wait for culture flip, or attack???

[Bella Hella]

still haven't learned my lesson about sticking small, lame cities on the outskirts of my continent so the AI can't get there first. i started out on a nice land mass, and after exploring the whole thing, was thrilled to see that i had a nicely sized continent all to myself. i settled all the inhabitable parts of the continent and started on some infrastructure. i just didn't think the AI would come over here so fast. well they did. next thing you know, they build THREE cities on the northern tip, right in the jungle; one way down south in the tundra; and one in a really nice little grassy/hilly area that i was actually sending a settler to at the time, but they beat me to.

they're the english and their forces greatly outnumber me. it's been a while, and they're showing no signs of flipping to me. their grassy town is size 3 or 4; mine are 6 or more. their tundra town is size 1 and very close to my capitol. their jungle towns are no bigger than size 2. i'm working on buiding temples, libraries and cathedrals (i just entered middle ages) in the surrounding cities.

is it only a matter of time before they defect to me, or should i pursue a military takeover? i hesitate to try this since i'm outnumbered and have no army whatsoever.

can anyone explain how culture flipping works, and what factors are involved? or point me to a relevant thread? i looked but couldn't find much. i want to know what-all i can do to encourage a flip quickly so i can get those cities up and running in the glorious name of france!

[Harovan]

There is a thread by Dan Magaha from Firaxis, the link is here.

But there's no guarantee that the cities ever flip, on the countrary. So it's better to capture them or raze/rebuild. As far as I understand your post, the English are on another continent? If so, do not fear an invasion, even though they may be stronger. The AI is not very good in landing operations, they come uncoordinated and seldom do harm. A few fast units patroling the coast should do the defense.

Attack. Death to the English.

[Adm.Naismith]

Re: wait for culture flip, or attack???

Originally posted by Bella Hella
is it only a matter of time before they defect to me, or should i pursue a military takeover? i hesitate to try this since i'm outnumbered and have no army whatsoever.

With the patches the probability of a city flip is reduced by the number of military units that garrison it. If english have a great number of units I suppose you won't see them flipping to you, if not for the smallest, useless town.

First question should be: are english city doing any real harm to your civ? Do they negate your access to a resource, strategic point or whatsoever?

If not, you should garrison yours borders cities to avoid yours flipping and develop them at a normal rate. Keep a patrol, or a well positioned quick reaction force to stop any incoming troop. Negate any access inside your border or force the english to declare war to you.

Meantime the english will have some corruption to fight into their so far cities and resources (money) to waste keeping they alive.

If you can develop your Civ's army into a decent attack size you can then consider to attack the most menacing one first and make a new Dunquerque

[Bella Hella]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Attack. Death to the English.

as i'm the french, i must agree. good point about them attacking from another continent - i've never been successfully invaded by AI troops from overseas. so chances are the english won't be much better. *sigh* i guess i'll wait until i have my "happiness" structures in barracks cities, and start building swordsmen. stupid swordsmen.

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith
First question should be: are english city doing any real harm to your civ? Do they negate your access to a resource, strategic point or whatsoever?

normally, having this happen would just piss me off and i'd live with it for a while until they defected. but as fate would have it, there are 4 silks up in the jungle (i was waiting to send workers up there to clear some of it before placing towns there). also, the tundra is my future oil source, so i'll definitely need to get that back.

another factor in all this is the fact that i did an early switch to republic, so i'll have a war weariness problem if/when i declare war on them. before even starting this war, i'll need to build a LOT of troops so i can make sure it ends quickly, and under a republic, that's going to cost me. would it be worth it to switch to monarchy? i'm not building any wonders right now. so much to think about... war IS hell!

one more thing - razing their cities so i can build then in more suitable locations WILL make them more angry at me, correct?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Bella Hella
but as fate would have it, there are 4 silks up in the jungle (i was waiting to send workers up there to clear some of it before placing towns there).

Now that's a strategical blunder 1st class. Guess it's needless to recommend you to learn from it.

another factor in all this is the fact that i did an early switch to republic, so i'll have a war weariness problem if/when i declare war on them.

I've been in 50 turn and more wars as a republic without a problem. The key is, get luxury resources. If you haven't enough different, 10-20% luxury spending should do the trick.

before even starting this war, i'll need to build a LOT of troops so i can make sure it ends quickly, and under a republic, that's going to cost me.

Lots of troups to take, what, 3 cities? If you want to end it quick, 12-15 horsies (better, because upgradable) or swordsmen should do the trick. If the English have pikemen (unlikely, as they would need iron in the cities), better wait for knights.

[Fitz]

The simple version on the flip in your situation is:

The basic chance of a flip is based on the number of squares around the English city, within their max 21 square production radii, that are actually within your borders. Each garrison unit they have in the city negates one of those squares. This base number determines a chance of flip, modified by the distances to the capitols and the ratio of total culture.

So if you want the flip, plant cities so that your borders intrude on their cities (2 squares away sounds good to me), add lots of culture everywhere as much as possible (but especially in the border cities, and hope that is enough.

Unfortunately, that's going to look ugly later (IIRC, you place cities in the "right place"), but you can always sell the city improvements later and uproot the city by producing settlers. Also, given the amount of units the AI produces, they may easily have enough garrison units to counteract the squares you are impinging on. It's peaceful, but hard to pull off.

Edit: Yes razing the cities will piss off the English. Capture them and assimilate or produce workers/settlers with the pop if you feel nice and want to take the harder route.

Incidentally, I much prefer the culture flip and/or assimilate techniques of playing Civ. Much more fun (ie challenging) than just destroying and razing everything in sight.

[nato]

So if you want the flip, ... add lots of culture everywhere as much as possible (but especially in the border cities, and hope that is enough.

Why worry about the border cities specifically? Does the culture of the border cities themselves matter? I thought it was just the total culture of the civs, but I have never been sure on this...

[Bella Hella]

yup, i definitely farked it up by not planting the cities in those locations myself. and actually, there are 6 cities to take - 3 in the jungle, one in the tundra, and 2 in the grassland (i forgot they had made another one there).

my borders ARE expanding into theirs, so i should definitely get a flip at least from the tundra one... finally, i think i WILL do the workers-and-settlers-in-conquered-city route. they didn't build them on optimal places, and i don't need elizabeth pissed at me for the rest of the game.

thanks, all!

[Fitz]

Just be aware of the possiblity of a counter flip bella. You need at least one military per foreign citizen in the city, 2 if they have prouced more culture in that city. Since it is hard to tell how much culture they have produced, I would say play it safe and use 2 per foriegn citizen if the borders have expanded until your borders expand further than theirs did.

nato, I can't say for sure about local culture preasure. Soren's remarks have made me think it doesn't appear to have any affect if that city is not threatened. But at the same time, it seems that it is "common knowledge" that it does, and given Firaxis' closed mouth policy about the actual formula's (oh for the days of SMAC!), who knows if it is or is not a factor? I say play it safe, and its not like you aren't getting a benefit from the buildings anyway (they help the city and overall culture levels).

[nato]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply Fitz. What you say makes sense, though I still wish a definite answer was known.

My very first game of Civ3, I thought it was only local culture. I let my total culture fall behind pretty badly. There were some AI border cities I really wanted to get, but without a war, so I tried to culture flip them. In my three border cities by the AI cities I wanted, I rush built every single culture building ... they were all set up. Then I waited for the culture flip ... and sure enough it came ... my high culture cities flipped to the AI! Ever since then I have thought it was total culture, not the individual cities ... but maybe I was just too far behind in total culture.

[Zachriel]

War or culture. It depends on your position. Sometimes, when you are in building mode, just put a little extra culture on that side of the map -- it might just flip. But when you are strong, consider attacking. If you need the resources, then you need to take them --that is, attack.

There is an ebb and flow, war and peace.

[Kc7mxo]

First question should be: are english city doing any real harm to your civ? Do they negate your access to a resource, strategic point or whatsoever?

i played a game as the indians the other day, and was right next to the chinese. i eventually forced them into a string of weak cities along the northern edge of our continent. it was without strategic or luxury resources, so i left them alone.

then, its the 18th century, i've got rails everywhere, and i'm forced into war by the iroquois. i send my army across the sea to their homealnd and start fighting the war. next thing i know, a horde of iroqious invade my country. From china. i had a fast response force ready to engage any enemies landing from sea, but they landed in china. . . (no ROP agreement neither) and hit my cities across the border with their cavarly. lost three important northern cities immidatly, (all of them razed). and a massive force of iroqoius cavalry (including an army) started moving south, razing as they went.

well, i congratulated the AI on its genius move. It must have planned it, because the Chinese were much further from them than my coastline.

moral of the story is,

"wipe them out. all of them."

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo


i played a game as the indians the other day, and was right next to the chinese. i eventually forced them into a string of weak cities along the northern edge of our continent. it was without strategic or luxury resources, so i left them alone.

then, its the 18th century, i've got rails everywhere, and i'm forced into war by the iroquois. i send my army across the sea to their homealnd and start fighting the war. next thing i know, a horde of iroqious invade my country. From china. i had a fast response force ready to engage any enemies landing from sea, but they landed in china. . . (no ROP agreement neither) and hit my cities across the border with their cavarly. lost three important northern cities immidatly, (all of them razed). and a massive force of iroqoius cavalry (including an army) started moving south, razing as they went.

well, i congratulated the AI on its genius move. It must have planned it, because the Chinese were much further from them than my coastline.

moral of the story is,

"wipe them out. all of them."

If the AI "planned" that it is by far the smartest thing I ever heard this flawed AI do. I am surprised the Iroquois had enough units to withstand your invasion and at the same time successfully invade you. I'm surprised you sent so many units out of your homeland. I'm amazed the AI landed that many units.

I guess that tells you to keep up some naval patrols, and if such as the Chinese aren't an ally their towns have to be taken out. You also better keep closer tabs on the strengths of your enemies. Interesting situation.

[Kc7mxo]

If the AI "planned" that it is by far the smartest thing I ever heard this flawed AI do. I am surprised the Iroquois had enough units to withstand your invasion and at the same time successfully invade you. I'm surprised you sent so many units out of your homeland.

I'm amazed the AI landed that many units. I guess that tells you to keep up some naval patrols, and if such as the Chinese aren't an ally their towns have to be taken out. You also better keep closer tabs on the strengths of your enemies. Interesting situation.

heh. the naval patrols were guarding my access to their coastline. and the transports were ferrrying a constant supply of reinofrocments. and the Iroquoius controlled a huge continent. at my urging (cough cough) they'd conquered the Aztecs, the English, and the Americans. They had more cities than i could shake a stick at. i was in the process of conquering the twenty or so english cities they'd captured when they hit me. infantry and artillery don't move very fast, and my cavalry forces were rather low. It was my first game in a while.

[Bella Hella]

BTW, i did get those english cities, and without too much trouble. just waited until i had cavalry. the english are limited to a smallish island and aren't very powerful, so they were more than happy to talk peace when i was done with taking over their stupid cities. regarding naval patrols: i noticed that i always wait to start a war until the modern era (unless i have to do some early conquering to gain more needed land). having learned a little about war, there are a few things i always do that may seem obvious, but that really help with my defense.

first of all, i play with continents or islands and a lot of water. so all attacks happen by sea. at some point i usually take over the entire continent for my own. when it comes to war, i ALWAYS try to keep the AI off my back (unless i have an insane military force) until i'm in the modern era and have a lot of money and a decent tech lead. my defensive moves:

- put planes in coastal cities to do recon missions every turn. i need to see if anyone's coming. i usually make enough planes to be able to scout out all the surrounding waters.
- make railroads definitely connecting all the cities, of course, but also all the way around the perimeter of the continent. this way i can get a force anywhere they land.
- battleships in every coastal city, or in the water outside to attack incoming ships which my planes have spotted
- a GOOD army inside my borders. i haven't found exactly the right formula for this yet since sometimes i have too many troops, sometimes too few.
- upgrade everything at one shot so that suddenly i have a god-like army

that's about all. i just try to make myself remember that wherever my defenses are weak, THAT'S where i'll get attacked. so every single city on my borders has majorly beefed up security. i mainly fight defensive wars and have never yet lost any good cities on my main continent.