What's your strategy for fighting culture in conquered cities?

[TheDarkside]

The problem with conquest is when you capture an enemy city then there are almost always some neighboring cities which now overpower that conquered city's infant culture and you end up with few tiles to work and frequent revolts and of course the threat of losing it to the culture flipping thing...

So what's the best method to fight that in newly captured cities?

Usually what I would do is I would just start building as many culture boosting improvements as quickly as I can... but this can take alot of time especially since that city probably doesnt have great tile sot work on if they are now under the border of another city.

Now I'm starting to wonder if instead it would be better to just build "Culture" directly? (like building Research or Wealth)?

Does changing your empire settings make much a difference for this captured cities, if you set culture to 10% or maybe even 20%?

OF course there's always the option of just keep conquering cities until you dont have this problem but most of the time you would end up having to conquer the whole map and well.. thats a pretty damn high maintenance cost!

[Will9]

There are 2 ways I deal with it. If at all places the other culture is 1 square from my cities I will wait for my troops to overrun the other nation. Sometimes culture will overrun so much land in conquered areas that I will just go into the world builder and add more culture.

[Ming]

The best thing to do is just attack the next closest city... the one that is providing that culture that keeps your first captured city down. Granted, you will have the same problem with your newest capture, but the original city usually expands at that point. You might have to take two cities to free up the first

So in other words, just keep your army on a roll, and the problem will solve itself.

My favorite trick is to bring a great artist along with the attack force. Take a few cities around the capital, and then take the capital and drop a Culture bomb. Works like a charm

[rah]

I nibble.
Since I'm using heading toward liberalism I usually get a GA. Nibble on the cities that are up against my culture so I have the back area to work. Take their cap and while it's in revolt, take or raze the cities whose culture is pressing on the cap. Once that's done, it's safe to use the GA on their cap because there should be enough space avail to keep it out of perpetual starvations.
Then WHIP WHIP the excess for a few culture building. A theater works well since you can then have it switch to culture. If you have any war happiness issues you can pump up culture 10 or 20% for a few turns. It doesn't take long for the captures cites to get to 100 and that usually fills the gap.

Rinse, repeat. It's good to have the culture behind your invading forces so at least you have something to work.

If i'm on a blitz I may even switch a civic for a 10 turns to rush buy a few culture buildings. That combined with the whip will get some culture generated quickly. The trick is taking the next city that's pressing on you before the first city comes out of revolt.

Razing a couple of cities isn't that bad especially if they're packed in tight.

[Adagio]

I try to save some great artists for cases like these

But if I don't have any of those, then I'll try to either keep a lot of units inside the city, to avoid revolts. Sometimes I'll also just send a few units out to raze the nearby culture cities

[Blake]

Poprush theatres in newly captured cities and otherwise just keep crushing until the civ is entirely eliminated. If a 3rd parties culture consumes a city, I usually just let the city flip, or even gift it - unless of course the 3rd party is the next on my target list... in fact in some games I've pretty much gone on a crusade against enroaching culture which only ends with a domination victory...

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Blake
just keep crushing until the civ is entirely eliminated.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Blake
just keep crushing until the civ is entirely eliminated.

[DaveV]

I've noticed that if I queue something while the city is still in revolt, I get the hammers on the first turn it comes out of revolt, and can whip it without having to start from zero. I usually try to build the most expensive building (or unit) I can whip on the first turn (theater or courthouse being preferred). Sometimes I can't avoid losing a few pop to starvation, but I figure that makes it easier to fill the city with my people instead of those whiny foreigners.

[orange]

I've played a few games of Civ4 so far (finally!), and while I really like Culture (and thought it was a great addition to the series when it was introduced with Civ3) I think they go about it the wrong way in this case.

Culture should be inherent to a city, and shouldn't change based on who captures the city. Partisanship should act like any of those other factors in a battle. For example, if you (Romans - SR = Christian) capture an enemy capital (Spanish - SR = Islam), you should retain the same cultural boundaries that that city did. But if the opposing army (Spanish) comes in and tries to retake the city, it should get a % boost since the ethnic/religious makeup of that city is still the same as the rival nation.

So, for example, you have a situation where it's...
+25% unit ability (Melee)
+25% unit ability (City)
-25% crossing a river
-10% Unit ability
-50% Walls

Spain also gets:
+50% Religion (Spain's SR = Islam is the only religion in Madrid)
+50% Ethnic (100% Population is Spanish)

Ok, so say they fail in retaking the city and you hold it for a while. After 50 years the population is 75/25 (Spanish/Roman) and you made an effort of spreading Christianity in that city, so the religion is 50/50. Now Spain comes in and tries to retake the city again...

Spain only gets:
+25% Ethnic

No religious bonus since it's evenly split. If you have the same State Religion or Free Religion, the enemy doesn't get this bonus. Maybe double the religious benefit for Theocracy? Something like that?

Just an idea...

[rah]

I like that method and it's really well thought out, But I think of culture more like an concept of level of civilization in terms of standard of living and law and order so I think the current method is pretty close. In the early game, your axemen take the city and would usually pillage it. Any survivors stay in there houses for a few turns (no one works) and then eventually they get used to their new masters and in X time, the city is almost as good as it used to be. But for awhile, no one is visiting the museums.
In modern times, we bomb or bombard the city to a pulp before we send the units in. So there's a similar effect.

So the current method is simplistic and works for all the ages. While not perfect I think it's not that an inaccurate of a concept. (but I do miss the partisians.)

[zeace]

I find that Universal Suffrage is really the only way to effectivley fight a culture war in a conquered city. Turn 1 start a Theatre, turn 2 buy a theatre, turn 3 start a temple, turn 4 buy a temple, turn 5 start a library...

Stacking 20 troops in the city until the culture stuff is up and running tends to keep the revolutions at bay. Of course that requires having 20 troops. After Railroads, I'll occasionally empty out the old defenders in some of my smaller cities to temporarily help the new city get up to speed. This is useful especially during ceasefires, since you know he won't come attacking for 10 turns so it's safe(r) to move your army around. Of course on turn 9 you should move them back

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I will sometimes burn down cities that I don't think I can (culturally) hold. Sort of creating a cordon of cultureless space between my newly conquered cities and the mature, highly cultured AI cities that remain.

I seldom use GAs to culture bomb. I find that the immediate territorial boost is often pretty small. Granted, tiles will shift allegiance over time, but it's still awfully slow.

[trev]

Raze any city that is going to be under serious culture pressure unless you know another conquest will soon ease the situation. Any other way is costly.

[gdgrimm]

I never plan on fighting a culture war to get a city functioning. I don't mind only keeping a city that will only be able to work about 1/2 it's tiles (due to culture ownership). But anything worse than that, and I'll....

1) raze the city
2) keep the city, knowing that the war plan is to take and/or raze whatever city is generating the problematic culture.

If the "bad" culture is coming from a different civ (i.e. a civ with whom I'm at peace with), I'll usually raze it. If I think I need to improve relations with that civ, and I don't think they'll be direct competitors for the game win, I MAY keep the city and then gift it to the civ. But that's really, really rare.