Taking over a city by Culture

[nastyjames]

Can another city convert to your civ by culture like in the last game? eg there city is a small one with little culture and is surrounded by some of your large cities with lots of culture.

I ask this because a foreign city sprung up near me and had no culture outside of the one city square and was very close to my capital and was surround on three sides by my cities culture.

 

[Gogf]

Yes it can! First it will "revolt" against its country, and will fall into resistance. It will not flip on the first revolt, but it is likely to on the second. It is guaranteed to flip on the third revolt, according to Sulla.

 

[Plug]

Not only can you convert a city, you can convert a capital city and destroy a civilization. I found this out by playing a Duel game with 18 civilizations! I concentrated on building up my culture to get nearby resources in enemy land, and soon the nearby Roman city was mine . I highly recommend trying out this type of game, it's great fun. If you get any great artists use them to create a great work and watch those borders move! Build as many wonders as possible, especially the ones that improve your culture by a percentage. Getting the Theartre tech is also useful as it allows you to adjust the 'culture' slider.

Also, if you are playing this type of culture game you should keep an eye on the squares along either side of your borders. Whichever civilization has the highest percentage in the square controls it. So it will say: Persia 51%. Of course, sometimes three civilizations (or more) will have culture in a square, so it might be those who have 33% or similiar.

 

[Malodium]

It doesnt always work well though. I had a chinese city completely surrounded by my borders (from a culture bomb) for quite a while and he never turned (game is still ongoing). It was only a small 2-3 population city too.
Was strange.

 

[Plug]

Agreed Malodium, I had this problem in one game with the Greeks. They had lots of longbowmen in their only city which also had about 2-3 population. I had completely surrounded them (by 2 squares in 2 directions). One other reason in my game might be that there was also culture from another civilization to the north which might have decreased the power of my own in thier city square. But I think that it was because they had so many soldiers crushing the population. Eventually I just crushed them, it was easier :d.

 

[Lucky4s]

Not only can you convert a city, you can convert a capital city and destroy a civilization...

Hmm. I've cultured bombed and flipped a capital a few times before, but it never destroyed that civilization. Their capital just moves to another city. I wonder if that is dependant if they have secondary capitals like Versailes (sp?) or a forbidden palace somewhere.

 

[GamesMan]

I've found that if I mish the city (missionary it), it flips easy.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think he means you can flip the last city of a civ (thus destroying them) since the capital moves that requires the ability to flip a capital.

I also think units are more useful for suppressing the revolts.

 

[Plug]

Yes Krikkitone,

I was playing on Duel map with 18 civs, so there wasn't much room for second cities, until I culture flipped them of course.

Note: I said 'capital city' to emphasise that they had only one city left, as the last city of course has to be the capital.

 

[Atrius]

I love how you can do this. It is even more fun on Pangaea and One City Challenge. I let them build as close as they can when they reach me, which by the time they find me, isn't really that close.

Most of the time I have or am close to having Legendary Culture in the town, so they have to take it by force. I once let three different civs build near my border and three turns later they were destroyed due to One City Challenge rule.

 

[Plug]

Yes, Broadway and Rock 'n' Roll are very useful. Also, the Eifell tower because it gives broadcast towers in every city. Broadcast towers themselves are great.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

This sounds stupid, but if you have a city that produces a great artist, able to culture bomb for 4000 Pts, can I move him from the original city and place him in a city on my border, to maximize the culture bomb effect?

 

[Apolex]

Tyranus,

Yes, that works very well. Check out Sulla's walk-through to see how effective it can be in different circumstances. He illustrates it well with screenshots.

Edit: Here is a link to the section:
http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_walk_4.html

 

[Plug]

Tyranus,

that would generally be your tactic with the artist. The only reason you might want to use an artist this way in an inner city, or one that does not border other civs, is if you wanted to boost the cities culture in order to have a cultural victory, which requires 50,000 culture in three different cities. Great Artists are a great help in reaching that 'legendary' culture status because they give 4,000 culture every time you use them to create a great work. Of course, each can only be used once in this manner.

(Possibly, you might also want to use this tactic on a city that is on the verge of a wasteland or no man's land, or near the sea, if it would bring a desired resource into your cultural borders (and if you did not want to just build another city.)

 

[Wlauzon]

Culture wars are one of my favorites.

In one game, I took over about 75% of the other civs territory with NOTHING but culture. I was all prepared to go military and finish them, when the game gave me a culture win.

However, it is not that easy - in going for all culture you pretty much sacrifice any military capability, so if you have Genghis as a neighbor, probably not gonna make it.

 

[Wlauzon]

This sounds stupid, but if you have a city that produces a great artist, able to culture bomb for 4000 Pts, can I move him from the original city and place him in a city on my border, to maximize the culture bomb effect?

In fact, that is probably THE single best use - move them to a border city, or one you just took over or founded, and get an instant 4x increase in land area.

It can also be used to save your own cities that might be on the verge of flipping.

 

[ZombieEater]

I just remembered something (opened a new thread) - I once tried this (plant cb in border town), but I had just "acquired" the town from the Romans, and they were still resisting. The culture bomb had no effect, not even one square flipped.

I think the resistance, which prevents any culture production from the usual sources, also nixes the culture bomb.

 

[The Condor]

Not only can you convert a city, you can convert a capital city and destroy a civilization. I found this out by playing a Duel game with 18 civilizations! I concentrated on building up my culture to get nearby resources in enemy land, and soon the nearby Roman city was mine.

Do you have any proof because I once in a duel map game completely engulfed the Malinese capital in culture for over 500 years till the game ended and it never culture flipped or even revolted for that matter. It was their last city since I used my military to capture his other two cities. I had legendary culture and I will admit I was not on one-city challenge but I think it is rather odd that you were able to culture-flip the CAPITAL of a civilization just like that and destroy them. However, if you have any pictures I will put my suspicions to rest.

 

[Wlauzon]

.... It was their last city since I used my military to capture his other two cities. I had legendary culture and I will admit I was not on one-city challenge but I think it is rather odd that you were able to culture-flip the CAPITAL of a civilization just like that and destroy them. However, if you have any pictures I will put my suspicions to rest.

I am pretty sure you cannot flip the last city, capital or not. But to test for sure would have to set up a scenario thing, that that takes too long with world builder.

 

[Plug]

To Condor,

I don't have any pictures of my taking the Roman city with culture. However, I will check to see whether it shows it taking place on the game replay that is saved in the High Score section of the game. I am 99% certain that this is what took place as I was not involved in a war with Caesar, and he only had one city, and it came over to my side. My culture was awesome compared to his. But note that we were on a Duel map with 18 civs, so the cities weren't far away from one another. Also, I believe this was a warlord game (but will have to check.)

I will have a look at the replay file, and hopefully it can be posted for you to look at.

Note: Wlauzon, the last city MUST be the capital city.

UPDATE: I can confirm that the replay of the game held in the Hall of Fame shows these messages at the time I culture flipped the Romans (you can also see it on the map.):

1858 AD: Rome revolts and joins the Arabian Empire.
1860 AD: The Roman Civilization has been destroyed.

When you watch this game you will see that the Romans only have 1 city because of the size of the map : Does anyone know what file the Hall of Fame replays are kept in, and how do I put them onto CivFanatics.

UPDATE: The replay file of this game is in the next post (on page 2 of this thread.)