What is the best way to capture a resource?

[DerekTheGeek]

I am not an experienced player so please forgive me if this is a beginner question. Also, I was not sure if this should go in this forum or the BTS forum.

Here is my problem. A rival nation has a resource that I really need. In this case Aluminum was the resource. The resource was only 2 tiles away from the nearest enemy city and about 3 tiles away from my borders. So I declared war on the enemy and took their city. I also destroyed the mine on the tile to prevent the enemy from using the aluminum themselves. After capturing the city I made "Theater" the first "production item" thinking that in order to gain the resource I would need to expand the cultural borders ASAP. Well after a while the theater was built but the cultural borders did not expand. Even after 15 more turns, the cultural borders had still not expanded enough to cover the resource tile. In the end I went to war over a resource I was never able to get.

Any suggestions or tactics on how to capture an enemy resource faster? What should I have done differently? I find managing culture to be very difficult. Thanks for any suggestions.

- dtg

 

[Gooblah]

Hmmm.
I assume that both you and the enemy are in the modern era since you have knowledge of Aluminum. Knowing this, the enemy's culture is solidified in the city. Its smarter to declare for the destruction of the entire civ, there by removing its culture from the civ and making resettling the city for the resource easier. Plus, removing a civ is usually helpful, especially since the AI goes for space races, which require aluminum.
Also, if you plan on grabbing a city for a resource, check to see if, in its current placement, the resource is in its fat cross. If so, declare, take the city, and build a Theatre like you did. If not, raze the city and build a new one .

 

[Jeff1787]

Raze the city and found new city on the resource...

 

[AnaNg]

I don't know that that would work for 2 reasons, one is my understanding is there's still culture "in the soil", so to speak. Also, if a city further in had a lot of culture building for a time, a new city would have trouble pushing the borders back.

If I'm after a resource or a specific city location, I usually conquer 1-2 cities further in than the item that I want figuring if I lose those to culture creep then I still get to keep what i really wanted.

 

[DerekTheGeek]

I don't know that that would work for 2 reasons, one is my understanding is there's still culture "in the soil", so to speak. Also, if a city further in had a lot of culture building for a time, a new city would have trouble pushing the borders back.

If I'm after a resource or a specific city location, I usually conquer 1-2 cities further in than the item that I want figuring if I lose those to culture creep then I still get to keep what i really wanted.

I think you are correct. I just went back and did as suggested earlier. I razed the city but was still not able to place a settler on the resource. The cultural influence was still there even though I destroyed the closest city. After 8 more turns My own cultural influence was still right where it was before and I was not able to found a city anywhere near thr resource.

I think next time I will try your suggestion and also croak the nearest second and third city. I sure hope aluminum is worth it.

 

[Gflat]

I usually hold onto a great artist before I go to war for just this reason. As soon as I capture the city near the coveted resource, I culture bomb the city which does two things:

1) Ends the revolt and allows me to start theater, etc
2) Pushes the borders out a bit.

Best of luck!

 

[volfan37132]

I think next time I will try your suggestion and also croak the nearest second and third city. I sure hope aluminum is worth it. [/QUOTE]

In my experience that is the best warlike solution. I would make sure
your enemy does not have any city within about 5 spaces of the
aluminum. Any captured city may flip on you that late in the game
so think seriously about razing and he will rebuild, but new cities will
not pose as much of a culture threat.

 

[JimT]

In my experience that is the best warlike solution. I would make sure
your enemy does not have any city within about 5 spaces of the
aluminum. Any captured city may flip on you that late in the game
so think seriously about razing and he will rebuild, but new cities will
not pose as much of a culture threat.

It is wise to remove a city within four/five tiles (especially if it's a major city cranking out culture).
As for flipping this is only a problem for a newly settled city. If you keep a captured city it won't flip back to the original owner (unless you have selected an option to allow it).

 

[AySteve]

I usually hold onto a great artist before I go to war for just this reason. As soon as I capture the city near the coveted resource, I culture bomb the city which does two things:

1) Ends the revolt and allows me to start theater, etc
2) Pushes the borders out a bit.

Best of luck!

I believe culture bombing no longer ends a city revolt in BTS

 

[xanadux]

If next to high culture cities, you really have no choice but to remove those cities as well. When an AI's culture is well developed, even several culture bombs won't do the trick. It seems that your culture per turn adds culture to a square you influence, and has to overtake all the culture the AI has built up on that square throughout the game. It seems that a culture bomb only allows you to start building culture on squares, doesn't actually affect the culture built up on a square. Because of this, settling a GA will get you cultural ownership of squares earlier. But even if you settle a couple GA, buy all possible culture buildings ASAP and even are running free speech and build a cathedral, it still will probably take 50-100 turns before you can claim a square 2 tiles away from the city towards the AI. So if you want the resource quickly at all, you need to take out all nearby cultured cities.