Culture, should we invest in it

[DeepO]

Not a chance: every razed city will certainly mean the other one holding grudges for a long time. If glory wants to, they risk that a few humans will team up on them... We should avoid it. Besides, I never had a reason to raze, and lately I would call myself a (cultural) warmonger instead of a builder.

DeepO

[alva]

Well, we do have THE leading authorithy on culture in our midst

But razing should be discussed at some point or another


trivial: Say Deeps, how come you are always shown to be off-line, yet you post

[DeepO]

Well, the only time I would raze a city is when you clearly see you're going to lose it military, and don't want to give the enemy the added advantage of a fully working city. Which means that most likely these cities are going to be your own, or have been your for quite a few time. But razing newly conquered cities? Ouch... maybe as a punishment or a display of greatness (like nuking them back after they nuked you first)

DeepO

[Dominae]

Just to make my point clear, I'm not advocating that we have no culture in our glorious empire, just that (whatever civ we take) we should only consider building various improvements based on their primary, non-culture effect. In my (very limited) experience, MP simply isn't a culture game. If we're afraid that cities will flip back, we'll just have to bombard, pillage and starve them first. Ah sweetness.


Dominae

[notyoueither]

Razing works a bit different in MP.

You do not get to choose to raze on conquest. You may use the abandon city option, but it takes 1 full turn in between before it happens. Not the next turn, 1 full turn cycle (or something like that, I need to test a bit). Turn 1, click abandon city. Turn 2, city still there. Turn 3, city rubble (from memory).

Also, you cannot select abandon city for all cities. I recently captured an AI capitol with a wonder in it. Abandon city is not an option to be chosen (last I looked at it).

Last thing, a city does not have to have expanded borders or large pop to avoid auto-destruct. I watched a Celtic city in a maelstrom of battle change hands several times. Started at 4 pop. Went to 1 and then changed hands several more times (none of which were to founder civ). It never auto-razed.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by alva848
trivial: Say Deeps, how come you are always shown to be off-line, yet you post

Sorry, missed this one: I indicated when I joined 'poly to not let my presence be known... which is quite easier for me. Many times, I leave a window open, even if I'm not following discussions, nor reading. People start to think you're ignoring them, which is absolutely never the case.

But, there seems to be a bug here: in the member list, I'm online whenever I look, which shouldn't happen as in the forum itself I'm off line... I guess either Markos did this on purpose, or he let things slip a little.
Come to think about it, I'd better mention it in the community forum.

As to razing in MP: thanks for the explanation, NYE. What are your views on razing?

And autorazing: once a city has built up culture under one owner, it won't autoraze in SP either, even if it drops to size 1 in a heated battle. I'm not sure if this is similar to what you are seeing...

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Really? I've had a city with a wonder in it auto raze on me when I captured it from it's conqueror in SP.

Sequence went... Egypt founds city and builds Lighthouse. Greeks take city. I approach city. Greeks draft city down to 1 pop. I take city and it auto-razes.

That would no longer happen from what I have observed.

[notyoueither]

... and I think intentionally destroying a human civ's cities would be the equivalent of starting the war to the death in most cases. Not something to be done lightly, especially since any non-involved builder civs would likely jump in against the criminals.

[DeepO]

Well... I can't say it happens every time, but certainly I've seen this before. Of course it could be changed in PTW, or there is something else at work here, a mechanism that hasn't been fully tested yet.

DeepO

[alva]

captured wonders don't generate culture , so in that case (to my knowledge) it's normal for it to be autorazed.
(slight flaw in game-mechanics IMHO btw, but that's a different discussion )

[notyoueither]

Yes, someone from Firaxis admitted to changing it a bit to me. He did not elaborate. It's all fine with me though, since I was quite upset at loosing that city and its wonder. I started a thread about it a long time ago. That thread was brought to MikeB's attention at some point. I gather they then made some adjustments.

It adds a lot to the game actually. You have 3 or 4 civs going at it and they all have armies whirling around some little out post. Nobody gives up and moves on, because the objective is still there. It can result in some very interesting sequences of turns.

1 pop cities, newly founded still go poof though. Near as I can figure it, it has to have completed a culture scoring improvement/wonder (expanded borders not required), or it has to have reached some pop threshhold before it becomes immune to the 1 pop poof.

[Arrian]

It looks like we're going to play a religious civ, so it seems to me that we can trip, fall, and accidentally have good culture. Enough that it won't hurt us, anyway.

I'm a big fan of early temples, but I'm a bigger fan of winning, so if my fellow economists (econ controls city builds, right?) convince me that dumping the temple for something else is the path to power, so be it.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Arrian, don't be pursuaded too easily, please... you've got at least one early temple lover to support you

DeepO

[alva]

Another one here , as many as I can in the early BC's. (often let new cities grow to two, then rush it).

But honestly, don't know in mp. Cities are going to be alot closer anyway.

[Dominae]

As far as I can see, I'm the biggest critic of the early Temple, and I'm *not* an Economist, so the debate might be quite short!

Now, since the Temple debate is probably over (no reason not to build Temples as a Religious civ), I'll be curious to see if the Economists go all the way and start poprushing Temples...


Dominae