Is Culture Flipping unbalancing?

[Dis]

I don't think your units should be destroyed at all. Maybe damaged and in the red.

[Whoha]

Then keep them outside the city Diss, btw this method doesn't let you heal as quickly so there you go as far as damage sustained goes.

[Mad Bomber]

Its hard to believe that culture flipping is still an issue in this game. The fact that it is--- shows that Firaxis erred in trying to placate the resistors such as Coracle with an 'off' button instead of addressing the issue. Xorbon and others have pointed out that the mechanics of the flip are poorly implemented. What is needed is a way of determining the effects of the flip so that it makes sense.

There are two ways of doing this. The first is an algorithim to determine the effects on the defending force and have the algorithem linked to # of resistors. The second way is to remove the units from the city unhurt, and to then garrison the flipped city with the best defender that the city has access to. The number of defenders would be conscripts and number of resistors present in the city (minimum of 1).

[Jaybe]

The other "fact" is that Firaxis was right all along -- Coracle is the one that was wrong (easy for ME to say, I eventually put him on my ignore list).

Firaxis wanted it simple for my tastes, but as non-Firaxis options:
If civs are at war: Some of the units caught in the flipping city should have a chance of defecting, even if it means going to a lower-cultured civ (sympathy towards the "oppressed", etc.). They would defect complete with their equipment, regardless of tech comparison. Some units might be destroyed in the flip, others damaged and placed (I-don't-know-where).

If civs are at peace: This one is simple, units in the city or its territory are returned to their capital.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Whoha
Then keep them outside the city Diss, btw this method doesn't let you heal as quickly so there you go as far as damage sustained goes.

to tell the truth, I have never lost a city where I stored a large quanity of troops. This is why I rarely ***** about culture flipping, it rarely happens to me. I usually starve my cities down anyways

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Its hard to believe that culture flipping is still an issue in this game. The fact that it is--- shows that Firaxis erred in trying to placate the resistors such as Coracle with an 'off' button instead of addressing the issue.

I must admit, I play usually with it off. I'm rather a lazy gamer in most circumstances and don't want to be arsed to artificially starve my new cities' pop. down. A bit too tedius for me.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Jaybe
The other "fact" is that Firaxis was right all along -- Coracle is the one that was wrong (easy for ME to say, I eventually put him on my ignore list).

Coracle was right in respect to his claims that culture flipping (as origionally implemented) was unfair, unfun, and unrealistic. His sins stem more from flaming, posting OT, and being a real nuisance to firaxis as well as to the many posters on this site.

[Harovan]

Coracle was right in many respects. Culture flipping was only his poster child. He also opposed culture dependant borders (it's annoying as hell to lose a resource only because your AI opponent was able to rush in a 18 shield temple), ridiculous movement rules (unlimited trains, very limited navies), the bad game interface (it still is bad - try for instance to micromanage tech prices to the last gold, or to change all cities building colosseums to cathedrals, or take the ridiculous foreign advisor screen with only 8 civs) and other details that make the game unfun. I prefer game fun over game difficulty myself, and can perfectly understand Coracles concerns. Yes, he was annoying, but partially because nobody really listened to him. He was as alone, because the other game critics had already left in disgust.

Since I see the same people at work, I do not expect Civ4 to be any better than Civ3. At the countrary, it will be much more difficult, but the price for this will be the elimination of the last bit of fun still remaining in the game.

[Atahualpa]

I think what annoys most if not all about culture flipping is the fact that you'll lose all your units stationed within the city. But if we'd let some of them survive be damaged or escape then the city would be recaptured pretty quickly since it only has a single spearman or so for defense.

The city ought to have some special defense units something like the minutemen that are created from the population of the city and have stats similar to the civs best defense unit (probably a tad worse) OR better than the civs best defense unit, but only conscript health.
After building proper defenses these units could then be converted back to city population, but only in this city.

So when a size 11 city flips it is filled with prob 6 civil defender units (ceil(11/2)) with 2/5 (assuming the civs best defender is riflemen), normal health and 0 movement (not possible to airtransport them or load them onto ships). The city has (floor(11/2))=5 size.

I don't guess however that we'd see this in another patch

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Whoha
Then keep them outside the city Diss, btw this method doesn't let you heal as quickly so there you go as far as damage sustained goes.

The problem with keeping most units outside the city is that you'll never end the resistance in any decent sized city. You need units inside the city for that. Until the resistance ends, you can't starve down the population.

And just how do unarmed civilians defeat so many fighting men and not suffer even one citizen lost? I know realism isn't the end-all but come on.

[Rommel2D]

Everything else in the game that I can think of is based on historical fact and/or speculation. What would the basis of a 'culture flip' be?

[Vince278]

Never liked flipping. Very unrealistic. I'd also like to hear some good historical examples that match what happens in the game.

[JimiD]

I have suffered from flipping, but just considered it part of the game, like corruption, anarchy etc. Difficult and annoying (RNG anyone?), but there we are.

Dont know whether a realistic comparision is relevant, since I am arguing that it is a gameplay element (and you can disagree with that!), but I always reckoned it was supposed to represent the sort of disorder and revolution that does happen in history, just put into the game environment we have. CIV 2 and CTP had different methods of representing this.

Losing a big army is frustrating and unrealistic, but in game terms if it changed sides too, then that could be catastrophic. Some of the suggestions where units take damage, but end up outside, or even changing sides would be less dramatic (are all those soldiers executed?). Maybe CIV?

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Vince278
Never liked flipping. Very unrealistic. I'd also like to hear some good historical examples that match what happens in the game.

How about the Greek city-states that joined Persia during their invasion?

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Vince278
Never liked flipping. Very unrealistic. I'd also like to hear some good historical examples that match what happens in the game.

Austria joining Germany prior to WWII? (Vienna culture flipping to Germany)