The Culture Slider

[ybrevo]

I haven´t found much useful information about the culture slider in the manual (Civ 4 Vanilla), so I hope for a bit of advise here on Apolyton - from those of you who have played more than the 3 games I´ve finished so far (on Noble).

What gains do you get by cutting down on science and pumping up the culture instead?
If you have a problem with unhappy people, I can see a point of doing so - but is there other aspects to it than that? Will it make a difference for border cities in the way of expanding borders? Or for newly conquered cities just after revolt?

Maybe the slider is only of importance on higher levels - but that I don´t know yet, that´s why I´d be grateful for some insight on your experiences.

ybrevo

[rah]

Yes, Happiness is one thing.
If you're going for a culture victory it's quite usefull.
And yes it can be helpful boosting new or newly conquered cities to expand their culture border without having to build a building that produces culture.

I would be more useful if you could adjust the slider city by city. (there would have to be a few features to keep this from becoming a micro management nightmare.)
If you're in a prolonged war you may be using it already for happiness so it's not an issue, but if you move the slider just to assist a few cities in culture generation, you do it at the cost the cuts across your entire empire.

[Krill]

Also mostly useful if you are running an specialist economy, so that you generate beakers and not commerce, so uping the culture slider has a very smal impact on your scince rate.

[johnmcd]

You can grab resources on borders by boosting borders fast, or make sure you take a town through culture that's being stubborn.

Really, it's for culture victories though, it forces you to step away from science completely and commit to culture - you don't win culturely by mistake!

[ybrevo]

Originally posted by johnmcd

Really, it's for culture victories though, it forces you to step away from science completely and commit to culture - you don't win culturely by mistake!

Okay, I can see that - but what if you are leading in science late in the game, wouldn´t it be an idea to boost the culture for that extra land - and resources - if you are going for a domination win?
This is just strictly speaking - I know the situation could be a lot different, eg. if a war is on your doorstep or one of your neighbors are looking to the sky ...

ybrevo

[Theben]

I generally put my culture and espionage sliders at 10% and leave them there for the rest of the game. It generates a good deal of culture w/o a huge impact on science.

If you want to fine tune it city by city, the only way right now is to "build" culture in the production box.

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by ybrevo

... wouldn´t it be an idea to boost the culture for that extra land - and resources - if you are going for a domination win?

In my experience, it is rather difficult to gain much territory through culture in the late game. The other civs have built up so much of it in their territory, that it takes a lot of culture output to push them back. Using culture to take control of a specific resource on the border can be a great move if that resource is important enough to justify the spending in cities that don't really need it.

By the way, there were a number of thoughtful comments when I asked a similar question in the early days:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150149

[snoopy369]

I generally use culture slider only during war weariness issues (when the whole civ is pretty pissed). In any other situation, you generally are better off using buildings (or just sucking up and accepting the happiness cap).

Using it generally (like Theben does) is generally a poor idea, as the 10% you lose from science is a significant amount, and you get virtually no gain from it. You could set it to 80% late in the game for 1 or 2 turns and get the same net bonus from it, domination-wise.

[Supr49er]

Does boosting up culture in the end game still help your final score?

[snoopy369]

>20 turns prior to the end of the game, it would (to the extent that you might potentially gain new territory). I'd still never do this, as it's rather silly and generally very small in degree compared to the size of your total score...

[rah]

For a domination win it can useful to use it in spots when you are selectively razing and keeping select cities. You can force out that first expansion quickly and keep a third party from rushing in settlers to claim some of the gap spaces.

And yes this isn't going to help quickly in newly conquered cities that are being pressed by other cities, but if you raze or take those cities, it can have a use.
And that's my usual tactic for removing culture contests against the AIs. Human players tend to make it a bit tougher.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by ybrevo


Okay, I can see that - but what if you are leading in science late in the game, wouldn´t it be an idea to boost the culture for that extra land - and resources - if you are going for a domination win?
This is just strictly speaking - I know the situation could be a lot different, eg. if a war is on your doorstep or one of your neighbors are looking to the sky ...

ybrevo

Well, yes, the part of comment you didn't quote suggested just that.

[ybrevo]

Thanks to all of you for the replies so far - (and to Verrucosus for the link. I will check it out tomorrow when my eyes get back to life). It has been very inspiring and helpful - especially on this topic that seems a bit blurred.

But to get back to one of my questions: On what level - and up - does the Culture Slider come into play as a serious factor? On Noble it doesn´t seem to have any significance at all.

ybrevo

[wodan11]

They did answer that question... level doesn't have much to do with it. If you're going for a cultural victory, or if you're running a SE. That's the main times you want to use the cultural slider. Otherwise, a 10% or 20% (if you have spammed colosseums) can be a stopgap to help happiness becuase of war weariness during a long offensive war.

All the other discussion is mainly about suboptimal uses.

Wodan

[joncnunn]

There's two times I've extensively used the Culture slider.

1. When fighting an extended war to fight WW.

2. To speed up a cultural victory after completing the tech tree.