Culture Flipping - Historical Examples

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Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


If you want that to happen give the barbs a good unit for their 'advanced' setting, remove your bonus against them, and leave a few encampments alone near your borders (on Raging). Wait to enter the Middle Ages, and you will have 48-72 barbarians swarming over your border. This is effectively what happened to the Chinese, except the barbs then turned into a Civ of their own.

The problem with barbs in Civ2 is that barbarian units cannot change as the ages go on. Didnt even Civ1 (and Civ2) have this???
 
Originally posted by Reichsmarshal


As it currently is culture flipping is unbalancing because of the staggering amount of units that can be slain this way. If multiple cities flip simeoltaneously it can severely hamper the war effort.

But you see, my point is that this is actually how it should be. Neglect early culture such that you are far behind an enemy's cultural level, and you run terrible risk of losing units. You should have been investing more shields in culture in order to minimize this risk (or else you've determined that the risk is acceptable, in which case "you pays your money and you takes your chances.") The game is balanced by ensuring that culture neglect will hamper the war effort.

Alternatively, think about this approach. There is no rule of any kind that says one must occupy conquered cities with lots of units (and therefore risk losing units in a flip). Perhaps a better tactical decision to avoid an "unbalancing" result is to avoid putting so many units in harm's way (by garrisoning in a city)? Maybe fortifying one's forces in the open plains or hills outside of town would prove wiser than bringing one's armies into the warren of alleyways and blind streetcorners and amidst the politcial intrigue and plotting of the coffehouses of a recently conquered city?

Back On-Topic: Re the Mongols. I haven't read a clearly laid-out explanation as to why the disintegration of the Mongol Empire is not a historical example of culture flipping. Did I miss it in the (currently) six-page thread?
 
Originally posted by Damien
Zouave,as i said b4,my home city(Le Havre,Normandy) which was the 1st french harbour was razed within a night by the british air force.

Razing is far from being unrealistic.

Yea. right.

A single damaged unit can make a metroplis of millions vanish instantly, the population disappearing into thin air, and the tile it is on becoming unpolluted grassland ready for rrigation. :crazyeye:

Destroying by air bombardment is not the same thing as "razing". And even Hamburg wasn't totally destroyed that way.


Just don't let Firaxis sell you any Enron stock. :p
 
Nope. It does not work. :mad: :( See the attached image from the current test game.

You will note I am the Persians and I have almost totally conquered the Americans. And yet a garrisoned town of '6' flipped back.

Reducing in Editor/Culture all Resistance rates to zero does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it effects it in any way I know not.

Until Firaxis gives us some options and explanations on all this I have no more time for Civ 3. I am not about to spend hours of my limited time playing a scenario to see nearly half my offensive force suddenly disappear. No thanks.
 

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Originally posted by Zouave
Nope. It does not work. :mad: :( See the attached image from the current test game.


Reducing in Editor/Culture all Resistance rates to zero does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it effects it in any way I know not.


I can confirm this as well (see my post earlier in the thread). Looks like our only hope is if some program can make some program to mod the game. I know there were various culture trainers that worked in previous versions which may have helped, but I know of nothing now.
 
Reducing in Editor/Culture all Resistance rates to zero does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it effects it in any way I know not.

The change WOULD affect CF marginally, as it would prevent resistors from appearing in any cities and thereby reduce the risk of flipping a bit.

Yes, I've cited the Mongols many times. Their overwhleming military strength intimidated cities they moved against, and some of them simply surrendered and begged for mercy - you can call that a form of "Flipping". And it was due to MILITARY power and the Mongols' terror tactics and slaughter of those who resisted. It was not due to their number of temples and libraries.

And what happened to them? Their empire fell to pieces around them. They are renowned for the speed at which they conquered, not for the empire they left behind. The empire of Alexander the Great suffered a similar fate.

But in Civ 3 you can move against a town with a hundred knights
and it still will not surrender even if garrisoned only by a warrior.

If your forces are that overwhelming, why would you NEED them to surrender? You would be able to whip them with even working up a sweat.
 
quote:
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But in Civ 3 you can move against a town with a hundred knights
and it still will not surrender even if garrisoned only by a warrior.

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Nor will a town flip when garrisoned with such a large force. This applies to the WWII scenarios mentioned, as well.
 
Originally posted by Catt


But you see, my point is that this is actually how it should be. Neglect early culture such that you are far behind an enemy's cultural level, and you run terrible risk of losing units. You should have been investing more shields in culture in order to minimize this risk (or else you've determined that the risk is acceptable, in which case "you pays your money and you takes your chances.") The game is balanced by ensuring that culture neglect will hamper the war effort.


It is untrue to say that if you build up your culture cities will rarely flip. They will still flip all the time. That is one of the problems with "culture" flipping. The point is either for it to be a method of obtaining/liberating cities through CULTURE or it is a war tool. It can't be both. Moving units outside of the city does not always make much tactical sense. I noticed that cities rarely flip if there are no units in them. That proves the game tries to use it as a war tool rather than for peaceful purposes. I find the peaceful city flipping (which is the only type that helps the players; for some reason caputured player cities don't war flip) does not out weigh the "war" type.

Alternatively, think about this approach. There is no rule of any kind that says one must occupy conquered cities with lots of units (and therefore risk losing units in a flip). Perhaps a better tactical decision to avoid an "unbalancing" result is to avoid putting so many units in harm's way (by garrisoning in a city)? Maybe fortifying one's forces in the open plains or hills outside of town would prove wiser than bringing one's armies into the warren of alleyways and blind streetcorners and amidst the politcial intrigue and plotting of the coffehouses of a recently conquered city?

It isn't always possible to conqueror 80% of the cities in one turn. If cities are always going to flip all the time you might as well just raze them all the time. The Roman Empire was able to keep their even during civil wars and during World War 1 and 2 armies did not lose so many units so often to "flipping".

What is it that constitutes a culture flip (this sentence is sure to be quoted by many ;) )? If it is a typical revolution, then it is not a "culture" flip. If it is partisan activity it is not a true culture flip either then.
 
Good discussion going!

Originally posted by Reichsmarshal


It is untrue to say that if you build up your culture cities will rarely flip. They will still flip all the time. That is one of the problems with "culture" flipping.

I disagree. Wholeheartedly. And I am not saying that building up culture equates to flipping becoming a rare event. I am saying that a strong civ culture is a great preventative measure against flipping problems.

I have lost cities to flipping (both in times of peace and in times of war). The key to avoiding flipping is to understand how flipping works. A strong total culture is a great bulwark against flipping. It is not a cure-all, but it is an important factor. The more readily apparent influencers on flipping are foreign citizens / foreign controlled city radius tiles - it is these factors to keep a very close eye on.

In peacetime, if your border cities have foreign culture pressing into their 21-tile radius you are at risk for a flip. Accept the risk, or take other measures to prevent it (garrison a lot of units in the city). If your border cities control all of their 21-tile radius and contain no foreign citizens, they will not flip.

In wartime, your newly captured cities will always contain foreign citizens, and will often feel the pressure of "enemy" culture exerted on many of their 21-tile city radii. Tread carefully. Expect a lot of flips if you refuse to garrison the city. Even a very strong advantage in total culture will not by any stretch of the imagination prevent flips in recently conquered cities.

The point is either for it to be a method of obtaining/liberating cities through CULTURE or it is a war tool. It can't be both.

Why not? Maybe I don't understand your point. :confused:

Moving units outside of the city does not always make much tactical sense. I noticed that cities rarely flip if there are no units in them. That proves the game tries to use it as a war tool rather than for peaceful purposes. I find the peaceful city flipping (which is the only type that helps the players; for some reason caputured player cities don't war flip) does not out weigh the "war" type.

I agree that moving units outside of a city does not always make tactical sense. But it often does. Just as garrisoning the city often makes tactical sense.

Perceptions and experiences differ from player to player, and it is dangerous to assume that one player's experience reveals "truths" of game features - particularly where a player tends to employ the same tactics / play style from game to game. Your perception that cities rarely flip if there are no units in them is a perception, and not something sufficient to support the argument that the "game tries to use it as a war tool." I sometimes decide not to garrison captured cities - leaving either 0 or 1 injured units as a garrison. And these largely ungarrisonned cities flip back with alarming regularity.

And I have frequently seen "my" cities, after being taken by an evil AI civ, flip back to me. How often are you losing a number of cities to the AI? Could the relative infrequency of the AI taking and holding your cities explain your perception that your cities rarely flip back?

It isn't always possible to conqueror 80% of the cities in one turn. If cities are always going to flip all the time you might as well just raze them all the time.

Well that's certainly a tactical choice. I choose to almost never raze cities. And I pretty much never take 80% of a civ on one turn. I prefer to retain the cities as my spoils of war. I often leave troops garrisoned in the hills outside a city until I can rush a temple or a library and get the first cultural border expansion. Depending on the city population, my total culture, etc., I will then often garrison with what I consider a sufficient force to prevent future flips. If I can eliminate cultural pressure within the 21-tile city radius, I've won half the battle. If the city flips before I've garrisoned it, it generally means a one-turn (really a momentary) interruption in my logistics lines, and some wasted gold or wasted shields (in rushing the temple with cash or disbanded units). A front-line city (directly on the border with the enemy) may be more problematic -- if the city flips the enemy receives the movement bonus of the recently flipped city's roads - which means I will probably leave a fair number of units near the city in order to withstand a counter-attack.

The Roman Empire was able to keep their even during civil wars and during World War 1 and 2 armies did not lose so many units so often to "flipping".

What is it that constitutes a culture flip (this sentence is sure to be quoted by many ;) )? If it is a typical revolution, then it is not a "culture" flip. If it is partisan activity it is not a true culture flip either then.

I think others have addressed the Roman and WW examples and I won't rehas the earlier arguments. Did I still miss the explanation as to why the disintegration of the Mongol Empire isn't an historical example of culture flipping (albeit somewhat abstracted)?
 
The Mongol Empire went into decline because of internal fighting, and incapable leaders unlike Genghis Khan, his sons and grandsons. I have stated this already, if culture flipping was in existence during the time of Mongol conquests like it is in the game they would have never got out of the Steppes of Asia. Mongols rule was based on the strength of their army, pure and simple. Yet, they did not have to garrison hundreds of thousands of troops in cities before moving on to further conquests. It took centuries for many of these lands to break free from the Mongol yolk. Furthermore some of you suggest that the Mongol Empire crumbled because they lacked culture – yes they did lack culture but they didn’t hesitate to assume the culture of other peoples utilizing the finer points of them. This does not constitute culture flipping. They never lost control of lands because they adopted many points from the Chinese and Uygurs cultures, if anything it made them stronger. There are many examples in history, where Civilizations assumed the richer cultures of other Civilizations – without losing control over that territory.

This is a very interesting thread, and I see merit in both sides of the argument – however there is one glaring point that doesn't make sense about the way CF works. That is losing your army without even a fight, or one unit left alive. Not even one!? That is very hard to believe and in my opinion completely unrealistic. The first time it happened to me, I wasn’t so upset at the flipping which I viewed as a revolt against my power, but I was pissed right off that my ENTIRE army was gone including my leader! That’s just complete nonsense.

The Mongols had revolts too, many of them as matter of fact, but at least they still had their army to crush the revolt.


MEANT TO POST THIS IN "CULTURE FLIPPING - HISTORICAL EXAMPLES" - ANY RESPONSES PLS POST THEM AT THAT THREAD AND NOT HERE.
 
The Mongol Empire went into decline because of internal fighting, and incapable leaders unlike Genghis Khan, his sons and grandsons. I have stated this already, if culture flipping was in existence during the time of Mongol conquests like it is in the game they would have never got out of the Steppes of Asia. Mongols rule was based on the strength of their army, pure and simple. Yet, they did not have to garrison hundreds of thousands of troops in cities before moving on to further conquests. It took centuries for many of these lands to break free from the Mongol yolk. Furthermore some of you suggest that the Mongol Empire crumbled because they lacked culture – yes they did lack culture but they didn’t hesitate to assume the culture of other peoples utilizing the finer points of them. This does not constitute culture flipping. They never lost control of lands because they adopted many points from the Chinese and Uygurs cultures, if anything it made them stronger. There are many examples in history, where Civilizations assumed the richer cultures of other Civilizations – without losing control over that territory.

This is a very interesting thread, and I see merit in both sides of the argument – however there is one glaring point that doesn't make sense about the way CF works. That is losing your army without even a fight, or one unit left alive. Not even one!? That is very hard to believe and in my opinion completely unrealistic. The first time it happened to me, I wasn’t so upset at the flipping which I viewed as a revolt against my power, but I was pissed right off that my ENTIRE army was gone including my leader! That’s just complete nonsense.

The Mongols had revolts too, many of them as matter of fact, but at least they still had their army to crush the revolt.
 
Your city will CF when it is nearly surrounded by other cities, in 99.99% of the cases being, cities just captured as I've never had one of my own flip. I always capture or raze nearby cities when I capture a city. While I'm sure a couple of purists don't want to do it that way, it is effective at preventing flips, they never happen to me anymore.

Why would you have a leader in it? I always race or escort them to my empire.

Anytime I see 'realism' or 'unrealistic' I kinda have to laugh a little.
 
Originally posted by Zouave



Oh, India. The British conquered India. Following two costly world
wars, the rise in nationalism throughout the world, and the many actions of Gandhi, itwas no longer politically, miliarily, or economically feasible for Britain to stay. And India gaining its independence is not the same thing as one large civ's city "flipping" to another large civ.

I agree that culture-flipping happens too suddenly in civ3. The United Kingdom gave up Hong Kong because of several reasons. It was really militarily indefensible, had a very large majority of Chinese and other Asians, and, yes, there was a cultural aspect to China's takeover. But, as has been said many times, the owner civ should at least have a warning before a flip occurs! After that, perhaps corruption, unhappiness, civil disorder as a warning....
 
In Hong Kong's case the British Government gave a lot of warning before hand. Strangely enough it was the Chinese civilians that evacuated in droves rather that the military.:rolleyes:
 
The arguments over culture flipping are some of the most heated of any subject in Civ III, and I have always been in the "Against" camp, though only just inside the border.
You see the thing is I like culture flipping, it is one of the best additions to the civ formula- but I do think that as it stands CFing need to be altered. There are so many things in Civilization that make you bang your fist on the table and shout at the PC, because you get so involved, you always have that feeling of "just one more turn", and Something like a culture flip killing the bulk of your attacking force and wiping out in one fell swoop the fruits of twenty turns of labour on your part, can for some players, be just too much.

Culture flipping is an inevitable part of invasion, and I don't mind losing the units, but what gets my goat is having absolutely no warning- if culture flipping is an inevitable slide towards the loss of a city, it should feel inevitable, not just random.
Several days ago I proposed a suggestion for a Traffic light approach to culture flipping, so that the over all chance of culture flipping for a weak cultured civ is actually made more inevitable- but it comes with plenty of warning; So that you can try to do something about it. Thinking about scenarios, one of the things that makes a scenario (or any game of civ III) really playable, is a good challenge; imagine a scenario where you play as Alexander the Great- trying to get control of the whole of the old world through military conquest, while having a relatively low culture (perhaps 1:1 with the rest of the nations). That would be a great challenge, but would be very annoying because you would feel that it was an unbeatable challenge- no amount of tactical skill is effective against random Culture flips- all you can do is station troops and hope for the best, or alternatively rush to conquer the enemy civ with out garrisoning your gains and again hope for the best. In the end your tactical decision is irrelevant, because the outcome is based on dumb luck. Yes some cities are more likely to flip, but once random number generation is used, that difference becomes impossible to gauge- its like in George Orwell’s "animal farm"- All numbers are random, but some are more random than others :) I believe that for culture flipping to be a fun part of the Civ III experience it need to be less dependant on random number generation- because that’s been one of the weaknesses of turn based strategy from the very start; Its where all the problems of Civ III come from "culture flipping", "spearman killing tank" etc... Remember in Civ 1 how units would either win or loose combats based almost entirely on random luck? how a single rifle man could potentially destroy twenty tank units, or one tank unit could potentially destroy twenty rifle men? it just made the whole game seem silly.

I like culture flipping, I do believe that it is historically realistic (though it should not be entirely based on culture, military should be part of the equation) and I feel that Civ 3 would be poorer with out it. But I also think that a degree of warning of the slide towards loss is needed; and no I don't believe that "lord, there are x resistors in the city we should garrison it with strong troops" is enough of a warning.
 
Originally posted by GhengisFarb
In Hong Kong's case the British Government gave a lot of warning before hand. Strangely enough it was the Chinese civilians that evacuated in droves rather that the military.:rolleyes:

There are still plenty of Chinese civilians there.... :)
 
Originally posted by Smoking mirror
. . . [/B]

No one at Firaxis has ever stepped forward and admitted to dreaming up Culture Flipping, nor have they ever explained their rationale for it. They can't give historical examples as there are none as we've gone over repeatedly. To Firaxis: is Soren to blame for this, and care to explain yourselves?

Months ago we complained about crazy AI trade rates and ridiculous massive corruption. We eventually got the Editor to allow us to control them and to make them rational. Why not with CF effects? Why not a toggle off switch.

Exactly how, Firaxis, are you going to handle "historical" scenarios? It is bad enough U-boats can't attack merchant shipping (how the Germans almost won two world wars) - you've done nothing about that - but it will be even more ridiculous if in a Napoleonic scenario the entire French army disappears when Smolensk flips back to Russia, or in WW II when all of Patton's tanks vanish into thin air when Leipzig flips back to Germany.

Just FIX it. And Warning Indicators would be a start - or is the local governor so mindless he doesn't even know the mood of the population?!
 
Originally posted by Zouave
They can't give historical examples as there are none as we've gone over repeatedly.
You mumble to yourself alot, don't you?

I mean, there's a whole freakin' thread on cultural flips. You can't just will them out of existence.
 
Take a hike. A long one.


There are no legitimate historical examples despite your fantasies and those of Firaxis.
 
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