Small tip - popping small cities with Eiffel tower

[svv]

If you've got a small city with no culture - say a city you just founded, or stolen from the barbarians or another player - and you'd like to pop it to the full fat cross, it's pretty easy if you have Eiffel tower built.

Just put in an artist specialist (you can, because of the broadcast tower Eiffel tower gives you), and in two turns it will pop from poor to fledgling. Then put your artist back to working the squares if you like.

You can do this even if the city is on a different continent, because Eiffel tower works everywhere.

Sorry if this has been posted before; I hadn't seen it and I thought this was pretty neat.

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

I hadn't thought of using the artist. Thinking about it, I've probably done that and just assumed I could use an artist specialist because I'm that cool.

 

[Quagga]

I built the Eiffel Tower in the last game I played, but hardly ever try for it. I usually don't prioritize Radio.

I used to build Theater, Temple or Library first to pop borders. After Music, that's not the best approach. Once you get Music, your cities can build Culture. Build Culture a few turns, just long enough to pop the borders.

 

[Calder]

The Eiffel Tower, along with the Statue of Liberty and Pentagon, are my most sought out wonders in the game.

 

[obsolete]

I only recently started using artists, cause I am experiementing with cultural wins. Unfortuantely I haven't been able to pull this off on Monarch level. Only my main capital seems to get to the goal.

 

[UncleJJ]

That is a good way to expand your fat cross, but another good way to expand a new city's culture at that stage of the game is to simply build culture while it grows. Or be sure to introduce the state religion with a missionary as soon as the city is founded. Too often the AI, and many players, neglect the cultural aspect of the game that is about grabbing territory.

 

[notagoodname]

Yes i normally just build culture. It lets your city grow and acheives the same result.

Another thing people neglect totally is the culture rate. Setting the culture rate can actually bring in more gold and research than simply having the gold or research at 100%. This is because you can create more "we love the emporer days" by having the culture rate above 0%. A "we love the emporer day" causes the city to pay no city maintainence that turn and lowers the cost of all other maintainence as if that city wasn't there. This is especially important for large empires. The border popping the culture rate gives is a nice bonus.

 

[obsolete]

BTW, by the time you get the tower, isn't it a bit too late to be building new cities? They will never mature.

 

[svv]

BTW, by the time you get the tower, isn't it a bit too late to be building new cities? They will never mature.

Well, in my case, it was a Terran map and they were cities I took from the barbarians in the new world. Thing is, when you take over cities, many improvements remain, but nothing that provides culture.

I was still founding cities too. Trying to fill out the new world to increase my score. The game was essentially over, though. I disabled domination, but I probably could have voted myself in at the UN within the next several years.

 

[KMadCandy]

you can build the eiffel tower at Radio. that gives you the broadcast towers early, since you can't build the BTs themselves until Mass Media.

if you have UN victory turned off (or someone has built it already), MM is a deadend tech. it allows you to build BTs and UN and Hollywood, but no units, and isn't required for any other techs. so if you have a city with the time and hammers to build ET, and want the towers, making it can save you a ton of beakers from researching MM, in addition to the hammers in each city making the BTs. so it sometimes is worth considering when you're still founding cities to get domination land tiles (or increasing score in your case).

 

[obsolete]

Disabled domination? And what else?

Cheaters never win!

 

[svv]

It's not really cheating. I was getting too many domination wins, and I wanted to see the closing animation for other things like conquest (cool) and diplomatic (boring as heck). One of these days I'll hold out for a time victory to see what that looks like.

I figure the AI would be able to vote themselves in at the UN long before they could get a domination win anyway.

 

[harusame]

how do you found a new city after building eiffel tower?
i thought at that momment there will be no more room to expand

to get a free cultural border simply get caste system, run 1 artist for several turns, and switch back to food after the border expanded
then build some cultural building there (theatre or temple) and spread a religion there

 

[KMadCandy]

It's not really cheating. I was getting too many domination wins, and I wanted to see the closing animation for other things like conquest (cool) and diplomatic (boring as heck). One of these days I'll hold out for a time victory to see what that looks like.

heck, it's your game, play it how you want i agree on wanting to see the movies. my favorite is cultural altho i don't really know why, it's kind of boring but i get a kick out of it. time i've never seen either, and now you've made me curious on that one too.

 

[obsolete]

I've won diplo.....

Trust me... you're not missing anything.

 

[JimT]

I only recently started using artists, cause I am experiementing with cultural wins. Unfortuantely I haven't been able to pull this off on Monarch level. Only my main capital seems to get to the goal.

I never tried it until recently but I recently did three in a row. I think I was put off by talk of only having 6 cities and deciding very early, yet in these games I decided quite late having rolled continents and not having any major production options by the medieval age.

Sorry OP, I've just finished writing this and it seems to be too long so sorry for thread hijacking but I don't have tiem to search for an appropriate place to put it as I'm coming of my break.

I keep my empire ticking over as normal but use organized religion (when not running theology) to get religions spread and cathedrals built in three main commerce cities. The +100% GP is not in one of these but the +100% Culture is in your lagging city (national epic is one of these I think). That way it doesn't differ from your normal strategy. My culture city 2 was Brennus' Capital and GP city was Delhi. Don't waste too much time on Great People as they can be produced towards the end very easily but it has diminishing returns (maybe Great Library and leave it at that).

Once you have completed cathedrals/ in your three commerce cities (slavery helps here) go to 100% culture. Cottages backed up by free speech (+2 commerce and +100% culture) are very good.

Mercentalism/caste system helps the rest (backed up by representation to keep research ticking over), there is no point having cottages (you don't need culture here). Use your small cities for cash creating merchant specialists (without diluting the GP pool) and use two or three big ones to concentrate on your chosen GPs. You need about a hundred turns so it won't be your quickest or score breaking victory but it's satisfying if not HOF material.

G Prophet - Shrine provides income and culture
G Merchants - Keep your culture running at 100%
G Artists - Boost your lagging city
The other two are not that useful at this point