Historical examples of flips?

To feed my continuing obsession with flips, part of the debate on this centres on the whole idea of whether flips are realistic. Now, game mechanics aside, the concept certainly has a historical basis:

Modern:
(excluding, for the sake of argument, straight colonial "declarations of independence," which could be called flips in some cases)

- South Africa, 'flipping' from Anglo-Dutch civilizations to a Bantu/Xhosa civilization
- Bosnia, flipping from a moslem city controlled by an orthodox civilization into its Ottoman-era moslem identity
- The Ukraine, Baltic States, Azerbaijan, Armenia
- If you wanted to be perverse, you could argue that the Sudetenland and Austria flipped to Nazi Germany (although they had some external assistance along the way)
- if you wanted to be really perverse, you could argue that Newfoundland flipped into the "superior" Canadian culture with the referendum of 1949...

Will the Southwest U.S. flip back to Mexico eventually?
Are the Celtic civs gradually flipping back into their former identities?
Wasn't Hong Kong just a flip with consent of the loser? Macao?
Catalans and basques, flipping back to their previous identities?

Industrial
- Greece, flipping from Turkish to Greek, 1840s
- Spain, flipping out of the Napoleonic orbit with a bit more bloodshed than most
- Portugal, in and out and in and out of Spain
- Texas, flipping from a Mexican to an American culture

Medieval
- Bits of Wales gradually flipping into Anglo culture
- Norman territory in England gradually absorbed
- Several city states in Americas acquired by Aztec, Mayan or Incan empires by assimilation and tribute rather than outright conquest
- I'll be damned if I could describe it, but China gradually reintegrating itself into a single civ

Ancient
(Now, some classics geek has got to be able to find several examples here, since flips were common in this era...)

-Egypt, flipping from Greek/Macedonian control?
-Chinese culture, absorbing Mongols and Manchu conquests?
-Several city-states and "flipping" by inviting themselves under the Roman military umbrella, taking citizenship, etc.

My views on the game aspects of flips are repetitively noted elsewhere, under the general theme of "what is a CERTAIN remedy?"

Actually, that's quite a convincing list.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York

yes very convincing, would have saved a lot of typing on other posts about flipping in real life

If you think that relatively short and somewhat questionable list justifies the excessive and all too common flipping in Civ III you are dead WRONG. This is especially so when you factor in garrisons: the Baltic States, for instance, were not garrisoned by a large determined veteran Soviet army bent on maintaining control there. So, no sale.

Will the Southwest U.S. flip back to Mexico eventually?

Click to expand...

That is exactly what the America-haters and Open Door immigration fanatics want. Too bad.

Almost all of those are examples of civilizations declaring independance, creating a whole new civilization, not switching from one establish nationality to another. The few that are not had a large military component involved. Hitlers seizure Chechloslovakia was a negotiated settlement followed by a military conquest.

The only comparable example of that is Hong Kong going to China, an event not actually desired by much of Hong Kong's populace.

Michigan joining Canada without war would be what happens in Civ.

I think 'flipping' as represented in Civ3 is not a valid historical event. If a region abruptly defected from one large empire to join another, the original empire would try to quell the rebellion and would go to war with the other empire if it offered suport to the rebels. In any event this would not be a peaceful process like it is represented in the game (the losing civ hardly notices it). I cannot think of any historical event where this has happened, with the possible exception of Texas wresting free from Mexico and then joining USA who supported it by going to war on its behalf (thus not peaceable like the game). empires get larger by conquest and conquest alone - they get smaller by conquest or by provinciality, and when provincials DO break free, they invariably would prefer to have self rule, rather than come under some other exploitative thumb.

But I do think it livens up the game a bit and allows 'conquest' by peacenik kings...

China eventually becoming one civilization? That is an interesting one. I don't know how they did it either, but they did and I think it stands out as the only civilization to do what they did on such a large scale.

I believe China is the only civilization on this planet that entirely absorbed its conquerers peacefully. Rather anti-civilization if you asked me.

God. If I was a Mongolian back then I'd be asking how in heck did the Chinese end up conquering us peacefully?! How come all those cities and territories we captured are all chinese now? How did our entire military, all our infrastructure and all our cross-breeding suddenly become CHINA??

Hong Kong? If the majority in Hong Kong truly, vehemently protested against assimilation into China, don't you think they would have said something? The "mass exodus" of Hong Kong capital and people was not as massive as broadcasted in the west. The pro-China assimilation population was just as large, afterall, they were and are chinese. Not british.

Texas-Mexico. That is the point. Wasn't Texas joining the US a peaceful flip? Wasn't it the Mexican's that decided to go to war AFTER the flip?

Maybe the flipping thing does happen to often; however, the game is trying to represent real-world concepts... in a game.

Yes, Texas wanted to join the US, but the Mexican government wouldn't allow it, therefore the war broke out. Although, I think it was right that Mexico went to war with the US because the US annexed it, but Mexico didn't want to lose Texas so went to war over it. So yes, Texas went to the US peacefully, but Mexico went to war over losing it. Or at least I believe that's how it went, and I have to take a full year of Texas History with it being where I live.

Originally posted by Zouave
If you think that relatively short and somewhat questionable list justifies the excessive and all too common flipping in Civ III you are dead WRONG. This is especially so when you factor in garrisons: the Baltic States, for instance, were not garrisoned by a large determined veteran Soviet army bent on maintaining control there. So, no sale.

That is exactly what the America-haters and Open Door immigration fanatics want. Too bad.

Click to expand...

Hmmm. You admit that the Southwest U.S. could revert, think it a bad thing, but deny that it should ever happen in the game.

Of course, it is much more likely that Mexico will flip to the U.S. than the other way around. Immigration just speeds the integration. A reasonable argument can be made that Canada is already, or soon to be, assimilated.

Concerning open immigration. Remember that the U.S. was once separate states, but now we can travel from one to the other without ever going through customs. In Europe, national borders are dissolving, and freedom to travel will eventually be universal.

And no. Just because I believe that immigration is a good thing, does not mean I do not love my country.

Indeed, in terms of Civ3 gameplay, I think your high-culture cities should act as sponges and absorb population from surrounding areas.

There are two separate issueshere.
1. Should there beflipping of cities from one culture to another-- forward or backwards.
2. Are there any consistent rules to cause or prevent flipping.

The conceptof flipping is intreiguing, and there is pleny or historical precedent. What is unclear is what can we do in this game to encourage or prevent flipping? Maybe we have figured out the basics, and what remains is the rare random eventwhen a city flips in spite of doing all the right things.

Originally posted by Moulton
There are two separate issueshere.
1. Should there beflipping of cities from one culture to another-- forward or backwards.
2. Are there any consistent rules to cause or prevent flipping.

The conceptof flipping is intreiguing, and there is pleny or historical precedent. What is unclear is what can we do in this game to encourage or prevent flipping? Maybe we have figured out the basics, and what remains is the rare random eventwhen a city flips in spite of doing all the right things.

Click to expand...

Very well said. How does flipping work? What is the proper response in the game?

Gaining a city by flipping (anyone complaining about that?) may give us some clues.