Culture-Flipping Exposed

[Purest Warrior]

Considering the effect the number city tiles within enemy borders, has on cultural flipping, would it actually in some cases be better not to build cultural improvements in newly founded cities?

An example to clarify: Two civs found cities, with two tiles in between, on the same turn. Both cities have nine city tiles and the borders are touching. When the one city builds a temple and expands culturally five turns later, three of the twelve new city tiles will be within enemy borders and, accordindingly, the city with the temple will be subject to a cultural flipping-check every turn, whereas the other city will have all its city tiles (nine) and, hence, not be subject to a check at all.

Does this make sense?

[Dodgy Geezer]

Originally posted by Purest Warrior
Considering the effect the number city tiles within enemy borders, has on cultural flipping, would it actually in some cases be better not to build cultural improvements in newly founded cities?

An example to clarify: Two civs found cities, with two tiles in between, on the same turn. Both cities have nine city tiles and the borders are touching. When the one city builds a temple and expands culturally five turns later, three of the twelve new city tiles will be within enemy borders and, accordindingly, the city with the temple will be subject to a cultural flipping-check every turn, whereas the other city will have all its city tiles (nine) and, hence, not be subject to a check at all.

Does this make sense?

The original post stated that it was based on the 21 squares of the city. My guess is that it uses them even if the culture of the city is low. My experience is almost always with captured cities flipping back, in which case they tend to be culture < 10, or at least my culture.

[Purest Warrior]

The original post stated that it was based on the 21 squares of the city. My guess is that it uses them even if the culture of the city is low. My experience is almost always with captured cities flipping back, in which case they tend to be culture < 10, or at least my culture.

Reread the the first post. Thanks for pointing out the 21-tile (not 9) condition.

But still, I don't mean "back-flipping". Assuming that there are no foreign nationals in either city, both could actually flip even before the first cultural expansion, because it's the 21-tile area that is counted and not the 9-tile.
Even if your city has the full use of it's initial 9 tiles, it can flip?

This seems kinda strange to me.

PW

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by Purest Warrior
Considering the effect the number city tiles within enemy borders, has on cultural flipping, would it actually in some cases be better not to build cultural improvements in newly founded cities?

Actually, it would still be best to at least build a quick temple, the other civs city with the temple has a chance to defect to you and getting at least a little culture will increase your odds in this 'battle'.

Actually if I wanted that city I'd go all out and add a library and cathedral to get to 100 culture first.

[godinex]

Damm!! 1 turn to make washington revert to america.
Its enough

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Arbento
One question to these formulas: As far as I can see none of them can fit.
Perhaps You know the bug with the settler on a ship - if You sink the ship You exterminate the whole civ which causes the game to crash.
In one of these situations (I'm absolutely sure that this civ had nothing more) one of the cities I had taken from him flipped back. I liked it, since now I could sink his ship and then take back the city and get rid of him, but I was very surprised losing that city.
Any idea how this fits to the calculations?

I seem to have noticed that there is an extra chance for a new AI city if they are down to one (city or settler). Sometimes it's the "teleporting settler" starting a new city on an island far, far away (w/out the neccessary naval technologies to get there) but I guess it could be a flip as well.

Just my two cents...

[Encomium]

CULTURE FLIPPING SUCKS

Culture Flipping doesn't get more ridiculous than this.

I led all as the Iroquois, but Greece Declared War with no warning (or apparent reason) anyway even though they had been "Polite" for centuries and we had just concluded a trade deal.

I crushed them. None too smart by their AI.

914 to 538 is the score, Iroquois to Greeks, and that difference is rapidly increasing owing to my military victory twelve turns earlier.

I have eighteen cities, and the Greeks just two. My Culture is very high, likely five times that of the Greeks. Sparta has a temple and library, plus the usual useless large garrison. My Military could swat the Greeks like a fly.

So what happens? Sparta flips, turns Greek, and the garrison vanishes. "Imagine"!!

No, I can't imagine. IT IS EFFING ABSURD.

So now I go to war, raze Sparta, but even the Indians will hate me as a "warmonger".


Another game ruined.

Obviously, Culture Flipping is determined ONLY by the PROXIMITY of one civ's laborers to their capital city, and no doubt some randomizing factor. It is truly a joke.

[zergling]

How to lower the chance of culture flip

When you capture an enemy city, immediately take all citizen from their field work practically starve them to death . Rush-build worker/settler to lower its population if the captured city population is too high. Of course you must end resistance to rushbuild so garrison troops inside. After the size of the captured city is only 1-2 get your settler/worker of your nationality or workers of other nationality which is not the same nationality as the captured city (slave) to join that city. This will lower the chances of that captured city for flip back to its original owner.

Or you can also disband 1-2 unit in that city then rush build a courthouse. Yup, that will lower the chances even more.

I did that in my last game and none of my captured city reverted back to their original owner. I never razed any city I captured so in the end I achieve a domination victory. Having a high cultural points total also helps.

If the city still flips back, of course you can still reload, get all your troops outside the city and then when it flips, you can take it back

[JFB]

culture makes me happy

OK, I know that for a strategy-game, it's a little frustrating NOT to be able to predict and plan for every event that is going to happen in a game, but in a way that is part of the charm for me. For those of you who want the game to be more like real-life, IMHO having random, unpredictable, unexplained events occur that drastically affect your plans and decisions is much more true to reality than being able to have complete control over every nuance of the game.

Also, one thing about CIV II was that, after reaching a point of domination in the game, you would CHOOSE not to win by domination if you won another way. If you wanted to, you could easily conquer everybody. Now, with the idea of culture, even if you are the dominant player there is no guarantee that you can conquer the world militarily, forcing players to consider other ways of winning and in a way makes it MORE strategic.

Anyway, there ARE things that you can do to give yourself better chances of holding on to cities, even though it isn't absoulutely certain. Having to plan for uncertainty is one of the things I enjoy most in the game, although when you have forgotten to plan for that uncertainty most people get mad at the game instead of themselves.

I think these new concepts in CIV III forces a player to play a more balanced game. If you put all your efforts into one area (military, culture, science, etc.) you will have a weakness that can and will be exploited.

When I want complete control (or responsibility) over my playing situation, I will go play chess.

Maybe we can open an X-files thread for strange, unexplained culture-flipping occurences and investigate why it might have happened ...

Maybe I like the idea of culture 'cause I'm a musician
- JFB

[Dodgy Geezer]

Re: culture makes me happy

Originally posted by JFB
Now, with the idea of culture, even if you are the dominant player there is no guarantee that you can conquer the world militarily, forcing players to consider other ways of winning and in a way makes it MORE strategic.

Dunno about that. IMHO once you get ahead of the pack you can win just about any way you please. Flipping doesn't stop you beating the crap out of the opposition - you just raze and settle or make sure you take 'em out in a couple of goes. This is possible if you get to Cavalry, Tanks or Modern Armor first, or even simply if you are bigger than them.

One thing I have noticed, but can't confirm, is that flipping does not seem to occur the turn immediately after the storming of a city. Anyone else got any views on this?

[Purest Warrior]

Re: How to lower the chance of culture flip

Originally posted by zergling
Or you can also disband 1-2 unit in that city then rush build a courthouse. Yup, that will lower the chances even more.

Building a courthouse does not lower the chances of culture-flipping. It lowers the chances foreign propaganda flipping your city.

[JFB]

Dodgy, yeah you're right, but to me it seems a bit more tedious now to conquer the world and makes the other ways of winning a bit more attractive, and it seems that more things are uncertain and could possible foul up your plans. Maybe I just haven't played enough to understand all of the mechanics. I feel like the guys at FIRAXIS have intentionally made it easier to defend than attack, maybe to encourage other styles of play. The addition of a cultural and a diplomatic victory seem to indicate that they are seeking more variety than just conquest or space race.

I normally play deity, and I haven't quite found a way to not be playing catch-up the whole game (or to hold on to my lead in some area), so maybe I'm just inexperienced.

[Lewsir]

do we need a fix?

Looks like this thread kind of ran its course...but I'm left wondering how many people are fine with the current mechanic and how many would welcome an adjustment of some kind.

For me it does seem a bit silly that the number (and strength!) of troops doesn't matter much, if at all. I'd like to have some knowable relationship, like having as many troops as population completely prevents flipping (and that should work both for flips and re-flips, of course). There are lots of examples of countries heavily garrisonning their own cities and regions to prevent culture-driven flips (e.g. Tibet). Hey, some have to garrison the entire country (N. Korea). But it does tend to work...

If anyone from Firaxis is listening, I wonder what is the chance of getting an adjustment in a future patch.

[DrSpike]

I thought the number of troops helped in the newest patch (1.17f), which has been out for a couple of weeks at least.

[Lewsir]

the new patch

I haven't actually played with the new patch yet, but would be very interested in hearing from people who have - any insights on whether the patch has much effect on city flipping, especially if you put a lot of units in?

From what I gather from Firaxis, the new patch does increase the influence of military, but it still sounds pretty difficult to hold onto a large foreign city. From the Apolyton news clips Feb 16, they post, from Firaxis:

"Number of units to supress cultural reversion: cities with 2 or 3 foreign nationals and full control of their city radius probably will be under no risk with 4 to 6 units". If this relationship holds for bigger cities, you'd need around 20 units to be sure of holding a size 10 city. Ugh. Thus it still seems the case that for large cities, either pound them down with artillary ahead of time, starve em out quickly once you get em, or just raze them to the ground. I hate those choices.