Culture-Flipping Exposed

[Fitz]

Rushing a temple or library doesn't help much if they have a lot of culture in the city prior to you capturing it, unless the happyness from the temple stops disorder or starts WLTKD. It does help once you expand the borders if it gives you more territory.

I think your strat works well for a few reasons:
1) Restistors require twice as many military to stop a flip. Getting rid of them fast makes it easier to hold on to the cities.
2) Lots of entertainers keeps the city from going into disorder, which would double the military forces needed to stop a flip.
3) Conquering the next row of cities probably ensures that the first set doesn't have any of its 21 production squares in enemy territory.
4) Rushed temple/library ensures that the city borders expand fast, helping ensure the same as 3.

Basically, while you may not be garrisoning enough troops to completely stop a flip, you have enough to make the chance small, and it gets smaller fast with all the things above that you are doing.

Edit: And cities will definately flip within the first two turns of capture. I have definately had a size 17 city flip on the next turn. I'm pretty sure I've seen it other times too.

[stankarp]

Thanks fitz.

Havnt seen a cIty flip yet until turn 3 after capture (counting turn 1 as the turn of capture). At least I can now hold onto cities without having to raze them automatically on capture. I have had only 1 city flip so far after I built the temple and library.

[badman]

i have had the experience that cities dont flip if you place alot of units around
twice after i had lost a citie due to flipping, i reloaded (i'm so cheap ) and placed all my units around the city
the city did not flip at all even though the probality was higher (less military units in the city)
neither during that round nor the following
perhaps because the probality was changed, the computer recalculated everything and i managed to be lucky
on the other hand i haven't yet lost a city with resisters in it, i keep losing them right after all resisters are quelled.
so my strategy is to wait till there are no resisters left and then leave the cities undefended if they arent to close to the enemy boarders (else leave 1 defender and push possible attackers back with your units surrounding that city).
even if the city flips you'll lose only one unit and you can retake it immediately.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by stankarp
Thanks fitz.

Havnt seen a cIty flip yet until turn 3 after capture (counting turn 1 as the turn of capture). At least I can now hold onto cities without having to raze them automatically on capture. I have had only 1 city flip so far after I built the temple and library.

I lost NINE military units in a town of '1' that flipped the turn after it was captured. The units were in there healing each having lost just one hit poiint. This was in the Ancient period so it wiped out my offensive force of legionaries and I quit in utter disgust.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Cities of 2 or 3 do not revolt when garrisoned with a strong force. . .

Yea, right.

You mean towns, of course.

As I posted above, I had a town of '1' flip with NINE military units in it, and I have seen other examples posted. I included screenshots a week ago; go do a search and see for yourself.


WHAT WE NEED: a warning indicator to tell us if a city is going to flip soon, and a way to turn off this crazy flipping in "historical" scenarios - unless you think half the American tank force vanishing in 1945 when Leipzig flips back to Germany makes sense.

[Kramerman]

Ah, this info should be most helpful. I never fully understood how culture flipping worked. Now i do!

[DeepO]

Coracle, why do I have to follow you around whenever you post your 'size 1 town flipped with 9 troops in it' example? Judging from the screenshots you posted, it was a size 8 or 9 town (including the tiles in range that weren't yours), with 8 troops in it. I answered this before to you. Get over the loss, it was your own fault, not Firaxis' fault.

And while were posting links: maybe it's best to include a link in this thread to the formula that was derived partly from the information given here: Culture Flip Formula. This Dan thread seems to pop up from time to time, you might want to read Soren's comments on the issue as well.

DeepO

[stankarp]

Since I downloaded the latest patch, it has not been a problem. I keep 4-10 units until resistance ends. But I have played all my games to date remaining in despotism to beat corruption. So as soon as resistance ends I start converting units to culture/happiness improvements.

[DeepO]

stankarp, despotism is the worst government there is for corruption... democracy is the best. You might want to switch govs sometime to see the effects
If you want to pop-rush, communism is also a better government what corruption is concerned, but in general democracy or republic are better (rep. when youu're fighting a lot of long wars, dem. otherwise)

DeepO

[kring]

Democracy is not always the best govt. for corruption. If you have a huge empire, communism is better for lower corruption. The trade off being less corruption but less production for communism as well as pop rushing instead of cash rushing.

While I typically play as Demo/Rep govt, I have tried Comm govt for one of 100+ cities games; corruption loss went 800+ gold lost down to 350 gold lost. This wasn't due to anything else: end of GA, lots of new cities, etc.

[DeepO]

kring, this is possible in specific situations, but in general you're better of with democracy, or at least you would be under 1.21f. I don't know whether 1.29f (with the better corruption for communism) would change it for huge empires to make it better than democracy.

There is one point though: if you get too many cities, all your communistic cities will be totally corrupt, where democracy will ensure you still have two cores of good cities left...

DeepO

[kring]

I was playing that game with 1.21. And I had a huge number of cities; and individual corruption was still less overall than in Democracy. I will try and find it since I have reinstalled Civ 3 several times, it won't be easy.

The specific situation is a large spread out empire. And as noted, my total corruption was less than 1/2 of my Democratic corruption. Like I said, I prefer Democracy due to the various other bonuses, but many players have large spread out empires. And the comment I kept hearing was Comm. was the way to go in those instances.

In general, Democracy is only better (for corruption, not talking about the other issues) in a smaller compact empire.

Each game is different. World geography is probably the biggest key to which govt. to use. Empire size and how spread out are also key issues.

The easiest solution would be to set the corruption slider to 0.

BOT, CF is affected if you have a better/worse govt. than the other empire; as is the probability of such occurring.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by DeepO
Coracle, why do I have to follow you around whenever you post your 'size 1 town flipped with 9 troops in it' example? Judging from the screenshots you posted, it was a size 8 or 9 town (including the tiles in range that weren't yours), with 8 troops in it. I answered this before to you. Get over the loss, it was your own fault, not Firaxis' fault.

And while were posting links: maybe it's best to include a link in this thread to the formula that was derived partly from the information given here: Culture Flip Formula. This Dan thread seems to pop up from time to time, you might want to read Soren's comments on the issue as well.

DeepO

Yea, you DO follow me around always defending Firaxis no matter what illogical unrealistic stupidity they offer us. I guess you need a hobby.

There are no size "8 or 9" towns; those are called cities. So you are wrong again.

I had a TOWN of '6' flip with NINE military units in it - six full strength veteran legionaries vanished as did a catapult and two spearmen. Game over, good-by. I haven't played a full game since.

Others have posted similar absurd flips, such as "Lt. "Killer"M" at CFF. Do a Search.

I have ZERO interested in some arbitrary and contrived "formula" Soren put together for an arbitrary, contrived, and unrealistic concept. Yea, I have time for Soren's formulas! Just what we need - more tedium.

But the least Firaxis can do is give us something many have asked for - a warning meter or graph of some kind that tells us the flipping status of a city, sort of like the Global Warming notice. But we won't get it.

I will enjoy watching the "historical" scenarios when Patton's entire army, or Napoleon's Grand Armee, disappears into thin air when a flip suddenly occurs.

[stankarp]

Coracle's point is very valid and has been repeated many times. It happened to me several times.

However, since patch 1.29 came out, as I said above, I dont seem to have the trouble any more.

However, he does make another very valid point. Civ 3 lacks usable and easy to access interfaces. I like many of the new concepts and graphics, but I now find I dont finish big games as it just becomes too bloody tedious, attacking individually with all those units, not being able to bring up a clear and concise list of cities showing what they are building, whether they are running out of food and what their happiness/flipping status is.

PTW better address these issues or my money will be staying in my pocket.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Coracle

But the least Firaxis can do is give us something many have asked for - a warning meter or graph of some kind that tells us the flipping status of a city, sort of like the Global Warming notice. But we won't get it.

This would ruin the game-balance function of culture flipping, IMHO, and would be a huge step backward.

I would much rather see a CF on/off player preference choice (in the editor or start-up screen) - but I can think of more important program improvements that I would prioritize well above this in the real world of limited resources.

Catt