Next hexe to be claimed

[princessleila]

Hi !

Is there any mean to choose the next hexe to be claimed by a city ?
I know i can buy it, but i would like to expan my territory with culture...
The game seems to choose for me, but i wanted another hexe

And also, what happen when i want to "culture bomb" ennemy hexe with a crucial ressource ?
If the game "chooses" the wrong hexe, it could be very frustating

 

[dtsazza]

Is there any mean to choose the next hexe to be claimed by a city?

Nope, this will always happy automatically according to a particular (undisclosed, but probably quite easy to work out after a bit) heuristic. As you say, you can always spend gold to buy specific tiles.

And also, what happen when i want to "culture bomb" ennemy hexe with a crucial ressource ?
If the game "chooses" the wrong hexe, it could be very frustating

As far as I understand, once a tile is claimed by a civ it will never flip "naturally", i.e. by city cultural growth, regardless of whether this is the natural growth or you buying a tile. AFAIK once another civ has claimed a tile, the only way to flip it is with an actual culture bomb from a great artist.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I would have guessed (without having yet played Civ5 so I could be wrong) that capturing their nearby city would work as well

 

[dtsazza]

Touché, sir.

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

If you wish to culture bomb with a great artist, you simply move your great artist to a certain spot (I believe he will only work from within your territory to one hexagon outside of your territory) and then culture bomb. That flips the tile he's standing on and all adjacent tiles next to him.

 

[Takhisis]

I would have guessed (without having yet played Civ5 so I could be wrong) that capturing their nearby city would work as well

Touché, sir.

I'd have thought that someone who's been playing this for a few years (according to join date) would have noticed that one sooner… in all versions of the game, sometimes the best way to claim a piece of land's always been to let the AI settle it and then take the town.

 

[MentatYP]

No way to choose next hex to claim based on cultural expansion? Annoying.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, culture kinda leaks, and people usually settle of their own accord (unless you're in a totalitarian state) so making purchasing the only way to get exactly the spot that you want looks realistic, not having played the game yet.

 

[MentatYP]

It prioritizes tiles with resources. I'd imagine that if there were multiple resources it would prioritize military ones first, from more current to least current.

I wonder if it's smart enough to make a beeline to a vital resource 3 hexes from the city? If it's 2 hexes away from the city it claims the resource tile first chance it gets, but what about if it's 3 hexes away? Does it know to make a path to said resource by claiming an in-between hex first? Hmm... gotta play with that a bit to see.

 

[thwump]

It prioritizes tiles with resources. I'd imagine that if there were multiple resources it would prioritize military ones first, from more current to least current.

I wonder if it's smart enough to make a beeline to a vital resource 3 hexes from the city? If it's 2 hexes away from the city it claims the resource tile first chance it gets, but what about if it's 3 hexes away? Does it know to make a path to said resource by claiming an in-between hex first? Hmm... gotta play with that a bit to see.

It doesn't seem like it will beeline to 3 hexes out. At least not always, I had an issue with my capital and some iron that was 3 hexes away. I guess maybe if you buy the middle hex it might work.

 

[Balkor]

Didnt one of 2K Greg's videos mention that you can change an option in the city and it would expand regarding what you choose, so like, if you choose wealth the city would expand to tiles that can help bring in more gold.

 

[dtsazza]

Balkor - I think you're right in that the city will pursue new tiles according to what it thinks would add most to its tiles-to-be-worked under the current prioritisation scheme. (Assuming there are no resources left to get, which would take priority).

It's worth mentioning as well that when you look at the city screen, the next tile(s) to be tripped by the culture will be highlighted in purple, so you can easily see not just how many turns is left until the borders pop, but also while tile the city is thinking about getting when it does pop. This lets you plan ahead and means the pops rarely come as a big surprise.

 

[obsolete]

No way to choose next hex to claim based on cultural expansion? Annoying.

Annoying is an understatement. And it's costing me a fortune in my games. That's great when you're playing just emperor, but really hurts higher up.

 

[MentatYP]

It doesn't seem like it will beeline to 3 hexes out. At least not always, I had an issue with my capital and some iron that was 3 hexes away. I guess maybe if you buy the middle hex it might work.

I think it does try to grab the resource if you buy the in-between tile, but I'm not crazy about having to spend gold to get it to do what it should probably be smart enough to do on its own.

Balkor - I think you're right in that the city will pursue new tiles according to what it thinks would add most to its tiles-to-be-worked under the current prioritisation scheme. (Assuming there are no resources left to get, which would take priority).

Interesting point. Worth a try anyway.

It's worth mentioning as well that when you look at the city screen, the next tile(s) to be tripped by the culture will be highlighted in purple, so you can easily see not just how many turns is left until the borders pop, but also while tile the city is thinking about getting when it does pop. This lets you plan ahead and means the pops rarely come as a big surprise.

Oh believe me--I knew about those pink-ish purple highlighted tiles. I tried left-clicking, right-clicking, click-and-dragging--nothing worked to change which tiles would unlock next What's up with having more than one highlighted tile though? If it's going to be up to the AI which one to unlock next, at least tell me exactly which one it's going to be!

 

[SassQueen]

What's up with having more than one highlighted tile though? If it's going to be up to the AI which one to unlock next, at least tell me exactly which one it's going to be!

^This. Has anyone noticed if it flips ALL the tiles in case of multiple highlighted ones, or just picks one out of the two or three?

 

[srad]

Annoying is an understatement. And it's costing me a fortune in my games. That's great when you're playing just emperor, but really hurts higher up.

Jepp. I had two cows and one fish in the first ring of my capital and what does the logic choose as next tile? A cow! And not the gems -- I really hope Firaxis will patch this to let the player choose the 'next' tile.

 

[MentatYP]

^This. Has anyone noticed if it flips ALL the tiles in case of multiple highlighted ones, or just picks one out of the two or three?

Just one. I haven't bothered to do the try-and-reload game to see if it randomly picks every time or not, but it's definitely just one at a time.

 

[SomethingWitty]

I don't know if anybody will find this helpful or not. But in my first game I befriended a lot of cultural city-states, and had quite a bit of national cultural output. But my cities weren't growing because I had neglected to build any city level cultural improvements, e.g. monuments. That turned out to be a confusing mistake.

 

[MentatYP]

I played around a bit and here's what I think I've figured out:

Neighboring civ land grab > resources > productive tiles

I built a city with both fur and sheep 3 tiles to the northwest and a neighboring civ city 5 tiles to the east. The city screen highlighted some tiles to the east in pink, signifying that they were up for expansion next. I then bought a tile adjacent to the fur and sheep tiles, 2 tiles from my city to the northwest. Usually when you do this the game then tries to unlock those resource tiles next, but this time doing so didn't make either the fur or sheep tiles next in line for unlocking by culture expansion. Instead, it left the pink outlines on tiles to the east between my city and the other civ's city. Since there were no other adjacent resources in play I can only conclude that the game prioritizes performing a land grab of tiles if they're within the sphere of influence of a neighboring civ's city.

I'm still assuming unless proven otherwise that within this hierarchy the game prioritizes military resources over luxury resources, all else being equal. It'll be interesting to see what it does if it has a choice between a military resource on one side of town and a land grab to the other.

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe it goes over into doing some upmanship against the AI's civs.