any yet.
Anyway, getting off topic -- my point is that conquest has been the only thing that's worked for me. Sure, I could've won a Diplomatic Victory, but I only achieved the majority vote in the UN by military conquest, not by culture or wonder-building.