Fixed Borders, Minimum City Border, Revolution, City Flipping

I'm working on fully understanding and explaining how these options work together. Code is working more or less. The only thing that doesn't work is that if Revolution is ON and you're overwhelming a foreign city with culture, you'll eventually get asked if you want that city to join your empire or if it should form another civ but whatever choice you make, it won't change ownership. We'll fix that, of course.

Another thing I've learned in my test explains why there are so few cities flipping/revolting. It's because REVOLT_TEST_PROB is very low (10) in GlobalDefines.xml. I've raised it to 100, as I think it should be, and now cities are revolting when they're supposed to. I still need to test more anyway and find if 100 is a good value; it might be too much for AI but keep in mind that there are ways to prevent a city revolt.

So, here we go with more info on these options.

• If you have Fixed Borders, no matter how much culture/espionage pressure you'll put on a foreign city, it will NEVER revolt if that city is defended by at least 1 unit. This sounds very good and gives a lot of usefulness to using Fixed Borders civics.
  
• If you're using No Revolution option, what I've said above about FB is still valid and you'll be able to flip an undefended city with enough culture pressure (or espionage) even if it has FB or, if you don't use FB, you might be able to flip it even if it's defended.
  
• If you're using Revolution, everything works the same way BUT AI has more choices: a foreign city overwhelmed with your culture might ask (and be granted) to join your empire (currently this is the not working part) OR that city might be granted independence (and form a new civ) OR they might be denied in their request and hence they will spawn rebels (new civ).
  
• The more you advance through eras, the more culture pressure you can apply to a foreign city, of course; but at the same time more modern units are able to prevent cities revolts more easily (having a tank inside a city lowers revolt probability much better than having a longbow); this is true both with or without Revolution.
  
• Finally, Minimum City Borders prevents all of the above. If you use that option, 8 squares around your city will never change ownership. I haven't tested yet actually, but I think it should work like Fixed Borders (no city flip as long as you have 1 defending unit).

I'll let you all know how further testing goes but my idea is to drastically increase that REVOLT_TEST_PROB to get Revolution back into action as it was in the past, provided that this change doesn't cripple AI. If this change proves too hard for AI, I think a good solution might be using different values for humans and AI to make AI's life a bit easier when we're getting at revolts problems.

If you are working about this topic, how about increasing the revolt risk with a spy (finance rebels) or spreading your culture with a great artist (telling about your great civilization)?

Slarki said:

If you are working about this topic, how about increasing the revolt risk with a spy (finance rebels) or spreading your culture with a great artist (telling about your great civilization)?

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I'm not sure about Artists but spies already pose a great risk, especially if I increase that parameter as I've said in my previous post.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13448974 said:

I'm not sure about Artists but spies already pose a great risk, especially if I increase that parameter as I've said in my previous post.

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you mean revolt risk? Hm, I would like to form your own rebels and see how they crumble the city

Slarki said:

you mean revolt risk? Hm, I would like to form your own rebels and see how they crumble the city

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There's a spy mission for that, Aid Rebel Faction, and it works very well.

Thank you 45* for your work and summary on these issues.

So your work confirms what I thought was going on with FB. I still think it's not right that 1 defender can stop a Cultural flip. If I knew how to change that I would do so for my personal play.

So... I will continue to Not use: FB, Rev, and Now Minimum Borders.

1 other Option I should've mentioned in conjunction with this is Realistic Culture Spread. BUT! I do Not expect you to waste your valuable time on determining it's effects on City Flipping. My gut continues to tell me Not to use it and I will continue in that vein.

Thanks again.

(OT-How's that baby boy doing? Both he and momma doing well?)

JosEPh

One unit suppressing a flip seems a bit much to me as well. Somehow I keep thinking of a situation where you'd have 90 something percent culture in a city, and a single spearman is valiantly holding the rebellion at bay
I doubt such an extreme example would ever really arise, and it's not often an AI would have a city entirely undefended anyway, but I do see the AI in Fixed-Border civics the majority of the time. Not always, but quite often.

Will have to see how it plays out I guess

JosEPh_II said:

Thank you 45* for your work and summary on these issues.

So your work confirms what I thought was going on with FB. I still think it's not right that 1 defender can stop a Cultural flip. If I knew how to change that I would do so for my personal play.

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It's in the dll. I'm not sure it needs to be changed, it gives something useful to Fixed Borders Civics, which I think it's good. But maybe it should be tuned down a bit.

1 other Option I should've mentioned in conjunction with this is Realistic Culture Spread. BUT! I do Not expect you to waste your valuable time on determining it's effects on City Flipping. My gut continues to tell me Not to use it and I will continue in that vein.

Thanks again.

(OT-How's that baby boy doing? Both he and momma doing well?)

JosEPh

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I haven't tested deeply but I always use realistic culture and so it was in my test games and it doesn't affect city flipping.

My wife and son are good, he's just got his sixth tooth and he's so kind to let us sleep all night long, so I really can't complain.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13449092 said:

There's a spy mission for that, Aid Rebel Faction, and it works very well.

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It does indeed
I love to break the AI with it.
Even a stronger opponent can be sent to dust with it.

Sogroon said:

It does indeed
I love to break the AI with it.
Even a stronger opponent can be sent to dust with it.

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If revolution is getting stronger with my proposed change, I'll probably also increase cost for that mission exactly because it's so powerful.

Rezca said:

One unit suppressing a flip seems a bit much to me as well. Somehow I keep thinking of a situation where you'd have 90 something percent culture in a city, and a single spearman is valiantly holding the rebellion at bay
I doubt such an extreme example would ever really arise, and it's not often an AI would have a city entirely undefended anyway, but I do see the AI in Fixed-Border civics the majority of the time. Not always, but quite often.

Will have to see how it plays out I guess

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My idea would be to change from that single unit holding the city to something like doubling the revolt index requested to flip the city or to cause rebellion (compared to when you don't have Fixed Borders). But I still have to think about it and test it.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13448923 said:

[*]The more you advance through eras, the more culture pressure you can apply to a foreign city, of course; but at the same time more modern units are able to prevent cities revolts more easily (having a tank inside a city lowers revolt probability much better than having a longbow); this is true both with or without Revolution.

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This means that the strength of the garrisoned unit counts for the probability of a revolution?

nionios said:

This means that the strength of the garrisoned unit counts for the probability of a revolution?

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No, there is a specific parameter for every unit that lowers revolt chances. In general it's higher for more modern units, but it's not connected with strength.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13449172 said:

It's in the dll. I'm not sure it needs to be changed, it gives something useful to Fixed Borders Civics, which I think it's good. But maybe it should be tuned down a bit.

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Very much so. It makes Fixed Borders invulnerable to the culture game, which is a very bad idea. Resistance, certainly, but invulnerability? No thanks.

@45º

If you have Fixed Borders, no matter how much culture/espionage pressure you'll put on a foreign city, it will NEVER revolt if that city is defended by at least 1 unit. This sounds very good and gives a lot of usefulness to using Fixed Borders civics.

I didn't understand this, who is the Fixed Borders user here? The cultural master or the foreign loser? By the way it's written it seems that if you, the one who is putting his culture into someone else's city, is using Fixed Borders, you won't be able to flip the opposing city if it has at least a single troop. Isn't it the contrary? If you have FB, then nobody will be able to flip your city if it has at least 1 unit inside?


If revolution is getting stronger with my proposed change, I'll probably also increase cost for that mission exactly because it's so powerful.

Instead of doing this, why not reducing the effect of the mission? Increasing the cost isn't as strong as reducing its effect. The cost takes into consideration your EPs production and the relation between EPs on the enemy and EPs of this enemy on you. It's easy to manipulate this to make the mission cheaper. But if you need to do this mission twice to put a city to danger (instead of one, how it is now, if Afforess didn't change this yet like we were discussing about), then you're talking of increasing the chances of failure (2 spy missions instead of one), and choosing between doing the missions together (which will make the cost of the second mission a lot greater then the first because of the EPs spent on the first mission), or using a single spy to do the mission and then sending him back (which gives time for the opposing player to recover). This is a better way of making the mission more difficult.

Anyways, a single mission (independent of its cost) that puts a city from RevIDX 0 Safe to Danger is OP because the cost can be manipulated. That's why I disagree with the flip city mission, it's simply unfair for a drastic change so fast, so out of nowhere.

The safest way of using espionage is letting it be low all the time in every player that matters (so use your natural 0% points on weaklings). When you need, just put 100% for one or a few turns and then use them on a mission. Because your relation with the player is catastrophically high for you (e.g. 10000 vs 115), your missions will be cheap and you may use all EPs suddenly, so the AI will stop putting so many EPs in you because surely it has someone more important to put on (as it was doing before). Of course if there is a strong AI putting a lot of EPs in you, then it's strongly advised to compensate that or kill that AI (which is better then compensating by the way).

About your first question, yes, maybe I wasn't clear. You can't flip a city when the city owner has fixed borders and at least one defending unit in that city. And you're right about espionage mission, I didn't think about that. It's definitely better lowering mission effect.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13449092 said:

There's a spy mission for that, Aid Rebel Faction, and it works very well.

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Oh, didn't know that it is actually intertwined with revolutions!

By the way, is it worth it to "aid rebel factions" to increase the rebellious sentiment? Wouldn't it be more efficient to spread your culture?

Slarki said:

By the way, is it worth it to "aid rebel factions" to increase the rebellious sentiment? Wouldn't it be more efficient to spread your culture?

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Not much point in that if the city in question is buried behind enemy lines, miles from your borders, and is already suffering from civil unrest

Aiding the Rebel Factions and pushing it past that "critical point" would be much faster and efficient in such a case. Now if it were on your borders and had plenty of your culture in it already, then perhaps.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13448923 said:

I'll let you all know how further testing goes but my idea is to drastically increase that REVOLT_TEST_PROB to get Revolution back into action as it was in the past, provided that this change doesn't cripple AI.

Click to expand...

I've run some test and it looks like AI isn't having any troubles with it after having raised that value to 100 (from 10). And at least with Revolution ON it makes significantly harder (but not impossible) to make quick conquests, which is very good IMO.