Culturally Crushed

[doktor57]

I'm playing Babylon. My Western neighbor is Gandhi. Most of the border area
is desert, but there are lucrative areas to the north and especially the south.
I noticed that improvements that I had built began dropping over to the
Indian side of the border. The situation grew worse, with the border
approaching a desert town I had built to stabilize the situation. I'm putting
almost all my output into culture and I can not stop the Indian cultural
juggernaut! Any ideas?

[CerberusIV]

You need to understand what he is doing. Is he getting culture from religions or from the culture slider? If religions it is more difficult. If the slider then he isn't making money or researching.

Gandhi is fond of culture - even at the expense of techs. Stop wasting your time trying to out culture him as you probably can't do it. Build an army and go capture those Indian cities. That will put a stop to his cultural expansion.

[Supr49er]

Yes, if you leave Gandhi along too long he will culture and tech and build his Spaceship. Destroy him now.

Welcome to Apolyton doktor57.

[Ming]

As CerberusIV suggests... if you have a problem with encrouching culture, the best solution is to just remove the cause of the problem

[Unimatrix11]

Chances are, you will capture a wonder or two in the process as well (all that culture has to come from something after all)...

[sorinache]

Does it occur to you all that in some instances, going to conquer Gandhi (or someone else) might just not be possible ? I mean, it might depend on the difficulty level - are you all only playing Noble or something ? I don't know about doktor57 but I do have a problem of my own in my current game, with the neighboring Arabs. As much as I would like to just "go and conquer them" it's not a simple matter of "wishing" or "willing" it At least on Emperor, the AI guys are no push-overs. I had Gandhi as a neighbor in some previous unfinished game and got along well with him, but had I wanted to "just go and conquer him" that would simply not have been possible : my cities were geared towards a certain pattern of production, by the time I could have assembled a reasonable army he would have taken the lead in tech and greeted my invasion with superior armies. Waging war is extremely expensive, building barracks and armies means that I'm not building monasteries, universities and the like and then I might even concievably achieve a Pyrrhic victory : I take out my neighbour with my army of Knights only to see another AI make landfall with tanks ...

Or maybe you found a miracle second construction queue for each of your cities ? On the first construction queue you build barracks, stables then start churning out armies no end, while at the same time, on the second construction queue, the same hammers also go toward building monasteries, markets, grocers and the like ... Then please do tell me, how do I unlock this second building queue ?

[rah]

One set of cities build armies and the other set builds infrastructure. If I look at my city maint screen and half my cities aren't building an army, I know I'm about ready to get trashed by the AI.

All it takes is a a few cities to research. I usually have 3-4 cities that are providing 90% of my civ's research. The rest can settle with a barracks, courthouse, (forge and granery optional) and whip whip whip. You don't have to worry about extra infrastructure in these cities to raise the happy or health caps. Whip to keep them under and they're even less in maint. that way.

However, If you build a big army, it's has a cost associated with it so you must make use that that investment.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I was going to start my own thread, but this seems like a good place for my question, too:

Right now my Russians are attacking the Romans. I'm coming in from the north, where we have a small common border; they have the ocean to the east and the French (Louis) to the west (it's a bit like a map of New England on which the Romans are Rhode Island, the French are Connecticut, and I'm the other 4 states). The problem is, the French under Louis are monster culture producers, and every time I sack a Roman city near their border, it's surrounded very quickly by French culture. I haven't actually lost a city to a culture flip yet, but I think that's sheer luck. How do you deal with this? (I should note that I'm still playing vanilla, not BtS, and that I can't rush-build culture-producing buildings because of my fascist/commie civics).

[wodan11]

Missionaries. And/or Caste System or Theatre (build the long way) and run Artists. You can settle or bomb great artists of course, also.

Alternately, raze the roman cities on the border and keep the rest.

2nd Alternately, plan to attack the French as soon as the Romans are done.

[rah]

There's always *GASP* the culture slider. But since I rarely need it anywhere but the border cities. Theatres and artists works best.

[wodan11]

Culture slider would be akin to switching civics purely to help a couple of marginal cities which are a net loss no matter what anyway. Better to just let them go into revolt.

[rah]

Which is why I RARELY use it. I do remember one game where I turtled a lot long that usual so when I broke out, I was taking over mutliple cities every turn and I actually moved the culture slider to 10% to get that first border bump before the other AIs sent in their settlers.

The only other time I used the slider was when I need happiness for a couple of turns while waiting for a civic change.

But as I said, out of the hundreds and hundreds of games, I may have done it 2 -3 times only

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Missionaries. And/or Caste System or Theatre (build the long way) and run Artists. You can settle or bomb great artists of course, also.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I'm playing it.

Alternately, raze the roman cities on the border and keep the rest.

That doesn't really change the problem, though; the French still grab the territory, and quickly replace the razed cities.

2nd Alternately, plan to attack the French as soon as the Romans are done.

Oh, they're next all right; but the fewer cities I have to take from them, the better.

Anyway, thanks wotan and rah!

[Solomwi]

Does it occur to you all that in some instances, going to conquer Gandhi (or someone else) might just not be possible ? I mean, it might depend on the difficulty level - are you all only playing Noble or something ? I don't know about doktor57 but I do have a problem of my own in my current game, with the neighboring Arabs. As much as I would like to just "go and conquer them" it's not a simple matter of "wishing" or "willing" it At least on Emperor, the AI guys are no push-overs. I had Gandhi as a neighbor in some previous unfinished game and got along well with him, but had I wanted to "just go and conquer him" that would simply not have been possible : my cities were geared towards a certain pattern of production, by the time I could have assembled a reasonable army he would have taken the lead in tech and greeted my invasion with superior armies. Waging war is extremely expensive, building barracks and armies means that I'm not building monasteries, universities and the like and then I might even concievably achieve a Pyrrhic victory : I take out my neighbour with my army of Knights only to see another AI make landfall with tanks ...

Or maybe you found a miracle second construction queue for each of your cities ? On the first construction queue you build barracks, stables then start churning out armies no end, while at the same time, on the second construction queue, the same hammers also go toward building monasteries, markets, grocers and the like ... Then please do tell me, how do I unlock this second building queue ?

Therein lies the rub. You're talking to guys who starting building for that far off war from the very beginning of the game. Yes, waging war is expensive, but spreading that cost over 200 turns, instead of the 20 turns after you decide to go to war, makes it a lot more manageable. The potential reward is a lot higher than a university or a monastery, too.

[wodan11]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I'm playing it.

And don't forget the missionary option. It's something a lot of people overlook I think.

That doesn't really change the problem, though; the French still grab the territory, and quickly replace the razed cities.

It means you aren't supporting sucky cities which are a drain on your empire. The cities you ARE keeping don't have the culture pressure on them.

Anyway, thanks wotan and rah!

Glad to be of service.