Culture Flip: The real issue

[VetteroX]

Um, I really dont think people who support culture flipping understand the main issue. Its not that people agiast it hate culture, or dont build any cultural buildings, its just dumb how it happens. I want everyone who responds to this post to answer A) How can a city with 10, 15, even 20 units in it flip? how does the city flip when it has more of your units in it then population points? Where do thoes units go? B) Why does the city flip back to the other side AFTER ive held it for 50 turns and now theres more of my race in the city then the previous race? C) Why do I have over half the avalible wonders in the game in my cities, tons of cultural buildings, my adviser says everyone likes my culture, my people are happy, and it STILL flips back to the other civ? why?

My problem is I build a huge military AND still have the highest culture, or at least its near the top (I usually play on monarch, sometimes emperor) and I STILL get culture flips. No culture flip supporter ever says anything about these issues, all they ever say is you cant just warmonger. My problem is I DO have a ton of culture and happy people and the enemy cities still flip back to the enemy and I lose anywhere from 2 - 20 units in the process. How can you support this current method of culture flipping used in Civ 3?

My proposals to chance it are:
A) A city with a certain amount of units in it (number realative to its size) simply can't flip, no matter what. You cant have 10+ units in every captued city, so it would be fair.

B) Stop flipping when I have higher culture then the enemy for gods sake...

C) How about pushing my units out of the city and its radius, and then flipping, like the population forces the army out with a surprise attack, it just doesnt make your units vanish into a void...

D) How about give me a warning, like when you get warning for mass barb uprisings? "Sir, our spies tell us that the city of X is prepairing to overthrow our rule there! We must take action to counter it!"

E) like some other poster said, make it an on off option, or at least let us edit it out (does this exist? ive made my out maps, edited units, etc, but saw no edit fr culture flip, if it exisits.)

[zulu9812]

I agree that there should be a pop-up warning

[King of Rasslin]

I am forced to stock up on settlers even after the land rush. I always raze the city an build one of mine on top. And yet, sometimes it still flips! And there are always the AI's that try to recover the land if you raze the cities and forget to bring settlers. Just slaughter them. It is more efficient than losing a dozen cavalry.

[Jethro83]

I never used to take the matter of culture flipping seriously until recently.

I am currently playing a game, standard map, continents, Regent as Egypt. I wiped out Rome early, and wiped out most of Persia (suing for peace and all their techs afterward). Then I turned to take on Babylon (a$$holes beat me to Sun Tzu's AoW). I capture Akkad (since Sun Tzu's is in there). I starve the population to 4, quell resistance and rush build a temple AND cathedral. Long after I sued for peace (and the Egyptian culture and population have boomed there), the city flips back. The temple and cathedral were there for quite a while before the flip (long enough to accumulate plenty of culture), and my nearby cities were well cultured (with cathedrals, universities and J.S. Bach's Cathedral adding to it). WTF?!

A decent idea poorly implemented. But apart from that, I still enjoy the game (at least I could turn around and wipe Babylon off the face of the earth later on, and I did).

If the people want to culture flip to another civ, they should try an exodus from their city, to join the nearest city of the culture they want to join. The whole city shouldn't have to suffer from a minority's need for a different culture (as I said, I had my own nationals, and my own culture there).

[notyoueither]

Starve it to 1 pop.

[Kryten]

Everybody keeps talking about 'culture-flipping' in violent terms. But really it represents or simulates the exact opposite. Let me give just two of the many, many historical examples:-

Hong Kong in the real world:
In 1997 the 99 year lease ran out and the colony was to be returned to Chinese control. Now the people living there didn't want this, the people back in Britian didn't want to lose one of their prize possessions in the Pacific, and the British government didn't want to lose all the revenue and tax that the colony generated. So John Major (the British Prime Minister at the time) had two choices....give it back OR risk a war with China ( ). He gave it back. In other words, it was a non-violent political change of control due to circumstances beyond his control, WITHOUT a war, revolution or rebellion.

Hong Kong in CivIII:
You are playing a game as the English. Suddenly, one of your distant cities 'culture-flipps' to China. You have two choices....let it go OR go to war with China to regain it ( ). You decide to let it go. In other words, it was a non-violent political change of control due to circumstances beyond your control, WITHOUT a war, revolution or rebellon.

And what about East Germany:
In 1990 East Germany 'culture-flipped' back to West German control, DISPITE the size of the Soviet garrison (and with a healthy and vigorous secret police force as well!). Yet another example of a non-violent political change of control due to circumstances beyond the Kremlin's control, WITHOUT a war, revolution or rebellon.

(Ok, so the exact details of these two examples are not totally accurate in a purist sense. After all, you can't expect a game like CivIII to nit-pickingly list ALL of the many thousands of reasons for 'non-violent-political-changes-of-control'! There has to be some abstraction. But the EFFECTS, if not the CAUSES, do simulate real world events).

Nonetheless, I DO agree that there should be an 'off' button. Everyone should be allowed to play the sort of game that they like....that's what an editor is for .

[Jaybe]

As an alternative to having a game option of no city flipping, how about thorough documentation (with examples or tutorial) about the matter, straight from Firaxis. In print, with the update. Not just on a web site.

It might be easier (or harder) for Firaxis to provide education on the subject rather than provide the on/off switch (referencing Firaxis diversion of staff to 'other projects').

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Starve it to 1 pop.

thats what i usually do. i starve / pop rush until it's a size 1 with like 6 or 7 units in it. i pop rush a temple and a library, so it gets a basic cultural background for only 2 gold per turn.

(plus expanded borders in enemy territory speeds up troop movement)

[King of Rasslin]

Babylon always tries to culture bomb me. Worse, they act so innocent about it, but I know of their intents

I play the game their way and culture flip their city. Then the real war begins.

[Oligarf]

The culture flipping is a bit too much of the good, totally agree. The examples you give VetteroX seem to be not quite realistic. Sometimes it should be tempered but sometimes it should be stronger, I have games where I am the absolute king in culture (on a low level of difficulty, but that doesn't matter) that I almost could imagine that a complete civilization would flip, but not even one little city. Some documentation would certainly help, then we know what actually is happening and what not.

[ChaotikVisions]

I think a better way for culture flipping to go would be someone elses superior culture or whatever affects it creates revolutionarys(different from resisters, i'll explain) in your city. Revolutionarys if theres enough of them to overwhelm the garrison, will overthrow the city and join whatever civ. Make it so revolutionarys are harder to quell, but this way there would be at least evidence of it going over, and a way to stop it if you're quick enough.

[Kryten]

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
I think a better way for culture flipping to go would be someone elses superior culture or whatever affects it creates revolutionarys(different from resisters, i'll explain) in your city. Revolutionarys if theres enough of them to overwhelm the garrison, will overthrow the city and join whatever civ. Make it so revolutionarys are harder to quell, but this way there would be at least evidence of it going over, and a way to stop it if you're quick enough.

A good idea, but it still wouldn't cover non-violent political changes of control, without a war, revolt or rebellion, that are due to circumstances beyond your control.

(There were no revolutionaries fighting in the streets when East Germany 'flipped' to the West.)

[wrylachlan]

Re: Culture Flip: The real issue

Originally posted by VetteroX
Um, I really dont think people who support culture flipping understand the main issue. Its not that people agiast it hate culture, or dont build any cultural buildings, its just dumb how it happens. I want everyone who responds to this post to answer A) How can a city with 10, 15, even 20 units in it flip? how does the city flip when it has more of your units in it then population points? Where do thoes units go?

First off, culture flipping is an abstraction, and this is a game,not a simulation, so realism isn't the be-all and end-all of the game mechanics. As such you can't argue with me "How can a city flipp..." blah, blah, blah, because you are talking about the real world which I as a gamer don't care about. How could a city with 20 units in it flip? In real life it probably couldn't. And your point is precisely what?

Also, as many other people have pointed out, culture flipping is an abstraction of a number of different cultural mechanisms, like the HK, West Berlin analogies above, and also medieval lords pledging their allegiance to different kings. Just look at how the clans in scotland changed sides back and forth continually in it's many wars with england, and you will see many cases of culture flipping.

So in answer to your question A above: in real life it can't, in real life it can't, and I have no idea and don't care.

B) Why does the city flip back to the other side AFTER ive held it for 50 turns and now theres more of my race in the city then the previous race?

This one is easy: two words - Random Seed. Each turn there is a percentage chance that the city will flip, and as you add culture to your city the percentage chance goes down, but it does not become zero. Is the chance 50 turns later incredibly small? Yes. Did you get incredibly unlucky? Yes. Does that mean the game is broken? No. If you make a save game right after you take the city and reload it with a new random seed, every 10 reloads or so you will see the city flip. If you manage to get out to 50 turns later and do the same save-reload-new random seed you will only see a flip once every 1000 tries or so. This seems fair to me. How can you blame the game for your own bad luck?

C. If I have over half of the avalible wonders in the game in my cities, tons of cultural buildings, my adviser says everyone likes my culture, my people are happy, and it STILL flips back to the other civ? why?

America could take over Iraq today, spend billions and billions to feed each person, clothe each person, employ each person, and give each person a lifetimes supply of Snickers bars, and my guess is they would still want their freedom. This seems totally logical to me. Just because your culture is great doesn't mean that people like being forcibly assimilated into it.

My problem is I build a huge military AND still have the highest culture, or at least its near the top (I usually play on monarch, sometimes emperor) and I STILL get culture flips. No culture flip supporter ever says anything about these issues, all they ever say is you cant just warmonger.

That's because we don't consider them "issues" just known gameplay mechanics that you have to base your strategy around.

My problem is I DO have a ton of culture and happy people and the enemy cities still flip back to the enemy and I lose anywhere from 2 - 20 units in the process. How can you support this current method of culture flipping used in Civ 3?

Since the exact same thing can happen to my enemies, I try to strategize a better way of dealing with it than them, so I can win. The same as with every other part of the game design.

My proposals to chance it are:
A) A city with a certain amount of units in it (number realative to its size) simply can't flip, no matter what. You cant have 10+ units in every captued city, so it would be fair.

B) Stop flipping when I have higher culture then the enemy for gods sake...

C) How about pushing my units out of the city and its radius, and then flipping, like the population forces the army out with a surprise attack, it just doesnt make your units vanish into a void...

D) How about give me a warning, like when you get warning for mass barb uprisings? "Sir, our spies tell us that the city of X is prepairing to overthrow our rule there! We must take action to counter it!"

E) like some other poster said, make it an on off option, or at least let us edit it out (does this exist? ive made my out maps, edited units, etc, but saw no edit fr culture flip, if it exisits.)

Even though I don't mind the way culture flipping currently works, I'm pretty open to suggestions that would make it more realistic (note - I don't mind as I said before that the mechanism is not totally realistic, but nor do would I mind if they made it more so, so long as the game mechanics and strategies it led to are interesting). As such, I think A, C, and D make a lot of sense. B doesn't because it becomes unbalancing, escpecially since it takes a long time to change the total culture, and also because it doesn't really make it more realistic. As I mentioined above in my example with Iraq, a larger total culture doesn't really make everyone love you, no matter what the propaganda says.

As for E, as many other posters have brought up, this may take some major rethinking of the AI. I don't know that for sure, since I've never actually seen the code. If it can be easily done, I'm all for it, but if it's a major effort, I would much rather have firaxis working on something else.

[Cyclotron]

This thread started as, and is continuing to be, a duplicate of all the other threads on this topic. This isn't "the real issue," it's just the same issue re-hashed for our (?) enjoyment. It's plainly obvious to me at this point that the two "sides" will never agree... and that's fine. But I fail to see why starting a new thread is even slightly productive.

[Capt Dizle]

I am trying to produce a change in the game.