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Computer-controlled civ steals cities

Acadien

Acadien

Chieftain
Joined
May 25, 2007
Messages
63
I played a game not too long ago where the computer-controlled civ "stole" a
russian and an egyptian city without military conquest.

It seemed similar to human players using diplomats to incite revolt and acquire the cities of other civs.

There was a message like "citizens in CITY-X admire the prosperity of Peking"
and then a spy report I think, telling me that the chineese had acquired that
city.

I found this very interesting and I wonder how often this occurs? Have any of you witnessed this? I think you need diplomatic relations (embassies) in order to be notified of this when it happens.

I remember somtimes that some conquered cities among computer-controlled civs were pretty isolated and sometimes right in the middle of the homeland of another civ. I suspect that this city-stealing tactic must be behind this, but I was not notified for lack of established embassies?

So, have any of you been witness to this? How often does it happen?
 
This sounds like the semi-random event, triggered when a city (i believe it has to be under civil disorder) of a smaller/weaker civilization, neighbors a large and advanced civ. This event is comparable to the culture flips in later civ games. It can be triggered for a player too. So it has nothing to do with a diplomat buying a city. Besides, I dont think the AI can use diplomats that way. Correct me if i'm wrong.
 
Hello Yolrin,

Thank you for the interesting insight. For sure, it is evident that computer-controlled civs do not use the diplomat units. But I figured that there were alternative ways in with Sid programmed a way for the computer to do some of the actions that the human player can do using the diplomat unit.
 
Yolrin,

You responce provoked another question in me. The way you explain this, it means that this could happen to a human controlled civ? if I am very advaned and prosperous, a closeby city in disorder from another civ has a statistical change of joining my civ?
 
Acadien said:
By I figured that there were alternative ways in with Sid programmed a way for the computer to do some of the actions that the human player can do using the diplomat unit.
Click to expand...

Yes, you could see it that way, but note that it is not an AI-only event. It can happen to everyone. I remember it firing for me, and a foreign city joining my nation.

It isn't somehting you'll see in every game, but it is not very rare either.
 
I remember an earlier post that mentioned that the AI does use the the diplomat unit in a way, namely that the AI can "teleport" a diplomat to any square with a unit.
 
I've witnessed the behavior described. Cites seem to defect at a constant rate regardless of influence by player or CPU civilization; only the messages differ.
 
Acadien said:
...I had never witnessed it before and in that game, it happened twice with the same civ.
Click to expand...

Are you usually the most powerful civ around? Are the Chinese especially powerful in your current game? I think who's in charge of the world is all that matters. These events are rare; I doubt I've seen them more than a dozen times total.

Acadien said:
Also, I wonder if any human player ever lost a city this way?
Click to expand...

This isn't possible I think. Memory is fuzzy, but I recall an AI analysis showing that the option isn't even available to the CPU even though it's theoretically possible.
 
Whelkman,

In that game, I was the largest and most powerfull by far. Chineese were behind me and the Russians too. It is not clear who was second, Chineese ot Russian. Chineese were a smaller civ than the Russians one, but I think they were more advanced in technology than the Russians.

So, there was a Russian city and an Egyptian city that both joined the Chineese without the Chineese being the dominant civ in the game, and the Chineese and Russians were quite comparable. Egypt was a small and under-developped civ.
 
To add a data point, enemy cities have flipped to me a couple of times when I've been playing with one city on low difficulty levels. To me this suggests that the event isn't dependend on the military power or size of your civilization - I only had a handful of units. Also, at least once the city that flipped had belonged to a tribe with which I had not made contact.

I was a lot more scientifically advanced than the competition and my GDP per capita was rather higher. The message said the people of the city that flipped admired my city's prosperity - so I naturally induced starvation in the city to bring it down to a size where it would be destroyed if an enemy managed to defeat the defending unit.
 
E O S said:
To add a data point, enemy cities have flipped to me a couple of times when I've been playing with one city on low difficulty levels. To me this suggests that the event isn't dependend on the military power or size of your civilization - I only had a handful of units. Also, at least once the city that flipped had belonged to a tribe with which I had not made contact.

I was a lot more scientifically advanced than the competition and my GDP per capita was rather higher. The message said the people of the city that flipped admired my city's prosperity - so I naturally induced starvation in the city to bring it down to a size where it would be destroyed if an enemy managed to defeat the defending unit.
Click to expand...

E O S is right. Same thing happened to me just yesterday while playing an OCC.

Shanghai flipped to me, I dont remember the date but I think it was early to middle game. I let the chinese to recapture it, so i could continue my OCC... I had no previous contact with the chinese, nor I was the most powerful civ (just the most advanced).

Screenie from the end of the game:

(Yeah, I know this is a very bad city spot for OCC.)
Difficulty was chieftain.

So the game seems to check and compare the power and "prosperity" of the two cities, not the two civs as a whole. If that's the case, then the event should be more probable during OCC games.
 
I think I have lost cities to AI civilizations as well. But that was a long time ago and I can't really remember correctly. I've always thought it has to do with happiness level.
 
Version: civ dos 474.05 King level

980BC - I capture Berlin, the next turn
Germans rebel! Civil War in Leipzig English influence suspected
What event made the city flip? A city whose existence was unknown to me.

From the replay.txt log
1000 BC: ENGLISH: 7 CITIES; 490,000 POPULATION
*** 1:English 2:Germans 3:Romans 4:Aztecs 5:Indians 6:Chinese 7:Babylonians
980 BC: ENGLISH CAPTURE BERLIN
980 BC: English make peace with Germans
980 BC: ENGLISH CAPTURE LEIPZIG

I always find these inexplicable events intriguing, but seldom do they seem to go in my favor.




The following is a snap shot at 1000BC


with unknown fog in place
 
hehe, that flipping happened to me also, the interesting part of it that it was in an unexplored area, because i was on a TCC in warlord like yolrin.
 
It is interesting to note that there appears to be different messages coded in there to make variations.

So we have at least the scenario where one city envies the prosperity of another, ans then this rebelion event presented by Dack.

Yolrin's city-city comparison (as opposed to the civ-civ one) is also a very interesting hypothesis for explaining some of the city-flipping.
 
This happens pretty often in my games -- maybe once every four or five games, the "citizens of City X admire the prosperity of City Y" and converts to another civilization. They don't need to be neighboring, exactly; sometimes the city is on another continent (although maybe when this has happened, the "better" civ had a colony city on the continent but I just didn't see it).

I remember this happening for me, also -- I usually hated it, because suddenly I had a city that I had to improve and defend in the middle of an opponent's territory. It would pretty much screw up all my plans, but, like everything else in civdos, it would make me laugh a lot.
 
Blinking Joy said:
This happens pretty often in my games -- maybe once every four or five games, the "citizens of City X admire the prosperity of City Y" and converts to another civilization.
Click to expand...

that is soo strange. i used to play chieftain and warlord for years in the 90s and usually had "axes vs tanks" scenario, but there was never ever a flipping.
nowadays, it happened to me only two times and in chieftain, though i played quite some games.

i suspect building improvements and wonders also influence this thing. in the 90s i played without building anything and flipping avoided me. nowadays i get some build habit and in x-city-challenges i am even more builder style as i avoid militarism totally. weird idea: did sid have the "culture-thing" in mind even in civ1?
 
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