Culture Flipping: Solutions Only

[Cyclotron]

I don't think your appraoch to culture flipping could work on its own. Rather, it would require core changes to the way the game handles culture in general, as well as population and unhappiness. As a standalone addition to Civ3, I am not in support of your idea, but I find it a bit more pragmatic now that you say many other things would have to change. That makes sense to me.

There are logical reasons for the population elimination features, but unfortunately there are also loopholes behind many of them. Before you can implement any kind of feature dependent on population, culture or not, these would need to be closed. However, as you said, this is a topic for another thread.

I appreaciate the summary you gave of your three points; I'll try to work from that.

1) Regarding military dissapearance. I don't really have a problem with the way it is currently implemented, but it is also true that there exist better ways to implement it. I'll get into that in my final point.

2) Regarding population flipping. Besides the current measures in Civ3 to make this useless, my feeling is that this would be too slow. A culture flip is the result of poor culture, close borders, and a far capital. If you make culture flipping a long term process, I can change all 3 of those factors before a city even comes close to flipping. Although a capital change would only be used in the most dire of circumstances, I could easily rush build cultural improvements in the city to push out its borders, or rush improvements across the empire to raise national culture. All of this would be easy to do... culture flipping would be all too easy to stop, since it is a gradual process.

3) Partisan warfare is negative in two ways in my mind. The issue of military prevalence I shall cover at the end, but the second issue is simply that partisans would never stand a chance. If the partisans don't get to move the first turn, it is likely I can bring in sufficient re-enforcements to crush the revolt (especially if the partisans are as comparitively weak as they were in Civ2). When the age of railroads is reached (and due to the factors of culture flipping, most flips happen at that time anyway) the problem is compounded because I can now bring in the entire bulk of my empire against a handful of partisans around one city. Combined with drafting, it would be almost impossible for a revolt to actually stick.

On the other hand, the partisans could get their turn first. Alright, so it gives them the chance to attack and maybe take the city... but keep in mind that the process is so gradual that by this time the player knows where the trouble spots are and fills them all with military units. He's got plenty of time to await the partisans; there is no surprise to the attack because he knows the only reason population flips is when there is a dangerous culture gap. No player, unless he is severely deficient in units, will be caught with his proverbial pants down by a flip. Again, when railraods come around it only gets worse, because he can move the entire bulk of his forces to the city as soon as flipping may be near, and move them back after the partisans strike and die.

My final point is the idea of military dominance in Civ3. Now, I am aware that many do not like Firaxis' approach in doing so, but it is irrefutable that culture was added to make warfare not as prevalent. I won't debate the validity of that issue here; what is simply is, and this is a thread on solutions to culture flipping.

Your proposed model weighs the actual flip of the city on the military presence. If the military presence is weak, the city revolts without a big fight. Solution? Garrison more soldiers. If the military presence is strong, the city generates partisans. Solution? Garrison more soldiers to fight off the partisans. It makes little difference how the recolt is carried out, the answer is always to use more soldiers and more force. Whether it appeals to you or not, this model increases the role of force up to Civ2 levels; perhaps further. If we intend to just "change" culture flipping, and not the entire point and attitude of the game, this is not a viable solution.

[Harlan]

cyclotron7,
Thanks for your reply. You make good points, but I think ultimately it supports my ideas, not refutes them.

I don't believe this system would require massive changes to the game - just the points I've outlined (plus some AI tweaks to prevent the AI from doing incredibly stupid things like losing or gutting a city from pop-rushing too much). What would be nice is having these things editable in the editor: unhappiness caused per starvation, unhappiness per pop rush, diplomatic penalty from razing, chance of a partisan rebellion if city in revolt, and so on. If I could tweak with these factors I'm sure I could make it work to my satisfaction. Regardless of if any of these ideas are implemented or not, these things should be editable in the editor anyways, and the AI changes like not pop rushing or drafting too much should be done anyways!

If Firaxis doesn't want to implement Partisans, what about at least having a chance of a barbarian horde appearing near revolting and/or low culture cities? The barbarian factor dies out way too early, anyways.

Saying culture flipping would be too slow the way I have it is of course 100% dependant on how it is implemented. There's no reason why it can't be fast. Look how quickly resisters can disappear for instance - many per turn. The speed should be entirely dependent on the forces operating on the city at the time, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, depending.

Anyways, lets say you have a city of 8 and one citizen becomes a foreigner. You can't simply pop-rush, starve, settle or draft him away, because chances are you'll do that to some of the other seven before you get that guy. If you go to the extreme of doing all of the above just to get rid of one guy, you've basically gutted your city and probably caused a lot of unhappiness. Now imagine you have two guys become foreigners, or that it happens again and again. Obviously the only way to deal with this in the long term is to boost the culture of that city and your culture in general. Which is the whole point of what you should be doing.

You further argue that these ideas wouldn't be effective because the player could just counter them by rushing culture buildings in problem cities, garrisoning more military units, attacking and destroying Partisans, and so on. My response would be: exactly! Having the player do all those things takes resources the player would be spending on other things. It costs a lot to rush buildings, I often have trouble affording it and it means my science rate is lower. Those units holding cities or fighting Partisans are doing that instead of conquering new cities. The point is not to make a player unable to respond to culture flipping, but to make a response costly. In Civ2, Partisans would pop up fortified in the most defensible squares around your city. They drive you crazy pillaging. Even if you rush units over to attack them, you lose units, hitpoints and time attacking fortified units on mountains, jungle and so on. The same should happen in Civ3. The main point is not to have the Partisans reconquer the city, though that might happen sometimes (they would be appearing in situations when the city has a strong garrision in it, so the odds would be low anyways). The point is to have the Partisans be a thorn in your side and wear you down. Eventually you may not have enough units to respond to partisan attacks, fight on the front AND strongly garrison cities, and then some cities may completely flip. Look at the Germans in WW2. The Partisans didn't exactly march into Paris or Belgrade straight off (in the second case they did eventually take Belgrade, but only after the Germans were retreating from Yugoslavia generally), but all the partisan activity did tie down a large number of troops and resources, and contributed to the Germans' overall loss.

The long term solution to a Partisan problem is not to simply garrison more and more units. As you point out, that is a vicious circle, continuing until the building and upkeep of all those extra units drags you down. The solution is to boost culture and happiness to make the people be happy with your rule, which again, is the whole point.

[monkspider]

Incredible Harley, I think you have single-handedly solved the Culture-flipping question. Your solution is virtually perfect, I can think of no cheapness or imbalance that could come from this solution. Well done
Are you listening Soren et al?

[Harlan]

Thanks Monkspider,
Though I am a bit puzzled why in this thread and a PTW one you're calling me Harley? The name's Harlan.

[Harlan]

I just saw a notice in another post that there's a conversation going on with a couple of the Firaxis guys right now in a chat room. Apparently its been revealed that the Guerilla unit will be added to the game, so maybe my ideas aren't so crazy after all!

I'd been pretty surprised they didn't include the whole "partisan effect" from the get-go, and I wonder if its because they just didn't have enough time to complete features like that.

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Harlan
Apparently its been revealed that the Guerilla unit will be added to the game, so maybe my ideas aren't so crazy after all!

That is good news indeed! I do hope you are right Harlan.

I would just like to bring up a couple of points in this discusion that I think everybody should keep in mind....

FIRST, whenever we talk about 'changes-of-political-control' (called 'flipping' in CivIII) due to 'social-poltical-factors' (called 'culture' in CivIII), we always talk about cities. Cities, cities, cities. But what about the land BETWEEN these cities? Is that a wilderness devoid of all human life? Of course not! It's just that cities in CivIII represent all the human social activity of the AREA (think of it as the capital of a province if you like). So the next time you see a 'flip', try to form a mental picture of the whole REGION changing it's political allegiance, not just the stone buildings in a small part of it.

SECOND, the concept of 'culture' was added to CivIII as an ALTERNATIVE to sheer military conquest, and like ying & yang, like good & evil, like day & night, it is the direct OPPOSITE to all out war. In effect, it was added as another way of gaining territory WITHOUT the need for military force. To use a real world example, the Soviet Union during the cold war had two ways of gaining territory: they could directly invade (i.e Afghanistan), or they could use 'other means' to make regions join their 'communist-culture' (such as supporting insurgents, propaganda, winning the hearts and minds of the citizens or leaders, and so on). All these 'social-poitical-factors' are REPRESENTED by 'culture' (now you can see why I keep referring to 'social-political-factors'; the word 'culture' is too limited and can give people the wrong mental picture. Even the phrase 'communist-culture' looks....er....strange!).

LASTLY, (and forgive me for quoting from another thread), there is a tendency in the 21st century today to think that sheer military might is all you need to solve any political problem (i.e. garrison a city/region with enough troops and everything will be ok). But the last 50 years has shown us that revolutionaries are a bit more clever than most CivIII payers! They KNOW that they can't take on a well trained/well led modern army face on, so they don't try to. They hide in the countryside and in jungles and use 'other means' to win their fight (such as guerilla warfare/propaganda/popularity/public and world opinion and so on).
After all, sheer military might didn't work for Napoleon in Spain. And although the Americans held all the cities in South Vietnam, and the Russians all the cities in Afghanistan, sheer military might did not stop these regions from 'flipping'. And the sheer military might of nearby Roman legions in 69 and 132 AD did not stop the Jews in Jerusalem from trying to 'flip', even though their cause was hopless (although who they were trying to 'flip' to in CivIII terms is anybodys guess!).
Soooo.....having masses of troops in a city/region DOES help prevent a 'flip' (providing they are motivated/well led/loyal/have enough supplies/not sypathetic to the citizens they are supposed to be suppressing/and have public or world opinion on their side), but it is NO GUARANTEE OF SUCCESS if the other side is using 'other means'.

So there is nothing wrong with the CONCEPT of 'culture-flips' in the game (....except maybe the name....); it is the execution of these 'flips', with vanishing garrisons, no warning and the fact that they are instant that most people object to.
The original idea and what CAUSES a 'flip' is good, but the EFFECTS of a 'flip' are sloppy and need improving.
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Now then, does Harlan's suggestion cover all the items above?
I think it does. It also has the advantage of making 'changes-of-poltical-control-of-a-region' long, drawn-out affairs instead of the current without warning instant one turn 'flip' which gives the current owner no time for intervention.

All power to ya' matey

[Austin]

Harlan, I really like the idea of having assimilation flow both ways.

The only thing I would want to add is the ability to add your workers or settlers to another civ's city. Immigration as a weapon!

Austin

[MiloMilo]

Harlan, Kryten, LordAzrael: all excellent ideas. Obviously you've all built the "Civ3 Mojo" small wonder.

[Harlan]

I just noticed this from the chat log:

21:13:30 [jimmytrick] all i want for Christmas is no disappearing troop from city flips, how about it Jeff?

21:13:58 [JeffreyMorrisFIRAXIS] We know about that feature request. How about maybe.


Given their usual reluctance to say or confirm anything, that's fairly encouraging. If people keep commenting here and agreeing with the ideas, that may help. The squeaky wheel DOES get the grease sometimes. Perhaps the fact that they're even saying maybe has to do with all the recent culture flipping talk on the forums lately.

[Cyclotron]

Ok, Harlan, I have a first question:

As stated previously, flipping is designed partly to enable territorial changes wihtout war. When a city flips, but there are too many garrisons so partisans are created, these partisans obviously can't be the nationality of the civ the city is flipping too... because that would mean war. Are you proposing they be AI controlled barbarian units, or colorless units, or what?

In addition, I understand what you are saying about pop units not being able to be immediatly rushed/drafetd/etc, but it seems like a player would only have a problem if these were one of his own cities. If I capture an enemy city, let's say 100% Greek, it doesn't matter what citizen I get rid of: The more I draft/rush/starve, the better. Even if these are removed as feasable options, I can still rush workers and settlers repeatedly with very little cost as soon as the resistance ends.

Finally, I don't quite agree with the idea of "success by rushing." It will be partially good if culture forces people to spend resources, but a good culture system needs people to focus on culture from year 1. Rushing temples, etc., which you seem to encourage as a success of the system, doesn't sound particularly impressive to me. Frankly, it sounds like a waste of time.

Besides these, I am fairly happy with your cultural model. As is stands, I'm kind of lukewarm about changing culture at all (I am completely fine with the system as is) but in the spirit of your opening post I will confine my suggestions to changes in the cultural system.

[Harlan]

I can't be doing too bad if even Cyclotron7 is starting to warm up to the idea

When a city flips, but there are too many garrisons so partisans are created, these partisans obviously can't be the nationality of the civ the city is flipping too... because that would mean war. Are you proposing they be AI controlled barbarian units, or colorless units, or what?

There are several different ways to go with this. One, you could have them be barbarian. Two, you could have them be owned by the civ they'd flip to, but have the "invisible nationality" flag. What do people think? I've never really used Privateers, so I don't know how well that flag works.

In addition, I understand what you are saying about pop units not being able to be immediatly rushed/drafetd/etc, but it seems like a player would only have a problem if these were one of his own cities. If I capture an enemy city, let's say 100% Greek, it doesn't matter what citizen I get rid of: The more I draft/rush/starve, the better.

In the system I envision, it would be better to have the odds of flipped be determined by percent of foreign population, instead of absolute numbers. In the current system, I'm told that a city of 3, but all 3 are Greek, has the same chance of flipping as a city of 30, with only 3 of them Greek. That doesn't sound right to me.

If you do it by percentage, then having a city of 10, all foreign Greek, and cutting it down ot a size of 5, still all Greek, still leaves you with the same chance of flipping. In fact, in such a system reducing the population could actually be detrimental. Let's say you have a city of 10 with 1 Greek, and you cut it down to 7, but weren't able to get rid of the Greek. You've now increased the odds of flipping, so its a dangerous tactic. What may happen is that you'd try to add native Workers to the city, to dilute the population. That would be a legit tactic, but if you're doing it alot it would be hard to scare up enough Workers all the time. It also runs a danger: until you make the city completely free of foreigners, you could actually lose all those Workers you just added.

In the case of 100% foreign cities, given the fact that its nearly impossible to complete any production while a city is in resistance, you would probably want to add Workers immediately, while the city is in resistance, to help the city when it was most vulnerable. By the time you could build something like a Settler, you would now have a mixed population, and so building the Settler is as likely to hurt as to help your cause.

Furthermore, if you make a Settler to reduce a 100% foreign city, the 1 population in the new city made by the Settler will now also be a foreigner (a very cool feature for Firaxis to add, BTW!). So that city would now have a 100% foreign population, and thus be vulnerable itself to flipping.

Building a Worker in a 100% foreign city could be a bit of a loophole. But what if, when you go to war with the Greeks, there's a slight chance every turn that any of your Greek captured Workers could suddenly be converted to a Guerilla unit? Wouldn't that be cool? Esp. if they're really pissed off Workers. And that would close that loophole, IMHO. It would also greatly reduce the problem of swaping a recently conquered city with native Workers, because native Workers would now be a hot commodity for building improvements, since foreign Workers could turn on you.

Imagine you have one Greek in a stack of Workers who suddenly turns into a Guerilla unit - he obviously would now capture the rest of the Workers, so you'd have a whole slave revolt on your hands! Spartacus here we come Heck, you might even want to GIVE some of your native workers to a civ you're likely to go to war with, to have a potential fifth column in that country. The possiblities are many and fun.

Finally, I don't quite agree with the idea of "success by rushing." It will be partially good if culture forces people to spend resources, but a good culture system needs people to focus on culture from year 1.

Ideally, the formula to determine if a city would flip would partly depend on the local culture values at play in the city, but also the culture values of the entire civs should also be part of the equation. A civ with virtually no culture overall but a rushed Temple and Library in one city should still have lots of problems with that city.

That's how I'd do it, anyways. I think you'd end up with a nearly foolproof system that greatly improves the game without new complications and rules for the player to learn (esp. since it seems the guerilla effect is going to happen anyways, and most of any new rules would relate to that).

Are any Firaxians listening? So many possibilities in this game - I hope PTW is really great.

[Cyclotron]

First off, I'm sick of this wierd flip terminology... so this is how I'm writing from now on:

Person who loses a city: "Flipee"
Person who gains the city: "Flipper" (NOT the dolphin)

Originally posted by Harlan
I can't be doing too bad if even Cyclotron7 is starting to warm up to the idea

I see my post reputation precedes me...

There are several different ways to go with this. One, you could have them be barbarian. Two, you could have them be owned by the civ they'd flip to, but have the "invisible nationality" flag. What do people think? I've never really used Privateers, so I don't know how well that flag works.

Personally, I think the best way to handle this would be using hidden nationality flags. First off, barbarians aren't under the control of the flipper... but if they just joined the flipper's culture, they probably should be. I would recommend that they be colorless units, probably the new "guerilla" unit, that are under the control of the flipper. This would have the added benefit of letting the flipper supporting the revolution: He could use it as a surprise attack, then invade to support the rebels... or, move deviously, he could quickly move units surrounding the city, cutting off re-inforcements, at the same time saying "oh, sorry, we'll move very soon" while their partisans clean house on the city.

Of course, what happens if you stack one of your units with a colorless unit? I've used privateers only now ans then, and never with regular units... what happens when you stack a colorless unit with a unit of your own?

Percentages: I agree that it makes more sense to have flipping based on the population than on raw numbers. However, my comments were more focused on foreign captured cities than domestic ones.

The problem with your system for captured cities is that since raw numbers don't play a part, a city of 1 is as likely to throw off your forces as a city of 12. Obviously, raw numbers have to matter in this situation... there is no way that a metropolis is no more effective at fighting the oppressors than a little town. We clearly need some way of utilizing both raw numbers and percentages.

Perhaps while percentages could decide whether the city flips, raw numbers are compared to the garrison to see if partisans are formed or the forces are expelled... maybe if 1 flipping citizen expels one military unit, a city of 6 greeks and 6 persians under persian control kicks out the garrison if there are fewer than 6 military units, and if there are 6 or more military units 6 partisan units are generated. This way, we can use both raw numbers and percentages.

Furthermore, if you make a Settler to reduce a 100% foreign city, the 1 population in the new city made by the Settler will now also be a foreigner (a very cool feature for Firaxis to add, BTW!). So that city would now have a 100% foreign population, and thus be vulnerable itself to flipping.

That sounds reasonable, especially since the justification behind not capturing enemy settlers is that "it's generally not a good idea to found a town with foreign nationals."

As for workers rebelling in the field, I think that's a little too far. Nobody would ever use foreign workers... there would be no point. Besides, I don't know how slaves 1000s of miles from their country building railroads somwhere are going to come up with weapons...

The possiblities are many and fun.

They are also potentially quite frustrating. Nobody would ever trade workers, because they might cause a rebellion, and nobody would ever use foreign workers for the same reason. At best, they would end up disbanded for a paltry sum of shields.

Ideally, the formula to determine if a city would flip would partly depend on the local culture values at play in the city, but also the culture values of the entire civs should also be part of the equation. A civ with virtually no culture overall but a rushed Temple and Library in one city should still have lots of problems with that city.

Which is precisely why the present formula doesn't take the city culture into account, besides the greater local culture toggle.

Your turn, Harlan... it's turning more and more into somethng I would consider playing.

[dr. blackclove]

I definitely like the idea of using partisan-type units with hidden nationality to handle the flips, with gradual "conversion" of your people into minorities.

Some thoughts from one more scenario builder...

OK, how about this. The chance of an attempted flip depends on the raw number of foreigners in the city and the other factors in the original equation, except for the number of military units. People who are resisters count more than just minorities for causing flip checks.

However, once a flip is called for, you then check if it's a SUCCESSFUL flip or a FAILED flip -- which depends on the strength of the military inside and the relative proportion of minority-culture versus owning-culture. A "successful" flip turns the city over to the enemy and the garrison gets kicked out, wounded, while guerillas get created inside the city. A "failed" flip produces guerillas OUTSIDE the city and resister population inside.

I feel that in cities with foreign nationals, pop-rushing, drafting, and other genocidal actions ought to greatly increase the probability of an attempted flip. This would make it very difficult to mobilize a population against itself... sure, you can draft some riflemen, but each time you do you risk a major insurrection.

You know, one might even be able to resurrect a conquered civilization this way. Imagine your surprise when the defeated Zulus suddenly make a comeback after you start drafting them for the war against the Chinese

[monkspider]

I really hope Firaxis is reading this, this is golden, and a matter of highest importance

[Kryten]

So many good ideas....so much to comment on! I don't know where to start

cyclotron7: "what happens if you stack with a colorless unit?"

I've never tried it myself, but if the stack is attacked then surely there are only two possibilities: either the unit with the best defence will do the defending (I assume Guerillas will have a lower defence than regulars), so they are being protected by the regular army, OR, the enemy picks them out of the stack, so they are being hunted down while contact with regular troops is avoided.
Either way, I don't think it matters.

cyclotron7: "...slaves 1,000s of miles from their country finding weapons..."

Well, recent history if full of incidents of insurgent groups performing acts of terrorism all over target nations (they ALWAYS find ways of smuggling/raising weapons), but you are probably right, players would just disband their foreign workers to stop them rebelling into guerillas (shame....I really liked the "I am Spartacus!", "No, I AM Spartacus!" analogy ).
Of course, you could make it so that workers cannot be disbanded, so the only way of getting rid of them is to add them to a city. After all, those disbanded workers have to go somewhere, they don't just vanish....

While I'm on the subject of Guerilla's abilities, has anyone any thoughts about whether they should cost to be maintained or be free? (like the old CivII Fanatic). Personaly, I think they should be maintained just like regular troops, so there could be situations where lots of no doubt well meaning Guerillas popping up all over the place are placing such a strain on your economy that you are forced to 'withdraw your support' and 'cut their funding' by disbanding them (anyway, there isn't a flag in the editor which allows you to give certain units 'free maintenance').

I also think that it would be nice if we could somehow try to keep these guerillas near their own region. Perhaps giving them a movement of one but also the 'All Terrain as Roads' ability. This would give them an effective move of 3, whether in enemy territory or on your own roads, so helps make it difficult for the little buggers to jet off to other parts of the world, at least untill railways come along (mind you, during the Cold War Angolan & Cuban 'troops' turned up in some pretty strange places.... ).

dr.blackclove: "...failed flips create guerillas OUTSIDE, while successful flips creates them INSIDE the city..."

Good idea, but I don't think that it is neccessary to have Guerillas created inside a city following a SUCCESSFUL flip. After all, if it was successful, then the garrison has been expelled and the insurgents have won their freedom (....well, the freedom to join the superpower next door!), so the rebel leaders would take up office in the new local administration while the 'armed peasants' would be returned to their farms.

dr.blackclove: "...genocidal actions ought to greatly increase the probability of an attempted flip."

I TOTALLY AGREE! Let's try add some moral responsibility to the game and show that good leaders are GOOD leaders! If you want to treat your citizens like dirt then expect them to bite back!
This may also help curb some of the meglomania of certain civ players (myself included! ).

(Sorry that I have gone on for as long as I have, but there is so much to cover. I'll shut up now and give someone else a chance )