Cities defect too easily

[number6]

A lot of people have said "You have to build culture" to keep cities you conquer. That is incorrect, because in the game I was playing over this week I had built up the most cultured Civ on the planet. When I took some cities from the French and the Americans ( I was the Germans) I made sure I had at least 3 Infantry/Tanks guarding the city. I also built the temple right away. I think in like 3 turns, after I had quelled all resistance in one of the American Cities I took, the American city defected! It is a big pain having to retake these cities all the time and adds no play value in my opinion.

[GePap]

Nationalism and culture

I think the addition of national identities and culture make civ3 a much deeper game than civ2 but at the same time it think how fixaris handled the interactions between the two are illogical. Can anyone reading this post give me a SINGLE example of a groups of people, who already defining themselves as memebrs of a linguistic-ethinc group (nation) have risen in revolt vs. their fellow nationals in order to join up with a completely different socio-ethno-linguistic group (another nation) because of the influence of outside culture?
Let me stir things up further by asking the following. Many of the posters in these forums are not American- yet here they are , playing a game developded by Americans (a sign of American cultural influence) and I would bet that they listen in part to American music, see American films and T.V. and perhaps some earlier in their lives studied in US universities. OK, even with all this American cultural influence, how many of you would agree if a fellow citizen said-"hey, lets overthrow the local government, declare ourselves independent, and then ask for US statehood!" ? Anyone? MY bet is no one. Why, because no matter how much amercan culture you digest, you still see yourselves as part of a socio-ethnic-liguistic group and that bond is strong and one you respect. Yet according to this game, some people would say yes!
OK, so according to Civ3, if your culture is really high, others will forget their nationality and join you willingly. Well, if that is true, why would any city you conquer from an enemy with lower culture ever defect? If these people are willing to kill their local garrison themselves to join you, why are they so angry that you did it yourself? How much sense does that make?
I think that a better way of handling the interaction of culture and nationality is to make an ENTIRE nationality more willing to go along with you over time. Yes, I know that the Foreign advisor will tell me how much they are in awe, and some of you will say that this does make the computer ask for less. Thats well and fine, but the effect should be far more pronounced.Have a sort of US-UK relation were two nations are very buddy buddy over everything except issues of completely vital self-defense, both military and economic. This would help you greatly (another civ is your pawn) while keeping the balance between culture and nationality more rational. And finally, I still think partisans are the way to go.

[Robert]

3. There should be some sort of indicators as to how likely a city would defect. Right now there is none, and that is not good. I am NOT asking for a precise warning message in a pop up box. I want some sort of rough indicator with a degree of uncertainty.

I agree.
"Sir, the people of X are staring at the culture of our neighbours X with a weird desire, I wonder what's going on......"

4. Losing every soldier in the city because of defection doesn't make any sense, and is anti-fun. This is the #1 thing they should change in this entire debate.

Half your troops should be able to 'escape' the city.
But the problem in that case is that you can retake the city immediately.

Pherhaps a good solution would be: half the troops inside the city leaves the city for 2 squares. 3 citizen are 'drafted' into the most modern defenders.

and it doesn't happen when 50% of 'our' troops (the ones that can escape) will be more then 3. BUT, then again, when there are more then 5 evil units in the city, the resistance won't end for the first 10 /15 turns.

[Hurry]

Thanks for all your comments, guys! It seems most agree that something should be done about the defections. However, I´m not sure how much Firaxis is able to change in a patch. It´s not like they are going to redo the whole system.

I have my economy on war-time, so I can´t build temples, so building culture is not an option before I have defeated them totally.

Anyways, I guess I will start starving my newly occupied cities to death from now on.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by CyberShy
1. conquer the city
2. put 3 military units in it (more won't help)
3. take all their food

Let them starve intill they give up their resistance,
make sure the city won't be in disorder after that.
Build cultural improvements quickly and keep them happy.

I've conquered entire civilizations this way.

also, have your native workers ready to join in and tilt the nationality balance after you starve them off silly

[Jack_www]

I would just like to add something. When I go too war with the computer I always win. The computer players never seem to upgrade their units, thus when you fight them even though they have the tech to build infintry they still have spearmen running around. Thus taking cities is not hard at all. Even with cities that are well defened I can take. Also there is no way to make this game like real life. You can make it some what simmilar.

Although I think they did this to give the computer a level playing feild. One solution I can think of is you bombard the city untill it is at a pop level of 2 or 1, then you just have to put one or two units in there to keep them from revoluting. I also think they made it this way because they wanted to keep things simple. It was probley already really hard to program the culture aspect of the game in, and to try to make even more compilicated might not be a good idea if you look at this form the point of veiw of the people who have to program the game.