One of my cities flipped to the AI which was miles away from my territory....

[DeepO]

Tiberius, maybe your example is valid, but I think it is already complicated enough... it's okay like it is calculated now. Plus don't forget that even if you count every foreign citizen as half a citizen of another nation, you increase the flipping chances a lot: in a game with 16 tribes, whenever a citizen has a foreign member, it could flip not to one, but to 15 other nations... a bit too much if you ask me.

To Nikolai: you do not always see what is happening, which means sometimes you don't understand it either... something that the AIs do quite regularly is to add slave workers to cities. If you do that, you gain a foreign city in the middle of your territory, which can cause problems of course. I lost a city like that once too: I created a wonder building city from my second city, and added a bunch of captured workers to it to get it quickly to a decent size. After my first wonder was build, it flipped on me

From now on, I only add workers to my capital, as it can't flip (or at least I have never heared of a capital flipping). Other workers added are always my own, or slaves from a tribe that has been exterminated. And yes, I do use it a lot to buy workers from a tribe, and add these instantly to my capital: those 30 gold a worker costs is no comparison to the added advantage for you, and the disadvantage to the other in the beginning of the game. Just remember that having slaves running around will deteriorate your relations with their home country...

DeepO

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Traelin
make sure you have two military units for every one foreign national in that city. That'll prevent flipping, which is exactly what I did after I reloaded.

I say that you should just starve or pop rush all of your foreign nationals. That way you don't have to worry about cities flipping back to their former civ. I usually rename the cities after they have been "cleansed"

[vmxa1]

I am fond of starving them down to size 2 or even 1. Start them on a temple or rush it and let them bring in my 1 shield till the game ends if my empire is large enough.

[Kampus majore]

Well I figured out what happened:

The Indians declared war on me a while ago. Since they were far away I did not worry. They landed some units on my shores and also a settler. I got rid of all of them.

Later I used the workers out of that settler to speed up the growth of this city. And now it flipped.....

Here is a sav:

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by DeepO
in a game with 16 tribes, whenever a citizen has a foreign member, it could flip not to one, but to 15 other nations... a bit too much if you ask me.

Not to 15 nations, only to 3 or 4 or so: only to nations from the same cultural group as the foreign citizens, so only to every 5th civ.

Don't get me wrong, I can live with the current calculations. It's just something I'd like changed, if possible.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Kampus majore
The Indians declared war on me a while ago. Since they were far away I did not worry. They landed some units on my shores and also a settler. I got rid of all of them.

Later I used the workers out of that settler to speed up the growth of this city. And now it flipped.....

Yep, that's what I posted above... It happened to me once too. But you learn from this, critical cities do not get captured workers anymore, or it has to be my capital, or the other nation is extinct (but then, slaves are really worth their money: free workers, without any repurcussions!)

Tiberius: from the same cultural group could work, but it would still, IMHO, make things too complicated. Even now a lot of players don't understand exactly what is happening, which leads to too many complaints already. That would only get worse

DeepO

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by DeepO
Tiberius: from the same cultural group could work, but it would still, IMHO, make things too complicated. Even now a lot of players don't understand exactly what is happening, which leads to too many complaints already. That would only get worse
DeepO

I don't mind if they won't understand why did their cities flip to me

[Kampus majore]

I did not know or maybe realize that foreign workers trouble your relationship with other civs. Now I know why even my most friendly neighbour eventually became mad at me!

Now I have all my "slaves" disbanded, so their attitude is approving.

By the way, how do you keep up in tech with the AI on Emperor level or higher? In this game I was really behind, but in my current game I also have fallen behind. I am closing in, but not fast enough I'm afraid. How do you guys deal with this problem?

[DeepO]

Kampus, I never disband slaves, that is a waste. Indeed, they trouble your relations with the original civ, but who cares? If you want to get rid of them, there are a couple of possibilities:
- you can disband them (baddest solution)
- you can add them to one of your own cities (look out if you have cultural problems for flipping)
- you can destroy the other civ (free slaves!)
- you can sell them back to the same civ, which will improve your relation with him. However, it will also give him an advantage
- you can sell them to another civ, thus making his relation with the original civ worse
- personally, if I want to stop the slavery, I add it to a city which is at the point of building a settler. With a bit of luck, the settler will take 2 pop points: one of your own, and the slave. If you later build a city with that settler, it will be your own nationality.
You could of course also do this with a settler with multiple foreign citizens, but if you take 2 foreigners of the same kind, the settler will be of that nationality. If you later build a city with it, it will start with a foreigner as pop.

How to keep up with tech on Emperor: trade techs (researching yourself the techs the AIs won't research first), or extort them through war. Or, if you see someone gains an important tech, buy it from him (will be very expensive if you're the second to get it), and sell it to everyone else to recuperate the cost. In the right situation, being a tech broker will even profit you.

Further, look out for the 2 tech wonders: in Emperor it is possible to get the great library first without a leader (on deity it is not), through this wonder you will be able to set research to 0% and still be up to date. Use that money to build either research infrastructure, or wage war.
The ToE is, in my mind, the best on Emperor: if you bee-line towards it, and gain atomic theory and electronics through it, you can sell atomic theory to everyone else for all the techs you might have missed, plus most of the times all the money the world is rich. This will keep you one tech in front, and is most of the time the turning point in a game that wasn't superb to start with.

DeepO

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by DeepO
- you can sell them to another civ, thus making his relation with the original civ worse
DeepO

Wow, good idea. Twisted and evil; I like it !

[DeepO]

yeah... too bad you will only get 30 gold for them But all civs will buy all the workers you offer to them, as long as they can pay it. In one of my games, I was buying workers from one civ, just to immediately sell them to another. If you look out, you can easily buy 20 workers in a game, especially in the earliest stages (when the capital is building workers a lot). They can really make a difference then

DeepO

[Tiberius]

Actually I'm even considering giving them for free, as a gift! I consider it as an investment in espionage.

Yamm, yamm, I can't wait to start some puppet wars with this strategy

[Tiberius]

What do AI civs do with freshly bought workers? Do they add them to cities or keep them for work? Because if they add them to their cities, then maybe I'll give them some of my beloved workers ...

[DeepO]

now, don't get over excited... I only sold them other slaves yet, I did not plan on giving them one of my own citizens... I do not know what they do to them (it might depend on the situation), but lettting cities flip because you gave them slaves seems a bit too much. The chances aren't that big, with only on foreign citizens they are rather slim. Add to this that you don't gain an advantage when your slaves are working for them, and it seems not worth giving... better to buy those slaves

DeepO

[Tiberius]

I suppose you're right
Still, I think I'm going to do some experiments. Who knows?