How does Spy spread culture?

[Blkbird]

EDIT: There are probably some other prerequisites not shown that need to be in place to allow for that mission. You probably need to have at least some cultural influence in the city prior to the mission.

Yeah, I've thought about that. But how do you know if you have any culture influence in a foreign city? In case it's native (not captured or defected from you), does it have to be in the culture radios of one of your cities - in other words, just like normal tiles which are under split culture influence?

 

[Blkbird]

Also, is "Spread Culture" applicable to cities only or can I use it for normal tiles? I'm currently competing for a Stone my border to Mogolia. Actually it was original Mogolian, which I turned into mine by building a city nearby. Now it looks the Mogolian are slowly getting back the upper hand on the tile, so "Spread Culture" could come in handy if it is possible.

 

[Bandobras Took]

You can steal cities without going to war.

... get that?

It's extremely powerful. It's not always useful, but when it is, its back-breaking.

I'd have to keep a city in revolt 100 turns to equal the cost of spreading culture. Not flipping the city, just spreading culture so that I have the Border advantage.

For the same cost as shifting a border slightly, I can steal ten techs.

It isn't even remotely powerful at that price. Can somebody show me a screenshot where the cost of injecting culture is even remotely competitive with any other spy action, such as reducing the city to two population? And then explain what influences the cost?

 

[LlamaCat]

hey guys on a related note, how do you tell if the poison water or foment unhappiness missions are actually doing anything? if you don't have enough points to view the city, how can you tell? I've done it a few times and it said it was successful, but I didn't see the population go down or anything. I read the poison water was overpowered on marathon speed but I am playing normal speed and feel like I have to just trust that it's slowing down growth/production in a city?

sorry to jack this thread a bit, but there are enough threads on here...

 

[Bandobras Took]

All right, I'm putting out a general call: has anybody actually performed the spread culture spy mission? If so, how and when? This is two separate games with two separate civs; in one I had a ridiculous cost listed on the espionage screen (and no menu option for it with the spy in the city), and in the other there wasn't even the ridiculous cost on the espionage screen (and still no option for it on the spy menu, even though it had plenty of other options listed that I couldn't do).

 

[Blkbird]

OK, I'm finally seeing an option to "Spread Culture" in a foreign city - it's a city of size 3 and population 5, where 6% of the City Nationality is mine (because it's at the border between our civs, within the culture radios of one of my cities). I now believe "Spread Culture" can only be performed to foreign cities already under your culture influence.

The cost of Spread Culture is shown as "218 EP", which I consider to be fairly moderate. For comparison: For the same city, "City Visibility" is at 365 EP, "Steal Technology" 240 EP.

EDIT: I'm now seeing the "Spread Culture" option for another near-border foreign city, size 2 and population 2, where 5% of the City Nationality is mine. The "Spread Culture" cost for it is a laughable 32 EP.

PS: Both cities mentioned above have my State Religion - which is also their State Religion. I happen to be the one who founded that Religion, built the Holy Shrine and the Apostal Palace for it, and became the Resident of the latter. This may or may not be related to the "Spread Culture" cost.

 

[Colee]

Having your religion in the target city definitely does still provide you with espionage benefits: generally all espionage costs are lower. Even though you won't get city visibility automatically in BTS as opposed to vanilla, but the costs are lower, also meaning that these cities are going to be among the first that you get city visibility for.

As for spreading culture, I've used it several times - the price is not always extraorbitant. Although, I admit, it does seem to have only a minor effect. City size is also definitely a factor in espionage costs.

 

[Palpster]

I've tried influencing a city this way....put all of my espionage in this effort for a very long time and nothing ever seemed to happen. Better off poisoning them, causing unhappiness and stealing tech.

To all the people in this thread that have said: you can peacefully take a city this way! : Have you ever tried it and succeeded??? I'd be interested in you sharing how you did it, cause it definitely did not work for me.

 

[SkyDog]

To all the people in this thread that have said: you can peacefully take a city this way! : Have you ever tried it and succeeded??? I'd be interested in you sharing how you did it, cause it definitely did not work for me.

I've absolutely done it to take a city, one with Oil that I needed. I don't remember all of the exact specifics, but what I do remember is that the city flipped just a few turns after the mission and gave me the much-needed oil. As has been mentioned, it was a situation where I absolutely didn't want to go to war.

 

[Sephlock]

I've done this in an effort to get a horse resource (to find out if I could actually complete the "your generals covet this resource" quest without going to war).

I got the city in question, but it turns out that was not QUITE enough to get me the resource.

Doh.

 

[oranges]

I've used it once in a city I soon captured and there was no rioting. Just like having a great artist create a work of art. It is a pretty expensive venture, but I guess it's meant for relatively heavy spy-oriented strategy.