Culture-Flipping Exposed

[Jameschipmunk]

I think the newest patch, 1.17f, fixed the garrison thing, if you have enough troops in the city it will NOT flip.

[Coracle]

And how many is "enough"???

I once had 8 full strength veteran and elite foot soldiers in a town of '5' and it flipped, all the units disappearing into thin air! And there was only one city in the other civ's empire - the capital. Of course, I had a HUGE lead in every score when it flipped.

The only thing that seems to matter is the proximity of a conquered town/city to their unconquered capital.

So how many units do we need?? DOZENS for every town? SCORES for every city?? HUNDREDS for every metropolis?? Deign to tell us, Firaxis.


BTW, culture flipping BORDERS is another crock. The idea that borders can flip over my citiy's improvements - including occupied garrisons!! - is RIDICULOUS.

[stankarp]

Culture flipping of captured cities is what really has put me off CIV 3. As one comment in this thread pointed out, number of troops in a city should be the biggest, not smallest factor in culture flipping. Once you get past about 500AD, the game just bogs down and frankly, I dont know why I or others bother to continue. Up to about then I can put up with the ****ty combat system and the gross bias to the AI, but when you find that libraries, temples and coloseums can destroy large slices of your elite forces built up over 3000 years, it is just the biggest turnoff for me

Culture flipping in its present form is biased and totally unrealistic. In my current game on a gigantic map with 12 opponents on monarchy, I started on one of three large continents with the Egyptians and the Greeks. i took over their Civs, despite the computer manufacturing and repositioning settlers just when your are about to wipe them out. I occupied the whole land mass except for a narrow strip on the top end which is mountains and snow. Five small cities have been built there by 3 different AI. It is now over 1000 years, my cities there have all got at least 3 culture improvements and none of the AI cities have expanded at all indicating no culture and they are a long way from home compared to my cities and no one has flipped. I have also built half the wonders so far, or captured them.

However the crunch is that I am attacking the Babylonians on the next continent. They have 16 cities, mostly size 12 and have 2-3 culture improvements per city, no wonders. I massed for several turns and over two turns captured 8 cities, garrisoned each heavily, tried everything including converting all non resistors to entertainers, where possible joined non Babylonian workers to the cities, and still after 2 turns, 1 city per turn flips and takes the WHOLE GARRISON WITH IT It is really starting to give me the ****s. I have replayed those 3 turns so many times to try and stop it and I cant. I tried selling one city a turn to another AI and if I did that, no city would flip that turn, but if I replayed and did not sell a city, 1 city flipped. I tried in one sequence where the same city flipped each time I replayed, I emptied that city except for one combat unit, and guese what, a different city flipped

I think it is really bad play testing and design to have a feature that is so unrealistic and unplayable to be left in a game. The only strategy I can see is to ruthlessly destroy every captured city over about size 4 and use the workers to build improvements in a level 1 city of your own. It is not the flipping that I mind so much, its the fact that the garrison is totally destroyed with it. I would like the dumbos who thought this one out to justify it, explain how a few citizens can just wipe out cavalry, artillery and riflemen just like that.

In CTP2 there have been many small changes made by accessing SLIC codes and changing values. Anyone managed to do it for CIV 3 so we can change some of the values to make it more realistic. The late stages of the game are hard enough without this as well.

[Theseus]

Stan,

I can't really comment on whether the mechanisms of culture and culture flipping will satisfy how you want to play.

My view: it is what it is, no different than Swordsmen having 3 attack.

Suggestions:

* Only try to beat flipping via garrisons if you have 2-3 times the pop in units.

* Capture the city, and then leave it vacant. Re-capture. Side-benefit of pop reduction.

* Capture the city, leave it vacant, and disband one of the captured workers in it... if it doesn;t flip, you can more easily rush whatever you want to build.

* Capture the city and give it to another civ.

Once you accomodate the way it works in your "gameview," it's really not much of an issue.

[stankarp]

theseus, thanks for the comments but-
a) very unlikely, actually impossible, to have 24-36 units to occupy each city. Most AI cities are level 10-12 after 500 ad when the problems really start.
b) leaving the city vacant then recapturing leaves the problem of not reducing the number of resistors.
c) if you dont garrison, you dont reduce resisters, you cant hurry prod if there is even ONE resister.
d) did that, but if you keep doing that, you never win, retake it and you have the same trouble, resisters.

The catch 22 is that when you capture a reasonable city, say level 12, there will be from 5-11 resisters. If you dont garrison, they dont convert. If they dont convert then you cannot hurry prod. After 2 turns they start flipping. If the city is already say level 12, you cannot add to the city.

I think we should nickname Sid , Attila(the Hun), or Adolph(Hitler) or Joseph (Stalin) or even better POL (as in Pot), because the end game of his creation basically pushes you into become a scorched earth monster to win the game because i cant see how you can win any other way against a reasonable number of AI because of the cheats inserted to help the AI, including corruption, trading techs to each other for nothing, manufacturing units to frustrate the human player etc.

I think i'll go back to another game and if PTW doesnt clearly address this issue which has made a lot of other people apart from me very annoyed, angry, frustrated and pissed off, I'll be keeping my money in the my pocket. I like the basic concepts until you get to the crunch time and then it just isnt fun. Wonder if i can sue for causing mental anguish because there a lot of things in this game which are not what they seem. There are obvious hidden probability strings that govern a lot of the results that you are not told about. eg, I find it handy to keep a few obselete units in the front line because you regularly hit a combat where the result is pre-determined so I re-run and expend that warrior so i can save that cavalry from the ignominy of being killed by the bowman.

[Theseus]

Sorry, I didn't fully explain.

I HATE resistors... my approach to absorbing cities into my empire (resistance is futile) includes driving down to 1 of the original pop, whether before or after the capture. A balance of arty, capture(s), rushing, drafting, and building workers results in no problems.

Your 2nd point: Civ3 is more warlike than any of its predecessors, and most of the imitators. Re-phrase that: It REQUIRES war. That's pretty huge... prior, "builder" strats were fine. I know this may PO a lot of customers, but I acknowledge, and indeed revel in, this fundamental truth of inter-society relations.

(OK, that was a little much... the design decision has been that war is a big part of how things work... either you're fine with that or not).

Your last point: You're getting upset with something that is your choice (with the latest patch). There is a chance, could be .96% for MA attacking Warrior on grassland, of inclement results, and either you deal with that or you choose to re-load with a new seed. Your call.

It's a game, with rules. It sucks when you loose your King to a Pawn, but that's the way it works.

Maybe I'm a "glass half full" kinda guy; whether it's the Spearman vs Tank thing, or I didn't get no luxuries, or I'm in between Zulu and Germany (grins), I like it that the Pawn can take the King.

[stankarp]

Hi Theseus, thanks for the extra feedback.

You havnt explained how you get past that critical stage, 2nd turn after capture to no resisters. Thats the crunch. Cities in resistance cant rush buy, dont garrison and there no quelling of resisters. Garrison and those elite troops you have led for 5000 years just disappear.

The point I was making about hidden strings is that there is no probability in the game combat system as described in the manual, and i think, for very little else. When you roll a dice, there is a 1 in 6 chance for each number to come up. On that basis if you replay a CIV 3 turn, the overall balance should be roughly the same, but the individual outcomes should be different. But what you get is exactly the same results in exactly the same sequence. Even down to the order in which each of the opposing unit in a battle takes the hits. You can enter a hut in a turn replayed 100 times and you get the same result. Wait a turn, come from a different direction in the next turn and you will get a different outcome, even if its a different babarian that pops up.

I am not the only one very pissed off with the unrealistic culture flipping of heavily garrisoned newly captured cities. Read the rest of this thread. The thing that really ***** me off is the fact that your garrison, no matter how big, experienced, powerfull, just instantly becomes a memory. A couple of cultural improvements are a better defence for the AI than an army. Pity the Jews didnt realise that to beat the Romans, all they needed was a library as well as that temple

[Theseus]

1. I either bombard or repeatedly capture a city down to 2-3 pop before trying to garrison it.

2. Get the latest patch... there is a set-up choice whether you want the fixed string (same results on reload) or not.

[vmxa1]

Why not just mow it down? I just grap a city from time to time to use as a forward base. In that case I bombard it down to 2-3 and capture, not much of a revolt there. At the late stages I do not need more low producing cities, unless I want to run up a high score.

[stankarp]

Missing the point now I think. It s not so much the culture flipping, but the loss of that experienced garrison. Thats the part that really gets to most people. My recollection from reading history is that revolting cities mostly drove out the garrisons, or beseiged them in a citadel or similar, rather that Sid POTs interpretation where apparently they become cannibals and eat the garrison.

[vmxa1]

Cities of 2 or 3 do not revolt when garrisoned with a strong force, that is my point. Cities that are destroyed do not need to be garrisoned. The flipping was fine before the patches. You did not see a city flip when it was out of touch with the homeland, now you can. I did not mind lossing a city if it was connected to the empire, but if it was cut off and had no wonders and was garisoned??? I only garrison with a few tanks, since I do not attempt to hold size 12 cities. They yield nothing much anyway and I do not need more anyway. Once I start attacking with the pursose of ending the game, I have all I need. I funny part of the late game flip is that I will be by far the largest culture of all and I will have roads built to connect any newly conquered land.

[Fitz]

v, it is completely possible for a city of 2 or 3 to flip, even when garrisoned with a strong force, if you are far behind in the culture game.

As a quick example, lets assume that you have a size 3 city, all in resistance, and no squares in enemy territory. Further assume that the city is not in disorder (yet) and has more culture from the other civ. You need an number of troops = to ((3*2+0)*1*2*R). R is the culture ratio. That means with 1:1 (cultures =) you need 12 troops to prevent that city from flipping. If you are behind in the culture game (say 2:1) you need 24. IF you are ahead (say 1:2) you need 6.

That is a lot of troops for a size 3 city.

[vmxa1]

When was did you ever hear of a SP game where human was attacking and behind in culture? We were talking about mid game or later when you are going for the end game. At that time humans are surely ahead. Trying to grab and hold a city when ou are way behind in culture is definity a tough job. When I get the city it will have little in it and I will go for a temple and culture right away. Rush as soon as ressistance ends.

[Fitz]

You say the city will have little culture in it, but what if you are taking one they have had a temple in for 100 turns, and a library for 50? That's 350 CP right there. Rushing that temple has no effect for 175 turns (well the border expansion in 5 might help).

Regardless, how far ahead are you in the culture game by late in the game. Fantastic player might be 5 to 1 or more on the highest levels, but I know I'm not that good. My advantage starts to slide as soon as I get out of the ancient age. As I get closer to the end game, the more I approach that 2:1 mark. So, for a newly conquered city, that's still 1 troop per citizen, 2 per resistor on the first turn.

[stankarp]

Eurika ( I hope), I think I have solved the problem. I tried the following.

This is post 700 AD when most Ai cities are 10-12, and I have cavalry. Attack and take out about 5 ciies, preferably 3 sq by road from your border. garrison as heavily as possible, put riflemen in to take counter attack, put all non resisters on entertainment. Next turn attack again and take 2-3 more cities, garrison with 2-3 units while garrisoning up the first lot of captured cities as heavily as possible, then force peace. Next turn, nearly all cities captured in the first round will loose all resisters if you are at peace and have about 1 garrison unit per population level, rush buy a temple and try to join 1-2 different workers to the population. Next turn, remove all but 1 or 2 cheap units from the first lot of captured cities and garrison outside or close enough to attack if they flip. Rush a library as soon as possible in each city.

I noticed cities will not flip for 2 turns after capture and if you can quell the resisters in that time, rush a temple or library and join a worker or two, they are unlikely to flip, at least for a while. The tactic is working well now as I remained in despotism since turn 1 and rush buying also reduces the population quickly. After about five turns you have a temple and library and the population is down to a managable 4-5. I then rush a granary and a barracks and every 10 turns or so churn out a veteran cavalry, keeping the population down to between 1-4.