Conquered city cultural radii

[Didymus]

Okay, I conquered a rivals city, had zero radius until the resistance ended, no problem.
Then I moved a Great Artist in and Presto! 4000 culture in that city ... but, my cultural radius did not change ! (When I did this in a city I founded, the cultural radius exploded.)

I assume it has to do with the length of time I had owned the city, the presence of other cities on that rival nearby, the lack of ongoing culture growth, and the fact that the city was populated by citizens of the rival empire. But still, damnitall, 4000 culture and nothing!
Any explanation of exactly how this works and how to get my influence to expland?
Also, slightly tangentially, do religious building get destroyed, or does it depend upon the state religion of the conqueror?

[DeepO]

The problem in your case is that tiles 'remember' what cultural influence civs leave. You can see this number in one of the mouseovers. The exact formula is complex, but in short it means that if a certain tile has been accumulating e.g. Egyptian culture for thousands of years, its memory of the Egyptians will be rather high.

If you come, and capture the city, it will only grant you the city square itself. The other tiles will remain under the influence of the Egyptians, and if they still have cities nearby with culture reaching those surrounding tiles, those tiles will be within Egyptian borders. If you build up culture through a GW, you will increase the amount of culture that each time is added to the tiles next to you, but it can still take a while before you control them.

(it is more complex than just comparing the memories of different civs)

What to do? make sure no Egyptian cities can influence those tiles... if they can't fall within enemy borders, it will go to you as you do influence them.

DeepO

[Didymus]

okay, that helps.

[Aeson]

Holding shift while mousing over a tile will show the culture values affecting the tile.

[proviisori]

Very interesting...

I was also thinking about that. I considered would it be a good strategy to capture enemy cities and the culture bomb them.

Now I can see that it might not be as effective as I thought.



Ps. I don't have the game yet.. just building strategies in my head.

[Dinkeldog]

I have noticed that this means that I fight a lot more wars of extinction rather than border skirmishes. I'm not sure I like that all that much. There should be some way to enforce ownership of a square of a captured city. Is there one I'm missing?

[padillah]

What about fortifying units on a particular square? Does anyone know if that helps?

Tom P.
(Currently getting my butt handed to me by the English.)

[DeepO]

No, only culture. But it is a function of both the memory, and how much culture the tile receives eacht turn. So you don't need to go for extiniction, just build some culture generating buildings. Or use a GW and wait for a couple of turns

culture on a tile adds up from all the cities influencing it. There is another way of culture bombing someone: build your cities close together on the border, and make them cultural powerhouses. 3 cities right next to one will bring down even the best cities if you play it right.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, you can't lose cities to culture flipping if the civ pressuring you is also the former owner of the city. 1-tile cities in the middle of enemy territory won't give you much, but they won't revolt either.

DeepO

[padillah]

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, you can't lose cities to culture flipping if the civ pressuring you is also the former owner of the city. 1-tile cities in the middle of enemy territory won't give you much, but they won't revolt either.

DeepO

That was my biggest fear. Take a remote city, put some Gold and Great People in it and have the dang thing flip in three turns cause it's too far away.

That's a load off.

Tom P.

[sophist]

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, you can't lose cities to culture flipping if the civ pressuring you is also the former owner of the city. 1-tile cities in the middle of enemy territory won't give you much, but they won't revolt either.

Ever? I can see this making sense for a while, but suppose the former owner really got its act together, dropped a couple culture bombs, etc. It would never get the city back? What if (hypothetically), York flips to the Chinese, and then later gets conquered by the Malinese. Can it flip back to England then?

[Dinkeldog]

I have had a captured 1-tile city revolt back to its previous owners (although it took better than 30 turns to happen). Also, culture generating buildings don't seem to help past the initial stages of the game. The memory of culture might be too strong, I suppose. But somewhere in the 30 intervening turns after rushing theaters and libraries, I might hope for at least the immediate squares coming to me.

Like I said, it's leading me to more wars of extinction, which I'm not sure is a striking advance over Civ 3.

[alva]

There is an option to allow cities flipping back, maybe you enable it when setting up your game.

Not sure what the default (I think it is set to prevent).

[ktbutts]

In my one and only game last night, played on default settings, one of my allies cities flipped to me (same religion, far from his capitol, and surrounded by my civ). So while I know it's been said by Firaxis that city flipping is dead, I'm not sure that's accurate.

[alva]

City flipping is still in there.

there's an option for that too btw.