Correct use of ...

[ZergMazter]

Too cool. Thanks Kirejara I will get it.

 

[walletta]

@Walletta: This is how I handle culture flips:

-If I have one of those governments that limit the freedoms of it's citizens like communism, after capturing a city I proceed to make use of my forced labor as I am their new master and I gotta show the people who is boss lol. After I've taken the population to at least level 6, then I let it grow so my citizens serve as a counter to culture flip, I station at least 1 military unit per foreign citizen until I've gained enough culture and surpassed the number of foreign nationals with my own nationals. All this helps counter culture flips (At least that's what it looks like)

-If I have one of those freedom governments like democracy I respect the will of the people and let them live. I station 1 military unit per foreign citizen in that city, make them as happy as I can, and grow it's culture. All this helps fight culture flips.

Over all I'm pretty fair with the AI. If they choose to flip I'll respect the will of the people. If I really wanted to keep the city because I'm either small, need resources in that city's vicinity, or wanted to keep it's wonder, then I would have taken measures for it such as bombing the city to at least size 6, starving them to at least size 6, even nuke them prior to conquering if I felt like being evil.

If I am at peace I will not declare war because of a culture flip unless they killed a very important unit in that city which I consider an act of terrorism and proceed to exterminate them by razing the city if it doesnt have a wonder in it, otherwise I'll bomb it to a pulp and re-conquer it. Any captured terrorists (Pows) as a result of razing I take to different cities which could use a culture boost and I execute them (sacrifice and yes I have it enabled). Executing is such a rewarding feeling

As you can see about 1/3 of my game is role played, but it's fun as hell. Instead of thinking of a captured unit as a worker, I think of it as a terrorist and so on.

As far as governments go I build my story as I go, so that I don't end up doing the same thing in every game, and so that it never gets old. Sometimes I go feudalism-communism-fascism, other times morachy-republic-democracy, other times from evil to good, and some other from good to evil, and some times I redefine what it means to be good or evil (What if fascists didnt try to conquer the world by force, but to unify it peacefully?). It's a different story line every time, and my government reflects my actions. If I'm fascist I'm probably gonna act like a nazi. If i'm a communist I could be like China, or Russia. Democracy I could be an empire like the modern day America, or a true democracy like India.

End game I will stockpile nukes until I feel 'safe' because you never know when the AI will nuke you. I will also build a peace keeping force of ToW infantry and attempt to garrison my ally's borders to protect them from aggression. I will also attempt to use propaganda on any size 1 city in the world so that it can flip to my side and expand my influence around the world.

Of course modded games can greatly expand end game fun. I for example added a unit that can be traded and I can influence nations with them. Lets say I'm the only one who owns Oil in the world. Oil allows you to build an improvement which requires oil within that city. That improvement auto produces an 'Oil barrel' which could be upgraded to another version of the modern tank which is cheap to upgrade, is a bit weaker than a modern armor, and requires no oil to begin with. You just gift/sell those barrels to any civ, give them a bit of gold if they are broke and watch their influence grow. This way you could help a much weaker civ survive, or even defeat a much bigger foe.

You know I'd love it if there was a tool that I could use once in a while to switch civs in game. Lets say I defeated Rome, and they only have a few cities left. I'd love to become Rome, and attempt to fight the tyrant who enslaved me (My previous civ), and maybe one day become free. That could be fun and the games would last a lot longer!

Blimey! What an angle on the game. The only thing I've done that gets anywhere near this is occasionally reforesting the planet, which I do sometimes partly because a giant forest looks cool and partly because it's fun to watch the enemy lurch forward one tile at a time over a roaded and railed forest through which I can move at will, picking enemy units off without a scratch. And it passes the time.

But way to go, Zerg. I like your role playing idea and hope you get a kick out of Kirejara's info

 

[justanick]

-If I have one of those governments that limit the freedoms of it's citizens like communism, after capturing a city I proceed to make use of my forced labor as I am their new master and I gotta show the people who is boss lol. After I've taken the population to at least level 6, then I let it grow so my citizens serve as a counter to culture flip, I station at least 1 military unit per foreign citizen until I've gained enough culture and surpassed the number of foreign nationals with my own nationals. All this helps counter culture flips (At least that's what it looks like)

I would like to add some facts to that. Adding your own people to a city does not reduce the risk. Building culture in the new city will have little effect because only the global culture counts. There is one exception: While the foreign culture in the city is higher than your culture in the city the flip risk is at least doubled: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=41933

Communism and democracy have both an assimilation rate of 4% per turn. This mean that after holding the city for 20 turns 55.8% of all priorly foreign citizend have become citizens of your culture. Therefore killing them is quite a waste, especially as corruption in communism is low. Not killing citizens before or after taking a city may be key to the proper utilization of communism.

Most governments only convert at a rate of 2% per turn. Feudalism has 3%, depotism and anarchy have 1%.

 

[Lanzelot]

While the foreign culture in the city is higher than your culture in the city the flip risk is at least doubled

That brings me to the question: how can one see the foreign culture in the city? You can see by the cultural borders around the city, before you captured it, whether it had less than 10, 100, 1000 or 10000 culture points assembled, but more than this rough estimate is not possible, unless you use some external tools that investigate the .sav file?

 

[justanick]

You can spy the city before capturing. That gives you an accurate figure. But for practical relevance anything with more than 100 culture for double culture expansion is something you cannot reach reasonable soon.

 

[ZergMazter]

I would like to add some facts to that. Adding your own people to a city does not reduce the risk. Building culture in the new city will have little effect because only the global culture counts. There is one exception: While the foreign culture in the city is higher than your culture in the city the flip risk is at least doubled: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=41933

Communism and democracy have both an assimilation rate of 4% per turn. This mean that after holding the city for 20 turns 55.8% of all priorly foreign citizend have become citizens of your culture. Therefore killing them is quite a waste, especially as corruption in communism is low. Not killing citizens before or after taking a city may be key to the proper utilization of communism.

Most governments only convert at a rate of 2% per turn. Feudalism has 3%, depotism and anarchy have 1%.

Wait a second isn't unhappiness one of the causes of a flip? Yes the previous cultural value, and proximity to previous culture are some of the major things at play, but isn't the fate of the flip ultimately decided by how many unhappy citizens are in the city in combination with previous culture value and proximity? That why I've been killing them off, because the more of my own citizens, the less foreign unhappiness it causes.

 

[justanick]

Wait a second isn't unhappiness one of the causes of a flip?

No. Riots can double the base risk, WLTKD can halve it. But that is it.

Yes the previous cultural value, and proximity to previous culture are some of the major things at play,

They are not. It is the ratio of the current global culture(see F8) that counts. And it is the ratio of the distance to the 2 capitals that counts within the lower and upper limits of 0.25 and 4.

That why I've been killing them off, because the more of my own citizens, the less foreign unhappiness it causes.

So you replace the war against home civilization unhappyness with whipping unhappyness? The later cannot be reduced faster than 1 every 20 turns, "war against home civilization unhappyness" can simply be elimited by signing a peace threaty.

 

[ZergMazter]

I forgot that's my modded game lol. I decreased the time unhappiness last due to citizen abuse. I play with 31 civs and signing a peace treaty can be hard, so I changed it.

Odd though... I don't have too much trouble with flips maybe because of my play-style. Maybe it's due to the stack of units I leave in a newly conquered city, and since usually half the world wants me dead, and I often take a few cities at a time, and garrison heavily awaiting for the rush of their units.

I'm not usually the strongest culture. That's really odd. I'd say my cities rarely flip.

 

[walletta]

You play against 31 civs?

 

[justanick]

Against 30. He plays one himself and the 32nd slots is reserved for barbarians.

 

[walletta]

Against 30. He plays one himself and the 32nd slots is reserved for barbarians.

Maybe it would be cool to promote a barbarian civilisation. Like never kill them but just let them rampage around in your undefended cities. Or just have one city on a small island with a giant empty map with barbarians marauding all over it.

 

[Lanzelot]

Odd though... I don't have too much trouble with flips maybe because of my play-style. Maybe it's due to the stack of units I leave in a newly conquered city, and since usually half the world wants me dead, and I often take a few cities at a time, and garrison heavily awaiting for the rush of their units.

I'm not usually the strongest culture. That's really odd. I'd say my cities rarely flip.

Maybe it's the difficulty level. What level are you playing? Flips become annoying with Demigod. Below that they are not really a problem. On Deity it's already pretty bad, and on Sid it's ridiculous. On Sid don't even try to hold on to captured cities... Either play "raze & replace" or apply the "gift to third-party and recapture later, when the original owner [and his culture!] is extinguished"-strategy.

 

[agonistes]

That game looks pretty fun, however in my opinion playing like this too much could make the game repetitive and it gets old quick as I've experienced before. I choose not to go over the 'Noble' difficulty and play more realistically and not like a warmonger. This is the reason I mostly get to enjoy the game to it's fullest through the modern era.

I try to coexist with my counterparts, and prepare myself for that possible ultimate challenge, the 'Armageddon', then try to unite the planet to achieve global peace, never fully killing my enemies, instead I make them surrender with 1-4 cities left and, then I 'occupy' their lands with a forced right of passage, and a forced mutual pact protection.

I win by domination, but most civs are still alive, but surrendered to me. I spare those few cities to simulate their culture within my empire. Any future wars between them and my civ I view them as a revolt within my empire, and then I really go for the kill to crush the uprising once and for all.

It's a bit of strategy, and role playing I guess lol, but it's pretty fun and most importantly the game never gets old. Sometimes to my surprise they actually rebuild their civilization a bit and I decide to give them their independence, by ending the forced right of passage and mutual pact.

Similar to my perspective, Zerg. I play with all victory conditions off, 32 civs, and roleplay a given personality. Often I strive to maintain world balance and retain boundaries. Its pretty fun.

 

[agonistes]

I'm not taking anything away from the achievement of the Beyond Sid game, but you do have to bare in mind some important qualifications:

Right. And I was trying to point some of these out with a more neutral tone. Great victory, under ideal conditions. I was hoping that I could be more discreet (and respectful) and still have folks challenged by SID pick up some of the general settings used by Bam that made the game easier.

For a real challenge, try my 40+city Russian start map. Russia gets 40 cities, you get 1. Think its on Warlord difficulty, but still a humdinger. I currently have a story going about this game. No victory condition, just either die or defeat Russia.

 

[Buttercup]

Now that Russian game sounds like it requires a link for communal reading pleasure!

 

[ZergMazter]

Maybe it's the difficulty level. What level are you playing? Flips become annoying with Demigod. Below that they are not really a problem. On Deity it's already pretty bad, and on Sid it's ridiculous. On Sid don't even try to hold on to captured cities... Either play "raze & replace" or apply the "gift to third-party and recapture later, when the original owner [and his culture!] is extinguished"-strategy.

Ahh ok I play on Monarch usually, and warlord when I don't plan on anything serious. My games are heavily modified though, and my monarch is not the equivalent of normal monarch, but I see what you are saying. It's basically making the AI cheat, so that they can have flips easier. I dont like that kind of cheating :/

 

[Lanzelot]

No, I don't think the AI "cheats" in order to get more flips than it should. It's just: on Sid a temple is 24 shields (12 shields for a religious AI), and a library is 32 shields (16 shields for a scientific AI), so these things get built so early by the AI (and consequently get the 1000 year bonus very early!) that they simply have an incredible amount of culture, before you are in a position to do anything about it... So it's only "natural" that their cities flip back to them left and right... no cheating necessary here...

 

[Theov]

Maybe it would be cool to promote a barbarian civilisation. Like never kill them but just let them rampage around in your undefended cities. Or just have one city on a small island with a giant empty map with barbarians marauding all over it.

My mod has the Mongolians that can build Barbarian units with no nationality, so you truly have a bunch of raging barbarians if the Mongols are in your game.

 

[walletta]

My mod has the Mongolians that can build Barbarian units with no nationality, so you truly have a bunch of raging barbarians if the Mongols are in your game.

Cool. Is that like privateers but only the Mongols make them? Will the Barbs attack Mongol units is what I'm asking.

 

[walletta]

So what's the best/correct use of privateers? I don't bother with them I must say but maybe there's a cool use for them.