Make City Flipping an option

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
There is combat, you just don't see it. There is combat each turn when the chance to flip is calculated; you are in occupation. The system is not perfect and I agree that more interactiveness could only be better, but it strikes me as odd that you find a problem with units in cities "dissapearing," while units in battle dissapear just as randomly... and they both use similar equations.

An Infantry attacks my Cavalry. The Infantry is conscript. My Cavalry is elite. He gets lucky and wins the first 4 rounds. My Cavalry retreats, hopefully. However, if the enemy are a bunch of peasants with paving stones, death to the Cavalry. No chance.

16 Infantry attack my stack of 10 Infantry. I lose some Infantry, the enemy loses some Infantry. It is satisfying. I lost stuff, but I inflicted casualties. However, a size 16 city flips. My 10 Infantry are gone and the city is still size 16. I lose everything. The enemy loses nothing. Very unsatisfying.

Do you need me to go on?

[Kryten]

Please forgive me for quoting myself but....

Originally posted by Kryten
As for where the garrison goes....
massacred by the citizens, or surrendered and become PoWs, or deserted and thrown their weapons away ("we ain't gonna fight no more"), or joined the other side (a very popular choice in Roman & Medieval times), or were routed and dispersed home, or died of plague (thus giving the citizens the opportunity to 'flip'), or -and this is my favourite- could it be that due to the loss of territory, Parliament/Congress has decided to make economic cutbacks and has disbanded the garrison against your wishes (now, you've got to admit, that DOES sound realistic, especially under a democracy ).

It does not matter which of these you think is the most plausible, because they all have the same effect. Remember, CivIII is an abstract game.

When I play a game of civ, I like to asume that I am the LEADER of that nation, not an omnipotent god who has total control over all events. So, like every leader in history, no matter how powerful, I am quite ready to accept that some events in the world are beyond my control. This sometimes includes my citizens and soldiers, who occasionally follow their own political agenda and not my imperial will.

Nonetheless, I do agree that there should be an 'off' switch so that those who want to play a 'god-like' game (in a world where the thoughts of every single citizen & soldier is completely under their control and they always do as they are told) can play as they wish, and an 'on' switch so that other people can play as a 'leader' (in a world where hidden conspiracies/mutinous troops/incompatent army officers and other events that are beyond the control of the player do happen).

That way everybody is happy

[notyoueither]

Would everyone be happy with a game where civs simply have a total number of units, but they are not placed on a map? When war breaks out, total units are compared and casualties would be generated every turn. As casualties are inflicted, cities would start to flip from one side to the other. A civ would be completely destroyed when so many of its units are destroyed that their last city flips.

Would that be OK with everyone?

I have a hard time understanding why people need to try to convince other people that an abstracted part of the game ought to suit everyone's tastes. Flipping (and the consequences for units) obviously is distasteful for a large number of players.

If the argument was that someone prefers to have this aspect of the game abstract, and they would not enjoy resolving city revolts by a more sophisticated process, OK. Great. But why must I like the abstract process just because you do?

Here's the question(s). Would anybody mind if the developers added a module to the game where revolts resulted in a combat between partisans and the garrison? In the absence of a lot of extra code for an entirely new module, would anybody mind if garrisoning troops had a chance to escape from the city and some of them showed up at the nearest freindly city with various levels of damage?

Or is it that two unpopular posters are against flipping, so any loyalist civ'er must be for it?

[Kryten]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Would anybody mind if the developers added a module to the game where revolts resulted in a combat between partisans and the garrison? In the absence of a lot of extra code for an entirely new module, would anybody mind if garrisoning troops had a chance to escape from the city and some of them showed up at the nearest freindly city with various levels of damage?

I for one wouldn't mind that. I wouldn't mind that at all. I think that is an excellent idea! (although I'd prefer the damaged units to reapear all the way back in my capital, just to stop instant counter attacks). It still won't stop people complaining about culture-flips, but it will solve the 'vanishing garrison' part of the argument.

Good thinking matey! You have my vote

(I can just imagine the popup window: "Sire, the people in xxxx city have rebelled and have joined the yyyy empire! The Senate has decided to withdraw the surviving troops and bring them home.")

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
Do you think that 20 tanks only represents 20 tanks? I mean, I highly doubt wars are fought with only one unit fighting each other....

Ahh, but I didn't say that... they don't stand for 1 tank, but they probably don't stand for 100,000 either.

Yes, that is what I have been trying to say. I actually like culture flipping, although the others do have a point.

Yet, actually, the units aren't lose. They are reverted to the control of whom they are flipping to. That makes the scenario even more unlikely, as those troops whom probably are loyal would stay with their empire.

The units don't convert, they die.

Also, in wars, why do civilians not arm themselves when invaders come? If they can convert twenty tanks, they surely can kill one longbowman.

Because a battle is fought in a very short period of time, while cultural flips happen over turns (which can mean 100 to 1 years, depending on when you are). If the civilians have the time and resources to form a resistance movement, they can win... but they couldn't possibly do that themselves as soon as an enemy comes in.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by notyoueither
An Infantry attacks my Cavalry. The Infantry is conscript. My Cavalry is elite. He gets lucky and wins the first 4 rounds. My Cavalry retreats, hopefully. However, if the enemy are a bunch of peasants with paving stones, death to the Cavalry. No chance.

If your cavalry were in a city and were attacked, they would not retreat from an infantry either.

16 Infantry attack my stack of 10 Infantry. I lose some Infantry, the enemy loses some Infantry. It is satisfying. I lost stuff, but I inflicted casualties. However, a size 16 city flips. My 10 Infantry are gone and the city is still size 16. I lose everything. The enemy loses nothing. Very unsatisfying.

I would say that using longbowmen to defend my city against enemy knights would also be very unsatisfying. You made a poor choice by putting all those units in the city and you should pay for it. IMO, it is equally as satisfying as combat.

Do you need me to go on?

Please do.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Would everyone be happy with a game where civs simply have a total number of units, but they are not placed on a map? When war breaks out, total units are compared and casualties would be generated every turn. As casualties are inflicted, cities would start to flip from one side to the other. A civ would be completely destroyed when so many of its units are destroyed that their last city flips.

Would that be OK with everyone?

No, because I would have no control over that. I do have as much control over flipping as I do combat... actually, I have more.

I have a hard time understanding why people need to try to convince other people that an abstracted part of the game ought to suit everyone's tastes. Flipping (and the consequences for units) obviously is distasteful for a large number of players.

I have a hard time understanding why people think the abstraction of flipping is any worse than the abstraction of combat, or for that matter anything else in this game.

If the argument was that someone prefers to have this aspect of the game abstract, and they would not enjoy resolving city revolts by a more sophisticated process, OK. Great. But why must I like the abstract process just because you do?

You don't have to like it. You don't have to like any part of any game. But there is and will be a limit to how may options are thrown in, and how many critical parts of the game can be opted out of. It used to be the solution to playing a game you didn't like was this option: don't play it. Now, people want to make everything they don't like an option, so they can water down the game until it suits them. It's not a practical solution for the game developers.

Here's the question(s). Would anybody mind if the developers added a module to the game where revolts resulted in a combat between partisans and the garrison? In the absence of a lot of extra code for an entirely new module, would anybody mind if garrisoning troops had a chance to escape from the city and some of them showed up at the nearest freindly city with various levels of damage?

I don't like the partisan idea, because it has nothing to do with culture. In your system, military units would be a much larger part of the equation... in fact, the deciding part. With a big enough force, who cares about culture?

I do like the idea, however, that some units (especially mobile ones) would be expelled with damage. That sounds very fair to me, but the flipped city would need a few more units generated inside it... maybe a few conscripts or something.

Or is it that two unpopular posters are against flipping, so any loyalist civ'er must be for it?

[sarcasm] I'm unpopular? Oh, that's really a reason my ideas should count for any less...[/sarcasm]

Careful, NYE. I'm not forcing you to like or not like anything. But please, don't bother me if you have no better thing to say than that I'm "unpopular." If I was concerned with that, I would have left this forum a long time ago.

[Austin]

Originally posted by Coracle

Wrong. Here's why.

First of all, the MANNER in which Culture Flipping is implemented in THE GAME is screwed up:

Very well then, we will restrict ourselves to gameplay arguments. I'll take it then that you are conceding the argument on historical grounds then?

1. In reality. big garrisons do not vanish into thin air without even knocking off some population points and putting the city in disorder.

Sigh. Back to the real world again.

Here you are confusing the overall concept of flipping with one aspect of it's implimentation. I agree that garrisons should not simpy vanish, I think they should teleport to the nearest friendly border.

2. Individual units, or even dozens of units, can NOT make a city and its population vanish as though all the buildings and people were teleported to the Klingon home world. Razing is a total crock.

I'm sure that's comforting to the myriad of peoples that have vansihed from this earth because of just such activities. I'm sure the ghosts of Canaan or Carthage might hold an opposite view. I don't see any Philisitines galavanting around Israel right now, do you? When the Dorians overran Ancient Greece, they did such a thourough razing job that not even the written language survived. What exactly of Roman culture suvived the Vandals?

3. Cities that have been part of one big culture for millennia do not change civilizations. Period.

And your dead wrong. Period. Go look at the examples I posted. Ionia was part of Greek culture for a long, long time. Didn't prevent it from flipping to Rome did it? Ditto for Cyrene, Bithynia, etc. And not a single legion had set foot on the soil of Attalus's domain when that happened.

You will note a conspicous absence of Greek cities lining up to voluntarily join the Parthians or Mithridates

None of the Mongol inroads into central China lasted very long before being absorbed.

4. No city population would ever "depose" the government with a huge enemy army a few tiles away ready to attack them. Not unless they are all retarded.

Holland used to belong to Spain you know. It did exactly that, even though the Duke of Parma and the Army of Flanders was considered the most fearsome fighting force in Europe at the time. I'm sure that we could find countless other examples of this.

5. No city would ever flip when the only city left to the defeated civ is its capital and the other side massively outnumbers you in everything. Proximity to the enemy capital is far too important in the game.

Well you have to have some sort of centre of gravity for a civ, and the capitol is a better bet than any other codeable in the game.

6. Enemy capitals, location of which is crucial for flipping, do NOT just hop from one town to the other as these towns and cities are conquered.

Sure it does. When Japan invaded China and took Beijing the capital shifted to Chungking, and the KMT government continued to function. When the Germans were within sight of the Kremlin during WWII the Soviets had already made preparations to move their capitol to the Urals. When the Brits sacked Washington D.C. during the war of 1812 the American government also relocated.

After France was defeated during WWII, the capital shifted from Paris to Vichy. It was moved back again after Paris was liberated.

So in the game mechanics IT SUCKS.

Make up your mind already. If you are arguing from the basis of history, sorry, you're dead wrong.

If you want to argue from game mechanics, then stick to that.

Historically??

The Roman legions - THEIR MILITARY - caused cities to go over to them, not the writings of Tacitus, Suetonious, or Juvenal. Same with the real Mongol, Assyrian, and other armies. MILITARY INTIMIDATION did it, not the number of poets and libraries you had.

Wrong. The Romans had no significant military presence in the East when Attalus made his will. Not a single centurion had set foot on his soil when it flipped. In fact there were some factions of the Roman Senate who opposed accepting this, as they didn't want to get sucked into a military deployment in the east.

If military intimidation and the size of armies were that influential, then West Germany would have flipped to the Warsaw Pact. And the Mongols would rule the world.

You will note that the Mongols, Assyrians etc got zero flips, which is exactly what you would expect from a primitive culture military empire. The vast domains of Ghengins Khan quickly came apart and were absorbed by the higher cultures of the areas he overran after his death, which again fits the CivIII paradigm.

For those who doubt this, just look at Germania. After three Roman Legions were destroyed (XVII, XVIII, XIX) in 9 A.D. the Romans were never able to conquer, SUBDUE, and COLONIZE barbarian Germania - that despite Roman culture right next to it for centuries. So Culture Flipping is a non-historical crock.

There were no cities in Germania Magna to flip, and nothing there that would count as a "civ" in Civ III terms. The ancient Germans are best represented by a dozen or so barbarian camps. One gameplay element that should be changed in Civ III is that barbarians are far too wimpy, they should function more like they did in Civ II.

The Romans didn't need a single legion to take most of present day Turkey. It wasn't "military intimidation" either, as the Romans didn't have an extensive army in neighbouring Greece.

So much for that "example".

Culture should do only one thing - quicken the pace of assimilation, as happened in Gaul.

Culture Flipping is Soren's idiotic brainstorm.

Assimilation would be meaningless if there wasn't any flipping to worry about, so that makes no sense anyways.

Austin

[FrantzX]

I wonder how many times culture flipping is blamed when it is just the AI using propaganda?

[Stuie]

Marseille just flipped to me in my current game, and who could blame them? First they are French, then the Indians took over, then the French, then the Indians again, then the French, then once more the Indians. Finally the good citizens came to their senses, deposed their Indian overlord, and embraced the Pax Romana. Makes sense to me.

[Nubclear]

Ahh, but I didn't say that... they don't stand for 1 tank, but they probably don't stand for 100,000 either.

But even a small military presence strikes fear into the citizens of any city. History has shown this. Yes there have been revolutions, but can you seriously say that the number of times people have revolted outweighs the number of times they haven't?

Because a battle is fought in a very short period of time, while cultural flips happen over turns (which can mean 100 to 1 years, depending on when you are). If the civilians have the time and resources to form a resistance movement, they can win... but they couldn't possibly do that themselves as soon as an enemy comes in.

A war is also fought over a long period of time. I mean, even one year is long enough to prepare for an enemy, but if you count that it takes quite a few turns for your units to get to their cities, then it can take anywhere from four to four hundred years, which is MUCH more than enough time to prepare. So why don't the citizens use their weapons then? I mean, they don't seem to have a problem with using it againt their own (soon to be) countrymen.

And another thing is, if the people are this strong (Able to take out 20 Modern Armour without even having one citizen kiled) then why are they so weak when theyre drafted? Why don't they put up a resistence when razing a city to the ground? Nothing else seems to fit with the logic of culture flipping, because armed civilians who could do this much damage would certainly be able to do much much more in the game.

Again, it's very poorly implemented. Maybe if some combat actually happend between the citizens and the military units, ok. But since that doesnt actually happen and the military units just disappear, apparently without even giving a fight then it becomes very 'unsatsifying'.

I would say that using longbowmen to defend my city against enemy knights would also be very unsatisfying.

But isnt, after spending so many shields on your precious units, seeing the city defect over to a different side (whom might even be culturally inferior to you...hmm....) be even more unsatisfying?

made a poor choice by putting all those units in the city and you should pay for it.

I recently captured a Russian city and followed your advice, I didn't put one unit in the city. Well, the resistence continued and eventually made them culture flip back. I used my units to fight the one military unit in the city, which eventually became elite and reduced my military to one panzer before i took the city. Since the resistence continued, I eventually had to raze the city because my other military was being used somewhere else.

Heres another scenario: I have a right of passage agreement with the computer. I'm a peaceful person going for a space race victory, and because i'm focusing on peaceful i have enough units to defend my cities, so about 3-4 units per city. Well, the computers units are swarming everywhere. Should I put my units inside the city so they can be protected, or should i leave them out in case of a culture flip? Well, I decide the latter. The computer declares war on me, and takes my cities with ease.

I have a hard time understanding why people think the abstraction of flipping is any worse than the abstraction of combat, or for that matter anything else in this game.

In combat, you have a chance at winning. Even if its an incrediblly small chance, I've seen riflemen fall to warrior before. But in culture flipping, your units have NO CHANCE at winning. Their always eliminated no matter what. I would be satisifed if there were at least a battle and the ones whom survived got to leave the town, but there isn't. They disappear. Nothing is harmed, no civilian is dead. That really botheres me.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
But even a small military presence strikes fear into the citizens of any city. History has shown this. Yes there have been revolutions, but can you seriously say that the number of times people have revolted outweighs the number of times they haven't?

Culture flipping only happens to me 3 or 4 taime a game. That's not bad for 6,000 years of history.

Again, it's very poorly implemented. Maybe if some combat actually happend between the citizens and the military units, ok. But since that doesnt actually happen and the military units just disappear, apparently without even giving a fight then it becomes very 'unsatsifying'.

The combat is the calculation that goes on every turn. I understand if that is unsatisfying, but that brings me back to my orignial point... would graphics make it more satisfying? Is this only a graphics question?

But isnt, after spending so many shields on your precious units, seeing the city defect over to a different side (whom might even be culturally inferior to you...hmm....) be even more unsatisfying?

No, not really. At least, not for me.

I recently captured a Russian city and followed your advice, I didn't put one unit in the city. Well, the resistence continued and eventually made them culture flip back. I used my units to fight the one military unit in the city, which eventually became elite and reduced my military to one panzer before i took the city. Since the resistence continued, I eventually had to raze the city because my other military was being used somewhere else.

That isn't my advice. You always need units to stop the resistance. I usually place 2 or 3 regular defense units in cities I capture... but I never put offensive units in, and I keep the bulk of my forces out.

Heres another scenario: I have a right of passage agreement with the computer. I'm a peaceful person going for a space race victory, and because i'm focusing on peaceful i have enough units to defend my cities, so about 3-4 units per city. Well, the computers units are swarming everywhere. Should I put my units inside the city so they can be protected, or should i leave them out in case of a culture flip? Well, I decide the latter. The computer declares war on me, and takes my cities with ease.

That makes no sense. Your cities, as long as they have no foreign nationals and no overlapping tiles, have a 0% chance of flip. Why would you remove your defensive units from your own cities? Furthermore, if you were really playing a peaceful game, your culture is probably pretty big and you really don't need to worry about even your border cities.

In combat, you have a chance at winning. Even if its an incrediblly small chance, I've seen riflemen fall to warrior before. But in culture flipping, your units have NO CHANCE at winning.

Not true. They win every turn that the game calculates the chance of flipping, and the city doesn't flip.

Their always eliminated no matter what. I would be satisifed if there were at least a battle and the ones whom survived got to leave the town, but there isn't. They disappear. Nothing is harmed, no civilian is dead. That really botheres me.

There is a (graphic-less) battle every turn, as I just said. However, I would like it if some civilans bit the dust after a flip.

[Capt Dizle]

cyclo, not to get you pissed or anything, but would you like to see a concept like this in Candle'Bre?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by cyclotron7

Or is it that two unpopular posters are against flipping, so any loyalist civ'er must be for it?

[sarcasm] I'm unpopular? Oh, that's really a reason my ideas should count for any less...[/sarcasm]

Careful, NYE. I'm not forcing you to like or not like anything. But please, don't bother me if you have no better thing to say than that I'm "unpopular." If I was concerned with that, I would have left this forum a long time ago.

On that note, I believe I will bow out of this round.

Have fun chasing tails all.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
cyclo, not to get you pissed or anything, but would you like to see a concept like this in Candle'Bre?

No, probably not. First off, CB really only has one "culture" as we know it in Civ terms, and second I can think of better ways to implement civilian feeling and sentiment... although the world of CB is very different from Civ and I don't think most concepts are interchangable between them.