Without razing Thebes Memphis is NEARLY garenteed to flip (NO garentees with flipping).

As such we need to develope a stradegy to countering the Culture flip threat.

If someone could use CT's Calc to see what Garrison we need to ensure no flips it would be good.

But thus far without puttting ALL our legions in the area in Memphis (risking the "alien abduction" or disappearance of nearly 12-13 Legions) we need to rush culture buildings and replace the Egyptian populous with a Loyal Fanatikan population.

we should rush the cultural improvements and reduce the pop to 1

Pop rush a temple ASAP, then starve down the remaining citizens by turning them all to taxmen. We should only commit large numbers of troops to garrison the town if we have enough to eradicate the risk of a flip - I'd rather lose the city than all our legions.

I agree, that's why I want someone to look at it with CT's Calc

I just had CT do some Calculations for us, and here's a log of what we said

[13:02] <Chieftess> Culture looks to be 2:1
[13:02] <Falcon02> sounds about right
[13:03] <Chieftess> yikes!!
[13:03] <Chieftess> 7.2%
[13:03] <Chieftess> that's with no garrison
[13:03] <Chieftess> required is 36
[13:04] <Falcon02> 36 is the required garrison? OUCH!
[13:04] <Chieftess> Remember, though, the rioting will stop soon
[13:04] <Chieftess> 24 when the rioting stops
[13:04] <Falcon02> hmm... still alot
[13:04] <Chieftess> 16 when it's down to size 1
[13:09] <Chieftess> Oh, in 5 turns, the city has a flip risk of 31%
[13:09] <Chieftess> 52% in 10 turns
[13:09] <Chieftess> But, that's if you don't stop the resistence
[13:13] <Chieftess> On expansion, the city will have 1 tile within its' borders. (I checked in the editor)
[13:14] <Falcon02> from Thebes?
[13:14] <Chieftess> So, at best (1 foreign citizen, 1 tile in Egypt's territory), it has a 1.4% chance of flipping
[13:14] <Chieftess> 8 garrison
[13:16] <Chieftess> yes, that would be from Thebes
[13:17] <Chieftess> Take out Thebes, and the flip risk is halved

As such I STRONGLY suggest we pop rush and get it down to size 1 and try to get as many Legions there (keeping most of 'em right out of the city until we have the right number).

Preferably though Razing Thebes would be Ideal.

We must Pop Rush thoes improvements. Though Im not an avid fan of Pop Rushing. But there are times when we need to push the ethical side asside. If we can Head to Monarchy and hope for a Short Anarchy Period. Then we can rush with Gold

Rushing with gold would have negated whatever financial gains we expect to make from the peace treaty anyway, and since we plan to starve the buggers afterwards the "ethical issue" becomes moot :D

Ethical? Hmmm...where's my dictionary? :) As an avid supporter of the Will to Power citizen's group, I say whatever it takes.

All Egyptian citizens are welcomed to live in our glorious civilization.
Unless they are undermining our civilization and desiring to rejoin the Egyptian empire. We cannot allow that. So starve, rush culture and raze Thebes.

Originally posted by Cyc
Ethical? Hmmm...where's my dictionary? :) As an avid supporter of the Will to Power citizen's group, I say whatever it takes.

Wait a sec, Im part of that group. I also say, Do what ever is necissary.

Why don't we just annex all of Egypt now and not worry about flips?

Alright, if we stop the resisters and move the local 7 units into the city, that reduces the probability of flip within 10 turns to 8.4%. Then, if we move 6 more troops into the city, it will take care of the problem.

Excellent work, Plexus. You da Culture man!

I would follow Eklektikos' advice, or after seeing the calculator, I might even abandon the city so Cleo has no chance of getting it in a flip. Keep the Legionaries out of danger.

Can someone please post the following poll? I unfortunately don't have the time.

What should we do about Memphis?

1. Abandon city
2. Garrison city with all of our Legions
3. Minimum garrison
4. Abstain

I would vote to abandon city, as it means that there is no chance for this city to flip back to Egypt. Stockpiling Legions in Memphis is way too risky for my tastes, as those units can be used to protect our borders just south of Memphis. Minimum garrison will practically ensure that this city falls back into the hands of Egypt.

I am not really pleased with our options either, but this is where we stand. Abandoning Memphis will give us the best footing in our future dealings with Egypt.

If someone could provide a screenshot of the situation I (and others) might be better able to make a decision regarding what the truly best course of action is...

Something strange is happening. I tried to post the poll, but it is nowhere to be found.

Mr. President: Please include the option: Rushbuild temple and the option starve/build settlers.

Nevermind, I found a usable one in one of the province border threads.

Ok, well first of all I believe there is one major error in Plexus' calculations - which is that he didn't factor in the number of tiles within Memphis' radius which are still under Egyptian rule. This is the data he should have ended up with:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Memphlip1.jpg

As you can see, the number of units required to eliminate the possibility of a flip at this point is somewhat greater then the original estimate.

However by starving the population down to 1 point, we can significantly reduce the number of units needed to prevent a flip, and can get a moderately acceptable chance of it not flipping even with just 10 units in the city:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Memphlip2.jpg

Furthermore, by putting up a temple or some other culture producing improvement we can push back the Egyptian border from two of the tiles within the radius which would allow us to eradicate the chance of a flip using only 9 units. Since Memphis is a vulnerable border city, that wouldn't be an unreasonable number to have in place anyway.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Memphlip3.jpg

Furthermore, Memphis was (as far as we know) Egypt's only internal source of horses, so our holding on to the city would put them at a long term disadvantage that simply razing the city would fail to do since they would resettle at the first opportunity. Instead, razing the city would put us at a long term disadvantage due to the rep hit we'd suffer with all the other Civs in the game.

So to summarize, I recommend that we end resistance ASAP, reduce the population to 1 via either starvation or pop-rushing if the latter is possible and install a temple post-haste - at the end of which the city should be perfectly safe from flipping with the presence of a reasonable border garrison. We will have to risk a few Legions while ending resistance, but after that we need only use one or two units to act as MP and to give a slight reduction in flip risk as we go.

Originally posted by Donovan Zoi
What should we do about Memphis?

1. Abandon city
2. Garrison city with all of our Legions
3. Minimum garrison
4. Abstain


I feel these options are very limiting, the question for me is less "forthcoming"

it's not just abandon or how many legions shall we put in, it's shall we Abandon it, Starve it, Pop Rush it, or take our chances. and if we keep it how many legions should we put in and trying to get some cultural improvments in there.

How much can a Pop-Rush pay for, ie. rush a worker = 1 or 2 lives? meaning if it's 1 life rushing a worker would get us a decrease in population of 2, 1 for rush 1 for worker.

How can we get a Temple in there as soon as possible.

BTW: I'm with Ekl on this one, I'm not a fan of abandoning a city we fought so hard for. I feel we CAN and MUST save Memphis. Though we have little margin for error seeing as before it is size 1 and especially before it has culture it has high chances of flipping without garrisoning more units then we currently have in the area (15+).

As I staed before in this thread, Eklektikos seems to have a good plan.

The major problem that Fanatica now has is that nobody cared about enough to post anything about the situation for two days. I would imagine the people in Memphis don't really give a damn what Fanatica does at this point. :goodjob:

There are two more factors in the flip equation that we can affect.


Joining a worker once it's down to size 1 would improve the flip chance a lot, by having as many of our citizens as foreigners.
Building other towns nearby and building culture there, which is a mitigating factor in the flip calculation.

We can save Memphis, and either as next turn's culture minister or the Governor of Aventine, I will make it a top priority. Staration, and somewhat of a garrison will give us a real chance to hold on to the city.

hmmm... can we somehow get a wltkd in memphis?
this would change the calculation drastically... only 13 units would be needed.

Originally posted by disorganizer
hmmm... can we somehow get a wltkd in memphis?
this would change the calculation drastically... only 13 units would be needed.

Min population of 6, majority happy with NO unhappy... doable immediately? not really, this can only be done after we take the initial steps of getting it down to size 1 and getting a temple in there.

We can move twoards this in the long term, but it's not a step we can work on taking for over 10 turns from now.

Also, responding to d8575 I think joining workers and building more cities around it would be advisable, however, once again we can't be done soon, it would take awhile to get workers to the city and esp. to get more settlers in the area.

Long Term solutions we should move twoards, yes. But we can't implement them in the short term which is where the risk for flip is highest at the moment.

so i suspect we will loose memphis anyways.... too bad...

Below is the Log of a discussion Ekl, DZ, and I had after we decided to cancel the chat on Friday, about what to do with Memphis, specifically whether to Abandon it or not. Originally I was gonna give a link to the log file and just give highlights, but as the highlights turned out to be about 95% of the log I figured it didn't save THAT much room

#demogame Fri Jun 27 2003
[16:19] <@Falcon02> now if Memphis flips we can't take it back, cause we're not at war
[16:19] <@Falcon02> we have to fall back
[16:20] <@Falcon02> a flip during war is less costly then a flip during an active treaty
[16:20] <+DX_Zoi> who cares? lets use our geographical defense of the hills to define our borders
[16:20] <+DX_Zoi> WE DO NOT NEED MEMPHIS
[16:20] <+Eklektikos> Unfortunately we already have it
[16:20] <+DX_Zoi> :D yes, we do
[16:21] <+DX_Zoi> that is why I say abandon it, rather than risk 10 possible defenders of our natural borders
[16:21] <+Eklektikos> don't need to risk that many
[16:21] <@Falcon02> DZ, we many not "NEED" Memphis. But heaven help me if I ALLOW us to unintentionally lose ANY city, even if that city produces 100 sheilds 99 of which are corrupt
[16:22] <@Falcon02> I have no problem if we abandon
[16:22] <+DX_Zoi> exactly, I dont want it to flip either
[16:22] <+Eklektikos> I have, I don't want us to get a rep hit to no genuine advantage
[16:22] <@Falcon02> I'd prefer to hold on to it if we can, but abandoning Memphis is fine with me, it does have the least ?-marks
[16:23] <+DX_Zoi> everyone already hates us, Ek
[16:23] <+Eklektikos> no reason to make them hate us more
[16:23] <+DX_Zoi> I get the joy of opening the FA screen to find everyone
glaring at me
[16:23] <@Falcon02> Ekl, if things go as we plan we can just wipe 'em out
later anyway
[16:23] <@Falcon02> lol
[16:23] <+DX_Zoi> I wonder if that has anything to do with this protracted war?
[16:24] <@Falcon02> DZ they're just studying your Dashing good looks.....
[16:24] <@Falcon02> with a rather annoyed look on their face.... yeah that's it...
[16:24] <+Eklektikos> it has to do with us autorazing previously, I expect
[16:24] <+DX_Zoi> I was wondering where you wer going with that ..... ;)
[16:25] <+DX_Zoi> another reason we should have taken El Amarna for peace when we had the chance
[16:25] <+Eklektikos> and while we can't undo that, I don't see that razing another city can do anything but exacerbate the problem
[16:25] <@Falcon02> Ekl, are you sure Abandoning cities count as "razing"?
[16:26] <+DX_Zoi> we are abandoning our own city, not razing it. Will that cause a rep hit?
[16:26] <+Eklektikos> abandoning a city where the majority of the population are foreign citizens counts as razing
[16:26] <+DX_Zoi> what about pop rushing a city with foreign citizens?
[16:27] <+Eklektikos> nope
[16:27] <+DX_Zoi> doesnt count?
[16:27] <+Eklektikos> that's fine, provided you can deal with the unhappiness issues
[16:27] <+DX_Zoi> unhappiness in all of Fanatica?
[16:27] <+DX_Zoi> or just Memphis?
[16:27] <+Eklektikos> unhappiness in that city
[16:28] <+DX_Zoi> phhhft.......no problem!
[16:28] <+Eklektikos> actually... do you happen to have the save open?
[16:28] <+DX_Zoi> yes
[16:29] <+DX_Zoi> of course! I [was] planning on playing, remember? : D
[16:29] <+Eklektikos> how many turns would you say we'd have to wait for Memphis to grow by one point?
[16:29] <+DX_Zoi> lemme see
[16:29] <+DX_Zoi> 10 turns
[16:29] <+Eklektikos> since for some reason I can't seem to get your zip file to work :s
[16:29] <+DX_Zoi> it is size 3 right now
[16:30] <@Falcon02> :-/ only way out I see out of a rep hit and abandoning quickly is pop-rush and place a native worker or two in there then abandon
[16:30] <+Eklektikos> hmm... just trying to remember how much spare pop you need to be able to rush a temple practically from scratch...
[16:30] <@Falcon02> and that makes no sence to me
[16:30] <@Falcon02> two wasted workers
[16:31] <+DX_Zoi> we dont even have any workers nearby Falc
[16:31] <@Falcon02> even more fuel to the argument against it
[16:31] <@Falcon02> so it seems either try to keep it, or get a rep hit
[16:32] <+Eklektikos> since we don't appear to be going anywhere fast at the moment, mind if I go test something out?
[16:32] <+DX_Zoi> I really don't want to risk more of our men, Falcon. I hope you can understand that
[16:32] <+DX_Zoi> sure, Ek
[16:32] <+Eklektikos> ok, brb
[16:32] <@Falcon02> Ekl of course
[16:33] <@Falcon02> 3 is the most I'm willing to "risk" on Memphis until we can ensure our Garrison will ELIMINATE the chance to flip
[16:34] <+DX_Zoi> Then again, if we do that we will have 8-10 units inside Memphis and less to line our borders
[16:37] <@Falcon02> by Ekl's Calc's the Minimum was 7 (1 pop and with temple)
[16:37] <+DX_Zoi> having 7-10 units that can't be moved from a city is almost
as bad as losing them altogether.
[16:38] <+Eklektikos> not when that city is the most likely point for the enemy to attack, unless we're planning another offensive VERY soon
[16:38] <+Eklektikos> by the way I'm not really back yet
[16:38] <+Eklektikos> :mischief:

With everyone already (at least) annoyed with us I don't see the problem with abandoning the city and building our own. Another potential problem here are the two escorted Aztec settlers south of Memphis. If Memphis flips and Monty builds a city or two south of that city then we lose alot of our land.

If we up the luxury rate to 10% we can put Noshuret's entertainer to work and raise a settler there in 3 turns. What about adding this settler to Memphis?

Out of interest, do we have embassies with any members of the annoyed multitude?

Originally posted by Eklektikos
Out of interest, do we have embassies with any members of the annoyed multitude?

I think our only embassy is in Athens.

A question of my own: if we go into anarchy does that increase the chances of Memphis flipping back to Egypt?

Going into anarchy will not of itself increase the chances of a flip. However since military units do not have any military police effect while anarchy reigns and rioting does increase the chances of a flip, we will have to make sure we keep an eye out for that. That may also affect the speed with which resistance is quelled, although I'm not certain with regard to that. My advice would be to hold off starting the revolution until after resistance has ended, and then switch all Memphis citizens to tax collectors or scientists for the duration of the anarchy period. This will both bring the foreign population down and guarantee against civil unrest in the city.

Our sole embassy is in fact in Athens, and Alex is so pissed.

So I guess if we were to put up a poll right now it would be a multiple choice poll with the following choices...

- Abandon Memphis and found our own city
- Stave Memphis
- Add a worker or settler to Memphis
- Pop Rush something to speed population decrease
- Abstain

do we have a settler in place btw? to place a city there directly on abandoning it?

Originally posted by disorganizer
do we have a settler in place btw? to place a city there directly on abandoning it?

No, but by upping the lux rate to 10% we can put Noshuret's entertainer to work and that city could then raise a settler in 3 turns. It would still take more turns to get in place but I think this would be the fastest way to get a settler over there.

hmmm... i doubt we could get it up there faster than egypt will have a settler in place...

Why don't we have the workers in the area complet the road from Lake Asphinxia to the road in the Elephantine Hills? We could supply them with a lux or two...

And PLEASE don't make any poll about this a multiple choice poll. They are a bad idea to begin with and trying one here would really be a mistake. Hey Peri, there's an idea. Why don't we make the Border Poll multiple choice for people who can't make up their minds. No...j/k :rolleyes:

if we are to wait a few turns before making the government switch (in order to get out a crop of settlers) we would have the time to:

police Memphis w/ 2 legions to end the resistance

pop rush a worker to get it down to size one

start the road w/ the new worker to get lux to memphis


although i really think we should just use the legions to capture as many cities as we can.

Memphis is still ours and is growing. It has luxuries and a new temple. Is it still in grave danger of revolting and rejoing Egypt? what steps should be taken to ensure it remains in our kingdom? we are now a monarchy and can use gold to rush workers or settlers. I'm not sure if a worker from Memphis would be Egyptian or Fanatican. Can anyone shed some light on this situation?

Why would a Fanatican city produce an Egyptian Worker? I think we're safe on that one.

Originally posted by Cyc
Why would a Fanatican city produce an Egyptian Worker? I think we're safe on that one.

Memphis is currently populated by two Fanatican and three Egyptian citizens. The Fanaticans are content while two Egyptians are happy and one is sad. A new worker would come from one of these citizens so I thought it could be either Fanatican or Egyptian. Anyone out there know more about the process of raising workers from multi-cultural cities?

i think the first choice is the non-working citizens, for example entertainers... but im not sure about that.
so if we would get an entertainer to be egyptian, we would get an egypt worker... the question is: why wouldnt we want that? this could drastically reduce the flip risk as it would increase the egypt-fanatican-ratio in the city.

Oh just give in and starve the city. You know you want to... :satan:

well, what about starving and rushing something? we just need to get rid of 3 egyptians.... that cant be TOO hard!
maybe if we could ensure we could rush a worer into a fanatican worker killing 3 of the egyptians.. then we could rejoin the worker and have a pop 2 fanatican city!

We are a monarchy dis. We rush with gold now.

ah... well we could rush a settler and a worker to get rid of those foreigners... and use the egyptian settler on the other side of our continent to build a city :-)

Originally posted by donsig


Memphis is currently populated by two Fanatican and three Egyptian citizens.


YES!!!!!

I'm glad to hear we didn't lose it while I was on Vacation, LONG LIVE MEMPHIS, at least the fanatikan one ;)