Does Culture Cause War

[stonewall]

In my current game, the two major wars I have been in were started when the Persians and Russians attacked me (at different times). Each time, they attacked me at a border point where I was putting big cultural pressure on one of their cities.

Either:
A) I am imagining this
B) I never paid enough attention and didn't notice this before,
C) This is related to the difficulty level of the game and I just changed diffuculty level.

Questions:
1) Have you seen this behavior?
2) Is it related to the difficulty level?

I really thought it was pretty neat of the AI to see that they were going to be losing a city and they chose to do something about it (assuming this is what happened).

[vondrack]

Originally posted by stonewall
In my current game, the two major wars I have been in were started when the Persians and Russians attacked me (at different times). Each time, they attacked me at a border point where I was putting big cultural pressure on one of their cities.

Either:
A) I am imagining this
B) I never paid enough attention and didn't notice this before,
C) This is related to the difficulty level of the game and I just changed diffuculty level.

Most probably A), though I would not bet my life on it. I have never heard about that the Civ3 AI would be able to "realize" you are trying to steal its city with a culture attack.

Questions:
1) Have you seen this behavior?

Never. Most likely, the attacks came at a point where it was easiest to penetrate into your territory (which usually is the case in places with a "culture contest").

2) Is it related to the difficulty level?

Definitely not. The Civ3 AI is exactly the same on all levels, the only difference is in various starting bonuses, positive and negative handicaps on trading, research costs etc. As far as "thinking" goes, you get the same AI on all difficulty levels.

EDIT: Considering the responses below, it seems I should really play some more single-player Civ3!

These bloody demogames will make me soon suck in SP big time. I am quite sure I never felt like I was attacked because of a culture attack... but then, my last game against the AI was about six months ago... maybe it is one of those "minor tweaks" Soren introduces in new patches?

[Arrian]

I have noticed that if plant a city on someone elses' continent, they will often immediately come after it with everything they've got.

I've also had several instances of war breaking out shortly after aggressively culture-bombing.

So there might be something to it.

-Arrian

[Mad Bomber]

Absolutely:

Culture war does lead to warfare. It happens to me time and again. Its probable that anyone who does not know of this behavior is a warmonger who isn't content to outbuild the AI or already has a large army on the borders and discourages the AI from attacking (assuming that is possible)

The AI knows everything that is going on in the game and it does know when you are attempting to out culture a city. The AI will try to outbuild you at first, and if that does not work then it will go to war if your forces are weaker than the AI's.

[notyoueither]

I have been observing this recently. In two different games. In the first the Spanish came pouring over the border in response to a cultural battle they were losing. Just to check, I backed up and rushed some of the cultural buildings at an earlier point. Yep, they came across the border earlier.

In the second game, the Greeks have just done the same thing.

In the Greek case there are cities within 4 tiles of each other, and borders are flipping back and forth in the no-man's land (the row in the middle). In the Spanish case the cities are 3 from each other at a diagonal and it is the tiles at both edges that are flipping back and forth. In both cases, the AI is fighting culturally (they have to be rushing) but invades when I push too hard (I start winning the cultural war).

In neither case was there a clear superiority for either my nor the AI military.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Now that you mention it, I've seen this before but never realized that the AI was responding to a culture attack. Since I build cultural impreovements first while other cities provide protective units, I had assumed that the AI was going after small towns that would not be autorazed becuase they produce culture. You have an interesting theory.

[stonewall]

I really noticed this in my current game. Russia and I (Babylonians) share a large continent that covers about half the map and stretches almost completely from north to south. Russia has the west half and I have the east half. Therefore we share a very long border. When they attacked me, they primarily attacked at the point of the culture "war". Earlier in the game, France was a buffer between me and Persia and I shared a few city border with Persia. France was much weaker than me, but Persia attacked me (and not France) at the one city that was pushing on them with culture. In both wars, it seemed it would have better for the AI civs to attack at other points.

[PLATO]

Wow! Upon reflection...this does happen. I had never realized why sometimes the AI just attcked out of nowhere, but now it makes sense. Thanks stonewall.

[peterfharris]

I have most definitely noticed this too. If I am a launching a major cultural offensive on my neighbour I find they focus on border culture and there is a much higher chance they will attack me.

A strategy I use when next to the aggressive but culture poor Zulus is to ally with them in military wars against someone else (letting the Zulus bear the brunt of the fighting) while I wage cultural war upon the Zulus. I flip their cities but they love me anyway.

[stonewall]

Originally posted by peterfharris
A strategy I use when next to the aggressive but culture poor Zulus is to ally with them in military wars against someone else (letting the Zulus bear the brunt of the fighting) while I wage cultural war upon the Zulus. I flip their cities but they love me anyway.

That sounds good. However, you would have to do that before you piss them off. Once you have been at war with them, they seem to not want anything to do with you. I even gave them technology for free and they were still Furious. Oh well.

I don't think I have read it anywhere but I will ask anyway - does the AI attitude toward you have any effect on the chances of a flip? It makes sense that it would.