I miss the culture bomb!

[WickedWombat]

Questions? Comments?

..sobbing... ...sniff...

 

[thadian]

try the new great general - citadel IS a culuture bomb + a nice improvement.

 

[fuzzatron717]

I do to actually I hate that you can't culture bomb far out sea and if you're playing peacful you likely won't get great generals meaning no bombs and I hate reimproving the citedal back to what it was or what it will be.

 

[AfterShafter]

Yeah, my one regret about great generals taking over the culture bomb is, what was oftentimes a peacetime "weapon" of expansion/border grabbing is now only available from great persons you get almost exclusively through combat. Peace types have more to do in the expansion in general, but still makes me sob a bit into the pillow.

 

[Lyoncet]

Yeah, my one regret about great generals taking over the culture bomb is, what was oftentimes a peacetime "weapon" of expansion/border grabbing is now only available from great persons you get almost exclusively through combat. Peace types have more to do in the expansion in general, but still makes me sob a bit into the pillow.

Really? I've found that in most (immortal) peaceful games, I'll still generate one or two GGs just defending the few boneheaded AI DoWs that never accomplish anything.

 

[AfterShafter]

Well Lyon, to quote myself concerning great generals, they're "great persons you get almost exclusively through combat." That's pretty accurate.

In a significant majority of peacemonger games I go to war, but if I play my cards right, it's only at the very bitter end of the game when the AI is trying to prevent me from winning that I end up fighting. By that point, it's generally too late for me to care about a culture bomb. In games where I successfully maintain peace, putting the culture bomb on the great general essentially strips me of a very powerful peacetime border expansion "weapon."

I can count on both hands the number of times I used great artist culture bombs in vanilla Civ V to culture bomb, and only one of those hands would be in peacemonger games, but those times I did it to grab resources from city states or rivals without going to war. In my eyes, it's a pity to move a powerful peacetime mechanic to a war only unit. But, small potatoes - overall very happy with the expansion.

And, only playing on Emperor in the expansion so far, and Immortal was the highest I ever had no-war games in vanilla - and though rare, they did happen.

 

[BobDole]

I'll take Great Artists being useful now over culture bombs being on the Great Artist, thank you very much.

 

[AfterShafter]

I'll take Great Artists being useful now over culture bombs being on the Great Artist, thank you very much.

If the culture bomb was an ability that was so bad as to leave the great artist useless, why bother moving it even with the changes to the GA as they are now? Obviously wouldn't unbalance the GA to leave it on there. And, I used it in games where I was going for peaceful victories, albeit rarely.

 

[erebos]

I'll take Great Artists being useful now over culture bombs being on the Great Artist, thank you very much.

By that you mean that the Golden Ages are not becoming shorter by use of GA, I take from that, right?

Also (I did read fast therefore I might have overlooked it) GGs can be bought with faith once autocracy is picked as a policy-tree.

 

[Lyoncet]

Well Lyon, to quote myself concerning great generals, they're "great persons you get almost exclusively through combat." That's pretty accurate.

In no way did I dispute this. Just pointed out that peacemongers will often find themselves with some GGs too that they don't really have much to do with other than build citadels while still getting monuments or (buffed) Golden Ages out of your artists. (Plus, plenty of times in peacemonger games it's a good idea to join a coalition, which can sometimes mean war. So it doesn't even mean you weren't "playing your cards right" if you end up with a couple conflicts.)

Tangent aside, I'm happy with the changes anyways. GGs are better than they used to be, artists are way better than they used to be, and neither does it at the expense of breaking the game.

 

[BobDole]

If the culture bomb was an ability that was so bad as to leave the great artist useless, why bother moving it even with the changes to the GA as they are now? Obviously wouldn't unbalance the GA to leave it on there. And, I used it in games where I was going for peaceful victories, albeit rarely.

Because excess GGs would be even more useless since now only the Great Artist can start golden ages. And it probably gets more use there, since I'm guessing 99% of them time players get Great Artists, they use their Great Artists for Golden Ages or Tile Improvements, even if they still had culture bombs.

 

[AfterShafter]

Yeah, I believe you're right erebos. But again, that's very late in the game. With a peaceful game, when I DID use culture bombs, I'd oftentimes place one of my last planned expansion locations near the borders of a relatively non-warlike Civ and drop the culture bomb to nab a particularly valuable set of resources. The most valuable time for culture bombs was during the initial expansion phase I found, and late game they're kind of useless.

Again, it's small potatoes, and I wouldn't make a big fuss over it, but it's a pity they moved a powerful peaceful but still aggressive border expansion ability to a unit you get largely by warfare. If I'm warring, I probably don't need peaceful ways to expand my border as much. Does anyone actually think the better golden ages for great artists + culture bombs being on them would have made them unbalanced?

 

[Lyoncet]

Does anyone actually think the better golden ages for great artists + culture bombs being on them would have made them unbalanced?

If the culture bomb was an ability that was so bad as to leave the great artist useless, why bother moving it even with the changes to the GA as they are now?

The current system has two advantages over your proposal:
1) It would have been weird to have one GP with two abilities, especially when it's first ability (the new GA) is absolutely fine the way it is
2) Much more importantly, it gives people with excess GGs (particularly those playing peace-oriented games who ended up with GGs in defensive wars) something to do with them that's not "help my military" or "help my military.

This seems reasonable to me. We still have the seldom-used culture bomb, we have Great Artists that have a real consistent and flexible role to play (like most of the other GPs), and we have GGs that can do something other than help your army and help your army.

I guess you could do something like "start golden age; all the tiles adjacent to this unit become yours" or something, but IMO the current system works out better now strictly because it gives excess GGs a purpose which they sorely needed, while the other changes to the Artist and to Golden Ages make them a solid great person on their own. Also, when you culture bomb, are you usually taking unclaimed tiles, or the tiles of another civ? If you're taking another civ's tiles, you're probably not going to be staying at peace very long anyways... (although I guess city-states are pretty much fair game).

 

[AfterShafter]

Because excess GGs would be even more useless since now only the Great Artist can start golden ages. And it probably gets more use there, since I'm guessing 99% of them time players get Great Artists, they use their Great Artists for Golden Ages or Tile Improvements, even if they still had culture bombs.

Why would excess GGs be useless? No rule other than convention saying two great people can't have variants of the same ability. Heck, they all have one common ability - golden age. If both great generals and great artists could do a culture bomb, would that actually break the game in any way?

In no way did I dispute this. Just pointed out that peacemongers will often find themselves with some GGs too that they don't really have much to do with other than build citadels while still getting monuments or (buffed) Golden Ages out of your artists. (Plus, plenty of times in peacemonger games it's a good idea to join a coalition, which can sometimes mean war. So it doesn't even mean you weren't "playing your cards right" if you end up with a couple conflicts.)

Tangent aside, I'm happy with the changes anyways. GGs are better than they used to be, artists are way better than they used to be, and neither does it at the expense of breaking the game.

No, you didn't, but "well, you'll USUALLY find yourself at war even when you aim for peace" really doesn't do much for you when you actually succeed at staying peaceful. In the event of a game where you successfully avoid war until the bitter end, this change takes a potentially valuable - if VERY situational - tool out of your peace toolbox. I agree with your second paragraph - I wouldn't change things as they are much, and they gave us a good and interesting use for GG's - but it's a shame they did it at the expense of a peacemonger tool that I really don't think was bothering anyone, and wouldn't have unbalanced anything to just leave there.

If I had my way, I'd have buffed culture bombs in some way rather than turned the great artist into a fairly one dimensional golden age dispenser. Give it residual effects, have it affect units around it (IE - give them a culture per kill promotion or something), whatever. But, I'm not overly displeased with how they did it, and I would never have brought it up if someone else hadn't But if Firaxis decided to bring back culture bombs on great artists in the next patch without changing the great artist otherwise, I would be quite happy.

 

[AfterShafter]

The current system has two advantages over your proposal:
1) It would have been weird to have one GP with two abilities, especially when it's first ability (the new GA) is absolutely fine the way it is
2) Much more importantly, it gives people with excess GGs (particularly those playing peace-oriented games who ended up with GGs in defensive wars) something to do with them that's not "help my military" or "help my military.

This seems reasonable to me. We still have the seldom-used culture bomb, we have Great Artists that have a real consistent and flexible role to play (like most of the other GPs), and we have GGs that can do something other than help your army and help your army.

I guess you could do something like "start golden age; all the tiles adjacent to this unit become yours" or something, but IMO the current system works out better now strictly because it gives excess GGs a purpose which they sorely needed, while the other changes to the Artist and to Golden Ages make them a solid great person on their own. Also, when you culture bomb, are you usually taking unclaimed tiles, or the tiles of another civ? If you're taking another civ's tiles, you're probably not going to be staying at peace very long anyways... (although I guess city-states are pretty much fair game).

I can't say I agree with point 1 Lyon. As it is, you essentially have created an odd man out regular great person with the great artist... You can create a super tile, start a golden age - albeit a buffed one - and it lacks the third ability that other regular great people have.

Also, as per your second point, leaving culture bombs on great artists WITH the better golden age in no way prevents them from letting citadels produce a similar effect. This is without precedent, true, but their current approach of having a two-ability great regularly produced person is also without precedent. Precedent or not either way, I would take function and fun over precedent in a heartbeat, and as it stands, I don't see taking out culture bombs as furthering this end.

The question I ask myself is... If you had the game with citadels doing culture bombs, with great artists having the improved golden ages AND regular culture bombs, would this leave great artists in any way overpowered? I don't think so. Culture bombs would be ignored 95% of the time - but that other 5%, they would be a useful tool.

I entirely agree with you on one front - the change to great generals, as it is, was a VERY good one. Do you disagree that leaving culture bombs on the great artist as they had been while upgrading wouldn't have negatively affected the game? And, try to remember, even if you personally almost never end up in a game without any great generals, some of us like to play *hardcore* peacemongers some times, and great generals are extremely rare in these situations, and culture bombs can be very useful.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'll take Great Artists being useful now over culture bombs being on the Great Artist, thank you very much.

Yes. I never used a culture bomb. All they did was piss people off. I think I used it once to steal a resource, but accidentally took a tile of a City-State too and had to reload. At least a Great General allows you to defend this new territory effectively after you've made an enemy.

 

[Yzman]

I also think it makes more sense. Building a citadel to take over territory makes more sense to me than increasing my cultural borders into another civ.

 

[n00bxqb]

I generally like to build tall empires, so I usually take the Freedom tree. I'll usually also be the first to build the Chichen Itza, so that's +100% Golden Age Length. By the time I've completed the Freedom Tree, I'll usually have stacked up about a half dozen Great Artists, so that's 192 turns of Golden Age on Marathon (6 x 32) On top of that, I'll usually wait for a natural golden age (from happiness), which will stack another 40 turns on top of that. Golden Age for the rest of the game!

I personally love the fact that consuming multiple great people for golden ages no longer reduces the golden age length.

 

[Roxlimn]

Er, am I the only guy who'd always thought that culture bombing is an aggressive move? It's a prelude to invasion, or a pretext for one. Culture bombing to within one tile of a city s a great way to get infantry and siege weapons into fighting range while still retaining territorial benefits.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes. I never used a culture bomb. All they did was piss people off. I think I used it once to steal a resource, but accidentally took a tile of a City-State too and had to reload. At least a Great General allows you to defend this new territory effectively after you've made an enemy.

agreed