Great Artists: Culture Bomb or Settle?

[OzzyKP]

One common misstep I've noticed among players, even experienced ones is the different types of culture and the influence it has. If you have two high culture cities next to each other fighting for tiles, it is often NOT a good idea to use a Great Artist to "culture bomb". For some reason culture obtained from a culture bomb is less "sticky" than regular culture, or culture obtained from settling him.

I did a bit of a search but I couldn't find a comprehensive thread or page where this phenomena is explained or analyzed. If someone knows where I could find one, could you point me to it?

If it doesn't exist, can folks try to pick apart the culture mechanism here?

[Cort Haus]

Have you tried Homedepot?

[DaveV]

I thought this post on Realms Beyond was educational (skip to the middle portion of the post).

To answer the title question: neither - I usually find a golden age more useful than culture bombs.

[-Jrabbit]

I tend to use a culture bomb only when I've just taken a major city from an opponent.

In side-by-side situations, I tend to concentrate on building per-turn culture. Haven't studied this at all; it just seems more effective.

[OzzyKP]

I thought this post on Realms Beyond was educational (skip to the middle portion of the post).

To answer the title question: neither - I usually find a golden age more useful than culture bombs.

Very interesting. Here is the relevant part:

Each tile in the game stores up culture points, which determines which civ gets to control each tile. These numbers are hidden in-game (I've always thought they shouldn't be!) but can be seen with the debug software tools. All you get to see are the culture percentages, which can be misleading. The rules for these culture points have a lot of intricacies, but to simplify somewhat:

Culture Points in your outermost ring = city culture/turn
Add 20 culture points/turn for each ring you move inward

Thus for a city with three rings (100+ culture) like St. Albans, we are getting 8 culture points/turn in the outer ring, 28 culture points/turn in the next ring, and 48 culture points/turn in the initial 9-tile radius. Among Jowy's cities, Kassite is the only one that has expanded borders so far - probably with a monument - so Kassite is getting 1 culture point/turn in the outer ring, and 21 culture points/turn in the center ring. The other two cities aren't producing any culture points yet, since they don't appear to have any culture at all. This is why it's so difficult to flip enemy cities, because you need to have massive amounts of culture to get into those inner rings of the opposing city!

[Theben]

That would seem to indicate a culture bomb may be more effective if it can move the outer boundaries in significantly less time than settling.

[-Jrabbit]

It also seems like conquered cities retain their previous culture investment, which must be overcome even if that civ has no other cities in the area. Culture bombing seems to be the only way to overcome the centuries of old culture residing there. Again, I haven't studied this; just a casual observation.

[Krill]

Culture bomb: plant a city on the borders of a new enemy city. chop an culture producing building. Bomb. Now making 41 cpt in the inner ring, 21 in the middle and 1 in the outer ring. If you settled 3 tiles away, you will gett all of the tiles if it is a relatively new city.

settle them in established cities for culture victories and a bit of gold.

[OzzyKP]

That would seem to indicate a culture bomb may be more effective if it can move the outer boundaries in significantly less time than settling.

The example I'm positing is a situation where you have two mature cities bordering each other fighting over tiles. It is assumed their borders are already grown.

[wodan11]

Honestly, except when going for a CV (which I realize is outside the parameters of the question), it's hardly ever an issue to me.

In other words, to answer the question: "Culture Bomb or Settle?" my answer is (C), Invade.

[Ming]

Or (D)... use for a golden age

[OzzyKP]

heh, you guys aren't helping...

[Theben]

(E) Invade and culture bomb the city after capture to end rebellion and bump the boundaries.

[Ming]

The example I'm positing is a situation where you have two mature cities bordering each other fighting over tiles. It is assumed their borders are already grown.

To me, that's one of the "fun" parts of the game. Nothing better than a good ole culture war, which happen often since the AI loves to build right on your border.

I've noticed that a culture bomb doesn't really help much when you have two mature cities. Granted, they can be quite effective when two new cities are fighting each other for culture, but not mature cities. Building culture buildings and wonders that have large culture value are the best way to go.
The AI seems to use artist specialists to good effect in these situations, and I find I'm doing more of that as well. If you can afford to have two or three artist specialists, they can really help.

[rah]

My favorite use is when invading a neighbor along with a good buddy. The AI is so predictable when it attacks that it's quite easy to sit next to a city that your buddy is attacking and wait till he has the defenses down then take the city for yourself. It's easy to count attackers and defenders to predict when to step in and steal the city. Now while it doesn't work 100% of the time it does most of time but when it doesn't work. Go to the central(or capital) city and while all the cities in the area are still in revolt due to being conquered, culture bomb the middle city and extend your culture around every other near newly conquered cities. I can usually pick up(or raze) nearby cities that I couldn't sneak away from my invading buddy.