Culture flip inevitable?

[KAuss]

I've had a game where my city was under revolution and a stack of units in it...

Once I saw the msg pop up about it being flipped I quickly gift it to my allies... After moving out my troops ofcourse...

I was wondering if that flip even have a counter action? Can it be prevented? (with happy faces, culture slider?)

Anywho, it wasn't no biggie, since it gave me some diplo points while gifting a rather iffy defense wise city, but I did lose two resources...

 

[baboon]

I think troups have some effect on the chance of being flipped.

You don't have to worry about losing troups when it flips, they move to your country.

 

[Grogs]

Stationing a lot of troops there seems to help. Of course it won't help with surrounding tiles. If you're getting that much cultural pressure, you might not have enough tiles left for the city to work. Also, unlike Civ3, you don't lose those troops when the city flips. I've picked up several cities from flips and afterwards the AI's troops were still standing there (we had open borders.) Without open borders, I think the troops just automatically appear in the closest friendly/neutral tile.

 

[j_buckingham80]

In the last game I played, if you moved your mouse over the influence/population demographic in the city status screen (the colored bar in the lower left of the screen ususally reading something like 80%-100% your nation) it informed me of the percentage chance of revolt in the city I recently acquired. Adding troops lowered this percentage until it finally disappeared. A useful feature if you ask me.

 

[Ray Patterson]

Also, unlike Civ3, you don't lose those troops when the city flips.

That's not entirely true: I think usually one garrison unit flips with the city.

 

[andytheace]

for gaining cities from the AI, that's true (or a unit might be created out of nowhere). The other way around it didn't seem to happen for me. This was on Noble, though.

 

[dar]

AFAIK a civ does not lose any garrison units when a city flips. When a city flips, the new owner gets a free defense unit along with the city.

 

[rjjb]

I thought I read somewhere, perhaps Sulla's walkthrough, that a city would revolt as many as 3 times but the third time was guaranteed to flip. I've had a border city that I took from the persians revolt at least a half-dozen times and it never flipped. (I only had a couple units in it.)

Unless you really need the dip. points from a civ, you may as well try and hold onto it. If you can produce a Great Artist, it'll help make such cities more useful for you.

Jeremy.

 

[KAuss]

I must of had like 10 units stationed in the city... Does str points count when deciding flip factor?

Anywho, I would much rather gift it to an enemy AI and retake it... However, it was near my ally's territory and I was on my way to diplo win...

Nice to know it can be controlled though...

 

[weimingshi]

str points dont matter, its numbers of units that determines revolt chance. you can check the revolt chance of a city if you mouse over the % population bar in city screen. If its 0% chance of revolt nothing will show. You can experiment how many units it takes to get ride of chance of revolt.

 

[KAuss]

So units decrease the "chance" but it also "prevents" the revolt when the fist timer is up also right?

Cause thats what I was referring to...

So for example, if I have a city with 10 units it in, then the msg comes up and says "A blah revolt has started in blah" then the city has the red fist with the turn timer... If I add say another 5 units, the city will lose that fist hammer and stay mine if the 5 units was enough right?

 

[CivCorpse]

In the last game I played, if you moved your mouse over the influence/population demographic in the city status screen (the colored bar in the lower left of the screen ususally reading something like 80%-100% your nation) it informed me of the percentage chance of revolt in the city I recently acquired. Adding troops lowered this percentage until it finally disappeared. A useful feature if you ask me.

I'm glad someone else is having this problem too. I just finished a game, where as i was "enlightening" the Chinese on the better ways of French life, some of the Chinese cities that most recently began enjoying crepes in the morning were completely boxed in by the cultural borders of my so called allies. The same with my liberated persons of russian descent. They even went so far as to be swayed by the heathen teachings of Ghandi.
So adding troops will prevent a flip? How about trying to get the cultural borders to expand. I even went so far as to use a Great (worthless IMHO) artist in a city and the border didn't budge one bit. This was a border city that used to speak Japanese and was being pressured by the Chinese. I had to resort to sending so lesser known artists up there driving tanks.
OK, i know I am starting to babble, but in this same game, the Chinese attacked the Japanese right before I did. After Rome, China and my glorious French empire wiped up the Japanese, I went to trade with China and checked his attitude towards me. He was upset because I declared war on his friend. Japan was the only war i had fought at that moment in time and he was at war with them FIRST. any thoughts?

 

[Grogs]

In the last game I played, if you moved your mouse over the influence/population demographic in the city status screen (the colored bar in the lower left of the screen ususally reading something like 80%-100% your nation) it informed me of the percentage chance of revolt in the city I recently acquired. Adding troops lowered this percentage until it finally disappeared. A useful feature if you ask me.

I've never noticed that feature before. It inspired me to dig a little deeper and see if I could figure out what was going on. I ran a series of tests with the world builder to try and figure out how the flipping works. Here are my conclusions:

- When your population drops to 49% or less, the city has a chance of flipping (going into revolt.) This was just for 2 civs. With 3 or more, I suspect if another civ has a greater % you have a chance, but I didn't test it.

- The base chance of a flip is ~10% per turn (9.85% actually, but see below.) The percentage doesn't affect this number at all. Whether you're at 49% or 0%, this number is the same.

- Each troop you garrison in the city lowers the base flip chance. The higher your percentage, the greater the effect. So for example, stationing a warrior in a city may lower this number from 9.85% to 8.96%.

- The Strength of the units you garrison in the city absolutely does matter. At 0% population, it takes 23 warriors to completely eliminate the flip chance. It only takes 12 macemen or 5 Mech Infantry. This number seems to be a hard cap, unlike Civ3 where you could put 100+ units in certain cities and still have them flip.

- The *type* (melee, archer, mounted, etc.) of unit doesn't seem to matter so long as it's a combat unit. Scouts and explorers don't count. In other words, horse archers are as good as swords; chariots are as good as spears.

- This is a big one: If the city has the state religion, the effect of each unit is doubled. This means that in a situation where you needed 8 warriors, you only need 4 with the state religion. You also get a .15% bonus to the base flip chance, lowering it to 9.70%.

- A little culture seems to help a lot. Even when massively outcultured city, I was able to start raising my percentages, and thus lower my flip chance. It seems much easier to get a city above 50% than the surrounding tiles.

- To get a real feel, I played what was one heck of a quick game. I built 2 cities 3 tiles apart, placed a spy in the AI city and watched what happened as I slowly outcultured my opponent. I kept increasing my cpt while leaving his at a constant 3 cpt. After about 65 turns, when my city outcultured the AI by 2000 to 300, he dropped below 50%. He had only a single rifleman, so right off the bat the flip chance was 6% and slowly crept upward each turn. After 6 turns, the first revolt happened. For some reason, the % went up *during* the revolt. I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it dropped back down afterwards. 10 turns later, his city flipped and I won a conquest victory.

So for example, if I have a city with 10 units it in, then the msg comes up and says "A blah revolt has started in blah" then the city has the red fist with the turn timer... If I add say another 5 units, the city will lose that fist hammer and stay mine if the 5 units was enough right?

No. I added a dozen modern armor to a rioting city. It brought the flip chance down to 0, but it didn't end the revolt. I think it will make sure the city doesn't flip after the riot though.

 

[rjjb]

@Grogs:

Possible that unit strength is modified by a ratio between you and the other civ during flip calculations? For example, if I have infantry and the opponent civ still has archers, the infantry should be a better preventative measure for flipping than if the opponent civ had infantry too. If we're both roughly equal in military strength/score/... maybe I'd need more units than if I were significantly ahead.

Just an idea, but it doesn't look like you tested this case.

Jeremy.

 

[Grogs]

@Grogs:

Possible that unit strength is modified by a ratio between you and the other civ during flip calculations? For example, if I have infantry and the opponent civ still has archers, the infantry should be a better preventative measure for flipping than if the opponent civ had infantry too. If we're both roughly equal in military strength/score/... maybe I'd need more units than if I were significantly ahead.

Just an idea, but it doesn't look like you tested this case.

Jeremy.

I gave it a try, but I couldn't seem to find that either the size of my military or my level of technology make a difference. Even with a huge stack of MA/MI it didn't seem to affect the number. I also tried having all the techs while the AI had none and it didn't seem to have an effect. I did find a couple of other variables that definitely make a difference though:

- The population of the city. The larger the population, the higher the starting % chance of revolt (but never greater than 10%) and the less % each additional defender reduces the number (so much for what I said about there being no hard cap.)

- Being at war with the other civ appears to double the effectiveness of the troops stationed there. This is also cumulative with the bonus for having the state religion, but I didn't look at how they stack together yet.

There are still a lot of other variables I haven't looked at yet, like relative populations, number of cities, or wealth between the 2 cities. Also, both cities I was using were capitals (but with the palaces removed.) It's possible that the existance of a road back to your capital may have an effect. I might try and design a more complicated map and test some of these variables after thanksgiving.

 

[Roland Johansen]

This is definitely good information. If you can get a complete picture of culture pressure/culture flipping, then you should write a strategy article about the subject. This is good stuff.

 

[Blazer6]

Does a single city with large culture have a better chance to cause a flip than several cities with a smaller culture?

 

[The Duff Man]

Is a flip inevitable if the opponent's city is completely surrounded by your culture? I dropped an artist around 200 AD and Saladin's city was completly surrounded. It went into revolt some time later but didn't flip. He had a lot of units there. Rather than wait around to see if it would flip I moved a bunch of units in and whooped him.

 

[KAuss]

The AI last night resisted flipping twice... The revolt msg poped up and somehow it subsided...

So I guess you CAN stop the fist timer...

Anywho, lots of great info here!!! Thanks...