Culture Flip: The real issue

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Insofar as whether or not the lost military units from a cultural flip should be considered a game flaw or something else, I would submit that, in the context of MP at least, it's a gross flaw.

I don't agree, but I'll listen to your argument.

I speak as someone that has played a lot of PBEM, invested lots of time, and played tight games with excellant human players. Losing a large stack to the uncertainity of cultural flips would basically stop one from playing, else, a strategy of razing all captured cities would have to be used. And this is also enough to kill any desire to play.

Okay... but isn't the uncertainty of flipping the same as the uncertainty as losing units in battle? What I mean is, if I lost 8 cavalry to 2 riflemen, I would be upset. To two pikemen, I would be more upset. But the fact that the numbers went against me would not make me stop playing.

It also strikes me as interesting that there are more controllable factors in flipping then there are in combat: In combat, you have ADM values (which you control by the type of unit), terrain modifiers, terrain improvements, and the status of your unit. In flipping, you can control the number of enemy tiles in your city radius, the number of resistors, the number of enemy citizens, your national culture, and the military units in your city. So my quesiton is, why is it an uncertainty if you have so much control over it?

I respect that you are a seasoned PBEM player, but I have played Civ3 quite a bit and I have never razed a city after it flipped away. I either let it go in peacetime, knowing that I mihgt get it back by building up my culture, or I re-captured the city if in peacetime. Flipping has never once forced me to raze a city.

Even if a formula could be discovered that would be 100% accurate it still would be unacceptable. It would eliminate the ability of casual players from being even remotely competitive, as the "in the know" mathheads would have a huge edge. What a frustration to drive people away!

Alright, so first you are complaining that the system is unpredicatable, and now you are saying it is wrong even if predictable...

"In the know" mathheads already dominate combat. Do you actually calculate combat odds when you attack? I never do. Cavalry has a greater attack than musketmen, but I have to be careful or be in the majority if the musketmen are on hills or forests. If they are on mountains, I bring in the cannon. I do all of this without using the victory calculator, and I handle culture flipping in the same way. All you have to do is build up a large culture, and keep the bulk of your forces out of the enemy city until the enemy is extinct, you have assimilated the population, and civil disorder is over, etc. I seem to manage just fine, and I am no mathhead.

As far as single play, almost all of us will learn in a few games how to beat the AI standing on our head. In this case it comes down to taste, and for me, its a bitter pill to swallow.

Understood. It is an issue of taste. I conclude that the "real issue" of culture flipping is simply taste... not a fundamental flaw or "bug."

[Capt Dizle]

Well, all I can say is if you are correct, Firaxis has done far more than just create a game, its a wonder of the world. In any other game a stack of units going poof without the semblence of a rational explanation would be considered a bug, in Civ3 its a feature. Might as well have dissapearing cities, continents and civs.

You can talk till you are blue in the face to justify it but its still nonsense. I will say you have done a great job debating the issue, cyclo. Imagine how effective you might be if you were on the right side of an issue.

[Coracle]

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? 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.)

Soren seems to love culture too much to make it a toggle on/off option.

I've said for many months it is indeed DUMB how it is implemented in game terms. Dumb, and non-historical.

1. I had a Roman city (Antium) of '12', that had been Roman since the start of the game 5,000 years earlier FLIP to me as the Iroquois. Ridiculous. A population doesn't give up on millennia of culture to join another civilization.

2. I once had a town of '5' with EIGHT samurai as garrison flip, and the entire garrison vanish into thin air and the town not lose so much as a single population point nor even go into disorder.

3. The Greeks were defeated by me in war and left with only a small capital on an island, but still a just-conquered city flipped back to Greece even with my gigantic army two tiles away ready to destroy them.

4. Razing cities is, ironically, the ANTITHESIS of the "culture" concepts so beloved by Soren. Razing encourages genocide and ethnic cleansing.

5. Razing in implementation is absurd. A single damaged unit can instantly make a city of millions vanish, turn it into grassland, and
process all the corpses (into pet food, perhaps??). Ridiculous.

6. Flipping occurs over BORDERS, too. I once had one flip over my garrisoned fortress and resource all in a town's production radius; they also flipped over my garrisoned colony. In each case
I was insulted by the stupid AI and told to leave. Since I wouldn't, I was denounced as a warmonger and civs I would not meet for another thousand years would hate me forever. Idiotic.

Part of the problem is the issue of proximity of the flipping city to their capital - and that becomes a worse problem as the capital AUTOMATICALLY jumps from one conquered city/town to another. In Civ 2 taking the enemy capital actually meant something.

Thus, proximity to the capital should count for NOTHING in this issue.

Culture Flipping is non-historical, a pain in the ass in game terms, and just entirely unrealistic and silly.

Culture as a concept should make assimilation quicker, and make the civ more stable and less likely to fall into disorder. Culture can impress foreign civs giving you more influence diplomatically. But culture flipping borders and cities are NONSENSE.

Note: in over five years of debate about Civ 3 after Civ 2 came out NO ONE ever asked for Culture Flipping. We asked for a lot of good stuff Firaxis never gave us, but they gave us this Culture crap no one but Soren wanted. GET RID OF IT.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
. . .Firaxis has done far more than just create a game, its a wonder of the world. In any other game a stack of units going poof without the semblence of a rational explanation would be considered a bug, in Civ3 its a feature. Might as well have dissapearing cities, continents and civs. . .

Yea. What other people rationally would consider a bug Firaxis considers a feature.

Firaxis: the fiery axis of the bizarre.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Well, all I can say is if you are correct, Firaxis has done far more than just create a game, its a wonder of the world. In any other game a stack of units going poof without the semblence of a rational explanation would be considered a bug, in Civ3 its a feature. Might as well have dissapearing cities, continents and civs.

The game is an abstraction, all games are abstractions, and this happens to be one abstraction you can't handle. That's fine. It's feature to me and I'm glad it's in the game. I think, however, the fact that it is mentioned in the manual and has a algoritm behind it makes it impossible that it could be a "bug" as we know the definition of that word.

You can talk till you are blue in the face to justify it but its still nonsense. I will say you have done a great job debating the issue, cyclo. Imagine how effective you might be if you were on the right side of an issue.

Well, I say what I think, and the same can be said for you. In the end, however, I think we are both likely to agree that culture flipping is as much a part of the game as anything else, and change at this point is unlikely. I do, however, wish you the best of luck in your "quest for the toggle switch."

[Capt Dizle]

Well, I can't devote the rest of my life to campaigning against this. About two more years of complaints will about be my limit.

Maybe a little more, I dunno.

I might sound a little wacked posting about this next year when Firaxis is promoting their next game. Probably Civ3: Test of Patience or Civ3: Multiplayer Fool's Gold Edition.

[Kryten]

Re: Re: Culture Flip: The real issue

Originally posted by Coracle
6. Flipping occurs over BORDERS, too. I once had one flip over my garrisoned fortress and resource all in a town's production radius; they also flipped over my garrisoned colony. In each case
I was insulted by the stupid AI and told to leave. Since I wouldn't, I was denounced as a warmonger and civs I would not meet for another thousand years would hate me forever. Idiotic.

Please forgive a Brit for talking about American history (and I'm SURE that you have heard of these before )....

In 1830 there was a land dispute between the state of Maine and the Canadian province of New Brundswick. The Maine lumbermen sought control over the present-day Aroostock County. This so called 'Aroostock War' was settled by the Webser-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. The land changed from Canadian to US control and the Canadians told to leave (the Canadians COULD have gone to war over the matter, and "....been denounced as warmongers by other civs....", but quite sensibly decided not to).

Oregon Country: after much dispute and joint Canadian and United States occupation from 1818 to 1845, the whole of Oregon was ceded to the US in 1846, without a war and despite any military garrison.

And as for violent 'changes-of-political-control'.....
The Texas Revolution: the revolution broke out in autum 1835, and following the victory at the battle of San Jacinto in April 1836, Texas temporarily became an independant nation. Nine years later in 1845 Texas joined the United States and actively participated in the following Mexican War (in Civ3 terms she 'culture-flipped' to the USA, in spite of the Mexican garrison, which was destroyed in the revolt. Mexico then tried to re-conquer the area, lost the war, and was "....denounced as warmongers by other civs....").

Sooooo....if things like these happen in reality, why is it 'unrealistic' to have them happen in the game?

[MarkG]

in over five years of debate about Civ 3 after Civ 2 came out NO ONE ever asked for Culture Flipping.

beyond the fact that you must be the only man on earth to have participated in ever civ-related discussion in every possible way(forums, usenet, mailing lists) the last 5 years, check out the following

ethnicity model

http://apolyton.net/civ3/suggestions/thelist/radical.shtml

suggestions for rebeling cities due to unhappiness or religious reasons by Jonathan Cedrum and Mieke Meijlink

http://apolyton.net/civ3/suggestions/tfc3h/c_conc04.shtml

[FrantzX]

And MarkG uses strange, alien concepts like 'logic' and 'facts' to argue his points.

[VetteroX]

Again Kryten, thats not the issue. Its one thing to flip, the mexicans didnt have a very powerful force in there. The problem is, that in civ 3 terms it would still flip even if the Mexicans had had a garrison of 200,000 elite troops and multiple divisions of tanks and planes in Texas vs a few thousand people with muskets. And then thoes forces wouldnt have been pushed out like they were, they would just vanish into thin air. Thats the flipping problem.

[Kryten]

Originally posted by VetteroX
Again Kryten, thats not the issue. Its one thing to flip, the mexicans didnt have a very powerful force in there. The problem is, that in civ 3 terms it would still flip even if the Mexicans had had a garrison of 200,000 elite troops and multiple divisions of tanks and planes in Texas vs a few thousand people with muskets. And then thoes forces wouldnt have been pushed out like they were, they would just vanish into thin air. Thats the flipping problem.

I totally agree with you about the 'vanishing garrison' problem. I know that I have bent over backwards (!) in the past trying to justify it, but not any more, because in my heart-of-hearts I KNOW that it's wrong. So you've got me there

However, about the 'violent-change-of-political-control' (misnamed as 'culture-flipping' in CivIII)I have an observation....

Many people in the 21st century today (yourself included) seem to think that total military might is all you need to solve any political problem, i.e. "throw 200,000 elite troops in as a garrison and everything will be ok". But I'm afraid that the history of the past 50 years has shown us that revolutionaries are a lot more clever than CivIII players! They KNOW that they can't take on a well trained/well led modern army, so they don't try to. They stay in the countryside and jungles and fight their wars by 'other means' (such as terrorism/propaganda/world opinion/popularity and so on).

After all, if all it takes is masses of troops, then why are there so many 'freedom fighters' fighting civil wars in so many countries of the world ? (although I admit, they are fighting because they are not in power. If they succeed, then they stop fighting). Why didn't the Americans, who held all the cities in South Vietnam, win the war? Why didn't the Russians, who held all the cities in Afganastan, win their war?
Yes, having masses of troops helps (providing they are loyal/well led/not sympathetic to citizens they are trying to supress/and public or world opinion is on there side), but recent history has shown us that sheer military might is no guarantee for success if 'other-factors-beyond-your-control' also apply.

[Cyclotron]

I agree with Kryten. Although culture flipping is undoubtedly unrealistic, and the removal of units could be improved on, the power it gives to culture and takes away from warfare is actually very realistic itself. Military is not a complete solution, and it is rightly not a complete solution in Civ3... there are many factors.

[King of Rasslin]

Culture buildings give so much benefit as it is. Happier people and science. Wonders give awesome benefits. Losing a single city to a culture flip is ok, but 3-4x in a game is too much. Culture flips should be less likely than getting a great leader.

[Travathian]

Its funny all these people talk about 'i had so and so city, with so and so units in it, and so much culture' blah blah blah.

Ok, so that one city flipped. How many didnt flip? Come on now, be honest, how often do cities really flip? I haven't kept track of how many games of Civ3 I have played, but given I was unemployed from Nov thru March, I played a he11 of a lot of Civ. Up until 1.21 I think cities did flip too often, but it never bothered me. I accepted it as part of the game. Since 1.21 it has barely happened. I've played 4 games on 256x256 pangea maps, all of which got to the point that I couldn't build any more cities cause the game hit the limit. There were a total of 8 flips, 6 for me, 2 against me. All four of these games went well into the 1900's. That's a whole lotta turns and a whole lotta cities which COULD have flipped, but didn't.
Cities flipping are the exception, not the rule. Plain and simple, its such a small portion of the game, I can't believe it gets this kind of response from such a small group of whiners.

Oh, and as far as realism . . . are there any parts to the game that are real? No seriously, are there? As far as I can tell its 99% game and a small dash of historical context (not historcal accuracy).

[graeme]

I agree with Kryten. Although culture flipping is undoubtedly unrealistic, and the removal of units could be improved on, the power it gives to culture and takes away from warfare is actually very realistic itself. Military is not a complete solution, and it is rightly not a complete solution in Civ3... there are many factors.

OK I did say to myself that I wasn't going to keep on banging on about this, but I started my first game for a week or two and the same old problems arose. (I also faced the old uberspearmen, one killed 6 legion but I guess thats life.)

As I see it the game has an overiding emphasis on the control and colonisation of land, and yet fighting small wars to seek control of strategic positions is often made insanely difficult by flipping. If I start a war to control and push back the borders between myslef and an opposing Civ, I risk alot of effort being wipped out from flipping cities.

The only way to effectively fight wars is to completely crush opponents sometimes razing cities as you go. Thus I fail to see how flipping balances the militaristic aspects of the game.

As a further example in my latest game:

Romans, 8 Civs, Pangea, Monarch

Early in the game I indentified a choke point between myself and the French which I plug it with troops and then a city. This leaves me with a "node" to occupy without interference. (I also meet the Russians through trapping their scout in.) Once ready I declare war with about 20 legion +some defensive troups on France, I am also at war with Russia as they started making silly demands of my backwards Civ.

My goals:
1) To get free of my land mass
2) To defeat the French so that I can get all missing Techs from peace settlement
3) To get access to the Russians
4) To get world maps

The war goes well I capture four French cities defended with 3-4 spearmen sue for peace and get good terms. The Russians together with Greeks and English are to the right, so I push on the Russians. In the occupied French cities nearest to "France" I start building temples. And here is the problem, these citites are far from my captial and are thus majorly corrupt 1 in 7/8 shields, so they can only build a temple in 50/60 turns. I can't rush a temple as it costs to many citizens. But they are near the new French capital and thus likely to flip. So even though total culutre is the same, guess what Paris flips. This cuts off my reinforcements. Arggh.

I reload, switch to Republic (as I have lots of gold to buy improvements), and Avignon flips which I'm not happy about but live with. And a soon as possible I buy temples for the other citites. I don't see how this was avoidable without me crushing France in the first instance. Please explain if I am missing something?

Also Lyon is very near my capital, (they put a Settler in a galley) and even though it seems to be in exactly the same situation as Paris/Avignon it of course hasn't flipped.

And yes when I fought the Russians they where crushed ruthlessly

Graeme