Can I capture a barb city with culture?

[Lancer]

I got one near my cap and I'm building the lighthouse and its in such a good spot, oh please please please say yes...

I have iron near my cap too so it's no big deal, but still.

[snoopy369]

How about just capturing it directly? It would take aeons to capture it by culture if it's not already in your cultural boundaries.

[trev]

I have captured barb cities with culture, so yes it is possible, and does not take all that long once your influence extends to the city square. Need to make sure no AI civ captures it if you wait though.

[Lancer]

Snoopy, that's what I ended up doing. An archer came out so I put one of mine next to it and the barb city. The one already out attacked my archer and lost, so then one from the city attacked and also lost, leaving only one. I had one Praetorian so I moved him up and attacked and took the city. Rather proud of my archer that took two hits. He was down less than 2 points.

trev, my cap border had one corner at the barb city so maybe it would have fallen soon, and maybe that's why the archers came out...

[Asmodeous]

They came out because barbs aren't all that bright. I've found many evacuated barb cities because the forces occasionally just wander off instead of garrisoning.

Me.

[Lancer]

Totally evacuated eh? Haven't seen any of that yet.

[East Street Trader]

I have also had barb cities culture flip.

There are some pluses to waiting. You get immediate benefit from the city once it does flip for one and for another in the meantime you can use the city and its surrounds as a training ground for your units.

Barb cities are also a magnet for AI units so you might also use it as a lure so as to ambush enemy units send to invest or attack the barb city.

[Lancer]

Damn that's good stuff EST.

[LordShiva]

Can barbs capture cities via culture flip?

[snoopy369]

I don't think it's realistically possible, although I don't see why it's not theoretically possible; I've certainly seen barb cities with culture.

[Lancer]

Munich

[Supr49er]

I like to send my units to the barb city for XP. The city will eventually flip to me so I use it for training my units.

However, if another civ is close by I will capture the barb city quickly.

[Ming]

I really hate when I have my units next to a barb city, waiting for it to grow to size two so that I can capture it instead of destroying it... and some AI comes up and kills it before it grows

[MikeH]

That is annoying. I have declared war on an AI for that before. They didn't do it again.

[rah]

When you play the earth map and don't get to the new world too early, the barb civ there is usually quite healthy.