Culture flip solution by Zachriel?

[Salamandre]

I was surfing on Zachriel stories and civ tales and just saw this:

"Combat flips occur when a city population destroys the garrison, taking the city. Surprisingly, even a few ground units in the garrison greatly reduce the chance of a flip. To prevent flips (almost) completely in recently acquired cities, you should have one or even two units in the garrison per population. During resistance, the garrison should be doubled. "


Can anyone confirm this is true?

 

[wilbill]

In general, it's correct. Increasing the number of units in a captured city does reduce the chance of it's flipping. But there are other factors (# of resisting foreign citizens, your civ's total culture, the former owner's total culture, distance from capitals, etc). So the number of units it would take to prevent flipping can vary a lot depending on the other factors.
Annares developed a calculator to help you figure out how many units you need to prevent flipping...

FlipCalc

 

[Cobra Commander]

While increasing the number of units in a city reduces the chances of it revolting, it also increases the damage if it DOES revolt.

If you're invading a culturally superior civ and you are close to his capital, it's almost impossible to prevent a city from revolting. I've lost entire armies of 10-20 units to one stupid city flipping.

It seems incredibly silly that an angry population can wipe out an army in one turn that the entire enemy civ couldn't take on.

Ranting aside, I find it's best to simply leave one unit in the city to garrison it, while the rest of the army pushes past and tries to seize the next city.

You generally have about 5 turns before the city will flip. So either capture the next city in line, in which case the farther back cities usually won't revolt. If you can't get the next city in 5 turns or so, then just park an offensive unit outside the recently captured city and take it back as soon as it flips.

This involves only 2 units, instead of a massive garrison trying to suppress the city.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Cobra Commander
If you're invading a culturally superior civ and you are close to his capital, it's almost impossible to prevent a city from revolting. I've lost entire armies of 10-20 units to one stupid city flipping.

Note that distance to capitals donesn't matter when it comes to preventing a flip - its just as easy to totally prevent a flip in a city that's close to the enemy capital as one that's close to yours. But if you fail to totally prevent it (by means of good enough culture and enough military units), then the flip chance increases if you're close the the enemy capital.
[/B][/QUOTE]

 

[jidosh]

I normally keep a ton of units in newly captured cities, but only until the revolting citizens are subdued. If you have enough units fortified, this will only take 1 to 3 turns. After that I keep just enough defensive units and artillery to prevent a counter-attack by AI. Never leave armies in a city for more than one turn.

 

[Chieftess]

There's also several Culture Flip calcs. I have one, and Anerres has on in the Utilities forum. Plus, DaveMcW has an HTML version of a culture flip calc. (Seemed like a popular trend when we made them...)

 

[WarLust]

I do exactly what he suggested - put twice as many units as to population and when the resistance is defeated, I hurry a temple and library in that city. I almost never get a flip after that.

 

[EdwardTking]

Burn them down.

No city I razed to envelope packet padding ever flipped!

 

[sealman]

Originally posted by EdwardTking
Burn them down.

No city I razed to envelope packet padding ever flipped!

spoken like a true warmonger

 

[Padma]

And to more specifically answer the question, a *sufficient* number of combat units in the city will prevent a culture flip. The formula is a little complex, but as a very rough rule of thumb, twice as many units as there are foreign citizens usually will do the trick. The flip calculators mentioned above all use the formula to calculate exactly what is needed.

 

[Poodlebrain]

Originally posted by EdwardTking
Burn them down.

No city I razed to envelope packet padding ever flipped!

Have you considered capturing the city, selling any/all improvements and then abandoning the city? I try to use this strategy when I have a surfeit of captured workers. You'd be surprised at the benefit the extra gold can bring, especially early in a game.

 

[Slax]

After reviewing the formula a long time ago, my rule of thumb has always been:

1 unit for each pop + 1 extra unit for each resistor + 1 unit for each tile within the foreign civ's boundary.

(this assumes I have equal or greater culture)

I have never lost a city back to the original civ.

I starve the city down (sadly), and/or bring in cheap units before moving good units out.

 

[Bobisback]

I starve my cities then hurry a temple.

 

[slothman]

I look at the formula but there is a problem.
In: P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D
Cte and Cty are the enemy and your culture. If you never built any culture structures but he has that value should be infinite which means an infinite chance of flip. And if you build something but he hasn't it should be 0. Of course both are false so what's wrong with the formula? Does the culture ratio have a maximum and minimum value?

 

[Slax]

All civs have Culture > 0 since they have a Palace.