Cutural Influence in 1.12

I was thinking it had gotten harder. I used to concentrate on cultural improvement and flipping but now the AI's keep declaring war on my weak military!

Any chance that this could have anything to do with the minors grabbing more planets (thereby reducing the majors influence) ?

Jordan - not sure if it's easier, but it is certainly no harder under 1.12. I have been able to a flip a planet occasionally but cant do more widespread flipping without starbases. I think the other posters are right - better minors mean weaker majors. I notice that the minors seem to survive MUCH longer into the game than previously. Also, there seems to be a greater frequency of the Fundamentalist event. When I try to play Pure Good against all Pure Evil, I notice this event at least once every three games - much higher event rate than 1.12. It really can clean out the existing majors and make progress much easier.

Yes, the minors really do last longer, which helps me tremendously. I get to use them as trading partners in the late game when I'm either at war with the other civs or working on culture bombing them.

Kitten, I always keep my military might even if not above the AIs (2nd graph). This will generally keep them off your back. THEN you can focus on culture. If you want to have a strong military without all of the upkeep (maintenance fees), you can focus on anti-matter missiles. They boost your military rating and don't cost an arm and a leg to have around. I generally keep a dreadnought at all planets and then build up AMMs. The dreads do a pretty good job defending, and I can use the AMMs to kill anyone coming near me anyway. I also buy ships from the AI in the early game with tech (I always have a strong tech lead) to weaken their military while building up mine. I know some people think that's cheesy, but it's not like they sell their ships for cheap either... Actually, I just started this srategy with 1.12, but it seems to be working for me.

Thanks for the tips.

To me has become harder, in some games if you start building the starbases earlier you got them quick but if you leave the construction of the starbases to the end you really have a hard time, I am playing a large game now where the Arceans even start building Terror Stars and I am having a hard time getting their planets to flip over me, I had to built like 5 terror stars to be able to park them right beside their planets and that way beat the "no 3 parsec zone starbase building thing". So to me it is tougher.

Hmmm, how odd. I really don't know what I'm doing differently to have drastically increased my ability to culture-flip. Oh well, I'm not gonna complain!

Though, I always have a hard time flipping the Arceans. They're usually pathetic in any game I play (usually nearly wiped out by the Torians or Drengin), but they cling to one final planet and just won't let go. I usually just terror star them to get rid of them. Mwa ha ha ha.

I very much like the earlier game better than the late game--I tend to get too bored to do the culture bombing at that point (which is also why you won't really see me play map sizes bigger than large). I guess I'm like that with lots of strategy games. I almost never play out a full game of Civ3 once I know I can win. I probably only do for galciv 'cause of the Metaverse.

I've found civ3 end game is mostly tedious. I'm probably not going to finish any civ3 game I play. You have to either kill everyone fast or let it last forever. Maybe I should have tried on the easiest level to see if there's a cutscene or something for a military conquest (vs. diplomatic/spacelaunch).

Galciv's military victory can be tedious too, that's why I mostly do alliance victories.

Nope, no cut-scene that I can recall. I think all you end up with are all the faces of the other civs looking beaten up. It's been a long while since I've played it though.