Damn Annoying Culture Problem

[FrostyBoy]

So when the Germans invaded Paris, the French decided they didn't like the German culture and revolted back to France.


Wait, does that sound right? Well it would to Firaxis!

I took a tiny city, placed 14 tough men inside, 2 turns later, the ppl decided to revolt back to Greece. Excuse me, but if the people decide to do anything, I should be able to stop them because of my army who should be controlling the people.

[Cyclotron]

Just stop garisonning your attack force in border cities. Cultural reversion only happens in cities whose culture borders that of another city's, so just put your units back from the front line. That way, not only will your units not be destroyed by a flip, but enemy retaliations and sneak attacks will lose momentum on your newly conquered buffer zone before hitting your main army.

It's a massive partisan uprising... keep in mind that Paris would not revert to France if life was Civ3 because Paris did not border any other French cities (all taken). Therefore, your analogy is flawed, not Firaxis.

[Grrr]

I agree with Cyclotron on this. I usually move my units into the borders to expand mine, to have the full city radius, and decrease cultural reversion factors.

[Arrian]

There are several keys to avoiding a culture flip:

1) have strong culture yourself. I play religious civs, and that means I always have better culture (usually by double) than any AI.

2) capture or raze nearby AI cities quickly, moving the AI cultural borders back. If any of the squares within a city's 21 square radius are within another civ's culture borders, you have a higher chance of a flip. The more squares within their borders, the higher chance of a flip.

3) make all citizens entertainers and starve the city down to pop1 as quickly as possible. Then allow it to grow. New citizens will be of your nationality. Ethnic cleansing works great in CivIII.

4) rushbuy cultural improvements asap in captured cities (at least a temple).

5) destroy the enemy. No flips then.

If you think a city is at risk for a flip, definitely garrison it lightly, holding your main force outside the city. Charge onward, perhaps leaving a couple of units nearby to recapture if it flips.

-Arrian

[MosesPresley]

To avoid culture flipping:

I bombard the city down to about a 4 or less population. I then send a settler or two to bolster the city's population with my citizens.

or

If I want to retain at least some of the city's infrastructure, I will do what Arrian suggested in

capture or raze nearby AI cities quickly, moving the AI cultural borders back

, but I still send in some settlers to homogenize the population.

[Soren Johnson]

Re: Damn Annoying Culture Problem

Originally posted by Sn00py
So when the Germans invaded Paris, the French decided they didn't like the German culture and revolted back to France.


Wait, does that sound right? Well it would to Firaxis!

I took a tiny city, placed 14 tough men inside, 2 turns later, the ppl decided to revolt back to Greece. Excuse me, but if the people decide to do anything, I should be able to stop them because of my army who should be controlling the people.

I am not sure what you mean by a "Tiny" city, but if this happened under 1.17 or 1.21, that sounds like a bug. The only way a city of, say, size 2 would revolt if you had 14 troops in the city was if their total culture was 3.5 times your total culture, which is pretty unlikely. If this sounds like a bug, please post a save.

Of course, if you are using 1.16, all bets are off because under that version there was always a minimum (albeit very slim) chance of a revolt.

[Coracle]

CULTURE FLIPPING SUCKS

Originally posted by Sn00py
So when the Germans invaded Paris, the French decided they didn't like the German culture and revolted back to France.


Wait, does that sound right? Well it would to Firaxis!

I took a tiny city, placed 14 tough men inside, 2 turns later, the ppl decided to revolt back to Greece. Excuse me, but if the people decide to do anything, I should be able to stop them because of my army who should be controlling the people.

What happened to the German garrison in Paris?? It just vanished into thin air?!?

Culture Flipping borders and cities is garbage and asinine. It os totally non-historical, too. I've had borders flip over a GARRISONED FORTRESS and iron resource. And I'm just expected to leave??

What a joke.

[Cyclotron]

Coracle, please refer to the comment I made above that Paris could have never flipped back during WW2, since no French city bordered it (all captured by Germans).

Culture flipping is only painful to those who do not understand it. It does help make culture important and is a good strategic addition to the game. Ever try a culture war? When one of my conquered cities reverts (I've never had a home city revert, since I play culture-heavy and I'm always in the lead culturally) I just re-examine the situation, step back...

...and then pound the city into dust with my waiting units.

[Akron]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Cultural reversion only happens in cities whose culture borders that of another city's

I've had several instances where a city that i captured culturally flips even though the enemy civ is on a tiny island on the other side of the map.

Seriously, if there are 3 or more troops in a city, cultural flipping should very rarely happen.

[Cyclotron]

Hmmm... haven't seen that yet. I do know for a fact that culture flipping is pretty rare if no borders overlap, though.

[nationalist]

Raze the small town, then bring one of your own settlers. Use your 14 units to capture more Greek cities. Use Greek workers for slaves. Teach Alexander a lesson. He's always a pain in the @$$, but I love rolling over Hoplites with Panzers!

[Dinner]

Why can't civ3 handle city revolts like CTP2 did? X number of rebels attack your stationed army and if they win then you lose control of the city. It's simple and logical enough. Plus it takes into account the combat worthiness of your troops vs rebel troops.

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Why can't civ3 handle city revolts like CTP2 did? X number of rebels attack your stationed army and if they win then you lose control of the city. It's simple and logical enough. Plus it takes into account the combat worthiness of your troops vs rebel troops.

That does make sense.

[FrostyBoy]

ok, I am roman, the white guys, the greeks are the green guys and as you can see my cities are much larger than theirs and this is just an island, this piece of land is not our main land.

Also you'll notice that Herakleia has rubber (one of two in the whole game), and since I didn't have any, I decided I better take it or get lost in time. So I thought I'll do it the 'nice' way, the american way; and culturally take their two close cities. First I investigated the cities to see how much culture they had and how much I might need in order to take them. They both had a temple and that's it for their culture. So I thought, great, I'll just build a temple, colleseum and a cathedral in both my cities and take them over that way. It never came to pass and time was moving on, so I thought stuff it, I'll go to war.

When I took that city, it was a size 4, coz I had used artillery on it.

I got order back in the city, built a temple on the next turn and thought it was mine forever. But on the next turn, it flipped back to Greece.

The only reason I didn't demolish the city is because I needed that rubber asap to hold off against the greeks when they start to mobilize (which didn't take them long ).

maybe the paris analogy was not a good one, but seriously, shouldn't my armies have the control of the people, rather than the people have control of my armies?


btw some might be wondering why I am not using my gfx, and that is becoz I am starting on the new one. so I have to reset the terrain gfx back to normal.

[FrostyBoy]

forgot pic