Culture Flip rants

[Mike C]

Well, since the forum is back up and running, I'll use it to blow off some steam.

Here I am chugging along as the Greek Democracy when I get dragged into a war. Fine, the Egyptians want to be stupid? I'll ram some modern armor and mech infantry down their throats.

I conquer a total of 7 cities during 3 turns of war. Had to call it off because the people were getting pretty angry at constant wars with Egypt but no matter, I sign a peace treaty.

Here is the state of the Egyptian empire. Their capital Thebes is now mine. They control 10 cities non of which are greater than size 10. They have maybe 20 military units left. They are in awe of my culture.

Guess what happens the turn after I declare peace? I lose 4 of the 7 cities I captured to culture flips. In the process, 25 military units went down the drain. A total of 25% of my standing army. Gone. Just like that.

While doing absoultly nothing, the Egyptians have claimed back more than half of what they lost. All 4 cities were 15 pop over. No chance to build temples, no chance to quell resistors. Nothing. I got not a single chance to do anything about the culture flips that occured.

I was so disgusted I turned off the game immediatly and contemplated spamming Firaxis with hate mail but decided that was probably immature. So I now take the time to imform everyone here of THE ABSOLUTLEY STUPID SYSTEM THAT IS CURRENTLY INPLACE. GET RID OF CULTURE FLIPS.

 

[Gholam]

Ouch, must have been some major bad luck on your part... I just finished a game where I completely eliminated Azteks who had 20+ cities (playing Americans) while only suffering one culture revert in the process, and that was in a city where I only garrisonned one unit, despite 6 resisters.

 

[Peteus]

Henh, henh...don't get me started!

It would be OK if there was some way of knowing what the heck is going on! Cities flip when it seems like they have no excuse to.

All I have learned is, the only way you can safely attack the enemy's core cities is to burn them as you go. That shouldn't be, but working within the system, on the plus side you do get a whole pile of enemy workers (half strength, but free support!) for your troubles...

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by Peteus
Henh, henh...don't get me started!

It would be OK if there was some way of knowing what the heck is going on! Cities flip when it seems like they have no excuse to.

All I have learned is, the only way you can safely attack the enemy's core cities is to burn them as you go. That shouldn't be, but working within the system, on the plus side you do get a whole pile of enemy workers (half strength, but free support!) for your troubles...

I don't want to grow cities from scracth and more micromanagement with hundreds of slave workers is the last thing I need.

Death to the culture Flips!!!!:rocket:

 

[jim1013]

In general i like the idea of culture flips, however i definatley agree that it needs to be toned down somewhat.

First of all if they are in awe of you, the chance of a culture flip should be a lot less..
lets see the english are in awe of my culture, BUT the english city i captured so admires the english it goes back.... the chance of this should be much lower

Also they seem to get back all the culture they lost upon liberating one of their cities. (note culture per turn from that city is much less though) this is not right. I think they should only get back half of the culture they had previously in a city they have just liberated.

Also, perhaps your fast moving units could beat a hasty retreat back a square or two.. It's unrealistic to just have the city flip and then have your whole occupying army instantly become loyal enemies. If the situation looks bad (ie one million people are revolting! then the fast moving units should be withdrawn back a square if possible)

oh yeah and they seem to get a free rifleman/infantry whatever when they get their city flipped back to them... GRRR
---------------
But while im joining in this rant. im going to also complain about the combat... the computer has a nice tactic of overpowering a couple of mech infs with half a dozen longbowmen. and i've seen plenty of occasions where they've used 1 longbowmen regular or vet (full health) to take out a full health regular rifleman in a city.
Also man-of wars seem to be rather effective against carriers and destroyers.. and 2 or 3 iron clads are deadly against battleships.

Modern Units should get similar Hitpoint values to civ2.
The civ 3 combat is flawed in two ways
1) no HP advantage for modern units
2) the low number of HP overall.. battles with units with 3 or 4 HP come out with a lot of unrealistic battles, whereas 20 or 30 HP battles would smooth out the unrealism a bit, even with no HP advantage for modern units.

I should be able to take out many ironclads with battleships, and i should certainly not have to worry about those 3 english man-o-wars sinking my aircraft carrier. Or for that matter longbowen en mass to taking out mech inf defended cities.

Firaxis' excuse for their shocking combat system was along the lines of if you don't have resource X then your game should not be completeley hopeless, since you can't build some of the modern units...

IMO this is a poor excuse since riflemen don't require any resource and would be classed as a modern unit for Hitpoints (just like in civ2)

I'll likely finish my current game which is driving me crazy with wooden ships taking out modern battleships and destroyers and such, Then i'll wait for the patch, which although i doubt will fix this it will improve upon their BS corruption, and i am hoping it will make the editor better too.

After that ill go to the editor and probably double or triple all of the modern units A/D values if nothing can be done in the editor about the HP
And play the game like that

 

[Tomji]

I hate that too...

as long as I have more untis in the city then resistors it shouldnt be possible to happen.

also some kinda warning or so would be nice. (before end of turn)

 

[RAL2000]

One of those things that is really nice when you benefit cause it happens to them, but infuriating when it happens to you.

I agree that there are two problems in an otherwise intriguing approach to culture:

1) Unpredictable -- there should be a way of guaging the risk of a flip for either side, and something that could be done about it. It really isn't clear what exactly works well in preventing them. Of course I build temples ASAP and try to garrison and keep the cits happy, but even then it seems that some simply occur on an almost random basis.

2) The Army -- I can understand the flip of a city. But not how a large army suddenly and without warning is lost in the process. Just doesn't make sense. Maybe if your troops were sent back to your capital at least, whenever there was a flip. The irony here is that you want to garrison in strength but are afraid to be because you don't want to lose your garrison. A major swing factor in the game thus turns out to be almost random.

One thing I have done that helps: use old non-upgradable units from prior ages as guardians. A couple of warriors seem to make as good a garrison as a couple of mech infantries in terms of cultural flips. And it hurts a lot less if they go.

 

[Dark Sheer]

Originally posted by jim1013
In general i like the idea of culture flips, however i definatley agree that it needs to be toned down somewhat.

......... the computer has a nice tactic of overpowering a couple of mech infs with half a dozen longbowmen..... and 2 or 3 iron clads are deadly against battleships.
...
IMO this is a poor excuse since riflemen don't require any resource and would be classed as a modern unit for Hitpoints (just like in civ2)
....
After that ill go to the editor and probably double or triple all of the modern units A/D values if nothing can be done in the editor about the HP
And play the game like that

The trouble with conquered city is there are usually a very high ressistance. However, if the citizens can be kept happy the chances of flipping back is very very low. What I usually do is make sure those city that I plan to conquer has road connected to my own cities (get Right of Passage and build road to connect) and make sure your own citizens are very happy even before you go into anywar.

My current game as India is a good example...I have overrun Moscow (Moscow is now size 8 after my relentless bombardment from size 15...hehehe) and there are only 3 ressistor with the rest of them happy (I have all 8 luxuries) and all ressistors gone by the next turn (I have an Army of Modern Armor plus 2 Modern Armor and 2 Mech Inf garrisoned).

Infact, the Japanese has overrun Rome for 2 turns now (with Espionage I look into Rome and discover it has zero culture, +0 per turn but garrisoned by 2 infantry and 1 tank (size 7) ) and no flipping back so far.

As to combat results....my Mech Inf do get overrun by Longbowman once in a while but unless there are a whole load of them it usually don't happen. Tanks do manage to defeat my Mech Inf and Modern Armor more often than Longbowman. Therefore I am willing to accept the effect of overwhelming odds

Other than that, I have build in some changes into my own game (Refer my post under creation & customization --->Ideas for Mod Makers)

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

I say keep the grumpy citizens, get ride of the culture flips and bring back the partasins(Sp).

Keeping the grumpy citizens relates to the nature of a war like take over (lower production, higher crime, etc). But having partasins brings some realisms. Instead of haveing a chance of culture fliping per turn. Make a chance of *said* number of partasins appearing per turn for something like 20 turns. That way you will still have to defend the new city, but you wont just poof loose half your army...

 

[Galen Dietenger]

Agreed, the whole 'deposeing your govenor' thing is a major conceptual, as well as logical flaw in this game. What is even worse is ive had civs beat down to 2 or 3 pop 1 -3 range and still had REVERTS!-and not just 1 either. Ive even had flips *AFTER* I totally defeated France-went over to germany 2000 miles away-go figure. The way 'resistance, insurrection' whatever you want to call it is seriosuly fubared. I wouldnt mind partisans poping up ala civ2, nor would it hurt if cities would suffer prolonged resitance even( with my units taking damage or even destruction, but this revert+lose all your army thing is Utter BS.*

There have been lots of talks on this on, see the small thread titled 'Raze or conquer' or do a search keyword Raze for more disscusions on the matter.


*While there tons of flaws in Civ3, this particuallar one has to be in the top 3 under 'Most Infuriateing'. Any way to let the powers that be at firaxis know how I feel?

 

[ukrneal]

I love culture flips! Finally, you actually have to think about protecting your lines of supply and your back. Imagine someone tried to take over Paris or Venice or Osaka. How long would you be able to hold those cities in real life? Maybe a long time, but eventually, they'd flip back even if their country didn't exist. So I don't understand all the rants about "realism", especially as this is a game.

Judging by the number of posts throughout the forums, I have to wonder why so many people have so many problems. I have played a few different games with different attributes. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Here's what I do:

1. Take city.
2. Starve it. So far, this has been HIGHLY effective. Even if I lose it, it will be smaller.
3. Put hurt units inside.
4. Cut roads to their capital - I don't know if this helps, but it appears to.
5. Connect roads to your capital asap!
6. Rush build the temple when the city stops resisting.
7. Leave your own units outside the city just in case (2-3) if it was a powerful city before.
8. Make sure that there are a bunch of entertainers.
9. Make some workers to reduce the number in the city - lousy workers, but growth in the city might be faster and they'll be your citizens.
10. Don't expect this to work every time.

What gets me is not that this should or should not be tweaked, but that many appear to be doing the same thing over and over and not learning from it or making changes.

My advice: don't put 25 units in your cities.

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by ukrneal
I love culture flips! Finally, you actually have to think about protecting your lines of supply and your back. Imagine someone tried to take over Paris or Venice or Osaka. How long would you be able to hold those cities in real life? Maybe a long time, but eventually, they'd flip back even if their country didn't exist. So I don't understand all the rants about "realism", especially as this is a game.

The Germans did it and they only left because they were kicked out by the allied army. That was exactly the same situation Egypt was in when those 4 cities decided to revert on me.

This culture flip **** would be akin to half of the French cities under Nazi rule deciding to join Vichy France again. Guess what? The Nazi military decided to excute some people to "suggest" to the occupied French not to do it again.

Originally posted by ukrneal
Judging by the number of posts throughout the forums, I have to wonder why so many people have so many problems. I have played a few different games with different attributes. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Here's what I do:

Originally posted by ukrneal
1. Take city.
2. Starve it. So far, this has been HIGHLY effective. Even if I lose it, it will be smaller.
3. Put hurt units inside.

I had it for TWO TURNS. TELL ME HOW TO STARVE THEM DOWN IN TWO TURNS.

Originally posted by ukrneal
4. Cut roads to their capital - I don't know if this helps, but it appears to.

Geez you know what? Their friggin capital was captured.

Originally posted by ukrneal
5. Connect roads to your capital asap!

The entire continent was covered by rail.

Originally posted by ukrneal
6. Rush build the temple when the city stops resisting.

Uhh, duhhh, too bad I had them for 2 turns and never managed to squash all of the resistors.

Originally posted by ukrneal
7. Leave your own units outside the city just in case (2-3) if it was a powerful city before.

Then how am I suppose to bring down the resistor levels fast enough to rush build the temple before they revert on me?!

Originally posted by ukrneal
8. Make sure that there are a bunch of entertainers.

Anyone not resisting was an entertainer.

Originally posted by ukrneal
9. Make some workers to reduce the number in the city - lousy workers, but growth in the city might be faster and they'll be your citizens.

So what am I suppose to do first now little boy? Rush the temple or rush a setler? Oh I forgot, I never got a chance to rush anything becasue I HELD IT FOR ONLY 2 TURNS.
10. Don't expect this to work every time.

Originally posted by ukrneal
What gets me is not that this should or should not be tweaked, but that many appear to be doing the same thing over and over and not learning from it or making changes.

You tell me how to 1) Quell all revolters 2) Rush build a temple 3) Rush build a worker 4) starve the citizens in TWO TURNS.

Originally posted by ukrneal
My advice: don't put 25 units in your cities.

In case you didn't read, I had just come out of a war. Garrisoning units is ususally a GOOD IDEA in war.

 

[Herrs]

Yes, the culture flips kind of sucks. I had a small city with no resistors left depose to the egyptians, although it was surronded with my cities and the egyptians were far away from it.

One thing you can do if you have enaugh armies, is to surround the city or block the road or something, just to prevent the enemy from reaching the city in one turn. Then you don't need to garrison it. When it deposes, well, just take it back!

I wonder if it's the overall culture points that is important or just in the city and those near it. Probably both.

 

[Håkon]

From what I've read here, it looks like culture flips is a bit overrelated. I agree totally that if a nation is in awe of your culture, then the city should have a, say, 1 or 2 % chance of revolting, increasing to about 6 % if both cultures have the same strengths, and to about 15 % if you're in awe of their culture, the other levels coming somewhere in between. Also, the levels should be adjusted to how much culture the city had before (you do lose all the culture, if you hadn't noticed, also your culture buildings is gone ), so that if this was a, say, 10 000 point city or more, the chance would be increased from 6 % to 9 %, and a 100 point city or less would go down from 6 % to 4.5 %. Also towns could have less chance of flipping back, metropolises more.

I love it when my cities flip back to me, but I agree that it might be stupid for all warmongers out there.

 

[Thorwahl999]

Alltho i hate how cultureflips are handled atm there are a few solutions. Last game i played i shared a continent with the evil egyptians. Some time in the 20th century the war mongering egyptians declared war on my peace loving romans and i felt they should be thouroughly punished. The egyptians however had a high culture rating and i knew they would quickly regain lost cities - i had develop a plan! Went into wartime mobilization and began shipping troops to the front cities without having them cross the border. When i had enough troops i ordered my generals to shoot the pesky democratically elected representatives and install a marxist-communist government (wanted to nerve staple the citizens, but couldnt find a button for it..). Thus began "the Long Walk" - my armies began their long trek to the egyptian cities. When all their cities were under siege i ordered my generals to seize ALL the egyptian cities in ONE year. Having prepared well this succeded - the egyptian nation was but a memory. Moral of the story? It's hard for egyptians to flip when there are no egyptians.

Thorwahl

 

[ironfang]

I think Firaxis is very VERY unrealistic about their idea on how to DEAL with culture flips. I do agree that a large city being held by a few soldiers is "unwise" and can often result in a mob killing the soldiers.

However. According to Firaxis, it takes 1 unit per 1 citizen in a city to keep it from flipping. Well. I hate to break it to you Firaxis, but if this was the case in reality, there would NEVER be wars. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how you can compare 1 Tank Brigade to 1 10,000 group of "untrained" virtually unarmed, uncoordinated people?

In Firaxis mentality a size 10 city is a military unit that is "unattackable once conquored" and can kill 9 or less military units, regardless of their experience or composition, in one turn. THAT IS STUPID!

I know for a fact, that if a town revolted and there were military stationed in the city, there would be ALOT of dead civilians before the military was overwhelmed. And I am not talking 2-1, it would be more like, Modern Mech Infantry against raging mobs... more like 50 to 1.

If they want to make it a tad bit realistic, the number of "disuading" forces should be less than 1/4 the size of the city.

ironfang

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Mike C, I know what your problem was: the total accumulated French culture had to have been way above your total accumulated culture points. Nothing else would explain that level of culture flipping.

The "solution" to your problem is to create some of your own culture, perhaps? Loose knit federations have a tendency to fall apart -- see Germany before the industrial age, or Alexander's empire after his death. For that matter, the Mongol empire is kinda smaller now than it used to be, eh?

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by ChrisShaffer
Mike C, I know what your problem was: the total accumulated French culture had to have been way above your total accumulated culture points. Nothing else would explain that level of culture flipping.

The "solution" to your problem is to create some of your own culture, perhaps? Loose knit federations have a tendency to fall apart -- see Germany before the industrial age, or Alexander's empire after his death. For that matter, the Mongol empire is kinda smaller now than it used to be, eh?

1) I wasn't at war with the French
2) I didn't take French cities
3) The cities defected to Egypt
4) My culture was superior to Egypt
4a) My foreign advisor said the Egyptians were in awe
4b) On the power graph, my culture far exceeded the Egyptians

This may have been a freak incident. Regardless, city flipping WITHOUT notice and WITHOUT ability to suppress the population is totally wrong.

 

[Kiki]

Bump.

Culture flips like this are bad. Firaxis has ALOT to fix.

 

[benn]

I agree with Mike C.

I have had an Egyptian city for over 1500 years (took it when it was size 2). Now it is size 12 (10 pop are mine). I wasn't at war with the Egyptian and had built a temple and library in the city. I had over 200 points of culture (should be way more than what the Egyptians had originally) in that city alone. My overall culture was 25% more than the Egyptians and this city was not surrounded by Egyptians. Our respective capitals were about the same distance away.
THIS CITY DEPOSED ME ANYWAY!

I learned 2 things from this: Having more of your own culture than the original culture and having the majority population do not prevent the overthrow.
Also when I reloaded and move 2 units in (not 12), I was able to prevent the loss. In otherwrds, I only had to suppress the 2 Egyptians.

This city loss needs to be toned down!