Cultural Conversions/Rebellions

[QuestGAV]

Hey guys,

I just picked up Civ3 Conquests and am fooling around with it. One of the problems I've been having is that I like the idea of cultural conversions, but I absolutely hate having cities flip back to a country I just took them from - and simply erasing a number of my forces as it happens.

I'm currently playing at Monarch level as I get my skills back up to where they should be. I'm playing a relatively militaristic style but am not completely ignoring city improvements and culture. How can I win a war without having cities flip back with 8-10 of my war chariots/knights/cavalry going with them?

I'm also open to playing with the editor if there's a way to allow cultural conversions while minimizing the number of these rebellions. I guess I just want to be a warmonger without having to deal with the population's affinity for asymmetrical warfare reducing my aspirations from global hegemony to local despot.

[Arrian]

It's all or nothing. You can turn off city flipping, but that goes for all culture flips, not just ones during war.

My advice, simplified:

1) Build some cultural improvements of your own, so that your culture isn't way lower than your opponents' culture. It may help to play a civ that gets building discounts on cultural buildings (religious and scientific civs)

2) To the extent that you can manage it, keep the bulk of your forces outside the enemy city, so that if it does flip, it only takes a couple of units with it. Then recapture it.

3) A major factor in city flips is the number of tiles within the city's full radius that are within the opponent's cultural borders. Push those borders back, and the flip risk declines. That means pressing the attack and taking the next line of cities.

4) Another major factor is the nationality of the citizenry of the town. If I do not expect to quickly wipe out the civ I'm fighting, I will starve captured towns down to size1, and then let the pop recharge. New citizens will be of your native civ.

Hope that helps.

-Arrian

[alva]

5) Try to make the citizens of your new city happy, IE "we love the king day"

[Solomwi]

While you're starving the city down, build workers. They work half speed, but they're maintenance free. This stops working as soon as there is one of your citizens in the city.

[Rhothaerill]

Another option, though it has limited use is pop rush. If you're in a government that allows pop-rush, once all the resisters are gone, pop rush a culture improvement (temple or library). This also works best if you are religious or scientific since the buildings are cheaper. You'll use up the population you were trying to starve for a culture improvement that will help keep the city from flipping later on.

[Arrian]

Oh, yeah, poprushing temples is a good one. I was thinking of cashrush governments, and left that out. It's a good way to kill to birds with one stone: you get rid of that nasty foreign population, and you get a cultural & happiness improvement. There is some associatied unhappiness, of course, but if you're starving the city all the way down anyway, that shouldn't be much of an issue.

Evil, ain't it?

-Arrian

[Rhothaerill]

I've been using that a bit in my game for AU502. I took several cities from the Iroquois after they attacked me. I ended up poprushing temples in several cities.

The unfortunate thing about that was that I was still researching monarchy and they attacked my gallic swordsman. Their mistake since I've been running over them fairly nicely, but they started my GA before the government switch. Oh well.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Arrian
It's all or nothing. You can turn off city flipping, but that goes for all culture flips, not just ones during war.

There's another way, at least if you have Conquests. In Scenario Properties, you can select to retain a city's culture when captured. That can give you a bit of a boundary, which is part of the equation in flipping. One of the calculations is the number of your city tiles that are within the cultural boundaries of another civ. It doesn't prevent flipping as such, but it does reduce the chances of it happening. Plus you keep any Temples etc. so the cultural boundaries can start growing right away.

[Arrian]

Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that. It would help, sure.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Culture flips, what culture flips?

[alva]

While you're starving the city down, build workers. They work half speed, but they're maintenance free. This stops working as soon as there is one of your citizens in the city.

Are you sure about this? IIRC I tested this a couple of times(long time ago) but can't remember what the result was, however I thought they weren't free.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by alva

Are you sure about this? IIRC I tested this a couple of times(long time ago) but can't remember what the result was, however I thought they weren't free.

100% sure. It's become a staple of my middle to late game aftermath strategy. It can slip up on you, though, that one of your citizens appears in the city before the worker pops out.

[vmxa1]

The workers come out with their native civ and hence are slaves.

[Fistleaf]

As a rule of thumb, for every enemy citizen in the city and for every city radius square under enemy control, you need 2 times that number of troops garrisoned to prevent it from flipping, at least for a few turns while you rush build a temple/library.
This is assuming no resistors, no riots and your overall civ culture is about equal to the enemy's overall culture.
I believe with this number of troops, the risks should be quite low and your troops should be reasonably safe, for the moment.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fistleaf
As a rule of thumb, for every enemy citizen in the city and for every city radius square under enemy control, you need 2 times that number of troops garrisoned to prevent it from flipping, at least for a few turns while you rush build a temple/library.

In one of the Firaxis chats, Soren mentioned that it's more like 3 to 1.