Attempting to rid culture from the game

[Jaybe]

Venger,
Just because you raze cities doesn't mean you are killing its citizens. Most are being "expelled"/made refugees, and some are (ahem) assisting in work projects. The foreign workers you can trade or give them back. Do you also object to the mass killing of civilians as you bombard a metropolis down to a town? It's what happens in any period of warfare that involves fighting within cities.

Personally, I have great resistance to hurting ANYBODY. OTOH, I grew up playing military simulations, and now Civ. Any realism is very abstracted, especially in Civ3.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Venger


The inherent assumption here is : raze cities. An insulting option. I'd rather not play Civ as a genocidal maniac...

Venger

BINGO. Exactly.

And note the inherent contradiction and hypocrisy: in a game that supposedly pushes "Culture" at us (often in stupid ways) it nevertheless encourages us to surpass Genghiz Khan, Tamerlane, and Hitler combined as the greatest mass murderers in History, and to do so in ways more efficient than anything Hitler could have dreamed of. Crazy.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Venger,
Just because you raze cities doesn't mean you are killing its citizens. . .

Yea, surrre.

If that was the case we should get a horde of slave labor as workers, or such, or the other civ should have a concomitant increase in the population of its nearest cities to the razed city.

But no, when a city is razed (instantly!) it become suitable for farming and irrigation. The unit that razed it did such a great job it even removed the rubble of the buildings, the roads, the sewers, everything!

Don't waste your time trying to find logic in this. Culture Flipping as implemented in this game is FANTASY. And why Firaxis is determined to push it down our throats I will never understand.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Venger
Take a city on your enemies opposite coast, size 8 garrison it with 5 units of your choice, you WILL lose it, as well as all your units (!?!?!?!).

That is correct. Assuming no culture overlap, you need 8-16 units to garrison the city depending on overall culture, proximity of capitals, resistance, etc. Five units is not much of a stack, even in the ancient age.

[DrFell]

As for affects of culture flipping's changes to the way I play, I find it kind of disappointing the kind of war crimes I have to commit just to sucessfully invade an opposing civilization in the modern era. I experience very few flips, but that's mainly because I raze all of the larger cities except very culturally isolated ones, like towns located at the tip of a peninsula on the periphery of my victim's mainland. Smaller towns are also generally not razed, but I make sure not to keep too many. The last thing a potential modern-day Ghengis Khan needs is to loose his entire Japanese invasion forces to a popular rebellion.

Thing I find most silly about the whole thing is the fact I have to bring my own settlers along to 'resettle' the conquered territories. Of course the international community turns a blind eye to these atrocities time and time again Seems ironic that the concept of 'culture' should turn me into a bloodythirsty conqueror with a genocidal streak.

[DrFell]

Jaybe, you're kidding yourself if you think razing the cities doesn't involve killing the population. A few captured workers (who end up working for no wage building mines and roads around my empire) does not equal the population of a metropolis of over a million people. The way I see it, high culture city plus twenty modern armour equals pile of smoking rubble and dead bodies, and a lot of freed up land. Not exactly what I'd call the most enlightened approach to modern conquest.

[Jaybe]

DrFell, with the exception of refugees, which are not portrayed in the game, I agree with you. I was only saying it was "modern warfare," not "genocide" (a fine point you may disagree with).

If you want to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, then the only bombardment you can do on cities is by Cruise Missiles, which seem to target only defending units. This is what I do when I would like a Marketplace intact and I have the attacking units to spare (or its Modern Armor vs. Infantry).

[Bambul]

I remember when Dan told us that we had the option of capturing cities or raxing them. We all laughed at the option of razing them and mocked Dan for it. Then cities started flipping.

I think Dan decided to get revenge, he is to blame!

Down with Dan!

[whosurdaddy]

If i was to remove all culture from all improvements, would cities still flip simply due to the presence of foreign nationals?
And another thing. I have a size 1 city with 6 legions garrisoned in it that just flipped. I thought if u had more military units in a city than the population, it will never flip?
And I know that I perhaps could handle culture flipping by knowing to immediatley build temples and cathedrals in all captured cities, but the AI is not so sophisticated, so in wars between various AI civs fighting amongst each other, cities captured by the AI always flip back to the AI civ it captured it from, at least in games I've played. The fact that the borders of all the countries are the same in 1000 ad as they were in 1000 bc makes for a real boring game IMHO.

[whosurdaddy]

And how is this culture flipping going to work in scenarios. I can see it already, suppose a scenario begins with the Allies landing in Normandy during the D-day invasion. All of the French cities would therefore have german nationals in them. So the allies land in Normandy, capture and Cherbourg, which then culturally flips back to the Germans in a few turns while the Allies are bogged down in Northern France fighting the Germans , wiping out the entire allied invasion force. Hooray! and very historically accurate ...

[Jaybe]

Someone get the link to the Flipping Formula over here, STAT!

whosurdaddy, it is not culture in the affected city you need to be concerned about, it's the overall culture of the civs. And relative Palace/Forbidden Palace distances. And ...

[whosurdaddy]

Ok, in the editor, there is an option to edit Culture. Among the options, you can set what culture ratios are required for a civ to be "in awe of" another civ, for example. But one of the options is a delete option, for removing entire cultural levels from the game (there are six of them, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3). So has anyone tried deleting all the cultural levels except for the 1:1 level. I'm hoping that if i do this, then no matter how much culture a civ has, the game will always think every civ has a one to one cultural level with it, making culture flipping much less likely.

Also, has anyone tried changing the culture level multiplier under the general settings in the rules editor. I'm not exactly sure what this option does. If i set it to 0, maybe the game will think that every civ has no culture, thereby making culture flipping less likely.

Do you guys think any of these things would work, or would they make the game crash, or what?

[whosurdaddy]

And another question. Does culture take into account the number of cities a civilization has. For example, if my civ has 4 cities, but each one has a temple, cathedral, university, a wonder, etc. But lets say another civ has 30 cities, but each city only has a temple. Does the game simply add up the cultural points of all the cities, resulting that for example, my civ will be in awe of the other civ's culture simply because they have so many more cities than I do (because if you simply add up the culture points, their civ has more culture points than mine), even though none of their cities has nearly the same amount of cultural improvements in each one as do my cities.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Someone get the link to the Flipping Formula over here, STAT!

whosurdaddy, it is not culture in the affected city you need to be concerned about, it's the overall culture of the civs. And relative Palace/Forbidden Palace distances. And ...

Right here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51715

I can't believe that I have managed to read through the whole of this thread... I feel like having it read in the past... at least dozen times...

* sarcasm on *

I am sorry to agree with Coracle, admitting that Civ3 really plays like a fantasy game. Here are my ten reasons to consider it a fantasy game:

1) Great Pyramids (and lots of other wonders): these give you a free granary in every city on the same continent. This is absolutely unhistorical, as pyramids were built as burial tombs for the rulers of the ancient Egypt, not as food storage buildings. Spoils the gameplay for me, because if an AI civ beats me in the Pyramid Race, their cities grow much faster than mine, even though all that civ has is a big tomb for their leader which I have yet to kill.

2) Settlers: to "build" a Settler unit, you consume TWO "citizens" of your city (the concept of "citizens" being another fantasy feature - how big could a city with 1-40 "citizens" be???). However, when you found a new city, only one citizen appears! This is illogical! Where is the other "citizen"? Did he die along the way? He could not have, as I escorted him with a spearman!

3) Military Units: another illogical crock... you simply "build" them... I have absolutely no idea how could a unit of swordsmen be "built". The logical approach is to take some of my citizens, train them and equip them with swords. But no, Civ3 simply "creates" them out of nothing. You do not lose population when "building" units. This is a nonsense, since you can theoretically have an army larger than your population! Although I admit that I am lost when it comes to understanding this "population" and "units" stuff. How many "entertaining citizens" one clown actually represents? How many tanks are there in the Tank unit? How many battleships? How many ICBMs? It is really confusing, as there appears to be no rule of thumb...

4) Tech Tree: this is a major disappointment. There are SO MANY unbelievable stupidities in the tech tree. For example: you can't research Mathematics prior to Masonry (what the...???), Printing Press prior to Theology (uh?), Free Artistry prior to Democracy (Free Artistry allows you to build the Shakespeare's Theatre... the one that was built LONG before the very first democracy emerged!), Ecology prior to Recycling (shouldn't it be just the contrary?) and so on and so on. I can't believe the iditioc decisions of the game designers that are forcing me to take certain paths in the tech tree instead of just leaving me be, researching only the techs that I really need.

5) Lack of early vessels. Oh, this one really annoys me a lot. You have to research: Alphabet, Writing, Pottery, and Map Making to be able to build your first vessel! This is a nonsense. Even without maps, people were able to sail along the coasts. This so much hampers my early expansion!

6) Effect of the Railroads: how come that railroads improve the effect of mining and irrigation? I mean - they have nothing to do with it! Yet another weirdness in this weird game.

7) Great Leaders: while I would understand that a GL can put together an army under his command, I have absolutely no clue how could Ivan the Terrible help finish my Shakespeare's Theatre in one turn, when it takes 20+ years normally! Such a crap!!!

8) Airports. Airports are next to useless, as they can transport only ONE unit in one turn! Means in ONE year! Sometimes even in two or five years! I mean - have you EVER seen an airport? With planes landing and taking off every couple of seconds? Man, airports transport hundreds of thousands of people every year! Also, another subtlety is that an airport can have a "plane" landing or taking off in a given year, but not both... arrrgh...

9) Changes of governments for Religious Civs. Ugh... with, say, Iroquis or Aztecs, you can change your government from Democracy to Despotism instantly! Can you imagine that in the real world??? How could the fact that people in my country tend to believe in God, affect their willingness to accept a different, much worse form of government? I just don't get it.

10) "It's way too crowded here". I hate this. I mean, I live in a city with one million people. I know nobody that would be complaining of that it is "crowded here". Just the contrary: there are more job/business opportunities, more schools/universities etc. And to further develop this idiotical concept... when there is "too crowded in somewhere", you just build a cathedral and the problem is gone! Does building a cathedral solve the problem of a city being overcrowded??? No and no!!!

This game is absolutely illogical in so many aspects, involves hundreds of things that would never happen in the real world, and is basicaly a woeful simulation of the real world. I can't believe Firaxis released such a crap...

* sarcasm off *

Coracle, whosurdaddy, and others,

Don't you realize that it is a game only? A game where there are very simplistic (yet still believable, if taken as a whole) relations implemented in order to have something that is playable? Believe me, the real world is not very playable or much fun - I have been playing it (God knows why, I do not enjoy it that much all the time) every single day since I was born.

Especially, I am having a problem with the late game tedium (the "late game" started at about when I finished my university degree, maybe even earlier). Also, I am having a problem with that things do not appear to have simple solutions... does my girlfriend grow restless? OK, I just build her a cathedral... wait, no, that's probably not it. OK, take her out for dinner! Oops... not enough? Missed the point? Damn, there was no message telling me "50% being bored, 30% being frustrated from the job related problems, and 20% having a dispute with her mother."

Civ3 is a game. Neverending complaints that this or that is not historically accurate or is not like in the real world are ultimately silly. It cannot and never will be like in the real world. While sometimes changing the game rules in one way or another may increase one's feeling of immersion in the Civ3 world, it is likely that there would be others that would find the change spoiling their feeling of immersion.

Try to put up with the fact that it is a game. A game with rules. Known rules. Rules you can learn and master. Believe me, that it IS possible to master this "culture flipping" problem, "settler diarrhea" problem and all the other "bugs" and "misconcepts" you dislike. I myself am a living proof. It took me quite some time to develop an overall strategy that saves me from flips, that saves me from getting bogged down in a territory too small to have any real power...

I will grant you that asking for adjustments in the mechanics of city flips is legitimate. And if you ask for the troops not vanishing, but being removed, damaged whatsoever... you'd have my support. But just saying "city flips suck" is not legitimate, as it basically means only "city flips suck FOR ME". Others (or, majority, if you wish) do not appear to have this kind of problems, or consider it worth mentioning. It is a game feature, even if you don't like it. You want it to be changed? OK, just make up your solution. Post it and try to get some support from the others. If you succeed (means = if the majority would like your idea), I bet there is a good chance Firaxis will at least consider that solution. Repeating "city flips suck" ad nauseam will never get you their attention, I am sorry.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by whosurdaddy
And how is this culture flipping going to work in scenarios. I can see it already, suppose a scenario begins with the Allies landing in Normandy during the D-day invasion. All of the French cities would therefore have german nationals in them. So the allies land in Normandy, capture and Cherbourg, which then culturally flips back to the Germans in a few turns while the Allies are bogged down in Northern France fighting the Germans , wiping out the entire allied invasion force. Hooray! and very historically accurate ...

Actually, you are both wrong and right. The French cities in Normandy were full of French nationals, not German nationals. They were garrisoned by German soldiers, but the citizens were French. When the allies landed, they got a lot of assistance from the French, both active (i.e. French resistance destroying railroad tracks and setting ambushes) and passive (not following German directives, pointing out German defenses and fortifications). So, to a certain extent, the concept of culture flipping isn't entirely non-historical.

OTOH, it is, for the very reasons Venger and Coracle mention (incessantly, for Coracle's part). Culture is an integral part of the game and is, IMHO, an excellent concept for the Civ series. The introduction of culture created a new dimension to the game and forced players, for better or worse, to reevaluate their strategies and focus on formulating new ones. Besides, there is a certain historical precedent for the use of culture. Some countries have it, some don’t. By and large, individuals want to belong to something better rather than worse, and it’s not unheard of for people to “vote with their feet” and move to the better place. This may be for reasons other than “culture” to be sure, but the game designers took a swipe at abstracting this and didn’t do too badly.

But now the flipping thing, I have to agree this is flawed. There should be penalties for having a backward culture that no one wants to be a part of, but the penalty shouldn’t be entire cities defecting at once for no apparent reason and with no chance to prevent it (other than having sufficient culture, but if you had it you wouldn’t be in the spot in the first place). Although the designers hint you could create a sort of “culture borg” that will gobble up all surrounding cities in a peaceful, non-combat manner, I’ve never really seen this happen myself, despite building cultural powerhouse civs and winning cultural victories. Oh, the occasional city will switch my way here and there, but it’s no substitute for military conquest when it comes to acquiring new cities.

Having said that, the flipping thing is *terribly* flawed when it comes to military conquest. It makes no sense that a city, not in resistance and garrisoned to the hilt, will suddenly “revert” back to its old government, swallowing up your mighty garrison in the process. The fact that they do so due to “culture” really runs the BS flag up the pole at full speed. I’d be much more comfortable with civil disorder or partisan uprisings than the entire city defecting because there’s a cathedral in the next town over.

Oh, well. I’d have rather seen culture implemented as a gradual drain on neighboring civs, such as transferring population points, defecting workers or increased border shifts (BTW, I have no problem with border shifts and think borders are one of the best innovations in CivIII) than a catastrophic metropolis flipping event. Perhaps I could even live with culture flipping as-is if it only affected cities size five or smaller. But watching peaceful metropolises defect almost immediately, and taking a vast number of military units with them immediately, well, I’m swearing and looking for the “reload” button....