Tips for assimilating captured cities?

[Markus5]

When I capture cities, it seems to take forever for cultural borders to push back into neighboring territory. My current strategy is to build cultural buildings as fast as possible.

Should I whip to reduce the population and hurry the cultural buildings?
Will additional population dilute the foreign population and encourage cultural expansion?
Will extra garrison troops help?
How about culture bombs? (I've never found them to help much, but maybe there are ways to make them more effective.)
Will razing improvements in enemy territory reduce their value in cultural border calculations?

Sometime, if my goal is to cripple my nieghbor, I'll continue past the captured city and raze the next city. Then I will see a little cultural expansion in the captured city.

 

[Willem]

Should I whip to reduce the population and hurry the cultural buildings?

You could, but you might end up with alot of unhappiness in the city. The people are already "Yearning to rejoin their homeland" so if you add the whip on top off that you could make things worse.

Will additional population dilute the foreign population and encourage cultural expansion?
Will extra garrison troops help?
Will razing improvements in enemy territory reduce their value in cultural border calculations?

These things don't help with culture. It can only be developed by buildings, Artist specialists, and adjusting your culture slider. The only benefit of adding more troops is that it will help prevent a revolt and subsequent flip.

 

[maltz]

The best way is to use a Great Artist culture bomb, if you have one.

Unless you take down nearby cities that has their cultural boundaries close to your new captured city, it will take a long, long time to get any ground back. This gets worse when they extend their border when your city is in revolt stage. They sometimes completely mop you up when you are "defenseless".

Thus war is like an addiction. Once you start it, you have to push further and further. And suddenly you... you win.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

I find culture wars are based on the culture RATE, not value. culture bombs are easily overpowered, Try a great artist specialist instead. some support to my hypothiesis would be toky's attempt to culture bomb one of the cities near my boarder (I had a spy in that city to moniter troop movement, that's how I know), His boarders shot forward by two tiles. 3 turns later they were back to the origional positions. By the way, my city was a conquered barbarion city(350AD) I find 3 things really push the boarder. basic culture buildings, religion and religious buildings, and cultural amplifiers like the brodcast tower. Wonders help too but may be difficult to build.

 

[automator]

Two best ways are either continued war (capture/destroy neighboring cities) or a Great Artist culture bomb. Since you're unlikely to have one GA for every city you capture, this is my way:

Think of the enemy has having "layers" of cities. Border cities are layer1, next in is layer2, furthest from original border is layer3.

Attack and capture layer1 or layer2 (but not both).
Raze the cities in the layer which was not captured. That is, capture layer1, continue on and raze layer2. Or vice-versa. The decision should be based on proximity to your pre-war cities, resources, city size, strategic location, etc.
Capture one or more layer3 cities and drop a culture bomb immediately, then build culture buildings (starting with theater and temples, the cheapies). If you have spare money or can afford a drop in science, crank up your culture slider.

In this way, you destroy that "buffer" of enemy culture and allow an ease of connect with those prime inner-layer enemy cities. Dropping a culture bomb on a border city is half wasted, as half the city borders have your cultural history on it any way. Those inner cities have none of your culture and could use it.

 

[DngrMse]

Culture bombs are great, I stockpile GA's just for that purpose. An instant end to revolt, so I can get busy building culture producing improvements, and if needed, I can drop one or two more in the same city, which becomes rather important later in the game. I don't use them next to my existing cultural borders, but further out, where captured cities are suffering from cultural pressure from the civ I'm warring with, and other civs that may be in the area.

 

[Crighton]

Yes, whiping will kill off the strikers and provide a building to balance the unhappiness
Yes & No, it won't help culture specifically but help to keep a lid on future rebellions
Yes
Yes, culture bombs end the revolt and help gain back an enormous ammount of culture
No

 

[Markus5]

I've never found culture bombs to be very effective, which was part of the reason for opening this thread. There aren't any surprising ideas yet, but its nice to see folks have thought things out. Thanks.

The only other strategy I've used is to chop the culture buildings. The AI often leaves forests uncut.

 

[[Comrade]RaVE]

Culture bombs not effective?

 

[StackofDOOM]

Culture Bombs have saved my butt so many times, its not funny!

 

[Mutineer]

Culture bombs are effective, especially if they are followed up.

Culture bomb give you one time ejection of 4000 culture. If I undestand correctly game mechanic, culture accumulated in ties is something like (I do not know exec formulas) CL * culture this turn.
CL is culture level of city, 1 to 5. If I am correct and my observations seems to agree with that, producing culture After culture bomb is very effective. In addition, you now only 1000 culture to next expancion.

So, do culture bomb and after that build theater and hire specialists. I tend to win or stalemate culture wars this way, even if AI use culture bomb. Actially I stalemate AI culture bombs by producing culture myself with out using culture bomb, but culture bomb make it more efficient.

 

[StrideCollosus]

Have to question a couple of comments in previous posts:

Culture bombs not effective? They won't shove the borders of your enemies very far, but they will give your new city a few tiles to work with, and as has been mentioned: you're then only 1000 of the next expansion. However, if the city is completely within the cultural boundary of your enemy then it's probably doomed to flip - either don't take it in the first place or take the neighbouring cities.

Whipping the pop of your new city may raise unhappiness in the short term, but you'll get new cultural buildings quickly (theatre, library, temples - usually in that order) and you're removing the 'homeland' problem by slaughtering the population. If you let them be, you have to build the culture much more slowly and deal with an unhappy and unruly mob. Get that whip out!

 

[DarkFyre99]

When I capture cities, it seems to take forever for cultural borders to push back into neighboring territory. My current strategy is to build cultural buildings as fast as possible.

That's my strategy too. Theatre first, then libary... then maybe a cathedral if that city's going to be on my new border.

*idea* I just remembered that if you can produce a theatre, then you can also turn hammers into culture as well. That might be a good, short-term solution to the border problem, rather than producing culture buildings that you may not need in the future. A city that produces ten hammers per turn produces five culture per turn... exactly the same as a theatre plus a library!

Should I whip to reduce the population and hurry the cultural buildings?

I don't myself... it's good only once, then you'll have to deal with an unhappy population. And you lack the citizens necessary to up your production rate for future culture buildings, or produce commerce to turn into culture. Also, see my idea above.

Of course, a smaller population means less people yearning for their homeland, so...

Will additional population dilute the foreign population and encourage cultural expansion?

Nope. The population (unlike civ3) is based upon the total culture of the tile the city's sitting on. The only way to increase the % of people following your culture is to increase the amount of culture in that tile.

Will extra garrison troops help?

They will help suppress revolts.

How about culture bombs? (I've never found them to help much, but maybe there are ways to make them more effective.)

The only thing they're really good for, unless the city is right on your border, and you're competing culturally for the enemy's tiles already, is to end the rioting instantly in the city you've taken. I only do this if I've taken a holy city, to get instant access to the gold the shrine produces.

Will razing improvements in enemy territory reduce their value in cultural border calculations?

Indirectly, if you're using tax income to produce culture (which I often do to offset war weariness.) Less income means less culture is produced, which means less culture is added to the city's borders. Also, see my idea above.

Sometime, if my goal is to cripple my nieghbor, I'll continue past the captured city and raze the next city. Then I will see a little cultural expansion in the captured city.

A Civ can only claim a tile if it is within a city's radius. It doesn't matter if the other Civ has 99% of the culture in the tile, and you only have 1%... if it's in your radius and not the enemy's, it's yours.