phewey! Cities subverted!

[Apple_The_Man]

Okay I was just playing a game last night, Warlord ( sorry I am still a beginner ) as the Babylonians. To my north I had Iroquois, Persians, and to my east, Zulus. All of a sudden, around the medieval era, about 5 of enemy cities got subverted to my empire!

????

What makes them subvert? Culture? Why did so many subvert? Is it because the babylonians are both Scientific and Religious and can build culture producing buildings very easily?

[Inverse Icarus]

superior culture. both empire to empire, and surrounding cities.

basically, if you have more culture than nearby cities, you're likely to flip 'em.

[steven8r]

Yep, your empire is just so cool that everyone wants to be like you!

Check out the Cultrue Graph in the Victory Status screen (the 'V' button on the lower right-hand box). Your shaded area is probably MUCH larger than any of your neighbors'. You can also check the first page of the Victory Status screen and it will tell you your total culture as well as that of your closest rival.

That's what they get for not putting Libraries and Temples in their border towns.

NOTE: Next time you play a diferent civ, make sure that your bordr towns don't flip to your neighbors.

It looks like you're well on your way to a Cultural Victory. All it takes is at least 100k cultre per empire (or 20k per city) and to be at least twice as large as your closest rival.

Happy Culture Bombing!!!!

[Apple_The_Man]

Thank you!

I came close to a cultural victory, but I managed to win diplomatically at 1355 AD


Another question though... does propaganda work the same way?

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Ive never had any success with propaganda, so I never even bother trying anymore.

I think you would need to catch a civ with very high war weariness or rebellions taking place to stand any chance, and I dont think they would join you if you were a traditional enemy or at war with them when the attempt was made.

Having said all that I dont really know for sure, but its not exactly the same mechanism as culture flipping only the city targetted must like you more than its own government.

vmxa or Theseus or others might have a better answer than mine

[Rhothaerill]

Yeah, but getting them in here is another story...they're never around.

Regarding propaganda, I don't think I have ever been able to get it to work so I never use it anymore. I think Chrisius is right about it though.

[vmxa1]

Wow 5 cities. Well Babs are the culture kings in civ.

[Theseus]

I don;t know jack about propaganda, other than that when AI civs try it on me I get P*SSED! It's a virtual death sentence.

[steven8r]

Apple, I have tried the propaganda thing once or twice and I think that one time it even worked. However, there are lots more useful things to do with your gold. Propaganda usually, IIRC, takes a fair amount of gold to do and there's no guarantee that it will work.

If you want the city bad enough and your 'Superior Culture' doesn't quite get it for you, then you can try Propaganda, but I recommend either ignoring it, or even better--just take it. (And if there's lots of resistance and/or high culture, then burn it to the ground and plant your own city there.)

[pedrojedi]

Well, at least they gave us the option. It never worked FOR ME, but made wonders against me during some games (the ones I tried to be the amazing WarMetalWarmongermon).

[Cerbykins]

Best defence against culture-flip is a temple, so that you can get the surrounding squares under your control and into the equation. The other step you should always take, is a unit in the city for every foreign citizen there. If this is a pain, do the city over with arty first. This becomes the path ind. age onwards. Once you get to the modern area, you have so many units and can conquer so quick, you can probably just take the cities without bombing - civ gone, no flips

Anyway - my short treatise on culture/culture flip prevention
No need for razing, if you're careful.

[mrmitchell]

Who needs culture? You could've taken all those cities by force.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
superior culture. both empire to empire, and surrounding cities.

basically, if you have more culture than nearby cities, you're likely to flip 'em.

Actually, the three factors are total empire culture, distance to capital, and how many of the workable tiles are foreign territory.

[steven8r]

Here's the Firaxian's Official word on Culture-Flipping.

Fitz creates the formula here

And finally, here's some more rants on the subject.

Steven

[aoerana]

I used to play for culture wins only. I think 4 cities was the most I got at one time. In one game as Egypt I had over 20 cities flip to me over the the course of the game. Then the other civis got mad and attacked me. I also had 2 captured cities revert back. Does seem like after a while your borders are just to far from the capitol or FP to get culture flips in the modern era.

It is my opinion that culture also helps keep ww down. Since I started playing militaristic, ww seems to be more of a factor. When I was top in culture ww seemed to be less of a factor, also once my border cities started building culture coruption would fall below 50%.