Culture Flip rants

[Peteus]

I've seen some crazy stuff in the culture flipping department, suffice to say. Still, I like the concept, and I would be content if it was:

1) Documented- Tell us what causes it, so we don't have to guess!

2) Predictable- at least a little bit! Civil disorder is completely predictable, so why is there no indication whatsover of the the level of threat for the much-more-serious culture flips?

3) Controllable- Firaxis says that 1 garrisoning unit "more or less" keeps one citizen from thinking of flipping. I've seen that not work though. Building culture improvements, making citizens happy, etc, has little or no effect.

4) Reasonable- A city which just had its backward garrison slaughtered like dogs in the street is in no position to overthrow its conquorers a couple of turns later!! And no, elite shock troops in the field do not suddenly decide that the path of truth actually lies in the way of the country they have been successfully oppressing for the past 100 years!

 

[ukrneal]

Mike C and others:

Well, I knew what I wrote would get someone's goat, but I only meant to tease a little bit!

In seriousness,

1. You can starve them in one turn. Click off all the food until there is a shortage. With the exception of small cities, this is always possible. So, even if you have a city for one turn, you can starve them one citizen. It seems like they kill off a resistor, though I am not sure how they determine what citizen dies. It is a very effective tool sometimes. For me, it has made the difference a few times. I'll try to figure out who dies off (if that is possible).

2. Even if you captured their capital, they often spawn a new one. If they do this, you then have to cut them off again.

3. I agree with you (and Peteus and others) that there should be better documentation and understanding as to why they happen so that the game just doesn't become a frustrating event in which you have no control. We should be able to predict with some clarity why it is happening and when. Though, i like a bit of randomness.

4. The part about not putting 25 units in a city was part sarcastic and not meant for any one person. Simply, in reading many posts here, the following scenario occurs: a) take city, b) dump all warriors into city, c) city reverts and kills all units; d) repeat from "a" the next time. I was just suggesting that knowing the probable results of repeating, it might be better to do something different.

5. It definitely would be nice to know what effect each troop in the city has on the "flip" thing.

6. Aside: In real life though, a lot of freaky things have happened. Enemies became friends, friends became enemies, etc. Take a look at the Alsace (sp?) region that flipped back and forth between Germany and France. What about China and Korea which still haven't forgiven Japan for WWII and it's over 50 years later? What about Quebec, which hasn't been a part of France the past two centuries, and yet nearly became a new country - that would have been a flip. While interesting, it may not make the game better, but I do believe it gives a rationale for understanding it can happen. Of course, none of these events were random and not predictable. SO it also supports your point of view.

 

[Jazz_Newton]

A few methods that I've found to help:

No 1. (The one I most frequently use)

RAZE THE CITY!!
Unless a city is directly bordering one of my own cities (where at least 50% of the pop are my citz) I raze the city. Usually corrpution is so high that any other cities are useless anyway.

No 2.

BLITZREIG!!
You say "I lose too many troops when I garrison". The solution: Don't garrison!!! Keep pushin through until you completely wipe them out. Your advancing armies should stop any enemies sneaking behind the lines and re-capturing cities, and as you gain control of rail and road networks, it's easy to disatch a lone unit to re-take a "flipping" city.

No 3. (And more unusual than the rest)

Give most, if not all of your captured cities away!! This sounds weird, but it can be useful!! The other civs will love you!!! (If you want a real life example, look at how the US gave the Northern Alliance a big present in the shape of Kabul)

Alternatively...
Divide the cities up between different civs, creating a "multi-cultural" environment. After a while, when the resistors have died down, start a "World War", and go through and re-take all the cities of your enemies. These civs will have a tiny culture base in that area, so there is very little chance of "flips" (sounds weird, but it works, as long as you don't care about your reputation)

 

[Endureth]

It's this simple...

- Take the city.
- Only leave troops in the city if they are producing happy faces, otherwise move them out.
- Connect the city to as many resources as possible. You should consider rush building a harbor instead of a temple first. Harbor's or Airports can produce more happy faces faster than a crappy ole' temple.
- Every turn check the city and make sure no one is working. Everyone should be making a happy face.

The whole trick is to have lots of happy faces and no sad/angry faces.

Endureth

 

[Peteus]

Hmm...it may help, but it's not quite that simple...I've had lots of cities flip with 1-8 or so citizens, all happy!

 

[Stradius]

What i usually do when i capture a city that i know is going to flip is trade it to one of the other civs that is of no direct threat to me. usually i can get a huge sum of cash/maps/techs for the city. the really cool thing is if it is near my borders, it will usually depose back to me. This helped me ALOT when playing on emperor in keeping up with techs while i conquered the evil persians.

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by ukrneal

2. Even if you captured their capital, they often spawn a new one. If they do this, you then have to cut them off again.

Dude, the entire contient was covered in rail. There is no way I could have cut the captured cities off. Espcially when I was still busy fending off Egyptian units who like to do suicide beeline rushes at my cities.

Originally posted by ukrneal
3. I agree with you (and Peteus and others) that there should be better documentation and understanding as to why they happen so that the game just doesn't become a frustrating event in which you have no control. We should be able to predict with some clarity why it is happening and when. Though, i like a bit of randomness.

Amen!

Originally posted by ukrneal
4. The part about not putting 25 units in a city was part sarcastic and not meant for any one person. Simply, in reading many posts here, the following scenario occurs: a) take city, b) dump all warriors into city, c) city reverts and kills all units; d) repeat from "a" the next time. I was just suggesting that knowing the probable results of repeating, it might be better to do something different.

I needed to quell the resistors. It has been said that resistors are the biggest cause of defection. I tried to balance out risk of losing units and quelling resistors. But nonetheless 25 units represented 1/4 of my military. I couldn't recover from that loss when I was dragged back into war 3 turns later.

Originally posted by ukrneal
5. It definitely would be nice to know what effect each troop in the city has on the "flip" thing.

Better yet let my troops fight the uprisings.

Originally posted by ukrneal
6. Aside: In real life though, a lot of freaky things have happened. Enemies became friends, friends became enemies, etc. Take a look at the Alsace (sp?) region that flipped back and forth between Germany and France. What about China and Korea which still haven't forgiven Japan for WWII and it's over 50 years later? What about Quebec, which hasn't been a part of France the past two centuries, and yet nearly became a new country - that would have been a flip. While interesting, it may not make the game better, but I do believe it gives a rationale for understanding it can happen. Of course, none of these events were random and not predictable. SO it also supports your point of view.

I guess, but I would still like to have control of cities EARNED. The Egyptians captured 4 top class cities in good strategic positions with not so much as lifting a finger.

I find this unacceptable.

 

[Smash]

You can present any argument you want but the simple fact is this defection business is not fun.Its not hard or make it harder.Its very easy to just leave cities empty with a few units just outside.I've had cities go back and forth 5-6-7 times in a row.
I would like to know how a civ with 1 city left on an island,many many sqaures away,can manage a culture switch against a 40+city civ with tons o luxuries and all the wonders.AND..to do it 6 turns after peace was signed and that war forgotten.

At the very,very least,you're troops should be bounced to the outskirts or something.An army would be too busy looting,burning,pillaging etc to stop and admire the culture and convert.More likely citizens would placed upon pikes as an example.

I'm not 100% sure what the goal was but the result has taken alot of fun out of it and replaced it with rage and frustration.

Having said that I say there are some things you can do.
1.cut roads that connect the city with other enemy cities.
2.have workers follow your troops roading in your resources and luxuries ASAP
3.Have a higher culture rating than the attackee.Use the whip of despo to rush some temples, then your army.
4.Send up crappy outdated units to do your resistance quelling.Better to lose warriors than swords or whatever.
5.Have settlers ready to move in immediately after a razing.Not a solution but something to do.....
6.Attack in such a manner as to wipe out the civ in a 1 turn blitz.This is possible at times.

 

[miro]

Man, that sounds frustrating.

Really makes me wonder about the different approach to games that Brian and Sid have.

Brian Feature vs. Sid Frustration? I wonder a bit about this.

Sid said in an interview he didn't see any problem with battleships being sunk by phalanxes (or sailboats, as it happened in Civ I); it seems Brian did, which is why it didn't happen in Civ II.

In fact, alot of the frustrating things (features?) in Civ I were fixed for Civ II.

And if Sid doesnt see the frustration in bb's being sunk by sailb's, I wonder if Sid even considers it a problem that 4 cities can defect and 1/4 of your whole army disappears in a single turn. Personally, that sounds bloody frustrating to me. No warning, no nothing, the armies just go Poof! Yet see this as a feature.

More power for non-violent civ development (hell, if you can knock out 1/4 of the army by letting him TAKE your cities, let him take half and wipe out even MORE of his guys! =). Winning a war looks like a great way to actually lose it. I find this kinda confusing/counterintuitive from a user perspective.

When I invest a huge amount of time and energy in building something, I get frustrated when it seems to be arbitrarily taken away without warning. I don't find that fun (i know, I know, others love the feature; I'm just saying that different sensibilities may be at work here on the part of Sid and Brian, who seem to view things differently).

I may be off base here; I'm not trying to slag Sid or Brian here. Sid has many great, amazing, awesome ideas, but I do wonder if he really understands WHY some players find certain aspects of his games frustrating. Perhaps it's just a different mind set?

Be interesting to see what an independent Brian Reynolds game looks like. Pardon the offense if it has been given.

miro

:crazyeyes

 

[kelper]

I just finished a game on warlord and I must say culture flips are really annoying. I did lose a lot of my army, especially when trying to criple the enemy by taking their capital.

Against the Germans, I had to retake cities and I just ended up selling some of them for 50-100gold per turn each. After I sold a few, I was up on tech and went through those cities.

I took back those cities and killed the evil Germans!

Then Egypt came after me (always the same civs in every game, odd, oh well), I instantly got a mutual protection pact w/the Romans and went after Egypt.

The mutual protection pact is a MUST! I declare war, let Egypt attack one of my cities, let the Romans come and kill most of the Egyptian units and then I come in and take the cities.

This is where we come to culture flips again.

I took all but one of Egypt's cities (I took about 9 in 1 turn). I couldn't quite get their capital, not enough units!
But anyway, the next turn 3 of Egypt's cities went back! I finished off the Egyptians and then one of their cities went to Rome!!

ARGH!!

Anyway, to make a long story short, culture flips sucks, I did everything everybody suggested, the only thing that really seems to work is selling the cities off or razing them..but razing sucks, sell them off and make some $$$.

And once you have the money, you get the power, and once you have the power, you get the women!

 

[Galen Dietenger]

There is only one reason for why so called 'culture flips' are set up the way they are. Simply put, there there to punish and frustrate the players that go to war for conquest-or palyers that are engaged in defensive wars.
So lets look at the premise of deposeing a governor.
1) They love there old culture
2) This enables them to overpower any number of miltary units you have stationed there
3) There army could not defeat you(or else we wouldnt be discussing this would we?), but there 'culture' can
4) Absolutely no warning is given.
5) You cant rush improvements that supposedly help prevent flips while city is in resistance
6) Citys will can and do flip weither your
a) at war
b) at peace
c) your oppenent is down to 2 or 3 Low pop cities
d) the #of units in the city seems to have no bearing on preventing flips in the 1st place
7) Not only do army units vanish from the face of the earth in the face of your enemies enlightened cultural finesse. They imediately spawn several new conscript units.
8) The current system encourages some people to simply raze and plant new cities. If Firaxxiss is trying to encourage a kinder and gentler civ player-this aint it


Some facts on resitance movements. No resistance movement has EVER successfully defeated an occupying army. Even well motivated and suppiled groups can only harrass, tie up manpower and resources, wreak a few things here and there, but one thing they cannot and have never done is drive off and or defeat a occupying military force that has no intention of leaveing. Resitance groups can only defeat a organized army with the active help and assistance of *another* major power and *ITS* army.

Now peaceful cultural assimaltion as civ3 has introduced *does* make sense and we can fine RL analogues for it. But culture flips-or outright 'resistance victories' in a war situation,if thats indeed what a culture flip is intended to represent, makes no sense at all(unless of course a city were left entirely ungarrsioned after conquest), in which case I could see it being justifed-but only then. So what we have then is nothing more than a conceptually flawed premise who;s only purpose is to aggraivate and anger people. Going to war already is difficult and expensive so mission accomplished Firaxiss, theres no need to add this bizzare and unrealistic impediment on top of it, yes?.


Haveing said that, there are many creative and realistic ways resistance could have and should have been implemented. Partisans were introduced in Civ2 but are totally absent in Civ3(instead we get this vague flip concept). Civ2 partisans wernt overly effective, but then again RL movements effectives varies from pathetic to near military quality depending on there level of outside support, so I fail to see why 'new and improved' partisans spawning in the captured territoies were not implented instead-thats one possibility. Prolonged urban resistance that destroys improvments, keeps the city in 'siege' like state and casuses attrition damage to your garrison forces is another.

Simply 'toneing down flips' imo, while it would be nice, is saying that the premise is sound but they just went overboard on it. I think a good case can be made that culture flipping (during wars). Is neither a sound concept or something that players enjoy.(I know some here) do so no flameing-just start a thread like ' 100 reasons why I Love Culture flips or someting....

 

[Rhandom]

I'm very happy with the concept of Culture flips. Except the wartime flips. I nearly deleted it from my harddrive after a couple of games because of the stupid and unrealistic culture flips of just captured cities, or flips to cultures absurdly inferior to mine. I have told all of my friends NOT to buy the game until they get this and the combat resolution bugs fixed.

Hear is my worst horror story. I was playing on huge earth, starting as the germans in North africa with the russians holding subsaharan (moscow being around Namibia). About the time I got gunpowder, I started a massive war pushing south, and did a pretty good job kicking butt. Until I got to the southern third, where I constantly had cities flipping 2 turns after capture. Nothing I did would correct the issue. I'd pile 10 units into a size 10 city, and it would still flip. I lost two enourmous armies to this, and countless single and double units. I litterally had to capture the southern five cities twice each, even with moscow captured, leaving Russia with Madagascar. Extraordinarily frustrating

I prompty got into a war with England in India, and got a leader out of it, whom I used to build a Forbidden palace in approx. Congo's location, pretty much eliminating most of the corruption. After declaring peace with england, I rapidly built up cultural buildings, filling up africa entirely, and rapidly overcoming all but france for best culture.

Englnd then went after the last russian cities on madagascar. Immediately, cities that had been mine for 50 turns started flipping, including those just 4 squares from my forbidden palace. I tried about 10 times to go back in time and replay, rapidly building courthouses and culture building to try to stop it. However, nothing I did would stop cities from flipping - it would only influence which cities flipped. It appeared the game had simply decided that no matter what I did, Russia was going to take 5 of my cities over 3 turns, even though my culture was about 5 times its own and it only had one city left.

The solution to the first issue is easy - disallow culture flips for 20 turns after you capture a city, as you have imposed marshal law and culture is not an issue. alternatively you could make it so that culture flips never occur with a country you are at war with, though I think you'd still nead a buffer of 10 or 20 years after declaring peace with that culture.

the second problem is much harder to figure - I can think of no logical reason for the game to be designed to behave that way, so it has to be a bug with the culture algorithms.

Otherwise, culture flips seem to be a great idea for peace time expansion, and gives you a way to build an empire based on good living rather than military conquest.

 

[JoeM]

Thanks to Firaxis the game is a bit more interesting.

I never had to battlte it out through cities before, once taken it was mine for better or worse, now cities are becoming the battleground in my games (3 so far!).

 

[depresion]

I like the Flips but you could try a mod to reduce the chance of flipping. Try this one

 

[oriel94]

I have no objection to the current cultur flip system EXCEPT that I can't see the point of losing your whole garrison in the process. That just seems totally artificial. The garrison should be expelled from the city, not lost into the Twilight Zone

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by oriel94
I have no objection to the current cultur flip system EXCEPT that I can't see the point of losing your whole garrison in the process. That just seems totally artificial. The garrison should be expelled from the city, not lost into the Twilight Zone

CONGRATS - Perfect solution. The army shows up at the edge of town

However, I have almost NEVER had this! I have gotten up to regent level. I have waged war early, mid-game, and late game. I almost never suffer a culture flip. And I usually only put 2, maybe 3 units in the town. However, I do the following, and maybe it helps :
1 - Later game (at least cannons), blow the town down to 1 or 2 people.
2 - Always rush build temples.
3 - I don't break road / railroads.
4 - However, I am usually #1 in culture.
5 - My wars are for the kill. I limit my wars, and only fight when I can wipe out the country.

 

[WhittyMike]

I haven't yet had the same problems with culture-flipping against me (so far, it's always been peaceful flipping in my favor).

Would it help to make a lot of the conquered citizens into entertainers?

 

[Okime]

AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just fought a very difficult war and captured 3 big cites including there capital which had 2 wines and 2 silks!!!!! i did everything I put troops in I destroyed all the roads leading to the city and I had WAY more culture then them and when I signed the peace treaty the turn after they all went back!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Peteus]

I'm pretty sure (again it's quite annoying that this is more-or-less undocumented) that proximity to the respective capitols is far more important than culture in detemining the danger of "culture flips". I had several cities flip on me last night, after I attempted a blitz on the English. (I had used a right-of-passage agreement to position massive panzer armies beside all of their major cities before declaring war! ) The English were almost my equal in tech and army size, so I wasn't able to eliminate him in one turn. In fact, after taking six or seven cities I declared peace to regroup, as it took a while to quell the resistance in size 10-20+ cities!
So, one could argue that I overextended myself. But I had overwhelming force in each of those cities (the entire remaining English army could not have defeated any one of my garrisons, even if they could have snuck through my captured territory right up to the gates. Plus I had 2x the English accumulated culture! (And by that point maybe 100x the culture income.) The only thing that suggested that I might need to worry (and I was) was that I was far from my capitol and close to his. His third, that is, since I had burned two of his magically moving palaces in my one-turn blitz.

As I was wrapping up last night I kicked him off the continent, sacking capitol #3, and arriving moments too late to keep his palace from lifting off and flying across the sea to Greenland. If they flip now I'll get really bitter, because at this point my capitol is almost as close to his old core cities as his (fourth) is! That should do it, but we'll see.

 

[Rhandom]

Just to dispel a couple of the ideas on this. It does not matter if:

You have a lot of entertainers - all entertainers wont help, nor will no entertainers in a city where everyone is happy (size 3 and 4).

There is a road to the enemy capital - I've repeatedly lost cities I've completely cut off, and those where the capital had moved off to another continent.

Proximity to enemy capital - often it will be a city further from the enemy capital that flips, leaving several in between unflipped, but of course, streatching your battle lines enormously. In the africa example above, the cities that flipped were invariably on the west coast, furthest away from the lone Russian city on Madagascar.

Rush build temples and such - Even if you get the chance (because of rebels) , they don't seem to help at all, except possibly to shift which city flips. As I described above, I tried about 10 times to reload history to prevent flips, mass building temples, cathedrals, libraries, and still cities just 4 away from my forbidden place would flip, with the lone russian city like 20 spaces away on the other side of my forbidden palace.

Station a bunch of troops in it - no effect at all, and you lose the whole army.

Have a leader in it - still flips, lose leader.

Have lots of luxuries going to it - even with 6 luxuries going to a size 4 city, it can flip.

In fact I don't believe the game determines whether a city flips on a city by city basis in these cases - it actually appears to be a macro scale decision that /some/ city(ies) will flip, and then it determines which one(s) will flip.