The Culture Bomb

[Skyweaver]

Hi,

I wasn't aware of the Culture Bomb technique before reading this thread. However, i have found that winning a cultural victory is quite easy. I am working my way up from the easy levels on the largest maps and useing 4 civs. Oddly enough, i set all my cities on developing science and taking the military tech path in general. This seems to give me quite an edge, though obviously it will be more difficult on the harder levels. Any further hints etc, please send them,

Cheers,


Skyweaver.

[El Conquistador]

I'm liking this bombing plan. Did some yesterday; works a charm. Question; I went straight for music to do some bombing, but that's probably a bit late for the first great artist. How do I get some before that tech?

[KeeperDave]

In the old world maps I like using a couple of artists to re-enforce my culture, you can usually control the whole new continent towards to end of the game

[afrodius]

Ive found that just having an artist settle in a town and buying/building cultural imps to be more effective in culture bombing a neighbor than simply creating a masterpiece. At first glance this assertion sounds ridiculous. 4000 culture vs 12 per turn? it would take over 300 turns for the artist to surpass the masterpiece. However, if it is a culture bombing city, hopefully it has at least 2 cathedrals of different religions decreasing that time to less than 200 turns. Free speech doubles it again bringing the time it takes the artist to reach 4000 down to about 100 turns. Add a broadcast tower and/or more cathedrals and the artist will surpass the masterpiece in no time. Not to mention the research boost he gives you as well.
I dont want to imply that masterpieces are bad by any means. Especially if a city is under cultural threat or the game is drawing close to its end, then you may not have the luxury of waiting for a settled great artist to surpass a masterpiece.
I was pleased with the culture bombing aspect in civ3 and i am even happier with it in civ4 since you can easily gobble up your neighbors resources without firing a shot. When i played as a pacifist (only declaring war in defence - but never got attacked) i was able to conquer the incans germans and romans. I took all their cities on our continent except the capitals, and came out with a cultural victory. The empires on the other continent never really liked me but i was able to keep them from declaring war simply through trade. I played as ghandi but next time i try a cultural strategy i will prolly pick someone more philosophical now that i see how helpful great leaders are. If only there was a leader that was industrious AND philosophical.....

[arcady]

Culture bombs only go so far in my opinion. After a while opposing civs will begin putting down revolutions. I've had two nearby cities revolt but yet still fail to switch sides.

I've also had one civilization get so annoyed at me being so far ahead in culture that despite sharing so many things in common they attempted to swarm down on my with an army of horde like proportions. Thankfully my production abilities were a lot stronger and the war resembled that of the pacific in WWII - they had the upper hand at first as I had an underrated and small military, but I soon outproduced them and conquered their entire civ.

Culture, it seems, can also trigger jealousy.

I have managed to get three cities in the last two games through culture, but it took extreme measures such as shifting my nearby cities over to the production of culture, and even that failed in the case of one of the above mentioned cities that revolted but didn't switch.

Of course, I only got the game for Christmas so perhaps with time I'll figure out how to pull it off faster.

[Skyweaver]

I am quite glad to see so many non-military enthusiasts in the game nowadays. I have started playing at noble regularly now and my end scores are rising happily, though not my level. Ethelred The Unready is my buddy just now, lol. Is it me, or does the game score favour military victories for a higher ranking?
I love the scientists approach (see previous statements) and want to get the Space Race victory under my belt now. Any hints? I achieved it accidentally once and can't repeat the conditions. For those who have achieved this, do/can you use the Marathon element, turn wise?

Civ on people.

K'Plah


Sky.

[gentle]

Originally posted by afrodius
I played as ghandi but next time i try a cultural strategy i will prolly pick someone more philosophical now that i see how helpful great leaders are. If only there was a leader that was industrious AND philosophical.....

I have dealt with GPs in order to enhance research and get to liberalism early.In this thread (see beneath) there is a link to a table of GPs and tech and testgame with early liberalism (~500BC).
I think it is worth thinking about Great Artist Specialists because -as you have said- by only having liberalism a GArtist generates +24 culture a turn. This is huge.
I think cultural borders are generated based upon some sort of per turn influence ?
I am not a big fan of the 4000k culture bomb in order to grab some space.Most often one only gets a handful of squares which one loses again after several turn.

this thread

[gentle]

sry..doubel post

[MidlandC]

Originally posted by nathanebht
Great Artist culture bombs are fun in the early game. One civ declared war right after I set it off though.

What's the actual practice of "setting off" the culture bomb? Converting the Great Artist into something else (there are quite a few possibilities)? Moving the Great Artist to the city?

It would help if you could be more specific.

[SandMonkey]

Originally posted by MidlandC


What's the actual practice of "setting off" the culture bomb? Converting the Great Artist into something else (there are quite a few possibilities)? Moving the Great Artist to the city?

It would help if you could be more specific.

First move the Great Artist (GA) into the city you want to expand, and one of the options is a "Great Work" or something similar; the icon looks like a painting. The other options would be for the artist to become a super specialist in the city, to discover a tech, or to start a Golden Age (if you have another Great Person).

I'm not sure of the specifics for how much culture the culture bomb adds for each difficulty level and/or game length, but its usually ~2000 culture points, which is sufficient enough to expand the city several levels.

Edit: On a ridiculous side note, I noteiced when I returned to the thread listing that this thread has over 73,000 views (!!!). Thats actually the most viewed thread in the strat forum, and behind only two that I could find in the Civ4 general forum, including one that was announcing Civ4 as a game way back in 2003. I guess people really, REALLY like to read about culture bombs!

[Tattila the Hun]

Who said gamers aren't cultured?

[zeace]

A while ago I was playing a game where I had a strong culture lead on my neighbors. In particular I had a very strong culture city very near two of Korea's best cities. My culture in both of them was increasing rapidly and I was afraid that after they flipped Korea would declare war on me even though we were currently friends. They both had a first revolt and I decided to park a few troops in those cities so after they flipped they'd be well protected.

Centuries passed and they refused to flip. Certain that the flip was right around the corner, I put even more troops there.


Well, I eventually gave up and left. They both flipped the next turn. Apparently my troops were helping to quell the revolution. So if you're trying to flip a city from a friend, don't station any troops there!