Culture Flip Formula

[Capt Dizle]

The socially impaired basement kid crack appears to have been an insult. I am not insulted in the least by being compared to Coracle. I know nothing about Coracle personally.

I share his views on several subjects. I do not agree with all that he has said, but I recognize his passion for the game. It would be great if folks gained an understanding of the critics here.

The vast majoirity of the critics are civ-lovers who desire improvement in Civ3. Most are probably TBS veterans and their opinions should be valued by the community, not dismissed.

Prior to the release of Civ3 I had gotten to know well over a hundred TBS gamers from experience with Civ2 and SMAC. These are almost all hardcore gamers of whom it could be said that they eagerly awaited the release of Civ3. From that group, I can't name anyone that is pleased with Civ3, very few who are playing it, and only a couple who come here to post on it.

There is no question in my mind that Firaxis has lost a lot of support. Every online personna equals hundreds of purchasers that never come online to post. My gut tells me that Firaxis will suffer off the shelves in the future because of the poor effort they made on Civ3. Not every title can have Civ in it, and there are a lot of people who will snort and walk past the next time they see a title that begins "Sid Meier's".

Time will tell.

[Fitz]

Deep, JT and Coracle are worlds apart. JT can make a coherant argument when he wants to spend the time to, and usually listens to others, especially those willing to respect him.

Coracle just makes comments that are pure opinion and usually have no basis in fact, and are impossible to support with a argument. Just ignore his posts. Like s***, they happen.

JT, do you still play Civ3? And if so, does this formula help you in dealing with culture, regardless on your opinion as to its implementation, reality or existance as a game feature?

[FrantzX]

It would be very nice if in later patches, the city screen showed the percentages of flipping to each other civ.

[FrantzX]

Looking at this thread, this was certainly a lot easier that trying to figure out the ecodamage formulas in SMAC.

[Fitz]

Yeah, too bad I couldn't get Blake back into Civ3 to work on some of these things with me. I tried, but he had already lost interest in the game. He was the primary tester of ideas when we did the eco-damage formula with Ned. I've always been better on the theoretical side. That's why I haven't been on top of the War Wearines test with Catt. It's pure testing (where as this was pure theory).

[Cyclotron]

Fitz is right, there is a definite difference between jt and Coracle. For one thing, jt actaully sticks to an argument and responds to your statements, and stays on topic much more than Coracle. It's unwise to start calling "DL" unless you're very sure.

[Capt Dizle]

Fitz, no I am not playing Civ3 right now. I do appreciate the work on the formula though. I am just not going to load it up again unless some real changes are made for PTW. My main interest would be PBEM anyway.

I never saw any big difference in the quality of the play based on the AI improvement. If you can play you can beat it. I would rather they not dumbed the game down to benefit that AI, instead, more features that humans can use against one another would have been more my cup of tea.

Right now, I have no more interest in playing Civ3 than Deer Hunter. Of course, Deer Hunter made money didn't it.

Life for "out of the mainstream" gamers is hell right now.

[DeepO]

I apologize (again), it wasn't the most brightest idea. And jimmytrick, I am sorry for implying you as socially impaired, I didn't realize that I mentioned it in the same sentence... I was talking about Coracle at the time (or at least I tried to).

Plus, as I explained above, I wasn't really thinking thoroughly when I wrote that, I was mad. I did try to help him, even if I more or less abused his example as a worst case scenario.

I know you normally give more profound arguments, and whether I agree or not doesn't matter. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions due to my limited experience on this board.

I can understand that, coming from previous Sid games, CivIII is not what you hoped for, I am a relatively hardcore Civ player for 9 years or so. I do like the freshness of this version, but that is only my humble opinion.

So again, jimmytrick (and all others who I've bothered), please accept my apologies,

DeepO

[Switch]

bump
I need this post, but I don't want to find it again when I get home

[DenisV]

Gentlemen, do artillery units count as garrisoning troops preventing culture flip ? It is really important to know.

[Theseus]

No.

[DenisV]

Thank you, Theseus.
Bad luck...

[Charis]

A few more examples

This thread has some very useful information. I wanted
to run some numerical examples to address policy on
maintaining a garrison in a city after capturing it...

Chance of flip = {[(N + S)*C*H*R] - T} / (20*D) [percent]

Troops = {(N+S)*C*H*R} needed to completely prevent a flip

Consesus from this formula:
- Being right next to their capital isn't great, but at most increases
flip chance by a factor of 4, and doesn't factor into #troops needed
- Getting rid of resistors first, and rushing a temple to increase the
squares under your border control is top priority
- WLKTD is the BEST THING you can do to prevent flip!!
- This also shows why starving a city down helps alot
- TOTAL Civ culture ratio is a huge factor, with a straight ratio applying

Let's look at simplifications of the formula for special cases:
I. You take a city and have a number of resistors, while quelling, what garrison size?
T = (2*N+S)*2*1*R (not in disorder, just rebellion, you have no culture in city)
= (4*N + 2*S) * R
If we assume it's on the front line, you're probably losing ~10 tiles at first
T ~ (4*N + 20) * R
That's a huge number! About 30 troops times your national culture ratio
The chance of a flip during this quelling phase will be about 1.5% * R/D

If it's very near their capital and they have twice your culture,
it would have about a 12% flip chance *almost regardless of garrison size*
Why? You need in this example 60 troops to have no flip chance. 1 or 10 garrison doens't matter
II. It's a few turns later and the rebellion has been squashed
T = (N+S)*2*1*R = 2*(N+S)*R
If you do nothing else, odds are still VERY POOR for you
If losing 10 tiles, no WLTKD, twice as far to your capital as theirs, they have 2:1 culture
T ~ 50 troops. Ouch! We're still talking 10% flip chance per turn!
III. You rush build/buy a temple, and 10 turns later expand and force a WLTKD
T = (N+S)*2*0.5*R
Let's say now you're only losing 6 tiles (or maybe you've captured another city nearby)
T ~ (N+S)*R ~ 10*R
If, and ONLY if, your civs total culture is better than theirs, you can now
maintain a garrison there and prevent a flip completely. If instead their culture
is twice yours, with a garrison of say 5, the flip chance is 1.5% per turn.
The difference in this example between garrison of just 1 vs 8 is 2.0% vs 1.2%
In other words, here a huge garrison vs just one doesn't even half the flip chance
WLTKD halves the chances, and so is worth about 10 garrison troop! :P
IV. You starve the city down and rush a library, expanding the borders again
T = (N+S)*C*0.5*R ~ 2*C*R
If you captured an extremely low culture city, C might now drop to 1, but
since it's *cumulative* culture total in that city, more likely it's still 2.
T ~ 2*R -> You want two troops for garrison, X the ratio of their civ culture to yours
That's with WLKTD, and losing 3 tiles to the bad guys.
Double the garrison if no WLTKD, and half it if you control all 21 tiles
V. Much later, you control all the tiles, have only one foreign national there, and culture
T ~ R / 2 with WLTKD or ~ R without
Low culture warmonger civs, or deity games, will still require a garrison.
If instead you have higher culture than the civ of the captured city, tis safe.

Conclusions:
- Standard protocol of quelling rebellion ASAP, starving the city (unless
honor demands you don't), and rushing a temple, is best practice.
- WLKTD in the city is the biggest thing you can easily do right away to help
- Courthouses have no effect whatsoever on flipping chances or garrison needed
- Expanding the borders quickly, or consolidating them by capturing other nearby
cities, is also an important factor
- The ratio of their civ's total culture to yours is CRITICAL!
The flip chance and the risk-free garrison number are directly proportional
- Once you're a factor of four closer to their capital, going closer isn't any worse

*** In the early period just after capturing a city, trying to avoid a flip by
having a large garrison is probably a bad mistake ***

This is the big surprise for me in running the numbers (I also didn't know
WLTKD would cut flip chance in half). I've not been 'badly' burned by this yet,
but that seems to have been lucky (and why seeing it happen not infrequently in
SG games is not simply awful luck). In fact, taking a city of a very high culture
civ near their capital, a garrison of 24 would be only marginally better than
one spearman, in the first few rounds during rebellion, and the potential loss
of all 24 units plus whatever artillery is staggering (artillery don't count as garrison)

The other reason I think I've not been burned by this is that even worst case
scenarios have about a 5-10% flip chance per turn, and I don't tend to leave
large garrisons behind, rather press them forward in a blitz. These results,
and in particular the *CIV* culture ratio also explains why I'm seeing a LOT
more flips post-capture in deity games, which I've not played much til lately.

Looks like I need to change my stance on keeping a large garrison in a city after capturing it in a military campaign (-> get in, quell, get out)

Charis

[DeepO]

Charis, don't get overexcited on the 30 troops * culture ratio thing, this isn't so bad as it looks. If you play for it, a ratio of 5 (yours being better then theirs) is achievable. If you conquer a city of 10, 5 of which rebel, and you don't control 5 of the tiles (a more realistic number then your 10) you would need 8 troops to totally negate the chance. I agree, this still is a large number, but I mentioned before that troops are for fighting, and not for countering culture flipping. With a WLTKD you would only need 4 troops... but I haven't seen WLTKDs with rebellions going on.

And I wonder where you got the (20*D) factor for the distance ratio... it should be map specific. AFAIK we only know it is in the 500-8000 range, with a middle value of 2000. Any info would be appreciated.

It will depend on the situation, but the order of things to do is to
1) garrison to stop rebellion.
2) rush something cultural for border expansions. This is especially true in cities that didn't had culture before you took them, as the cities will 'remember' which civ had the highest culture in that city, and give that civ a bonus 'times 2'.
3) If you can pop-rush, do it. Otherwise only start deliberately starving if you really don't like the situation, and don't anticipate to take the other empire soon. Starving is one of the worst tactics, not in the least because it will prevent WLTKD.
4) WLTKD is, after total culture, the biggest factor in the formula. Keep your people happy, and keep them cultured, and you won't have any problems with CF.

DeepO

[alva]

Say DeepO,

I just don't get the hang of these formulas (way too technical for me, (I tried, but it's all chinese to me)

Would it be possible to give a few more practical examples as in the post above?
This would clarify this rather important part (and fun I might add) to me, and I guess to a lot of other difficult-formula impaired people

Merçikes