Promoting Culture Flip

[vorlon_mi]

a.k.a Culture Bombing

OK, there have been a number of threads that
describe how to prevent newly-captured cities
from flipping back to their original owners.
There were two necessary conditions cited:
- the presence of foreign nationals / natives
- tiles within the city radius that overlap with
those of an AI civ
Other factors that affect the probability include
the distance from the newly-conquered city to its
former capital (as compared to its distance to your
capital) and the relative strengths of your culture and
the AI culture.

But, I'm interested in compelling AI cities to flip to
my civilization, after building up my civ's culture so that
it is greater than the AI's culture. Assume that the city
I want to influence is near a shared border.
I can easily build a city near the border, so that some
tiles in the city radius overlap. And I can cash-rush
a temple in the new city to push back the borders.
But I can't put foreign nationals in the city.

What are the necessary conditions for inducing a flip?
Are they the same as preventing a flip?

[joncnunn]

Well, unless your trying to culturally flip back a city you lost militarly to the AI, the foreign nationals won't enter into the equatation.

But the rest of it will.
Have a lot more culutral overall than the empire that your trying to flip.

Have the city your trying to flip be closer to your capital than theirs.

Culture bomb the city your trying to flip by having your adjoining cities build all the high culture imporvements. This is usally via cash rushing to ensure it's the oppoents city that flips to you and not yours to the enemy.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I seem to recall GhengisFarb running a study, and confirming (in PTW) that the overlapping tiles part of the equation can be influenced by units.

IE, if you planted, say, a good defensive unit on every tile of an enemy city it counted the same as that tile being under your culture no matter what the actual border was for this formula.

This may have been in one of the hidden Dtrategy threads in the GoW forum, though... (spelling intended for those not in the PTWDG)

I don't have time now, I'll run a search for it later and copy the post out here if it was indeed in the private GoW forum.

[vmxa1]

Well in C3C flips are not very common as near as I can tell. I would not use that as a means of gaining cities or victory.

The higher levels, it mostly about not having captured cities flip back. At lower levels they do not captue yours and you have enough culture to prevent theirs from flipping.

[eris]

As said in other posts, in higher levels, culture flipping is mostly about defending against it. However, in the more "mere mortal" levels it can be used as a weapon. I find that just one city is rarely enough to flip another city. What I try to do is plant two cities from different sides of the target city. This increases the overlap and culture pressure. Then you rush remples, libraries and steadily build the individual culture of the culture-bombing cities. The process also depends on distance considerations and your entire civ culture. So keep adding culture where you can. After that, it requires one more strategic resource, patience. It never happens right away. It happens as a pleasant surprise some awful number of turns later.

Even with the most patient scheming it will not get you a lot of cities, unless you are good enough that you should be playing on the upper levels anyway. It gets you the occasional annoying city the AI put in the middle of your intended borders, but not much more. However, most times it is a great satisfaction. Why one city gotten through culture satisfies me more than a dozen gotten through other means is a mystery about my personality I have decided not to explore.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find I do not have any tiles in my territory with the strategic resource, patience. If that becomes too much of a problem, I hand the issue over to my generals. They have their own answers to the issue.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Well in C3C flips are not very common as near as I can tell. I would not use that as a means of gaining cities or victory.

I'm glad to hear a master make that observation. It was certainly my impression that I don't get many flips in C3C compared to the original game, even when playing at the same level.

I have a game going at the Mongols where I got two flips in the same turn, one from the Romans and one from the Koreans, but those were the only ones despite a great cultural disparity. Mind you, I didn't try to culture bomb them (not enough cash for such a low priority).

What surprised me was that in AU504 - The Power of Culture I didn't get a single flip.

[vmxa1]

To me it is one thing to play some variant such as OCC or AU504, but in std games, the money spent building culture is better spend on troops.

That is an easier and more certain way to gain cities. I recall games where I had a town surrounded and no access to any of its civs tiles for 100's of years and it never flipped. I was tops in culture.

Not saying you cannot flip cities, only that it is a hard way to go. Even harder as you move higher up the levels. Where you will be more likely to be the civ with lower culture.

[vorlon_mi]

I think that the factor I have underestimated
the most (aside from patience, which is often
scarce for me, too) is the distance to the AI capital.

I have been trying lean on a small AI city, but
it is much closer to its capital than it is to my capital.
I am playing at lower levels of difficulty, so I have
a huge culture lead. My hypothesis is that the
target city is too close to flip to me,
barring an incredible act of mercy by the RNG gods.

[AeonOfTime]

I think what has been said so far pretty much sums it up, but I also noticed that you've only got a good chance of flipping smaller cities - so far the biggest city I was able to flip was a size 11 one, but I have a hunch that was because there were no cultural improvements in that one at all...

One thing that works quite well too: if you have the luxury of having a spare leader and an unbuilt wonder, rush that (or build it if it wouldn't take too long) in a city next to the one you are trying to flip - the culture boost may very well give you the edge you need.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by vmxa1 Not saying you cannot flip cities, only that it is a hard way to go. Even harder as you move higher up the levels. Where you will be more likely to be the civ with lower culture.

Hard way to go? Gaining only one AI city all game? Ah, but think of all the micromanagement you save!

[vmxa1]

I am happy to MM cities, it is the wet lands clearing and RR's I am not fond of doing.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I am happy to MM cities, it is the wet lands clearing and RR's I am not fond of doing.

I think the CTP2 concept of Public Works points was an improvement on MM of workers, though I was *very* grumpy when I discovered that I couldn't build a road outside my territory. I'd be significantly happier with MM of workers in the Age of Steam if I could issue a single "R" command to the entire stack of workers!

[Cort Haus]

Invariably, when an AI city of any value is in danger of flipping they attack the pressurising cities. This is annoying because after cash rushing every culture building available in cities surrounding the target I end up taking it with units anyway.

As has been pointed out, it's better value to take with units, but much more satisfying to get from a flip - especially if playing with self-imposed restrictions on going to war, or against a civ who is a useful trading partner.

[vorlon_mi]

Success!!

OK, so last night I got a city to flip to me!

I was a little surprised, since even though I did
have pressurizing cities, I thought that the city
was too close to its capital. Definitely satisfying!

This game is at a low difficulty level, so this
technique might not work at the higher levels.
I kept trading with this civ (French), selling them
techs that I had learned during my Golden Age.
Thus, they didn't have the cash to cash-rush
cultural improvements in the threatened city.
The city was only size 2 or 3, so they didn't
have many citizens for pop-rushing.

[vmxa1]

I don't really get the mechanism. I ran a test at Chief. I played till I won, this was a game someone posted on CFC. It was as the Babs, so los of culture.

About as much as all the civs combined at the end. Most civs had huge spaces and little improvements and only one Chinese city flipped.

Mongols did not flip even after I sacked their capitol. They are a full age behind, so I do not know how much better setup I could try for to get flips.