Tile Acquisition via Culture

[GunsGermsandSteel]

How does a city decide which tile to acquire next via culture? Seems totally random to me. If it's not I'd be curious what algorithm it goes off of.

Perhaps this is something that could be redone. It should run off an algorithm that acquires the "best tiles" first (luxury/strategic/hills/mountains etc)
I've been very frustrated when there's a luxury or strategic resource in the second circle of hexes but the city keeps acquiring barren desert/ocean/tundra tiles instead)

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Not sure but:

- Flat lands are the cheapest. Resources tend to decrease that cost
- Hills increase it
- So do tiles crossing rivers.
- As well as range (the first ring is easier to acquire than the third ring)

I think the type of the tile usually determines the odds of it being acquired.

 

[smvalentine]

I'm pretty sure it acquires all the tiles in ring 1 around the city center before any from ring 2, and all from ring 2 before any from ring 3.

 

[mrjepson]

Forests seem to decrease the odds of getting expanded to.

 

[Futumch]

It always seemed to me that the order is an exploitable (lux or resource) tile first, then flat land, then hills and unusable tiles last (mountains and deep water). The first ring around the city's initial 6 will be filled in first, unless there's luxuries or resources in the second ring, which seem to take priority over mountains and deep water.
I haven't really compared it but if you use those little priority buttons to steer your city a certain way (for example targetting food instead of science) maybe that influences which tiles are selected? I might have to look at that next time I play.

 

[Cedbird77]

I like the randomness of it. It adds more challenge to the game. As well in life. Some things seem random.

 

[jasper]

Random is not really real life. Certain features are going to grab the attention of a fledgling city. People arnt going to settle the immediate area at random.

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

It always seemed to me that the order is an exploitable (lux or resource) tile first, then flat land, then hills and unusable tiles last (mountains and deep water). The first ring around the city's initial 6 will be filled in first, unless there's luxuries or resources in the second ring, which seem to take priority over mountains and deep water.
I haven't really compared it but if you use those little priority buttons to steer your city a certain way (for example targetting food instead of science) maybe that influences which tiles are selected? I might have to look at that next time I play.

But that's exactly opposite of my point in the OP. It's happened to me more than once where tiles in the same ring that do not have a bonus/luxury resource are being acquired first. That's why I made this thread because I am having to pay gold to acquire a tile that I expected to be culturally acquired in a reasonable amount of time.
It seem mostly random to me. I do think it does tend to "fill" a ring first, but there are clearly modifiers to that (mountains and deep ocean being obvious). I think the way it acquires has more to do with the ease of terrain than the desireability of what's actually on the tile. Like a hill with diamonds will be lower priority than bare grassland in the same ring. Again I'm just guessing at how it works.

I wonder why we can't select which tiles get culturally acquired?

 

[Equilin]

I believe it's the same as in Civ5, and i remember there being a Youtube video on that