COTM18 - Second Spoiler: Middle Ages, World Map

[Karasu]

Hmm... the Ancient Age went by quite fast, didn't it.

How about the Middle Ages?
Got to MT? Got horses and saltpeter? Torn the world apart with your Sipahi?
Or did you stay quiet in your corner (not too easy there, being it not really a corner ) and follow the science path?
And how did you manage relations with the other civs?

In order to participate to the second COTM Spoiler you need to:
- have reached the end of the Middle Ages and be able to research an Industrial Age tech (I imagine that if you stopped research at MT and killed everyone else, you also qualify for this spoiler...), and
- have (reasonably) full knowledge of the world map

In case of doubt about what to post, please consider the potential spoiler effect of your information on other players.

And now let's hear what happened!

 

[klarius]

Open
Ok more peaceful 20k building in MA after 1325BC (and a little bit fighting).
Culture builds:

1150BC The Hanging Gardens
1025BC Cathedral
975BC Colosseum
610BC The Great Library
590BC Library
470BC Forbidden Palace
310BC Knights Templar
130AD Sistine Chapel
150AD University
430AD JS Bach's Cathedral

Entered the IA by researching ToG in 560 (prebuild for Newton's in 2 turns).
Notable events are that Persia has researched chivalry instead of theology what they were set up to and I had to build knight's templar to be on the safe side with the Sistine prebuild (palace was only 400sh at that time), or research theology on neck breaking speed. And that I lost on Shake's, by the AI all of sudden hurrying to demo and FA.

War with India started in 230BC (I have chivalry they don't ).
India destroyed in 260AD. I got 10 cities my allies 4. We have now the pyramids in Delhi.
War with Arabs started in 380AD (had bought military tradition the turn before ).
Arabs destroyed in 490AD. 8 cities for me, 3 for the allies. But Persia had taken a bite out of them even before.

Lots of elite wins didn't get a leader . So no heroic epic for me up to now.
And now it's infrastructure time, so the next war has to wait a bit.

 

[Mwoimp]

Conquest, survive

Well my ancient age went so well, that I hoped it might continue on till the end, but no such luck unfortunately.

925BC - founded Asterabad
900BC - founded Damghand
850BC - traded Feud to Persia for Monarchy + 14g
850BC - established a Republic
550BC - discovered Invention

After Invention I turned my research off because I was falling behind.

490BC - traded 423g + 61gpt to Russia for Theology
490BC - traded Theology to everybody else for gold, gpt, and Chivalry
450BC - China declared war and captured Shiraz
450BC - I signed a military alliance with Korea against China for Chivalry + Incense
370BC - Damghand culture flipped to Persia
310BC - Ispahan culture flipped to Korea
290BC - signed Peace with China
270BC - traded wines + incense + 595g + 23gpt to China for Education
270BC - traded Edu. to Korea for Byzantine contact + PrintPress

Nobody would trade me any techs after this so eventually I got frustrated and researced myself to MT. Must have gottenit around 500AD.

530AD - signed Alliance with Arabia to war Korea
540AD - sipahi killed Korean musketman entered Golden Age
550AD - discovered Democracy entered revolution

I AM AN IDIOT!!! 8 turns of golden age wasted by anarchy!!!

560AD - destroyed Ispahan
570AD - captured Oneju
580AD - destroyed Inch'on
590AD - signed Peace with Korea for Nav + 6g + World Map
630AD - est. Democracy
710AD - founded Kazvin in the gap left by Ispahan
730AD - Tacitus declares I'm the laest advanced civ
750AD - Golden Age ends
- reach IA
- get Medicine as free tech

Here's how it looked at the end of the MA.


Well all in all, not a bad MA, I lost some cities and got one city, I'm way behind in the tech race, but I do have Sipahi. We'll just have to wait and see how the IA goes.

 

[Megalou]

Open

Going into the Middle Ages, I had two misfortunes behind me. The first was the squandering and rebuilding of my granary in Samarquand. The second was that I could not trade Engineering until just before I would finish researching it. This was partly my own fault because it's pretty clear that Engineering was known in the Byzantine Empire before I knew where it was. But it wasn't easy to find, was it?

The third misfortune came with 4 turns left of Metallurgy. China had run out of space and when they were fighting Persia they apparently turned their heads and said "Hey, why fight a brick wall of immortals when there are pathetic horsemen to pick on?" Quote from my log:
"210 AD- China declares. They kill about 10 horsemen, capture 3 towns, raze 1. Worst of all unhappiness skyrockets. I thought they were too busy with Persia. We ally Korea against them, then India and Russia. Forget Leo's workshop; we colonize our iron and upgrade to knights. Even Samarqand is threatened; we have to make some selected horsemen attacks."

I had not, at this time, upgraded any horsemen to knights. I wanted to capture Leo's before doing my major upgrades. (I had missed Leo's and settled for Knights Templar.) I started upgrading to knights but things didn't look very good. I gave some towns to Byzantium to prevent China from getting bases near my core, even though there were some civs that didn't know Byzantium.

With a little help from Persia the tide turned even before Sipahi came along, and in 430 China was gone.

I then stopped research and didn't trade Theology.

What usually determines the order of conquests for me is whether a civ is starting to become too big and what wonders a civ has (China had given me Sun Tzu.) Russia and Persia fit both those criteria. Russia had Leo's and Persia had Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens and Sistine Chapel.
We deposed Russia to an island in 540 AD. Ah, the sipahi is really great!
We left Persia with one town south of Arabia in 650 AD, which was then destroyed by Arabia. The Persian war was complicated because they had holdings everywhere around my home area. It was my best effort in this game; I checked the range of every sipahi before hitting the spacebar.

Arabia and Korea were next. Korea had no wonders and were easy, but Arabia had The Oracle and JS Bach's Cathedral. Korea was eliminated in 750 and I made peace with Arabia the same year. The attack on Arabia had been rather slow; they were the only ones that had a substantial amount of riflemen. Perhaps India would have been easier.

Shomination victory in 760 AD.

 

[Nata]

C3C Open. Goal: win somehow.

AA spoiler

825BC - Learn Republic. Trade Curr+Poly+6g from China, Trade Curr+Poly to Construction from India, enter MA, draw Feudalism.
Revolt and draw 8 turns of Anarchy.

775BC - Trade Feud to Eng. from China.
Start Invention with Scientists.
650BC - We are a Republic.

170BC - Learn Guns, Trade to India for Mono. Chemistry in 16.

30AD - FP completes in the Cow city.
50AD - research Chemistry. Trade to Korea for contact with Biz, Chivalry and 18g.
Trade to India for Theology+15g.

circa 270AD - research Metallurgy and miss a major trade by 1 turn - everybody but Russia, India and useless Byz has it. But still trade it for Education and WM and some gold.

That was a major oversight: Chinese built GLib and I desided to capture it. But I forgot that I shouldn't have Education! That was a big setback as I was counting on GLib techs and didn't get them.

370AD - the grand day for Timurids. Mil.Trad is researched and we are the 1st! Trade it to Arabs for Banking, Silks & 1850g. Trade it to Persia for 140g, 4gpt and Astronomy.
Can trade it to China for Physics but have to pay 27gpt. Besides, China has GLib which we can own soon (Heh... )

Have 22 Sipahi, 1 Knight and 11 Horsemen at the end of turn. Horsemen cost a lot to upgrade - 210g!
Arabia is in IA already.

390AD - Drive India furious and dow. Take 3 cities in one turn. GA starts. China goes Industrial. Good. They have GLib and their turn will soon come.
Ally Arabs for 24gpt (we are making 420gpt).
400AD - Haidarabad with Dyes is taken. Ally Byzantia for Horse in hope they'll destroy Indian island cities.
440AD - Took Deli with Pyramids! And got a GL! Make Sipahi army.
460AD - India gone from the continent and Byzantines took 1 of their island cities, but they still have 3 more.
470AD - Dow Korea.
500AD - Peace with Korea after taking 5 of their towns and replacing them with my towns. I need to attack China soon as it's Industrial and might get Riflemen. Also they made MPP with Russia but it's OK as Russians are weak.
520AD - Almost ready to attack. The plan is to make embassy with Persia, buy something for gpt from Russia, attack China, free gpt and ally Persia against Russia. Arabs and Byz are still allied with me against India. I see Chinese Riflemen.
But when I click on a star to make an embassy my PC freezes, so have to reload from autosave.

530AD - start war with China and then with Russia, take 2 embedded Russian cities and 3 Chinese cities but still can't take Beijing and GLib next turn. Persia allied with us against Russia for 25gpt (before that they gave us 26gpt for Wine/Dyes), and also went to war with China.

550AD. Byzantines destroyed India. Finally.
570AD. Captured GLib in Beijing!
580AD. No techs from GLib. Of course - I already have education.
590AD - Got 2nd GL, made 2nd Army.
640AD - Learned Physics. China can sell Mag/ToG but for too big of a price.

670AD - China is left with one last city. We make peace, breaking alliance with Arabs, taking ToG & Navigation and giving 110gpt. We'll break the deal in the next turn.
We enter IA and get Nationalism.

We chicken out on attacking Persia and Arabs as they've been Industrial for a long time. We desided going Diplomacy route, but this is for the next spoiler.

We are at about the end of MA (640AD):

 

[archimandrite]

In 540 AD Timur the Timurous rolleyes: ) and his uncultured, uneducated and poverty-stricken Timurids staggered into the Industrial Age. As a newbie I had a poor and nervewracking Middle Ages. It began in 925 BC when I entered the Middle Ages lacking either Monotheism and Republic, and with no hope of being able to afford Republic anytime soon if only Arabia was going to research it, as seemed likely. Forking out 409 gold for Polytheism had been bad enough. So I switched to Feudalism instead. It took me a horribly long time--from 900 to 730 BC--in anarchy before I was able to make the change. By 690 BC, when I finally began researching Invention in earnest, none of the other Powers had researched any other form of government.

Around 370 BC I lost two cities to the Chinese in culture flips, causing me to do a lot of mundane culture-building to try and catch up. In 10 AD the Chinese declared war on the Arabs. By 70 AD Russia and India had joined in against China, followed later by Korea. This AI war was to dominate the Middle Ages and almost destroyed China. A problematic result was that my one flipped city was captured by the culturally powerful Arabs, and the other by Russia. There was a certain synergy between the Persians and Arabs in this game and these two Powers would come to dominate. There is also a certain synergy between the Indians and Koreans, but these two do poorly by comparison. The Russians are the odd ones out. So I sat back with all the animations turned on--I'm a newbie, remember--and watched everyone beating the blazes out of the Chinese, while the Persians stuck to their research and the distant Byzantines did their own thing.

After receiving Steam Power as my advance and trading for Nationalism, I would wait some further period before triggering my Golden Age by way of a quick attack on one of the few remaining Chinese towns. Nobody paid any attention and even the Chinese ignored my brief two-turn "war" (but strictly speaking that belongs in the Industrial Age). So there it is. I fought no real wars, captured no towns, have no wonders and almost no army, and everybody stomps around my territory without bothering much with the niceties of ROP. My maps proved to be utterly worthless--so much so I was forced to trade Steam Power for Arabia's map, which really was a full map of the world and worth having.

I shall not of course "win" this game. You are dealing here with someone who got shocked by the appearance of certain of the AI cavalry as he didn't even recognize what they were. It could be said that at least your resident newbie survived a Deity Middle Ages with his 22 cities intact. However, "survival" doth not a strategy make.

 

[Megalou]

@ archimandrite.
It doesn't look all that bad! A word of advice, though. I don't see any mounted units being built in your screenie. This being deity, I would argue that sipahi are better builds than riflemen, even defensively. Whereas a powerful AI would eventually grind any amount of riflemen down, a sipahi can meet up with an enemy even outside your own territory and then return to heal. I was attacked long before the time that you have reached, I scraped up some knights and got away with it.

Riflemen have the same attack power as knights, though almost a whole era later, and they have only one movement point. A rifleman is down 6-16 defending against a tank, an infantry is down 10-16. A sipahi is up 8-6 attacking a tank. /Good luck

 

[Own]

Err... what if I researched to miltrad then stopped researching?

I tried to conquer some with my sipahi's, but WW kept getting me, so now I have to revolt to monarchy, which will affect my win date definately, which is bad. Will try to finish.

 

[Karasu]

@ Own,
your case should be covered:

In order to participate to the second COTM Spoiler you need to:
- have reached the end of the Middle Ages and be able to research an Industrial Age tech (I imagine that if you stopped research at MT and killed everyone else, you also qualify for this spoiler...)

Even if you haven't killed everyone else yet I think -but then you'll know if your game at this point contains spoiler information for the others.

(I love to quote myself )

 

[ionimplant]

Open

Going into the Middle Ages, I had two misfortunes behind me. The first was the squandering and rebuilding of my granary in Samarquand. The second was that I could not trade Engineering until just before I would finish researching it. This was partly my own fault because it's pretty clear that Engineering was known in the Byzantine Empire before I knew where it was. But it wasn't easy to find, was it?
...............

Shomination victory in 760 AD.

you are so good, Megalou!
i didn't suffer from any major accidents in this game and yet only achieve domination after 1200AD. waging wars among AIs and pick the strongest to fight (since there's always a dogpile on that AI, it isn't as stressful as it should be fighint deity AI). by doing this, Arabs, China, India were eliminated. Persia, russia were pretty weak and posed no problem at all...

 

[Megalou]

You flatter me, ionimplant - thanks!
But wait 'till DaveMcW comes along.

I wouldn't call those "accidents" major. If it takes longer to research MT you will have more horsemen to uprade once you get there, so it's almost all one. the Chinese attack was scary but the Persians helped me out; I was lucky my weak military was enough to tip the scales against China.

Other things that might have helped me were that I had 8 luxuries most of the time. Also, during my GA I connected and disconnected my salpeter every single turn, so that I could get 4 or even 5 new horsemen built and upgraded to sipahi every turn, on the interturn. (Open city window, right-click on the new horseman.)

 

[killercane]

Pred, Space

Free techs available on the age change were Feudie and Engineering, no mono but that wasnt really a problem. The fledgling empire was steaming towards MT anyway to support some scientists. A Leo's build was started in Samarizkand and the Timurids kept borrowing money and luxes to fuel fast research. The plan was to get Sipahi and capture the Great Library in Madras to hopefully net me up to Physics if the tech pace remained quick.

But it didnt for some reason, or at least it wasnt as quick as Id hoped. Leos came in in 290 BC, barely ahead of the Persians, and Samarizkand had to add workers and max shields to get there in time. No wars were fought until 110 AD, when the Timurids began softening up the Indians with their knights, capturing Bengal, Dacca, and Punjab. Mil Trad came in 190 AD, GA in 210, and after wading through some elephants in the jungle, Madras, Medina, and Bombay were captured in 330 AD. The mini GL slingshot only netted Astro, Banking, and Education . Physics and Theory of Gravity took 5 turns each, and ToG for Magnetism from Byzantium brought the Timid Timurids into the IA at 430.

The Arabs had meanwhile sneak attacked in 370 by capturing Kufah and Medina. Persia was allied against them while Russia was looked to for more population and to fuel some IA research. Arabia was fairly strong. 8 Russian cities fell to the sword by the time we entered the Industrial Age.

 

[al_thor]

I'm in the Modern Age in this game, and I'm in 2nd place, points-wise. I am #1 in land area and in population.

I'm shocked. This IS a diety game, right? (just kidding, I'm rather proud of my success to date).

No war for me until Military Tradition. I managed to get the GL, but it only gave me like 4 or maybe 5 techs. Oh well, at least I could concentrate on Military Tradition as the AI helped me on the top half of the tree. I kept the AI off my back with ROP and trading them luxuries. Meanwhile, Persia was getting HUGE - they had taken almost all of the Arabian and the Russian lands. I actually GAVE Horse to Russia immediately after Persia declared on her to see if she could hold him off with Cossacks (she did have Salt and M.T.) but no dice - Persia steamrolled her.

While he was doing that, I attacked Korea with Sipahi and crushed him. As I was finishing him off, and worrying about the monster Persians, China and Byzantines declared on the Persians. Perfect! Persia was still feeling cocky so I told him to leave my land or declare. He declared. I enticed India into the fray. Now we are all at war with Persia. I took a few of his cities, but China and India took most of them - I was stretched a little thin towards the tail-end of my war with Korea.

I currently have 5 or 6 Tank Armies, and 3 Sipahi Armies, all enhanced by the Pentagon. I am at war with China - he will be going down very soon. I am concerned about the Space Race, as the Byzantines and the Indians are advancing thru the techs at a steady clip. After China, I will turn on India, but he is pretty huge and will not go down without a fight.

I'm one turn from coming out of Anarchy and will adopt Communism - it's warmongering from here on out.

Not sure what to do about Byzantines, as my navy consists of 1 Destroyer and 1 Cruiser - ha! I'll have to look to see if she has all of the required resources for Space Ship. If not, then I won't have to worry so much. If so, I'll have to scramble to cut off her Aluminum.

 

[twinmfg]

670 BC: Researched Rep, sold for Constr and entered MA. Got Engineering as freebie. Began gov’t switch and received 8 turns of anarchy.

530: Tashkent is deposed by Korea while in anarchy!

490: Bamian is deposed by China while STILL in anarchy!

390: Researching Invention for Leo’s. I’ve been prebuilding for it, but can never count how long it will take to learn techs, so I didn’t start soon enough. I lost Leo’s in 250BC by about five turns.

150 BC: It’s evident by now that I can’t keep tech parity by researching and trading. Turned off research. Making 118 gpt.

70 AD: Finally have enough to buy Gunpowder. None is in my territory! I’ll have to fight for it. There are four possibilities:
NW- Russian. These towns would fit into my empire better, being on the coast, but they have a strong military.
WSW- Korea (yes, they jumped one settler passed me). Korea’s town was in the middle of the desert, unsupportable by them, but would be almost as bad for me.
S- India. They’d have to march their war oliphants through lots of jungle to reach me, but the town would be sandwiched between Persia/India/China. Can you say culture flip? Again?
ENE- China. I could easily pillage their sole sources of saltpeter, iron, and horses. But their army is stronger than mine (Riders vs Horsemen) and I feared I couldn’t weather the initial storm.
Decisions, decisions. I had some time to contemplate because I needed to build more units. I obviously could have expanded better. Just not sure how @ Deity.

130 AD: When in doubt, attack the little guy. I declare war on Korea.

210 AD: Took 4 towns (including my old deposed one). Found out (in forums) that the cost of upgrading has increased with C3C. No Leo’s.

260: Eastern city (Asterbad) deposed by China! Have been building temples and libraries in border towns to help boost culture, but it’s not enough.

330: Wealthiest Nation. Whoopee! For all the good it does me. I’m several techs behind and their costs are outrageous.

370: Byz lands one Ancient Cav on Northern coast next to a city defended by a warrior. I can’t get any units there in time, so I trade 70gpt for Metallurgy. I figure I’ll retake the town next turn. Sure enough, Byz declares war and takes city. Then razes it! Well, I’ll fix her.

380: Kill the Ancient Cav and drag his stinking corpse through the cities of my glorious empire. No one razes our towns! I also sign an alliance with Persia and China against Byz. This started a whole slew of alliances vs Byz. Only Arabia remained at peace w/ Byz. From this time until the end of the game, virtually every civ was allied with someone against everyone else. The F4 screen would continually be a mass of solid and dashed red lines.

450: Haven’t heard anything from Byz until now, when they land an 8-stack of AC and MI on north shore. Easily destroyed. Bought Mil Trad for Incense, World Map, and $1565. May as well spend that much since I won’t be buying any more techs and can’t afford to upgrade my horse units.

460: Arabs and Byz ally vs China. Byz signs peace with me and even pays 7gt. Yeah I had her shaking in her slippers alright. I’m at peace w/ all now.

550: I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y building Sipahis, waiting for the proper time to strike China. Everyone is in the Industrial Age except me (don’t laugh too hard). I figure I better attack now before they have railroads everywhere. I declare war on China and pillage their sole source of saltpeter, iron, and horses.

680: I make peace with China. The war was rather inconclusive. I took/razed several towns, but they could still out produce me. By the time my units had full health and ready to attack another town, a whole stack of muskets, pikes, and MI would show up. Korea also declared war on us this year, but I’m not worried. They’re actually more pathetic than my empire.

720: Played a strictly defensive war with Korea. I would have lost any towns by culture flip anyway since they were squeezed between China and India. I sued for peace after repelling several attacks.

840: I’m falling further and further behind in tech, but can’t afford to buy any. I’m so far behind I can’t trade anything I have. Had to start researching again. I’m 3 turns from having Physics- and just saw a stack of Persian Infantry! Alright, go ahead and laugh.

890: I new it was just a matter of time, and it finally happened this year. Persia declares war on us. Russia has MPP w/ Persia, so they declare as well.

930: It’s a slow, agonizing death. The only redemption is that I’m making Persia pay a fairly high price. All cities are in flames. For some reason they don’t like it when we’re losing a war.

1060 AD: Capitol finally falls. Game over. Score: 1848, a few points ahead of Korea. At least I wasn't dead last in the game.

Entry class: Conquest
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 1060 AD
Firaxis score: 1849
Jason score: 644
Time played: 23:01:26

Ha! Beat that, losers! I'm a shoe-in for last place. Just imagine: My first ever XOTM game and I'm gonna get an award.

Lessons learned:
1. Go back to Chieftain
2. I’ll get ‘em next time
3. I look lovely
4. I don’t have to mow my lawn after losing

In all seriousness, I’d be more than happy to listen to any advice from successful Deity players.

 

[Mwoimp]

@twinmfg
Your game reminds me of mine, except mine took a little longer, and it has a twist at the end. I can't wait for the next spoiler thread so I can tell of my downfall. And congratualations on the low score.

 

[twinmfg]

@twinmfg
Your game reminds me of mine, except mine took a little longer, and it has a twist at the end. I can't wait for the next spoiler thread so I can tell of my downfall. And congratualations on the low score.

Why, thank you. I'm exceptionally proud of my failure.

P.S. I shall eagerly await the story of your demise.

 

[Megalou]

In all seriousness, I’d be more than happy to listen to any advice from successful Deity players.

OK, here is a contribution.

The maximum distance that an attacking sipahi or cavalry can move is by no means 3 steps. It is 2 steps on a road and then 3 steps. Here is an illustration.

You have just captured Pasargadae and Sardis. You find to your dismay that you cannot capture any more cities this turn; the troops in Persepolis cannot reach their target. But how do you move your troops this turn so that you can take both Antioch and Gordium next turn?

Answer:
Most, or all, healthy units should be moved into Sardis. Here is why:

The blue square indicates the end of the cultural influence of Gordium. So simple geometry tells us that the tile with the blue ring will also be outside Persian influence, once Antioch is captured. So both towns can be reached from Sardis. Moving your troops into Persian territory before attacking is not a good option because:
(1) Troops left standing in enemy territory increase war weariness
(2) You have to guess how many sipahi will be needed for each city

What about defence? It’s pretty obvious from the map that Persia relies on slow units. Even so, there could be cavalries around, because they had horses earlier. Yet, we know that the AI stink at coordinated attacks. Here, I would probably keep two redlined or yellow sipahi in Persepolis and Pasargadae. Eg. a wounded unit can kill the immortal marked with an X and then fortify in Persepolis or Pasargadae. The immortal near Sardis is actually alone with 2 workers, and nothing to worry about. The one near with the X should be killed because we want to move on from that area.

Reasons for this type of defence:

(1) If this is a good war, our pikemen and musketmen cannot keep up.
(2) Towns not taken the same turn are subject to flipping. Too much defence may well be an imploding trap.
(3) The important defence is not in the city but outside. Against a strong cultural power you should count on flips. Bring units that have healed from previous battles but cannot reach the front, and place them next to the risky cities.
(4) It is obvious that we have Persia on the ropes. Even if it seems unnecessary to lose a redlined sipahi, it is worse to lose the speed of the attack.

Here we are halfway into the next turn:

I think this kind of battle planning is typical of experienced players. Even more so is making sure those sipahi don't face infantries, but that's another story...

 

[toller pretzl]

Could it be that Cultural Conversion is turned off in this game ?

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I'd rather not read the whole thread while I am still playing

I have A Chinese city encircled almost since it was founded, and it won't convert. On the bright side, the Chinese cities that I have conquered also do not convert back.

 

[azzaman333]

Entry class: Conquest
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 1060 AD
Firaxis score: 1849
Jason score: 644
Time played: 23:01:26

Ha! Beat that, losers! I'm a shoe-in for last place. Just imagine: My first ever XOTM game and I'm gonna get an award.

i lost even worse. i had a jason of about 300.

 

[Megalou]

Could it be that Cultural Conversion is turned off in this game ?

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I'd rather not read the whole thread while I am still playing

I have A Chinese city encircled almost since it was founded, and it won't convert. On the bright side, the Chinese cities that I have conquered also do not convert back.

Cultural conversions are definitely not off. Encircling a town is certainly no guarantee for a flip. For example, you probably don't have any of your country's citizens in that town, let alone resistors. A wild guess is that the town has 5-10% flip chance, less if you have less total culture than China. The local cultural influence is a factor that works for you, and distance to capital I assume, but those are only 2 factors. The importance of local influence is often exaggerated, probably because it is the most "visual" factor. A town has only 3 or 4 tiles so it "must" flip or so we tend to think. Check the flip chance in CivAssist II or post your save here and I'll do it for you. Better still: Exterminate all the brutes