vicawoo
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2007
- Messages
- 3,226
I've been trying to figure out clever ways of using culture bombs for probably around 5 years now, since they nerfed the mechanic.
The problem is it provides very little tile culture, giving it little chance of dealing with 20/40 tile culture per turn from border pops. That combined with how late will get them, thanks to parthenon being switched to aesthetics, means you can't get them early enough to be effective.
Except for barbarian cities. Barbarian cities flip immediately after their first revolt (not when they first are exposed to foeign culture), rarely build culture buildings. And do you really want to build 6-10 swordsmen with a barracks to take a stupid barbarian city? Especially on hills and you have to compete with AIs.
So the conditions of usefulness: 2+ barbarian cities within a potential great work. Good value barb cities/decent blocking value. You are philosophical, and get code of laws fast. So 17 artist specialist turns (the equivalent of 17 plains/mines turns, or 68 hammers vs 200+), which with caste system is you could get in 5 or 6 turns.
Screenshots of how bombable barbarian positions
Enemies all around us:
Remember that this is the maximum range. 2 barbarian cities within 8 tiles of each other are a good target. Surprisingly, 3 diagonals away are also valid targets.
It takes a few turns to revolt. Closer cities would revolt faster, due to more tiles enveloped.
Maybe it will be helpful in <5% of games, but it's a useful skill to have.
The problem is it provides very little tile culture, giving it little chance of dealing with 20/40 tile culture per turn from border pops. That combined with how late will get them, thanks to parthenon being switched to aesthetics, means you can't get them early enough to be effective.
Except for barbarian cities. Barbarian cities flip immediately after their first revolt (not when they first are exposed to foeign culture), rarely build culture buildings. And do you really want to build 6-10 swordsmen with a barracks to take a stupid barbarian city? Especially on hills and you have to compete with AIs.
So the conditions of usefulness: 2+ barbarian cities within a potential great work. Good value barb cities/decent blocking value. You are philosophical, and get code of laws fast. So 17 artist specialist turns (the equivalent of 17 plains/mines turns, or 68 hammers vs 200+), which with caste system is you could get in 5 or 6 turns.
Screenshots of how bombable barbarian positions
Enemies all around us:
Remember that this is the maximum range. 2 barbarian cities within 8 tiles of each other are a good target. Surprisingly, 3 diagonals away are also valid targets.
It takes a few turns to revolt. Closer cities would revolt faster, due to more tiles enveloped.
Maybe it will be helpful in <5% of games, but it's a useful skill to have.