Ye olde culture flip

[Xarathas]

The culture flipping really puts a damper on things. Aside from the standard culture flips, I've had several extreme ones.

1) A recently taken city that had no resisters + a rushed temple and 12+ units stationed in it. (this happened a couple of times actually..)

2) A city that was taken about 50 turns back, that had a temple, library, and courthouse in it (and I think marketplace too). What really sucked was that it was about 4~5 turns from finishing the forbidden palace at the time of the flip Not to mention it was the only route connecting my northern and southern empire.. oh boy did that screw things up. Half my kingdom lost the luxuries for a few turns. This wouldn't have been so odd if the city in question was surrounded by the warring country's cities, but it was only bordered to the west size 5-ish city of theirs.. It's north and south side was my cities and the water to the east.

For #1, I've pretty much learned to not station so heavily in a newly conquered city once all the resisters are quelled and the temple rushed. Can't do much about #2 though.. hope that doesn't happen again, eesh.

On a side note, I've noticed that the culture never flips on a turn where you are about to complete an improvement.. not sure if that's true. Have anyone seen otherwise?

[Jon Shafer]

When something completely stupid like that happens, I just load up an autosave and initiate diplomacy or something to randomize things.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Trip
When something completely stupid like that happens, I just load up an autosave and initiate diplomacy or something to randomize things.

Actually, if you back up a couple of turns and replay the position, you will find that nearly all flips are avoidable -- once you understand the parameters involved.

[Jon Shafer]

Actually, I've reloaded many a time, and by doing things in a different order, initiating a trade, making peace, etc. the number set within the game gets randomized and I can avoid that kind of stuff.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Trip
Actually, I've reloaded many a time, and by doing things in a different order, initiating a trade, making peace, etc. the number set within the game gets randomized and I can avoid that kind of stuff.

Cool! , Glad that works for you.

However, you can also replay the position with the intention of finding methods to avoid the problem all together. For instance, rushing a cultural improvement, or whatever. I have done this with many abandoned games in the old days (back in '01) and rarely experience an unexpected cultural revulsion, er reversion.

[Amesjustin]

Sack the capitol

I usually garrison inside and out of cities, starting with the little ones on the edge of the enemy empire, until I get to the bigger, older cities bordering the enemy capitol. If the enemy capitol has no wonders that I want, I just burn that puppy to the ground. Then I do the same with the remaining older cities. If there are wonders I want, then I just make sure I have a HUGE army (like 10 units per city) and swarm their territory. Once I take a city I would like to keep, I garrisson with 2 units and leave 4 more just outside of town in case of a rebellion.

It also helps to really maximize your overall culture - that lessens the chance of flipping.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Cool! , Glad that works for you.

However, you can also replay the position with the intention of finding methods to avoid the problem all together. For instance, rushing a cultural improvement, or whatever. I have done this with many abandoned games in the old days (back in '01) and rarely experience an unexpected cultural revulsion, er reversion.

True, but every now and then something wacky will happen. I try to build up as much culture as I can early, just to prevent culture switching... there's nothing worse than having an army and major city disappear...

[notyoueither]

The ways to combat reversion (flipping)? They are many, but they include:

1. Raze the city. Or with 1.21 abandon it after capture. I believe abandoning is less hurtful for reputation and War Weariness, but I'm waiting for confirmation.

2. Do not leave any enemy cities with cultural borders in the prospective flippers usable 21 squares.

3. Starve the pop down to 1 and force it to stay there until you can be sure that it is out of flipping danger.

3a. Prior to it being 1 pop, leave just 1 garrison unit in it, with 2 Infantry attackers fortified adjacent. Flip, Kill, resume starvation diet.

3b. Once the city reaches 1 pop, garrison it with 4 units.

4. If you are war with your cultural equal, or superior, go till the end. If you leave them in the game, you will lose captured cities back to them to a flip. It is only a matter of time.

5. Oh. Don't use recently captured enemy cities as rally points for wounded units. That much is in your power to avoid.

Epilouge. I really hope they implement a major overhaul of flipping in the XP. The warning that a revolt is afoot is really needed. 'Should we club the population into oblivion or should we withdraw?' Of course the consequences for a monarch, consul, or president who chooses to turn the city into a pile of skulls should be severe. Much better to withdraw, allow the resistors to get into their spiffy Uniforms of Liberation and then kill them.

[Coracle]

Culture Flipping, at least the way it is implemented in this game, is total nonsense and garbage, and I wish whomever thought it up admits it and tells us if he had just finished several doobies before thinking of it.

Example One: a rival city of '12' that had been part of the same civilization for 5,000 years suddenly flipped to me. Absurd. After millennia of culture with their own civ they suddenly do some braindead bean-counting like the AI does and decide to join a different civ? A joke.

I once conquered the Greeks excpet for one crappy offshore town that was their capital. Capitals jump from town to town automatically, also dumb. I had over two dizen towns and cities and was very strong. Despite a huge army just outside this just conquered city IT FLIPPED BACK TO GREECE.

Why? Because all the stupid AI does is count the number of happy people, foreign nationals, AND PROXIMITY TO THE CAPITAL, no matter how pathetic and small that capital and civ.

So it does stuff no sane people would do.

I razed that city, of course.

Stupid AI.

[Zachriel]

In the middle ages, every lord had a castle, and anyone with a castle was a lord. These lords often changed sides depending on the political situation. This was not considered revolution, but a normal happenstance of the social structure. Remember that nations did not exist until modern times, and central control was very weak, or even nonexistent.

[Jethro83]

I have no qualms with the concept of culture-flipping. Instead of sitting there with a huge garrison, I'll send settlers/spare workers into a newly conquered city, starve out the original inhabitants, and replace them with the settlers/workers I send. I was once Egypt, and in a conflict with the Russians, and that alone helped me hold their capital until the temple was completed and replacing the original Russian culture with my Egyptian one. Of course, Moscow was on and surrounded by a floodplain with wheat in two surrounding squares, so Egyptians bred into the city quickly.

Of course, sometimes, I'll just raze the damn city. But only if in a terrible place that won't allow it to be of any benefit to my empire.

[redstar1]

Yeah, I find myself using that tactic a lot where the enemy is in good territory. I don't like keeping enemy cities so I build up a deposit of settlers before an invasion and send them in behind to build cities where I have razed enemy ones, or to repopulate any cities I decide to keep.

I do this now because what I found was that after razing cities, making peace and going home, either that civ or the others would rush to the empty space and cause me just as much trouble.

[Zachriel]

I do it the "hard way!" I never raze and never starve beyond what naturally occurs during the transition, and yet, I almost never lose a city to cultural reversion, and when I do, it is not unexpected. Such as in the following incident playing as the Americans:

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/gotm5/0700ad.htm

[Jon Shafer]

Nice little story Zach, it was entertaining. The Russian wars were particularly dramatic.

[Captain]

I've never experienced a culture flip yet. Maybe because I never get past the start of industrial age. Early wars never seem to flip, maybe because there isn't enough culture or large enough cities. I always have at least equal amounts of culture so that's not a problem. In my current game, only the capitals are of any consequential size (12) while all other cities are around 6-7. If I take their capital, it's usually game over for them anyways.

It hasn't happened yet but I'm sure I would find it annoying to lose the garrison. Not the city, just the whole garrison evaporating.

I imagine the root problem is that it encourages razing wonderless (the majority) cities rather than keeping them - which seems contrary to Firaxis' stated aim of making it more "builder" friendly. How is it good for builders to raze everything? Usually you want to keep the existing infrastructure.

I agree with the argument that if 1 warrior can raze a size 20 city in one turn, then it shouldn't take 14 cav to hold to a size 6 city. Not an IRL thing, it's a play balance thing. Why stack and hold? this ties down the army. Just raze and continue.

For me, I think if razing a city took 1 unit per pop point decrease per turn, that would be better. Making razing harder, or forcing it to tie down a similar number of units, would make it more palatable to risk garrisoning instead of razing.