After the patch, cultural reversion is outrageous!

[Dragon2]

The patch claims to make it easier for cities to change hands because of "culture." I'll say! In the process of wiping out my neighbor, I lost six cities, including one that was right next to my capital. Once the enemy was reduced to two tiny islands, I conquered one and the city reverted to the "highly cultured" civization (total population 4) on the other island.

Now when I capture a city anywhere I just assume it will revert. I park my units outside it, wait for it to go back to the original owner, and retake it. Eventually it gets small enough so that I can try to quell the resistors.

I'm almost tempted to uninstall the patch.

 

[metrognome]

i haven't converted a single city in any of my three games since installing the patch, even when i literally had half of all the possible wonders available.

--metrognome--

 

[J.B.]

After the patch i played a game on a standard map. In the endgame i waged war on the aztecs and took 35 of their cities with only 3 reversions. Granted, i took them in 3 turns but i don't have as much of a problem with reversion as before the patch.

Just use overwhelmingly superior forces and finish your opponent in a few turns. If you try to take them one by one you will see a lot more of these reversions in my experience.

I would REALLY like to know what effects reversions though so i can plan a little better for it.

 

[LangstonB]

i only play monarch and harder and have never had a single city revert! My goal is simple. Place a garrison of the same size as the population to quell resisters and quick build a library and temple. Once resistance is over leave two rearguards and move on. Of course I am careful to build at least two culture buildings in every city. I have yet to build more than two wonders in any one game

 

[Quokka]

I am playing on Regent level and have had some annoying flips back. When I was taking my Continent from the Aztecs I squashed them down to one small island that was out of reach to my unfortunately small Navy, and since I started the war WW was beginning to kick my butt. So peace.
About 10 turns later a large city(9) in the center of the old Aztec empire reverted even though I had built a temple, cathedral and library in the city and the Aztecs are in Awe of my culture. It is also right next to the Forbidden Palace that I had rushed near the old Aztec Capital. Reloaded and built a market that pushed it into WLTKD and stuffed it full of troops. Still flipped, so they don't love me that much. Tried twice more with a coliseum and a university, flipped at the same turn everytime. Ended up just having to be annoyed.
However last night 1125 years later another city flipped. This metropolis(15) is just on the other side of the Forbidden Palace, has eveything built into it upto an airport which is what it was building. It was in WLTKD, everybody happy (luxury 20%) and has a Cultural radius of 4(1256 + 14) and 7 of the 15 are Iriquois. WTH?
The other city is still Aztec now size 10 but is ringed with 6 metropolis' size 15 or greater, cultural radius 4, everything built upto airport. Compared to this there is a temple, market, 2 Jaguar Warriors and a Rifleman in the Aztec city.
I have not had a single city join my Civ since the Ancient Era despite having over half of the culture in the world according to the Histograph. Was there a typo in the patch stats that should have read: Cultural REaquirement will now be substantially easier for the AI. Only things in common with the two cities are both were once Aztec and both are coastal with Harbors, even if the first is in a narrow enough bay that it can still be completely surrounded by my other cities with no overlap. Does coastal and/or Harbor have any effect on the chance of flipping? Being coastal is the only way I see for them to be influenced by the Aztec culture as we have no common borders. The Aztec capital is size 6 and still building a Cathedral so I don't think its a Spy using Propoganda. I will have to watch out for that from the Germans very soon as I know they are building their Intelligence Agency and we have been at war for over 300 years, which is one reason why the Aztecs still exist at all.
I think the only way to prevent totally any reversion is to eradicate the Civ, my ex-Russian cities have given me no trouble despite being a long way away and corrupt as hell.

 

[Zooey]

I hardly ever lose cities to another Civ.

However, it has happened to me before and I've noticed a pattern. What makes a city culturally strong is the total amount of culture in that city. You can buy all the cultural improvements in a matter of turns but it takes time to aquire a lot of culture.

Obviously the older the city is, the more culture it will have (usually). Were your cities that were taken new and still full of the other Civ's population? If they weren't, were they taken by extremely old cities?

Usually when I take a city, I put all of the units that were attacking that city into the city to quickly quell the resisters. A turn later I rush a temple (nearly halves the rush cost) and sooner or later my culture's expanding and it's harder for the other Civ to take it back. A library would be next, university, then whatever's appropriate.

 

[Quokka]

The first city to flip was only about 10 turns after I took it. Like I said highly annoying but more understandable. All the buildings I had made in the city had expanded the radius once, but it was still fairly 'new' and it was full of Aztecs. The later one I had had for 1100 more years and it had a culture of 1256 was only half Aztec 8/15 and the rest Iriquois. I am the only person on the continent except for one small American city that they set up when the borders of all the Aztecs cities shrank after I took them. The American city is on the coast with all the land squares desert so I don't care about and it and I am pretty happy and friendly with the Americans, the rest of whom are on the other side of the map, just the way I like.
Neither of the two cities had a common border with the Aztecs who are at this time very small and annoyingly spreading out to all of the 1-2 tile islands. They are going to be a real pain to wipe out given the speed of naval units.
The thing is the next closest people culture wise are the Germans and they are in Awe of my culture, the Aztec culture graph looks like a dying heart patient's monitor display, if I had to guess I would say that my culture is about 10-15 times theirs, I have ~60,000 total culture in 1600, and everybody is happy in the city, 7 luxuries + 20% luxury rate + all mood buildings. I don't get it I thought they would be coming over to me, but the last city to do that was one I had sold right by my capital, and that was in 400BC so 2000 years, and now people want out?? #1 in land, pop, culture, military strength, GDP, disease, pollution (unfortunately), shortest military service. Somehow I am #2 in approval rate and #4 in literacy, but that is from the ex-Russian citys that I only keep so that the AI doesn't spawn alll over that Island.

 

[ChickinSht]

I've had a ***** of a time dealing with cities reverting. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with total civ or city culture, cultural buildings or anything other than how many citizens are of the enemy culture and how many military units are garissoned. I just starved out all enemy citizens or destroyed the enemy civ entirely.

 

[Polonius]

Originally posted by J.B.

I would REALLY like to know what effects reversions though so i can plan a little better for it.

Culture rating (and overall happiness of your empire too, I think, so building roads in quickly to get the happiness benefits of your luxuries seems to be useful)

Have a look at the rules - using the editor - it's quite instructive. Make sure you back up Civ3mod first, untick the "use default rules" option (under Tools) and then use the edit option under Rules.

There's a section under the Culture tab that gives all the percentage chances of rebelling for each level of Culture. naturally if you're a high culture civ and they are "in awe" of your civ the chance is much less than if you're, say, a military civ with modest culture. You can change all the settings if you don't like them.

So it's partly your overall situation, and partly luck - at least that's how it looks to me. I always keep high culture and happy people and have never yet had a city revert.

 

[eyrei]

I am playing a game on monarch where I am the Greeks, and am situated right next to the Persians. Of course, during the expanison phaze the Persians plopped a city right in the middle of my empire. I didn't want a war (actually would have gotten my ass handed to me), so I decided to be patient and wait for it to revert. Well, it did, but 4000 years later in 1650 AD in the middle of the industrial age. THe Persians were on par with me in culture the whole game, but this city was right next to my capital, which was supposed to be a really major factor. I generally build a large amount of culture, and I normally would take a city in this situation no more than 20-30 turns after it is built. I don't think the patch made cultural assimilation any more prevalent. Maybe it just made it more likely for a conquered city to revert to its founder.

 

[Nightblade]

I have been having big problems with reversion too. At first I would put tons of military units in the city, hoping this would prevent it from reverting, but after losing a few of my best Armies when the cities reverted, I gave up on it.

I ended up just garrisoning a few bad units in a city, figuring that there is a high chance it will revert. I would leave my better units in the square alongside the city, to defend it if enemy troops came along and tried to take it back. Also these outside units could take the city back if and when it reverted.

I am thinking in the next game I play I am just going to destroy all the cities I capture, then build a new city with my own settlers in its place. It seems a lot easier this way.

I seem to recall reading in the manual that if your government was worse than the enemy's government, this would make the cities more likely to revert. I think I had a Monarchy during most of the reversions.. perhaps this was the problem.. maybe the enemy had a Republic (but I doubt it).

 

[stravaig]

In a pre-patch game I had some very similar problems with large cities reverting after peace was established.
My solution? Now, I /always/ starve the native populace down to no more than 3 pop. I still rush buy Temple/Library/Etc of course.
This has worked well for me post-patch, too.

- Stravaig

 

[Moulton]

I've had 3 cities flip to me this game, none lost. Yet.
I have tried every suggestion, and some simply did not convert. So I just took them. bombarded pop to 3, then built them up with my own workers. So far so good. With all the rules posted and suggestions made, I should have had all those and the other three odd cities. My culture is #1, and the surrounding cities have all the basics, including marketplace and luxuries, rails, etc. they are in awe of my culture, but not enough in awe to change, and their home gov is on the other side of the world....
I think it is just random.
In a previous game I lost most of the taken cities back to the Aztecs, and I had left them with a 1square island.
On the other hand, I stripped the French of their empire this game, leaving them on an island. They are still island bound, and she is pretty mad at me.
Now when I go to their homeland to take the rest of their empire--I go with fear and trembling. Either I destroy them, or I will probably see their cities revert. And my culture total is currently 110,000. OVer 100,000. Maybe you can't get a culture win with an ongoing war?

 

[eyrei]

To win with 100,000 culture points you also have to have twice the points of your nearest cultural competitor.

 

[Rushton]

I noticed in my first game that I won, that the AI civs tended to raze captured cities. I think the answer to all this is (of course!) somewhere in the middle. If the city is near your capitol then you should be able to hang onto it. If however it is much nearer to the AI civ then it is probably better to raze it and build you own in its place.

I haven´t tried this properly yet but I aim to try and capture the Egyptian capital city. I don´t reckon I can possibly hold onto it so
I will raze it. I did however manage to hold onto Moscow but only because I destroyed the Russians completely :jump:

Paul

[dance]