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Recent game Latest patch. Warlord level. I am the Persians. Late game, modern era, large continent on two continent huge world. My allies on the continent are China and Babylon. I have right-of-passage agreements with both allies. The enemies are France and Russia. I manage to take all Russian cities before my allies grab them. I am not as lucky with the French cities. China takes five of the weakest. I get the other ten or so. I'm greedy and want all of the French cities. I seemingly have two options. I can wait for a culture flip or I can war on the Chinese when we are finished picking apart the French. But an evil idea percolates in my brain. Here’s my train of thought. I am taking these large cities and having massive numbers of resistors. I have to garrison them heavily to quell the resistance quickly and it is making me nervous. For two or three turns those conquered cities are vulnerable, first to culture flipping back to the French, second to Espionage by one of my ostensible allies. Then I remember that I'm a Democracy and am immune to propaganda, I'm covered. China is a communist state in this game, has been for a long long time, they aren't immune to propaganda. I've already bought off one or two of their cities. I have found that cities close to culture flipping are more susceptible to propaganda. From reading posts here I have seen that resistors have a large influence on the chances of culture flipping. Those French cities that China grabbed before I could, those cities should have resistors in them, French resistors, right? At least for one or two turns. They should be close to flipping on account of it, right? They should be cheap to buy off because of the resistors and unhappy people, on top of the reduced population that the combat causes. Why should they go to the Chinese or back to the French? I want them. I think I have a really good chance at buying them off. I actually manage to buy off two in time, before the resistors disappeared. Why only two? the idea didn’t occur to me until too late, the other three cities had already been in the possession of the Chinese for several turns. The propaganda didn’t work on them, yet.
What makes this tactic work? Besides having a spy in the Chinese capital for those that can't help but crack wise.
In summary->
Reasons for propaganda to work more than it would otherwise:
The cities being propagandized have a different nationality than the owner,
and apparently the more different the better.
The cities have resistors in them.
They might even have some unhappy people in them.
Reasons for the propaganda to be cheap enough to afford:
Most if not all of the city improvements are destroyed.
The city lacks any culture, being reset to zero on being conquered.
The large part of the population might have died in the combat, low population.
For all those folks that have given up on espionage, this strategy just might be painless enough to use.
What makes this tactic work? Besides having a spy in the Chinese capital for those that can't help but crack wise.
In summary->
Reasons for propaganda to work more than it would otherwise:
The cities being propagandized have a different nationality than the owner,
and apparently the more different the better.
The cities have resistors in them.
They might even have some unhappy people in them.
Reasons for the propaganda to be cheap enough to afford:
Most if not all of the city improvements are destroyed.
The city lacks any culture, being reset to zero on being conquered.
The large part of the population might have died in the combat, low population.
For all those folks that have given up on espionage, this strategy just might be painless enough to use.
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