City Flipping

How many of you experience when an AI ... in this case America...has 200 more total tourism output then you but somewhere along in the game...a city of theirs flips to you to either annex or puppet. I went with Freedom and Washington went with Autocracy so he could build the Kremlin. I can only guess that there was enough pressure in one of his major cities to flip. It was also located right next to his capitol of Washington.

Also other AI civs went with Freedom too.

Brew God

This happens to me about every 5 games.

There's almost always great works inside which I then relocate to my core empire.
As to the city itself, if I can't possibly defend it I'll either raze and sell it to another AI.
If I can defend it, then if you've gone Order AND already have the tenet giving a free Courthouse, then you should annex, otherwise puppet initially and wait until it comes out of resistance before annexing (the game might end before then given how big cities are then)

If a civ is in 'civil resistance' and their unhappiness goes below 20(I believe) their cities might flip to the closest civ to them. I great when it happens as that means a tonne of gold for you if you sell it back. If it flips again sell it to their worst enemy for probably even more gold. Of course if it has wonders and can be defended you might want to keep it. I had a city that had Prora flip to me once, oh the irony.

That in itself is not worthy of a thread.

However, in this case it was an (ex) Capital city. Honolulu which had been captured by the Iriquois.

Normally I just raze them and sell all their assets- plunder any art works they may have. Normal bottom of the harbour stuff. Sometimes I'll get the population down to one or two and sell them back to the owner.

However, this time it was a little different as in I couldn't raze the city. The location was pretty ordinary- no resources I didn't already have and it would have been extremely difficult to defend.

I decided to just liberate it even though Polynesia was still alive.

Looking back, I don't think I received any benefit whatsoever apart from depriving the Iriquois of a capital city.

Was Polynesia grateful you gave them back their Capital?

TheKingOfBigOz said:

Was Polynesia grateful you gave them back their Capital?

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Not really. They are still guarded and I get the "You liberated some of our people" in green when you hover over the attitude.

Nothing more.

Happened to me with freakin Moscow once...
Liberate her from Atila, thinking: Ohhhhh I will have an ally in my war agaist this nut case!!

5 turns after liberation, the mad denounced me!!!

I was so pissed I razed her from the map despite the fact it really slow down my progrssion in the Huns territory.

I dont do those mistakes anymore. (liberating city of a living civ or go beserk and totaly ignore every plans I have because Im mad at 1 civ lol)

KingKong76 said:

5 turns after liberation, the mad denounced me!!!

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Yeah, liberating cities is not really that strong a buff to the civ you liberated. It does significantly help bring down your warmonger score with all civs. So liberate to lessen hate, not to turn an enemy into a friend.

I was so pissed I razed her from the map despite the fact it really slow down my progression in the Huns territory.

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Had you ignored the denouncement, after that wore off, odds are that Kathy would have become friendly (assuming you did not denounce her back, or do other things in the mean time to make her angry). By wiping out Kathy, you made all the civs hate you. Liberating cities of a living civ is strong play.

You know I rarely had cities flip to my civilization. AIs are usually good at tourism even with a good tourist output. It probably has happened to me once or twice and also to them once or twice.