Civ V Tips: How do you use the culture bomb in Civ 5?

The culture bomb in Civ V is one of the weirdest options at your disposal. If you’re going for a cultural victory then you’ll likely spawn some Great Artists in your Civilization. To be honest I think they’re pretty useless compared to the other “Great” people you can develop. They can trigger Golden Ages or build a landmark which uses up a square but generates culture.

If you’ve been wondering how to use the culture bomb in Civ 5, it’s pretty simple. You just get as close to the territory you want as possible and you’ll get the option to set him off. He’ll take the square he is on and all the surrounding squares and they’ll become your territory. He can’t take an actual city though.

This can be pretty useful to steal a specific resource but in my experience if you steal territory in this way it’s likely to lead to war and if you end up at war you could just take the territory by force. If you have a resource you want to make sure you get and you don’t have the cash to buy a tile or you don’t want to build a closer city then the culture bomb can serve a purpose. It can also be a backdoor way to get to war with someone without directly declaring it.

Your opponent can always culture bomb you back, but the AI rarely seem to use it so that’s probably only a worry in multiplayer.

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