Culture Flipping:

[Lord Merciless]

Culture flipping is generally a good idea, but poorly implemented.

[ACooper]

I like it. I love it. I want some more of it!


BTW, it's interesting that less than 12% who responded don't like it. But, this is an unscientific poll.

[Martinus Magnificus]

I think it's rather stupid to continue this discussion whether CF is good or bad. It is clear that some of us like it and others don't. So the only logical solution I see, is for Firaxis to make this a optional feature.

For me, I'd turn it off ASAP, since I think the concept is badly implemented. A garrison of 5-6 units should always be sufficient to prevent CF, and a weaker garrison should never vanish in thin air. Instead, it should be damaged and pushed out of the city.

I would like to know if there's some way to tone CF down in the editor. Anybody?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Martinus Magnificus
I would like to know if there's some way to tone CF down in the editor. Anybody?

Give yourself 100 000 culture points from the start, and disable cultural victory. (If this is possible, I'm not familiar with the editor). Of course this will mean that AI cities will fall for your culture as flies, but it will also mean that one troop is sufficient to keep a size 30, resisting enemy city in your own empire. As long as the AIs do not build up their culture to the same level of course, but if you still have problems, give yourself 10 000 000 culture in the editor.

Which is basically also an answer to all of you who have asked for an option of turn CF off in scenarios: just give yourself 10 times the culture of the enemy, and there will be no problems with flipping, or losing troops in a recently conquered city. There might be a problem in that cities wil fall for you before you even reach it with troops, but that can be quite easily adjusted by decent city placement (i.e. not Borg style; no overlap in enemy cities).

DeepO

[Grumbold]

If overlap is a significant factor it might be easier to tweak the settling distance so nobody settles too close to other cities.

[DeepO]

Grumbold, this was mentioned in this same thread a number of times now (so pardon me if I don't spend too much time on it), but yes, overlap is a factor in the flip chances. Without any foreign citizens and without overlapping foreign squares (squares in your 21-tile city radius controlled by another nation) there is no chance of flipping.

The total culture rating only comes into play once you have foreign citizens or tiles, and will change the magnitude of flip chances. A very high culture will mean you have very low chances of CFs, and most of the people complaining about CF simply do not play balanced, and forget about culture, thinking it is not an integral part of the game.

DeepO

[faded glory]

Right on Coracle! Culture flipping is perhaps one of the most retarded aspects of this game


Hello. I have 30 units in a city and all of a sudden the city "Switches" and those men disappear/defect. What utter BS. This never happened in real life. Nor could it ever. I dont give a flying bobcats ass how hard the palestinians fight. There will never be a palestine until they stop fighting. Some things just dont and cant happen. Culture flipping is one of them. I dont see Israeli troops (having been in the west bank for 50 years) converting to Islam. On the contrary, there are 200,000 Christians and 400,000 jews in the west bank. There numbers are surging each year.

Anyway. What does this all have to do with Civ3? Im just saying. I hate this feature. TAKE IT OUT! LET US DISABLE IT. For those who like. Im happy for you

[asleepathewheel]

I personally like this part of the game. It has never really caused me problems.

But if there is an option to remove CF, then good, people will have to whine about other things then.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by DeepO
The total culture rating only comes into play once you have foreign citizens or tiles, and will change the magnitude of flip chances. A very high culture will mean you have very low chances of CFs, and most of the people complaining about CF simply do not play balanced, and forget about culture, thinking it is not an integral part of the game.

I think you're being a little unfair. Even the most culturally minded player gets hit with it full force the minute they capture an enemy city because the city culture drops to 0. In most of my games I am the leading cultural player and foreign cities are still too much bother to restrain once captured.

If overlap is still significant in increasing the flip chance with a 100% foreign city then it would be useful to prevent the AI from bunching cities too much. If its a negligible factor then the only sensible option remains razing the city to the ground and replacing it with one of your own (or starving it down to minimal population if you prefer).

[DeepO]

Grumbold, I might be unfair, but I do keep my opinion that those that whine most about CF don't bother to build up a lot of culture. And I think I posted the CF formula link somewhere on this thread, which will show you that Total culture is always the biggest factor, even if you're right that city culture drops to 0 when you capture it (in fact it doesn't, it will remember the culture the original player had, and if that is higher then the new owner (which is most of the times the cases), it will add another factor 2 to the chance).

Overlap can be significant, but you don't have to be paranoic about it, and use that as an excuse to raze cities. I haven't done any razing in months, no matter how big the overlap was. Yet I haven't got more then two hostile flips on me in a game either after I helped in the formula thread. The reason is simple, even if you are a warmonger, you will need culture or your new citizens will revolt. If you have enough culture, they will not revolt. If you somehow aren't able to get enough culture (playing at the highest levels can do this sometimes, even if Emperor shouldn't be a problem here), you have to look into other solutions, like WLTKD, or pushing back the enemy territory fast.

There is no problem whatsoever with this, so there is no need for the whiners either: if you can't play the game like it was designed (which is a totally different argument then whether it would be realistic), you either learn it, or quit. Whining only shows the inability to adapt to a given situation.

DeepO

[Thrawn05]

I don't see the big deal with cultue flipping. Cities switching sides is nothing new. CIV SNES had it, and you could call it culture flipping because I (Rome) had almost all the wonders and china had none, so theirs cities were flipping to me like mad. The bad thing about this is that I got all the sucky 90% corrupt cities that took 40 turns to build a damn Mech Infantry.

At least the cities that flip are next to you, that's a bonus for me.


And of course if you don't flipping, edit it.

[Cyclotron]

I have to agree with Thrawn... there are many things in many games that I would have done differently, but I just can't fathom how CF is somehow so egregious that it merits a huge running rant throughout this entire forum. The reaction by a few sore people seems to be very exaggerated compared to the actual impact of the feature...

[N. Machiavelli]

Well, the ranters are going to rant about something regardless. Pick your poison.

[metalhead]

Why does it always seem that the people who complain about CF the most seem to be the ones who are too dense to realize that placing a large garrison in a recently captured city is a classic blunder, on par with starting a land war in Asia? I mean, seriously, people who have apparantly been playing the game for months are STILL complaining when this happens? I would think they would have picked up on the game mechanic by now and realized NOT to place more than 1 troop in a captured city at ANY TIME until the city's original civ has been eradicated, or at least driven far away from the area. Complaining because you don't like it and making constructive criticism, even if done ad nauseum, would be understandable, but losing a garrison in a city because you still fail to grasp the game mechanics is YOUR fault, not the programmers. Play within the parameters of the game as it is now and save yourself (and us) a lot of useless ranting and raving.

Also, borders flipping over resources, while obviously extremely annoying, is not all that unrealistic. I don't know if you realize this, but every nation in the entire world is currently engaged in a border dispute. EVERY ONE! National borders are intrinsically fluid and ever-changing. Now granted, the way such border flipping over resources (which has never once happened to me - because os such phenomena I make sure that reources are safely within my borders) is implemented is a little shaky and unrealistic, but borders change constantly in real life as well.

That being said, I voted for the most popular option - it's part of the game, deal with it (or whatever.) I would have voted that I like it, but it should be made optional for those who don't, but that was not a choice. It really doesn't make sense to not allow culture flipping to be turned off. However, to not adapt to the current state of the game, and then rant when it backfires, is utter stupidity! And, if you really hate that the AI's culture border just claimed a needed resource, well, just march your army in there and take it back!

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by metalhead
Why does it always seem that the people who complain about CF the most seem to be the ones who are too dense to realize that placing a large garrison in a recently captured city is a classic blunder, on par with starting a land war in Asia?

I agree. I just took greece today south of me. I used only Cavalry for this. I kept only two units, both with really low HP, to garrison the city while the rest continued to divide the nation (I usualy never captured, but in this case they had the ONLY coal on the continent).

The concept of boarders was a major selling point for me with Civ3. I hated having chinese forces right next to Rome all the time in Civ SNES, and the senate saying I can't kill any of them (there were 15 riflemen and 10 knights).

I'm sure Firaxis had a hard time trying to figure out how to make boarders. You don't want the game to break down with units that made a tile yours or somthing like that. Yes it could be done better, but tell me a feature in Civ3 that someone hasn't said could be done better?

Hopefully they can improve the system in Civ4. Such as buying/trading land, colonies and forts having some boarders. Things like this.