Open letter to Tenochtitlan

[Lord of the Isles]

[I've won games on all levels up to and including Monarch on standard size maps; this was my second game on Monarch using editor changes to decrease corruption].


Dear People of Tenochtitlan,

It was with sadness that I received the news that you had decided to revert to the Aztec Empire. Not only because it meant you had given up the benefits of staying part of the Chinese Empire but also because I realized, as I read the news of your defection, that I would never play Civ3 again.

I should explain, since because I have been a Civilization player since the early days of Civ 1 you may be disappointed to hear I have given up. I didn't mind when you declared war on me in 1300, despite our previously good relations. I had cornered you in the south of our continent and had you done nothing, I would no doubt have discovered technologies to beat you into pulp in the years to come. I appreciated your initial attack, when I was but two riflemen away from losing my border stronghold (thanks Soren). Appreciated but laughed, as I anticipated my response. My Empire was four times your size and I had a Mutual Protection Pact with the Germans (my only rival for 1st place). The threat of a German counter would stop the Greeks taking advantage of our war to attack me in the north.

So it was with relish, and no little gratitude to the Gods of Civilization, that I launched my counter-strike. In one turn I took your biggest two border cities.
The next your capital, fabled Tenochtitlan itself, fell to my Cavalry, Cannon and Riflemen. What empire of a mere 10 cities could survive the loss of its capitol and two biggest cities in two turns, not to mention the fact that the war so far had cost the flower of Aztec youth? The bodies of your cavalrymen littered the border.

But I was wrong. Your capitol jumped to another city, as if by magic. Your miserable, bleeding excuse for an empire was strong enough to subvert your former capitol back into the fold, and my occupying army of 8 Cavalry, 10 Cannon and 6 Riflemen was not enough to stop it. Despite the fact that the occupying army was probably bigger than all the surviving military in the remains of your empire. Despite my empire being ahead of yours in technology, culture, development, size and any other yardstick you care to mention. It mattered naught, and my troops were no more.

So I quit the game and retired to lick my wounds. As I always do when losing games of Civ, I considered the lesson the Gods of Civilization had taught me. I realized the lessons from this game were profound ones. Do not be great, or the gods will humble you. Ignore squares greater than 15 to 20 away from your capitol, for you cannot influence them. Be nice to tiny opponents, for they may suddenly grow and kick you in the teeth. Put not your faith in great Empires, huge armies, well developed infrastructure and trading, for greatness in Civ3 is measured by randomness and not these fleeting things.

Or to put it more simply, the lesson was this: give up Civ3, it's a piece of ****.


Yours sadly,

Lord of the Isles

[off to resume his career playing CtPII with the Cradle mods, many pounds poorer but a little wiser]

[yin26]

Classic! Of course, wait for the vermin to say: "Hey, buddy. You don't like cities reverting? Don't attack cities."

[Zachriel]

There are several good strategies to prevent reversion. I hardly ever lose a city to reversion, and I do quite a lot of conquest.

Sorry the people of Tenochtitlan overwhelmed and destroyed your armies. They were apparently not as happy with your rule as you may have wished.

Post the game if you have it.

[TheHobbit]

Did you ever think of...

Raising the capitol? Its foolish to try to take a capitol of a nation no matter how small unless they will be wiped out very soon. Just raise the citys far away and plant your own new ones in their places with your own people! Simple, effective, and you don't have to worry about citys reverting.

[korn469]

Lord of the Isles

i'm sorry to hear you are leaving civ3, i agree that cultural reversion could be implemented in a better way, but it is fairly easy to prevent (i always destroy their most cultural city and have only had maybe two reversions in many many games) and certainly not Civ3's greatest flaw
if this was the straw that broke the camel's back, then ignore me, but if this is the only thing you think is flawed with the game i say give it another chance

[Hrnac]

Having a city revert is not very fun. Being surprised when an enemies former capitol reverts is painful. Quitting Civ 3 because of this is a bit hasty don't you think?

If you have been following these boards you should be aware that the size of the garrisoned force only helps to quell resistance. To the best of my knowledge it does nothing to prevent a city from reverting. This action should be filed away as a nice idea that was poorly implemented. I recall reading somewhere on this board, that Firaxis will be adding a message that will warn the player before a city reverts. If this is true, then the biggest pain (loosing garrisoned units) will be eliminated. The city will still revert, but your force will be able to be used to either retake the city or other things.

If I were you, I would simply wait and see what the next patch from Firaxis brings. If this issue is not addressed, then many more will surely follow you and give up on Civ 3. I feel fairly confident that this issue will be addressed in the next patch.

Keep the faith.

-Hrnac

[notyoueither]

The reversion thing sux the way it is implemented. I hope it is high on the list of things to be patched.

There are a couple of things that can be done about it though, depending on the circumstances.

1. I raze cities I do not need. I always keep cities that have wonders in them. All cities fall on the continuum between these two. I put capitals in the same class as those with wonders.

2. Cities that I keep. They can be kept through one of several means. [edit: subdued, they may not always be kept, but in the end they are subdued.]

a: Small cities from culturally smaller or larger civs can be kept by garrisoning at least 1 foot unit per point of alien pop. I'll starve/rush build the city down to 1 pop and leave 2 foot units in it when all is said and done. Never lost 1.

b: Large cities from any civ (esp culturally superior civs). I use bombardment to reduce them as much as possible. I take the city when the operational situation warrants it, even if the city is not yet small enough to be easily managed.

If I have to take the city when it is still large (10 plus), then I'll leave 1 unit in it and begin starvation without even attempting to subdue resistors. This assures a reversion, so I leave a few fast attackers in position to immediately retake the city. When it reverts, I bombard/retake and begin starvation again.

Eventually, the city gets down to 1 pop, at which time 2 to 4 foot units prevent reversion. And if it does go (hasn't yet once they are at 1 pop) the loss is minimal.

As an interesting side effect of b, wars against large, advanced civs become more interesting. I know some cities are going to go, I just don't know when. It makes conquest a less straight forward matter and does not cost me a large group of valuable troops when the bad luck comes up.


Let me say first that I agree with those who find these strategies distasteful. But they work. That is why I really hope the developers add some severe checks to reversion / cultural take overs period. Let's say, Armies are absolute guarantees against it. Or maybe 10 individual units prevent it 100%. Or both. Something is going to have to be done or the game is going to continue to lose people for no good reason (not what the developers desire). I do not know of any gamers, no matter how big a fan they are, who will tolerate the random loss of their pride and joy stacks indefinitely (if even once).

I have not tested how the editor as it stands can effect reversion. Anyone tried?

Salve

[Ironikinit]

It's not the city reversion rule that made him quit, it was one single city reverting, apparently.

I had a lot of trouble with reversion in my early games. I'm either better prepared or lucky, because in my recent games cities only convert one way: mine, when I culture rush a border town.

I admit, it was a big shock when cities I assumed were mine to keep started playing tricks. Some warning would've been nice, but now I know. It did make conquest tougher for a while, but as I said, it hasn't been a problem lately (knock on wood, eh.)

notyoueither had some good tips for those not too faint of heart to face flipping cities. My philosophy was to take them back and keep taking them back until they stay taken. Put in only a big enough garrison to quell resisters, and then start purchasing temples, libraries, colloseums, etc. I hope you brought your wallet to this war.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Ironikinit

notyoueither had some good tips for those not too faint of heart to face flipping cities. My philosophy was to take them back and keep taking them back until they stay taken. Put in only a big enough garrison to quell resisters, and then start purchasing temples, libraries, colloseums, etc. I hope you brought your wallet to this war.

Razing is one solution, but I want to win their hearts and minds. I use the culture rush also. Once you know where your cultural weak spots are, it isn't that hard to allocate resources. It can be expensive though if you are in Republic or Democracy.

I just finished a game where I blitzed the Persian Empire, twelve cities in about as many turns with no reversions. I used Tank Armies, plenty of bombers, rushed the Temples, and made sure to blast the cultural centers.

[GePap]

Kill them all!

The simplest solution to city reversal is to utterly annahilate your opponent (take all their cities, kill all their settlers) and to do it quick. If that is impossible, raze all cities taken. If you find that morally reprehensible, starve or bomb to death all but a few dazed survivors. If that morally reprehensible, put in lots of troops in, spend lots of money, and hope. If you find that infuriating, never go to war, and if you find that boring, well, out of luck.

Personally, I do lots of spending, but keep few troops in- that keeps the infuriating aspects ( I just lost a tank corp to a mob!) down.

[TinCow]

I rarely have problems with reversion and I also do a lot of conquest. My experience has taught me that the best war is a short war. Since I'm always Repulic or Democracy, attacking another civilization is a bit tricky for me. If I'm going to attack, I make sure that I can totally defeat the enemy in a few turns or I set concrete objectives that will force the enemy to make a favorable peace. It seems that cities never revert on the AI turn after you take them. As a result, I garrison as much as I can in the city immediately to cut down on resistors and to prevent counterattacks. The following turn, I move everything out of the city except for the units which were damaged in the attack and one full strength unit for emergency defense. If I then lose the city to reversion, I've only lost a couple badly damaged units and I have the spares around to take the blasted place back.

If worst comes to worst and I get a very nasty reversion, I use this thing called Autosave and change history in my favor.

[notyoueither]

Yes, Autosave.

I usually try to avoid it, but it is a completely justified solution to a situation where your 20 Modern Armour disappear in a haze of stones. I wouldn't hold it against anyone.

Actually go 1 further, save at the end of every turn. It's a habit I have acquired during of years of dealing with sometimes buggy computers. Always save when important work is finished (such as a turn that may take as much as an hour or 2 to complete.)

By saving at the end of turns you could react to any particularly egregious action by the as-yet-unfinished game.

Salve

[Captain]

call me a sap but I hate razing cities - not for gameplay reasons but because it feels "evil". in terms of gameplay, it's the best thing you could possibly do. keep a couple of settlers handy when warring, raze the city, plunk down your settler and add in the captured workers (not so much that you're in the minority of course). otherwise, it's lose the elite of your armed forces to some stupid rock-throwing urbanites. stationing outside the city works too but most of the time, you don't even want those cities cause there's way too much corruption and it'll take forever to rebuild to a good level.

still, i get the feeling i'm selling my soul or something everytime i burn a city down and half a million people just "disappear".

yeah, i know it's just a game....

[notyoueither]

Captain

No, actually, it's not JUST a game. It's a passion. For some. Maybe for you.

It's like a great book that you write as you go. You suspend belief. For a brief while you are not John T Citizen, who collates reports for CorpX. No, you are Emporer X and you control the destiny of millions or billions.

I can empathize with anyone who finds themselves forced to perform personally distasteful actions just to succeed at Civ. It undermines the passion. Hence, it undermines the game. And let's face it, *personally distasteful* barely begins to scratch the surface when it comes to genocide.

I think they went the anti-conquer line of thought too far. I think that culture was a fairly big bone to throw at the builders. I love it. However, I don't think they needed to add the insult to the conquerors of making their massive armies meaningless in the face of culture and random rock-throwing mobs.

Oy vey! At least it ain't done yet. And thank god the editor has much to be discovered/patched in it.

The worst mistake that could occur in this forum at this time, is that the people who actually play the game not state their grievances for fear of some troller pouncing on it. The developers are still working on the game right now. They really will benefit from the actual players stating their likes and dislikes. They will also be able to fix those really weird bugs that require thousands of individual play styles to find.

Like the guy who thought, hey, why should I build a city with my beginning settler? Why don't I explore for goddie huts? Hey, I got a warrior. Lets go attack Paris. Hey, we took Paris. Hey, I don't have a Palace in my first and only city... Some years and a few cities later; still no palace and wow, no corruption. Many years later and 250 cities with no corruption. Everyone should do this!

Keep on truckin

Salve

[nato]

I just want to say that reversion like Lord of the Isles describes is one of my two main problems with Civ3 (other being boring old stack movement).

I cannot stand the way it works in this game. Like anything else, you can work to minimize it, but not too well. I always have more culture and rush built temples, but that doesn't help much. What is the point of culture, if having twice your opponent's culture doesn't help prevent defections much?

I also can't stand the solution of razing. I can not and will not pretend I'm some barbarian horde commiting genocide. Yeah its a game, but pretending to be a monster is not a fun game for me.

My other problem is that defection just falls out of the sky on you randomly. No warning, no method, just random vanishing armies. It is like playing in a world where lightning bolts suddenly strike entire legions dead. Randomness not strategy.

I would like to again propose my suggestion of not allowing cities to convert to a civ you are at war with as long as you have a 3-6 unit garrison there.

I know Civ3 is different from Civ2 ... but I think these kind of defections really ruin Civ3 (not Civ2) ... just casting my vote.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if this sounded whiney, but it is maybe my #1 complaint with Civ3.