Conquered cities turn against you, this is unrealistic!

[alja]

I finally have some time to enjoy 1.16. Nice patch and much more fun in playing, so thanks for that at the beginning.

What had happend during my last games: Once I get attacked, I am usually advanced (playing 2. easiest level) and having rifleman as defense to block attacks. I have more cultural and all wonders. So my nation isn't so bad that everyone laughs about me.

I build up 2-3 groups of units, knights and rifleman to conquer land and strike back. This has worked fine before. Now it is a mess.

After 2-3 conquered (not razed) cities I lose my battle group to the revolting city!!! *curse*. All units gone, of course. After losing all 3 groups that way I switched off the computer in a very furious mood

I understand the tendency to rejoin the own race. I would not object if I would just have naval units or air units. However, IT IS UNEALISTIC that a city with a strong own ground force is rejoining the own nation. Not that often and for sure not during war times. In war times this citiy will have to pay a large price, e.g. being razed or at least brought down to 1 or 2 by my troups.

I can do nothing. HOW CAN MY BATTLE GROUP JUST VANISH? I have so many ground troops, 1:1 ratio compared to city size. This sucks!

I would like to have a way, especially during war (peacetime might be different) , that enough ground forces can avoid this from being happening, or at least bring the chance down close to zero. E.g. 'blocking force' could be to have more ground forces in the city as city size/4 or something like that.

Maybe an option between raze and keep the city like "bring it down to size 1". Then let your own settler join this city and you have the majority of people there (hey, I am not justifying Israelian politics here).

Don't you see this problem? What do you do?

 

[wtomwhalen]

I think this is one of the bigger outstanding problems with the game. If you plan to take enemy cities, you need to be prepared to rush build temples. Of course, you have to eliminate the resistence and get them happy first.

I've found that a better approach is to raze the city and then build on that spot with a settler. You retain all the terrain improvements your enemy built but lose the population. You pretty much have to rebuild all the city improvements anyway.

 

[pagh80]

I have discovered that if you place enough units in the conqured city equal to the city-size they will NOT chance back(well not yet in my game)

But it is still a big problem. In my game my enemy have about 20 cities, and if i shall conquer him without razing his cities i need at least 400 units to stay in the cities. The reason for that is that his cities is about size 20 and therefore i need 20 units in each city.

I wish that they would chance it, so it would be enough with 4-5 units in each city... it would make the game much better.

AND WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO GROUP UNITS OR MOVE MORE THAN ONLY 1 A TIME!!!!

By the way.. i agree with "wtomwhalen". I have always some settlers with me when i conquer cities. It is a lot easier just to raze the cities and then build a new... You also get a lot of free workers if you raze a city.

One more thing: If a city would rejoin his own civilization it would be more realistic that your units got a chance to retreat from the city... or they should just take up the idea of making partisans if a city is conqured like in civ2... i liked that.

 

[Hurkyl]

Your government matters too. If you're in Democracy the city will be far less likely to switch back, but if you're running a despotism, reversions will be a lot more likely.

Hurkyl

 

[Proteus]

I haven´t encountered any Problems with conquered Cities turning against you, yet.
Maybe the Fact, that I have always been the cultural Leader and I don´t wage war very often has a certain Influence on this

 

[J Fred Muggs]

I've run into this problem as well. Figured I was doing it wrong and changed my ways. Still didn't work and I'm not happy about it.

Took a bunch of cities from the Indians. Starved a city down to one. Added alot of my people to it, rush built improvements. City was not boardering Indian culture boarder, but was next to an American city. I had troops in it and the damn thing flopped on me. This made no sense. My government was Communist, unfortanitly, it had to be, another gripe I'm fast getting unhappy about.

Seems to me if you starve a city on purpose that would be reason for a city to flop, don't know how it would be done game wise though.

Being at war with out it being your fault for long periods as a Democracy, war weariness, is a screwed deal. Enemies won't talk to you and you have to change governments or loose it all. Again don't know how it would work game wise without human abuse. But, I think if the war isn't your fault and you're being attacked the game assumes your people will roll over to the threat and sue for peace, doesn't happen that way.

 

[Peteus]

Culture flipping is awful. I've ranted about it lots already but I'll contribute this to this thread:

A) Lots of people say "Yeah, it's tough - it forces you to rush build temples." I always rush build temples as soon as a captured city can, for happiness. I've had captured cities flip on me about 50 times. Probably 48 of those had temples. I haven't seen anyone provide any evidence that the temples help with culture flipping, unless it's indirectly (unhappy citizens more likely to flip?)

A2) I've seen no evidence of this "cultural pressure" idea that people refer to - i.e. that a low-culture city is apt to flip when a high-culture city is nearby. I've had cities flip when the blitz had passed them by so that there were two of my cities between them and the nearest enemy city (i.e. they were three cities deep in my territory.) One way or another though, being much closer to the enemy capitol than your own is a very bad thing. Captured core cities from the enemy's "inner ring" are tough. That could be because they had accumulated much more culture for him than for you, but it's more likely because of proximity to his capitol? Why is none of this documented?!

B) Probably 45 of those 50 flips ocurred under Democracy.

C) Courthouses definitely do help, but I've had cities flip with Courthouse, Temple, Library, Marketplace, and all citizens either happy or entertaining. There is no sense to it.

D) Soren said something like "as a rule, one garisoning unit will keep one citizen from wanting to flip". It probably helps, but it isn't any kind of guarantee! I have seen cities flip despite huge garrisons several times (i.e. size 12 city with 13 combat units.) And no, I'm not counting artillery, planes or ships. As most agree, that's just idiotic. And of course, one of those few ugly things about this game that makes us want to hurl the *&^#$ into the sun, every once in a while!

E) Off the original topic - War weariness/Democracy... I don't claim to be a Politics expert, but I don't believe Democracy means what people think it does. The US is a Republic (representative government) rather than a Democracy (one person, one vote, on every issue.) But let's assume that Sid's "Democracy" is modelled on the typical modern Western government with a Parlimentary system (US, Britain, Canada.) Can anyone think of a situation where such a government was at war for a long time, even for a "righteous cause", without enacting some sort of martial law? Think about how undemocratic a "War Powers Act" is! A president with the power to act unilaterally is a Despot or at best a Monarch, right?

 

[rubble]

sometimes even rushing cultural improvment dont help, for example in one game i captured a greek city then rushed a temple, couthouse, and library... eventually it cultural rating was around 2 i think, and out of a population of 8 only 2 where greek yet it eventualy revolted (the problem was it was to close to a size 12 city which probly had a high cultural rating and that city was next to their capital) but still when your city holds 75% of the population and your are on even terms on overall culture i dont beleive there should be any chance of revolting

 

[cutiestar]

Well i think it is great that cities revolt, otherwise the game is too easy for people who like to let the AI build cities for them, so they can just march in and take them over, no need to build settlers that way.

I don't think rush building temples etc does any good, it is all about how old the city is, how close it is to it's old capital, how big it was, how much culture it already had etc.

The number of troops stationed in the city only has affect on quelling resisters, i don't think it means anything to whether the city flips.

I have had many cities flip, but now i understand why, i know which cities are more likely and i plan for it, also usually i don't get any flip after 5 turns of owning the city, only if it was the capital and had wonders in it, then i am ready for it to flip a few times anything up to 10 turns later.

It is all part of the games strategy, accept it, and try to win with it, whenever something in the game happens that makes it a little bit harder, people complain. I guess it is human nature for a certain amount of people, I myself love challenges and am a good sport, so the AI can flip all they want, bring it on.

Remember your captured cities will also flip on the AI if you have good culture and they don't raze your city.

 

[Endureth]

Culture flips, at least the kind everyone is complaining about is not caused by culture, it's caused by not having enough happy people in the city. I wrote a pretty long post explaining how to prevent this from happening, maybe it should have become a sticky thread because I don't feel like writing it all again.

Just remember, HAPPY FACES is what's important. Luxuries will help, temples will help (though not much) and garrisoned troops help (unless your government doesn't allow it).

HAPPY FACES.

HAPPY FACES.

Endureth

 

[Zouave]

Cities. Yes, it is weird indeed to have veteran combat units just disappear if a city flips. What happened to them? Are we to assume the unarmed population massacred them all?!?

Give me a break.

Best solution is indeed to RAZE CONQUERED CITIES unless you need them as an advanced base; you can also have a settler ready to build a new one. This is a poor solution indeed, and even the Nazis didn't raze entire cities slaughtering the entire population (less a few cities here and there).

This is yet another problem with Civ III.

I hope Sid reads these boards. Some major patching is needed.

 

[Peteus]

Endureth -

Happy faces may help, but not as much as you seem to think. I've had 20-40 cities flip while 100% Happy/Entertaining. Pretty significant sample!

Courthouses definitely help, garrisoning units seem to help, happy people probably help, and imported friendly citizens are supposed to help. But the only thing that makes that city yours is genocide - the wholesale slaughter/oppression of every last member of the city's native civ, ASAP. And Sid thought he was making the game more friendly!

 

[wtomwhalen]

If Endureth is correct and there are ways to minimize the reversions, why isn't it in the manual? They don't have to give you the formula, but a discussion in the manual would be nice. The manual is way too vague on a lot of topics.

 

[Selous]

i think culture flips are great ... but not in there present incarnation ... your military should get to kill the civilitions or at least try to kill them all .... is not like your elete units are going to let the city civilions take the city from them after they just took it off real soldiers

 

[Rhandom]

Endureth is not correct, cities will flip will 100% happy faces, with 3:1 troops inside, if you are in a democracy, if you have a higher culture rating, after 30 turns have passed, 4 spaces away from your forbidden palace, on a different continent than the enemy capital, etc. With ALL of those considitions are met, you still can have cities flip. There is no pattern to it. Some games you never see it, other games it happens over and over again, under near identical circumstances. The only thing that seems to make a difference is that it doesn't happen early int he game, say before 1500 AD. At least in my experience, though I wouldn't be surprised to find out that doesn't hold true either. If it does hold true, it may depend on the culture that the city had before you captured it. That is my personal bet.

 

[cutiestar]

Firstly this is not a civilisation simulator, so drop the word "REALISTIC" please.

As for realistic flipping, tell your ideas to Ukraine, Lithuania, Georgia, Bosnia, Serbia, latvia, Ireland and god knows how many more countries that are full of cities that have "flipped" lately.

As for the happy faces will fix it, I always give my newly conquered cities all happy faces, i turn up the entertainers and the entertainment tax, and I still lose them, I am thinking if Endureth saw this in the actual programming that happy faces will stop the flip, then it isn't working. lol

ok i don't have the same problem that many whine about with "flipping", but still, if it was all about happy faces, then i wouldn't lose any of the cities.

 

[J Fred Muggs]

Ok, cutiestar, I was waiting for someone to hint that I'm a whiner and you're to be the one. If you were to bother looking at my past posts, and I'll save you the time, you would see I come awful close to being a Firaxis butt kisser, at times. Why no one can come on this forum and say something isn't right to their eyes and open up a conversation about what can be done about it without being labeled a "whiner" is beyond me. I will admit your reply to be pretty tame compared to some.

Of all the friggin words that are censored on this board and whine isn't one of them.

I won't even read threads that start out with some kind of major list of game complaints anymore. That doesn't mean that all the strats are figured out or that there isn't a way to tone down something or that Firaxis won't change something in the future. So if a real explanation or work around for a problem is discussed I won't see it. Can't stand to read anymore people saying it's such a bad game. It's simple, don't friggin play it, if it's so bad to your way of thinking... and most of all don't come on a Civ fan forum to tell me how friggin bad you think it is. Key word there is "fan" in case you missed it.

This will be my only rant you'll ever see from me on this forum. I save the good stuff for usernet

 

[cutiestar]

Interesting J.fred but i wasn't referring to you at all, infact it never came into my mind, the only real whiner on this topic here is Zouave, but he whines about everything.

Sorry if you took my post to imply you, I must admit i hate reading, and don't think i even read your post, my post was directed at Zouave and maybe another post, but certainly not yours. You must be feeling extremely defencive to have thought I was pointing at you J.Fred.

 

[alja]

thanks for your replies.

I will raze all cities in the future and rebuild them. I don't really think this is a realistic scenario, but it seems the best tactic at the moment. Have to add settlers to my invading army as well :-(.

Inputs from other communities point out that they don't occupy the city and leave the units aside to reconquer it a possible switch-over. I don't like this very much. Units will heal slowly outside of a city and also the danger of losing the city to enemy units just walking in.

Maybe in the future there will be a way to put in a few ground troops to keep control of the city to give you some time to clear resistance and build temples, not always being in danger of losing all own units. Es long as war rages, this should be an option.

 

[Endureth]

Look, whether you believe me or not isn't important. I'm trying to tell you how it works. I don't have this problem you are all talking about. I rarely have flips and when it does happen I know exactly why. Mostly it's because my unhappy in the city outnumber my smiley faces. Count them and you will see.

You can find happy faces in three places on your city screen: In your population, in your luxuries and in your your troop area. You get it in your population through entertainers. You get it from your luxuries by having the city hooked up to the luxury by any means. Sometimes when you take a distant city it's better to build a harbor or an airport first so as to get the luxuries into the city. 3 luxuries = 3 happy face. 1 temple = 1 happy face. Lastly, you get it from garrisoned troops. The thing to remember with troops is if you are a republic or democracy, garrisoned troops do not produce happy faces so they do not prevent flips.

Now. Happy faces don't prevent flips 100% but they are the first step you should take to prevent them. What the happy faces do is get your people out of civil disorder much faster, allowing you to start buying culture improvements.

Take this example. For the sake of arguement let's say you take over a size 10 city, you're a monarchy, and the city is hooked up to 3 luxuries. Upon taking it you are told there are 4 resistors in the city. Let's count up your happy faces. You'll get 2 for your garrison (no matter how many troops you leave there only 2 are allowed under your government), you'll get another 3 for your luxuries. You'll get none for culture yet (temples) because you have yet to build any.

This gives you 5 smiley faces and 4 resistors. Congradulations, you're people will start becoming happier and will stop resisting your rule...

Unless...

You get the 20% chance of an automatic flip that occurs when a nearby enemy city is putting more culture in your city then you are. "Wha?", you say, "how do I prevent that?" This is where the culture aspect comes into play and this is what I think some of you guys are a little confused about.

Now, how do I prevent these flips all together. When you are taking a city, you need to be concerned with the nearby enemy cities surrounding it. If they are untouched (i.e. still producing high amounts of culture) then they are shoving a huge amount of enemy culture into the city you just took over. Every turn they are sorta throwing culture at your city. It is this culture that causes the flips. If you take some artillery, precision bombing runs, or good old fashoined carpet bombing runs you will hopefully destroy some of these culture producing improvements. This will stop them from pushing culture on the city you about to take over. If you can prevent nearby cities from pushing their culture on you then you should never have to suffer that 20% chance of a flip.

Now, you can take my advice or you can leave it but through my experience playing the game this is how it seems to work. I play large maps, 12 civs on monarch and only have about 2 or three of my cities flip the entire game (and I rarely raze enemy cities). This works for me and if you keep all these points in mind when you play it will work for you too.

Some of you might feel the urge to respond and tell me how I'm stoned off my butt, but that's irrelavent This works for me, this is the strategy I use, it works great and if you are having a serious problem with flips it would behoove you to try this.

Endureth

Oh yeah, and happy gaming.