Jawz II
Oh Dear
dude, just disable culture, i havent played a single game of civ3 with the culture on, and its great
i think it adds to the fun and is also more realistic
i think it adds to the fun and is also more realistic
How the RNG can completely destroy a game
- Thread starter tR1cKy
- Start date
tR1cKy
taking over the world
These are exactly the reasons why i choosed to capture the city rather than raze it.Doc Tsiolkovski said:
And Doc, you are confusing things a little, or maybe i didn't explain myself clearly enough. Willem's strategy on culture is right overall, but pointless in this particular case. Do some math, how much time would be necessary for Antioch to compete culturally? 50 turns? 100 turns? I reloaded, then amassed more units and sent a combined invasion force both to Antioch and Persepolis. Took both of them, and the whole Persian nation was history in less than 20 turns.
I'm ok with the culture flip concept. Before you all scream in terror, let me explain better. The whole model is consistent. A newly conquered city will naturally have its citizen upset about the invaders. And even in the following times, the fact that they feel culturally linked with the mother country, the amount of the culture itself, their nationality, their proximity with the core territory & so on... all this stuff is likely to increase the willing of the people to revolt and rejoin the original country.
The serious flaw is that Firaxis didn't take into account the possibility of a failed revolt, a situation when the citizens revolt but the military garrison is strong enough to keep the city under its control. This would be the case of a size 6 city revolting against a occupation force of 20 military units. They should have no chance. A failed revolt should cause some garrison units to be wounded and/or killed and some populace lost. This would be a more intelligent and realistic model. A player could take into account the possibility of a revolt and reply with a large number of stationing troops, instead of praying the RNG gods to not screw up its whole game... as many people said, an Iraqi city as Baghdad of Falluja could revolt against USA troops. There will be many american troops killed and a lot of insurgent killed as well, but it would be ridicolous to think about 10000 soldiers simply disappearing into nothing.
Alas, Firaxis's approach was different. In their vision, insurgent citizens do not take up arms and revolt agains the foreign invader. They call Harry Potter instead. The little bastard raises its magic wand and... tah-dah! In a blaze of light and magic, the whole invading force vanishes. :shakehead
@Willem: after reading my post while more calm, i realize i've been too rude. my apologies.
gunkulator
Emperor
Diasabling culture flips handicaps the AI since it makes it easier for you to just steamroll over them. The AI is already hapless enough. Why defang them even further?
tR1cKy said:
All it takes is a single Temple. In 4 turns it will push your boundaries out one square, in 45 it will be two. And it will make a huge difference in terms of flipping having even just a little bit of your own culture. Now maybe it wouldn't have helped in that particular situation, but it seems to me that you're not utililizing culture very well. It can be a weapon just like a regular unit, either defensively or offensively. Developing culture earlier in that coastal city that you were building a Temple in may have helped you hold on to that captured city.
I wouldn't have bothered with that, I'd just pull everyone off the land and start starving right away. And I'd only have a small number of defenders in the city, with the rest parked just outside in case it flipped. In fact, I wouldn't even have bothered with that city, I would just have razed it. To much hassle to hold it for what it was worth.
No you didn't, the population numbers would have been in red. White shows growth.
tR1cKy said:
It's not necessarily for it to compete, just to prevent a flip. And that only takes 4 turns.
Well here is something we can agree on. I'm not to crazy about the disappearing units myself, I think the whole process could have been done much better. I think it would have made the game much more interesting if there were some sort of revolt, with the possibility of losing a significant portion of your forces. Though not necessarily all of them.
But we're stuck with what we have, since it's obvious no changes are going to be made until Civ 4 at least. So it's not going to help ranting about the situation. Just understand the variables involved and work around them.
No problem, I can understand your frustration with the situation. That was a lot of units to lose.
gunkulator
Emperor
Willem said:
You need at least 2 non-resistors to make a city starve. I think he said all the citizens were resisting. Resistors don't work, but they don't eat either.
If you want to keep the city, you could move all your units into the city on the same turn that you capture it. I believe that the first turn you capture a city it is immune from flipping. With a bunch of units in the city, you should knock off at least two resistors. The good news is that any remaining resistors are the first to starve - even though they don't eat!
Yes, in this situation razing would have been wiser. If you want to establish a beachhead with an AI city, you're better off taking out a small AI town that can be starved quickly. Pick one with a barracks for obvious reasons.
sabo
My Ancestors were Vikings
Well you can always turn "culture flipping/culture conversions" off at the beginning of the game. Unless you are very, very good doing this is a good idea on higher levels. There is no way I've been able to keep up with AI civs culture on Deity.
Interesting thread...
This is just me thinking but I think conquest should have consequences especially in good cities. I would find it interesting if the citizens in "culture rich" cities take up arms. Managing logistics should (IMO) become a even bigger part of a "conquest" strategy like every other conquest in history. You may need to think twice before you are willing to sling your attack forces across the whole continent while those left behind are getting sniped at.
My thoughts on this.....
1 Resistors -They would knock hit points off your garrison (no healing). This is when the spearman (carrying a moltov cocktail) can damage the tank! Keep a smaller garrison? "Sir we have revolt" (without healing) and then the flip possibility when the citizens turn back that small military presence. Keep a big garrison? OK but what about the advancing forces?
2.Unhappy Citizens-No shields, no work, no workers can be spit out and some internal resistence.
3.Contents work at only 50% capacity of capabilities.
4.Happy people Back to normal.
No genocide without consequences. You starve them? They resist. You wanted the city...you got it.
I'm not sure how to impact razing but I would think this should create serious social issues worldwide.
It probably won't be anything like this in Civ 4 but just my thoughts.
This is just me thinking but I think conquest should have consequences especially in good cities. I would find it interesting if the citizens in "culture rich" cities take up arms. Managing logistics should (IMO) become a even bigger part of a "conquest" strategy like every other conquest in history. You may need to think twice before you are willing to sling your attack forces across the whole continent while those left behind are getting sniped at.
My thoughts on this.....
1 Resistors -They would knock hit points off your garrison (no healing). This is when the spearman (carrying a moltov cocktail) can damage the tank! Keep a smaller garrison? "Sir we have revolt" (without healing) and then the flip possibility when the citizens turn back that small military presence. Keep a big garrison? OK but what about the advancing forces?
2.Unhappy Citizens-No shields, no work, no workers can be spit out and some internal resistence.
3.Contents work at only 50% capacity of capabilities.
4.Happy people Back to normal.
No genocide without consequences. You starve them? They resist. You wanted the city...you got it.
I'm not sure how to impact razing but I would think this should create serious social issues worldwide.
It probably won't be anything like this in Civ 4 but just my thoughts.
tR1cKy
taking over the world
two in the same turn... i also lost a wonder and 2 luxuries... i will spare you another rant, even because i was prepared this time: only a puny legionary per town (Persian military might was already history). Anyway, Pasagardae was tough to retake (in the same turn of course). The damn bastards moved in another rifleman, then drafted 2 citizens!!!.
Already tried. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt.Dogmeat said:
Attachments
IbnSina said:
Youre beating on the wrong horse here...
The RNG SHOULD be uniform
Its the game mechanics which have to made so that events that are wanted to be unlikely are so, just like tons of hp in civ 2 made a spearman beating a tank unlikely as opposed to civ 3.
Sorry but changing the RNG for that purpose makes no sense at all...
Grille
panel insect
Doc Tsiolkovski said:
Elaborate on that, please.
I assumed that a city's flip risk is checked against each civ separately.
example:
civ 'Z' owns a city with these specs:
city has 3 citzens of nationality 'A'
city has 3 citzens of nationality 'B'
3 tiles under control of civ 'C'
Calculating the risk for a flip to civ 'C', my understanding is that there are no foreigners to be counted in. (which seems to differ from the quoted passage)
So, basically, I regard 'foreigners' as 'citizens of that civ's nationality a city might flip to'.
side note: if it indeed works that way, question remains to what civ a city might actually flip to; my best guess is that, in the example's case, the RNG would make three rolls (max) each turn
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Hm. I've heard several stories of cities flipping to a civ that didn't have any citizens or tiles in it, but there were other foreign nationals in it. Perhaps I should test and see if it's actually true when I get home today.
Doc Tsiolkovski
Deity
Grille, you elaborated it already perfectly yourself 
. I for haven't seen it, but I had a discussion with Lee in one of his SGs (can't remember the number; the last one with defiant Japanese) when I exactly that happened. I was surprised by that as well, but it was the only explantion that made sense in that particular case.
. I for haven't seen it, but I had a discussion with Lee in one of his SGs (can't remember the number; the last one with defiant Japanese) when I exactly that happened. I was surprised by that as well, but it was the only explantion that made sense in that particular case.
Grille
panel insect
Ah ok, thanks Doc.
In theory, you could flip such city (i.e. no tiles under foreign control, no foreign citizens) by the propaganda spy mission.
Oystein made a great study about spy missions (>strat articles), and if interpreted the numbers correctly, you could even flip a capital...
(FWIW, there's somewhere a shot of a capital flip at Poly; not sure if it's faked, though).
The Last Conformist said:
In theory, you could flip such city (i.e. no tiles under foreign control, no foreign citizens) by the propaganda spy mission.
Oystein made a great study about spy missions (>strat articles), and if interpreted the numbers correctly, you could even flip a capital...
(FWIW, there's somewhere a shot of a capital flip at Poly; not sure if it's faked, though).
[rant]
I think the overall problem is that there is too much hanging on a single roll of the dice. You should not be put in a situation where you can gain/lose so much on a single random event. This also applies to spy missions and the like, and even seemingly random events like building a Wonder only to have someone complete it a turn before you without being able to switch to another wonder.
Lets look at this in a "realistic" situation:
When a city flips what really happens? Does the populous somehow kill all the military units? And if they could they either completly succeed or completly fail??
Wonders are even worse. You are building some great project when you recieve some sign from the gods that you can no longer proceed and you trash all of your efforts??
And as far as a spear unit taking on a tank... that can be reasonably explained. The spear units came up with a brillent plan to take down the tanks settings traps or whatever, and the tank commander wasn't feeling too good that day. Possible yes, not bloodly likely though.
[/rant]
I think the overall problem is that there is too much hanging on a single roll of the dice. You should not be put in a situation where you can gain/lose so much on a single random event. This also applies to spy missions and the like, and even seemingly random events like building a Wonder only to have someone complete it a turn before you without being able to switch to another wonder.
Lets look at this in a "realistic" situation:
When a city flips what really happens? Does the populous somehow kill all the military units? And if they could they either completly succeed or completly fail??
Wonders are even worse. You are building some great project when you recieve some sign from the gods that you can no longer proceed and you trash all of your efforts??
And as far as a spear unit taking on a tank... that can be reasonably explained. The spear units came up with a brillent plan to take down the tanks settings traps or whatever, and the tank commander wasn't feeling too good that day. Possible yes, not bloodly likely though.
[/rant]
Personally I don't like the idea of the military units going up in a puff of smoke any more than any one of the rest of you. I would have it that the units are pushed out, redlined or otherwise damaged to the next closest city...
OR..
Or I would have it so that the military units join the others. I mean, generals and other high ranking military personnel have been known to become turncoats... That, I think, would be a far more realistic alternative than all the units dissappearing.. It would also be good for the guy that pushes culture instead of military. He would get a free army of troops.
Only, bet that would be more frustrating than just losing a city and 20 units
McM
OR..
Or I would have it so that the military units join the others. I mean, generals and other high ranking military personnel have been known to become turncoats... That, I think, would be a far more realistic alternative than all the units dissappearing.. It would also be good for the guy that pushes culture instead of military. He would get a free army of troops.
Only, bet that would be more frustrating than just losing a city and 20 units
McM
Evincar
Iron works is a legend!!
I will try to put it simple.
RNG works perfectly. If you want a 0.1% chance of something stupid happenning, it is what you get. But if you implement a 0.1% chance of 10 angry women with frying pans to defeat 50 tanks, don't complain if it happens, because, 1 in 1000 times it WILL happen.
RNG works perfectly. If you want a 0.1% chance of something stupid happenning, it is what you get. But if you implement a 0.1% chance of 10 angry women with frying pans to defeat 50 tanks, don't complain if it happens, because, 1 in 1000 times it WILL happen.
morchuflex
Emperor
As for culture flipping, it would be more bearable if you had some warning (I know there are utilities that do this job, but it should have been incorporated in the game).
For instance, the F1 screen could provide info about the loyalty level of each city. Or, advisors could come to you and say stg like "Mylord, I regret to inform you that the city of Lisbon, which we recently liberated from the evil Portugueses, is growing unruly; our experts estimate that we should garrison at least 9 units to suppress any perspective of rebellion".
For instance, the F1 screen could provide info about the loyalty level of each city. Or, advisors could come to you and say stg like "Mylord, I regret to inform you that the city of Lisbon, which we recently liberated from the evil Portugueses, is growing unruly; our experts estimate that we should garrison at least 9 units to suppress any perspective of rebellion".
