I can't get no propaganda

[King Of America]

Has anyone ever successfully "bought" a city by using propaganda? If so, how about some do's and dont's for all of wannabe spinmeisters. Every time I try I just lose money, even when other cities join my culture and in, one case, the target city had just recently flipped away frrom me, meaning it had a number of my countrymen.

P.S. Doesn't the whole idea of propaganda contradict the "no bribing cities" policy?

 

[Pygzilla]

Iv'e had it work during a war I was obciously winning against that warmongering pacifist Ghandi.

You aren't buying the city because you don't give the other leader cash. You paying for radio free asia.

 

[King Of America]

I love the smell of War Elephants in the morning...

and ther'es nothing like a Commercial/Religious civ for building temples quickly to expand your captured cities.

 

[DrJambo]

try using propaganda when you know the civ you are trrying it on is in a period of anarchy.

If the civ is under one of the other forms of government then it becomes much more unlikely.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sir Yelof]

For the first time since I've been playing, the computer totally hit me with a propaganda blitz. It was on a Deity level game. A key city that I captured from them after chasing them out of my territory suddenly culture flipped back to the Persians -- except that there was no Persian city within 10-15 squares. Even worse, since I was behind on technology, the culture-flip comes with one free unit of their best, so my mounted warriors were facing a rifleman.

This suggests that attempting propaganda on a city where you have at least one citizen already has a pretty good chance. It didn't help that I was Monarchy and he was Democracy.

--Yelof

 

[Sullla]

All the info on propaganda can be found in the editor. The chance for propaganda is modified by two things:

1) Overall culture. The chance to convert a city ranges from 30% if another civ is "in awe" of your culture to 3% if a civ is "disdainful" of your culture.

2) Governments. The more advanced your government is, the worse it does in terms of propaganda. For example, Democracy gets a 30% bonus when using propaganda against a city in despotism. This is unusually high though; most of the ranges are around 10% for government. For example, if you are communist trying to convert a city under republic, the chance is -10%.

I believe the overall chance is simply these two added together. Note that even under the most optimal conditions (democracy vs. despotism, "in awe" of culturally) the chance is only 60%. Most of the time, the odds will be around 20-30%, which is the reason why it seems to work so little. If you have less culture than another civ, it's almost impossible to use propaganda successfully.

Also note that cities under a democratic government are immune to propaganda.