Suggestion - peaceful assimilation,

Like in Civ 4?

It would be a big hit with my girlfriend if you could play like that. If Civ 4 is any guide it'd really only be of any practical use in single player. You'd have to sacrifice too much military to concentrate on pushing culture and not many human opponents would let you get away with that.

This could happen in the betas, however they took it out..I really liked it.

Do you know why?

You can't flip allies, because then it would get rather messy if you were playing a multiplayer game with friends... and inadvertently defeated your own ally.

I don't understand. Couldn't you just make it so culture didn't effect ally planets?

I think that culture should flip enemy planets to friendly tho... not neutral, I mean, you essentially just converted the entire population to your cause... sooo...

just my 2 cents, would also fix culture a bit and balance out advent better.

Oh never mind mis-read. Why would anyone want to flip a ally;s planet anyway? Unless he meant enemy.

Way back when, your culture would not propagate towards your allies -- and if your ally had culture leading to the same enemy planet as your own, they'd stop each other cold. This was sub optimal. So, no, your culture will aide your allies, but impacts and fights with allied culture the same as it would any other culture.

This is going a bit off-topic, but I cannot imagine what it would be like for another civilization on another planet being so powerful so as to take over the Earth with nothing but beamed-in culture. It's a good thing we have Britney and Brangelina and Madonna and all the rest to keep our media busy so that humankind is not overwhelmed from messages from outer space.

Pff, I'm probably going to get flamed here.

Perhaps god was a propaganda messenge sent from space?

Peace? Are you mad!?!?!?!? =P Seriously, you CAN'T tell me that you would rather spread culture instead of bombing the crap out of people, can you?