Culture-Flipping Exposed

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by Soufie77

Just a personal opinion here, but the best idea I have come across so far seems to be the system whereby units are expelled to the periphery of the city borders upon culture flip. The military hierarchy and chain of command is hardly a democracy. They assets of the government and not owned by the people per se, so I suppose unit loyalty is a factor to be considered. On this note, I would like to make an additional suggestion: that unit experience be factored into the likelihood of a unit being lost or "damaged" upon a culture flip. [/B]

I agree a tweak along these lines would be good. I think expelling the units (some getting injured or killed in the process) instead of an utter loss would be good. Then you could retake the city, which would represent that even though you have kicked out the enemy you don't control the city yet.

Along these lines I would think that air units and artillary would have a lower chance of escaping without getting destroyed. And artillary should have a chance of being captured by the uprising people. Also I think the town should spend one turn without allegience. (This way if it flips to a civ you are at peace with, you could try retaking it without going to war).

Additionally the defenders that are created for the city should come from its population. This would also represent the population reduction that would occur in a city that attempts to resist the military.

 

[connor]

I have been reading all this and have taken it to heart in dealing with conquered cities. Even though it is a game, I do try and be benevolent with the conquered, you know win their hearts and then win their minds.

If I am going swiftly for complete domination I keep all the cities and conquer them quickly. Once I got the cavalry, I built a huge amount and musket men and cannons, and nailed one city after another. Usually at least 12 attackers plus support from cannons and infantry types. I am a firm believer in combined arms.

I then go in and make happy faces, move the entire army or at least 10-12 units to put down any insurrection in one turn and then rush a temple, etc. If afterwards I have a problem, I just make entertainers and starve them into submission. My wife wonders why I am cackling maliciously at the computer and why I am saying if you don't obey, you don't eat. Ok, ok I know it's a game, but I know that I am not the only one out there that takes it personaly when defending your people and empire. :slay:

 

[Zaku Commando]

I remember on one of my game
I fight with Egypt (because we are all the same big continent and i am the last one who still left (zulu, american, greek, iroquis are gone). they have more culture than mine. i know that when i capture a city it will likely to be flip so i raze them all the time unless it have wonder. (i don't have enough force to defend it any way). i capture this one city it flip so i reload and move army out but 1 garrison. but one thing different i did after reload is i raze another big city nearby (size 19) then it did not flip ???. Also they will now be more willing to negotiate peace.

Does make your enemy less powerful (less score) make city less flip ?

 

[Cruiser]

quote:
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Originally posted by Soufie77

Just a personal opinion here, but the best idea I have come across so far seems to be the system whereby units are expelled to the periphery of the city borders upon culture flip. The military hierarchy and chain of command is hardly a democracy. They assets of the government and not owned by the people per se, so I suppose unit loyalty is a factor to be considered. On this note, I would like to make an additional suggestion: that unit experience be factored into the likelihood of a unit being lost or "damaged" upon a culture flip. [/B]
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I agree a tweak along these lines would be good. I think expelling the units (some getting injured or killed in the process) instead of an utter loss would be good. Then you could retake the city, which would represent that even though you have kicked out the enemy you don't control the city yet.

That was my idea about EXPELLING UNITS. And it is perhaps too logical for Firaxis.

Culture flipping should be reduced. A militaristic civ is at a major disadvantage in this game. They almost always have to raze
cities as they lack the culture to hold them. The fact that if a city flips IT WOULD BE RAZED AND THE POPULATION EXTERMINATED doesn't count to Firaxis. The Mongols, historically, held cities through physical intimidation NOT culture!!!! Forget that, Sid??
No, the Mongols did not have to even actually garrison many cities; those cities knew their horrible fate if they rebelled from Mongol armies located elsewhere.

The actual PRESCENCE of troops should make flipping much less likely. It really doesn't in Civ III.

But if a town or city DOES flip - rebel - the garrision should take hit points and the town city also lose points based upon a logical formula. But six veteran and elite units (plus cannon) in a town of '4' should prevent any flipping. That many military units would cower any population of rational people.

PATCH IT, FIRAXIS!! The game is called "Civilization", NOT "Culture".

 

[Storm-br]

Altho I havent seen replies on Aanar's toughts, I think some great ideas are there.

I would add some toughts on newly conquered cities defecting along with all its garrison.
As far as I can see from this post, we pretty much all agree that this kind of flipping fails on many levels - realistically or gameplay based levels. I dont mean to look down on Fireaxis work, civ3 is an incredibly huge and complex game and I can only wonder the amount of work that programmers/designers have to make it all function well.

But lets try and take a look at what would happen in a city recently ocuppied by enemy forces. I think a lot of ideas can come up in this line of tought. For example - if you capture a city two things could happen - if your garrison isnt strong enough, the population would form up their own armed resistance forces, much like drafted soldiers, and put up a fight with the garrison to reclaim their nationality. However, if the garrison is just way too strong for the citizens to take guns and fight, they could attempt to sabotage and eventually destroy some of the units on the garrison. If you capture a relatively old, well estabilished enemy city, this happenings could go on and on for many years untill you finally get the situation under control.

I find resisters to be a small bother only. It takes so little time to get then under control, and right away the city is pretty much 100% yours. This cant make sense for a captured city, with their citizens dealing with heavy military opression everyday, having to change their culture and way of life from one moment to another.
After dealing with the resistance, there are unhappy citizens("Please stop the agression against out mother country!") but thats just a small nuisiance as well.
What I would expect from these citizens, having to watch their mother country being attacked, is to organize major trouble on their city - destroying buildings, mass murdering citizens of your own nationality, forming up militias to take up on the garrison.

Its just my toughts, but I do think it would add so much color to the game if nationality was taken more seriously. If you dont want trouble, raze or liberate (as in Aarans idea) your conquered cities, or dont pick fights with nations wich you have citizens of the same nationality.

Thx for reading thro...plz share your toughts on this

 

[connor]

I like that idea, it would definitely bring color to the game even more. The move Red Dawn came to mind when I read your post.

 

[OneInTen]

A pop2 town garrisoned by two cavalry and two musketmen would make mincemeat of the population if it rose up...

You're assuming your troops are perfectly loyal. Perhaps instead of fighting the resistance, they join it? Lets see, they can fight the angry populace, or they can join the other nation and live a nice quiet city life ...

 

[ChickinSht]

Thanks for the info Dan.

 

[Libertarian]

Nice to have some real info about this.

Does anyone yet know how distance is calculated, or are we still stuck with a Dan's guess?

 

[omnipeon]

A most engrossing and interesting subject indeed...

My personal opinion is that 'Culture flipping' shouldn't just be based on the calculations of cultures / happiness / governments / location of capitals. What about the actions (reputations) of the particular rulers involved?

If a particular ruler is constantly breaking peace treaties / alliances / declaring war unjustly then their people should be more willing to join the civ of a more honourable ruler; that too must also be taken into account.

During warfare, does the game take into account the reputations of each ruler in calculating how many resistors there are going to be in a conquered city or again is it just based on cultures / happiness / governments / location of capitals etc?

It just seems very unciv like how a city would return (flip back) to their ill-reputed ruler who loves to sneak attack left, right and centre because they miss their temple or such in favour of a more honest ruler. Of course culture and the rest must be in the calculation but so too must be reputation of the respective rulers for consistent gameplay.

I hope that enough people will voice this point up so that they can take this into consideration when fixing up a new patch to an otherwise faultless game.

PS. Does anyone know how to select multiple units to move to the same location or is there no such feature? ( I'm sure alot of people out there understand what i mean... )

 

[Loopy]

Originally posted by Cruiser
The Mongols, historically, held cities through physical intimidation NOT culture!!!!

Actually it could be argued that they did hold their conquered cities through culture. One of the biggest differences from the Mongol empire and others is that the Mongols didn't impose their culture upon their subjects. They didn't force out the "pagan gods" and impose their "true religion". This cultural policy left their subjects much more willing to simply pay tribute.

In Civ terms it would be as if no cultural buildings were destroyed upon capturing a city and all previously acquired cultural points by that city flipped to you.

But trying to translate actual historical events to a game (or vice versa) is kinda silly in the end. I mean what's the real world equivalent of a save and reload cheat?

 

[Libertarian]

Does anyone know how to select multiple units to move to the same location or is there no such feature?

Yes.

 

[DilithiumDad]

It seems to be a minority opinion around here, but I LIKE the culture-flipping subroutine and find it a welcome challenge and a brake on mindless warmongering! Build some temples and universitites in your border cities prior to waging war! Also, my favorite thing to do is to capture cities the AI has just captured from another AI civ. The German citizens are downright HAPPY to be liberated from their French oppressors by their Egyptian oppressors (me!).

 

[Jazz_Newton]

The Mongols, historically, held cities through physical intimidation NOT culture!!!! Forget that, Sid??
No, the Mongols did not have to even actually garrison many cities; those cities knew their horrible fate if they rebelled from Mongol armies located elsewhere.

I believe that here may be inadvertantly the solution to a problem. Perhaps your reputation SHOULD count towards culture flipping.

Allow me to explain:

Take a note from the Mongols. People didn't revolt because they were terrified. And why were they terrified? Because they'd heard the stories of the mongols razing tonnes of cities before!

Cities should be less likely to revolt if you have a rep pillaging and slaughtering the innocent. But you'd have to earn this reputation. The people won't be scared because of an army. They have to be scared of what you're prepared to do with that army.

 

[kyloon]

Thanks for the Info Dan,
i think the large and high culture city should play a more important role too, i know it has indirect impact on the on the 21-tile city-radius factor and total cultural point, but isn't it be better if enemy city can be more easy to flip to our side if we have a great city besides it? this can put in as an additional factor based on the range and the city points. i believe this can be easily done since civ3 already have point calculation formula based on the culture, wonders, population, happy citizens, bla bla bla...
i think this is more realistic than simply depends on the distance from our capital, i feel annoy when i have a world no. 1 city beside a small foreign city from a poor little country and it wouldn't flip to me just because of my capital is much more further then its own capital... any opinion?

 

[Moo]

Unless you are playing on Deity level, I'd suggest always raze captured cities. If it has a wonder that isn't obsolete, starve the population back down to 1 before repopulating it. It doesn't really matter how big the city is, I always have my own settler rebuild in the same spot or somewhere close by. Having a city get deposed is just too much of a hassle and headache. Your own rebuilt cities will grow back to the razed city's size in a few short years anyway since all the improvement are already there. The drawbacks of keeping a multiethnic city is huge, the only cost to razing and rebuilding is a settler. Avoid multiculturalism and give ethnic cleansing a chance!

 

[Cerberus]

Originally posted by Moo
Unless you are playing on Deity level, I'd suggest always raze captured cities. If it has a wonder that isn't obsolete, starve the population back down to 1 before repopulating it. It doesn't really matter how big the city is, I always have my own settler rebuild in the same spot or somewhere close by. Having a city get deposed is just too much of a hassle and headache. Your own rebuilt cities will grow back to the razed city's size in a few short years anyway since all the improvement are already there. The drawbacks of keeping a multiethnic city is huge, the only cost to razing and rebuilding is a settler. Avoid multiculturalism and give ethnic cleansing a chance!

Yes, MASS SLAUGHTER and GENOCIDE seems to be the "Way to Win" in Civ III. And that is why I am liking the game less and less.

Sid should have called this game "Culture" - NOT "Civilization III".

Firaxis, you got this whole Culture Flipping thing WRONG. AND IT IS NOT HISTORICALLY REALISTIC, either.

 

[Ironikinit]

I beg to differ about it's possible historical accuracy. The example of the city of Rome came to mind. Rome has been conquered many times. Vandals, Goths, Charles V, the Allies controlled it at the end of WWII. The Romans didn't suddenly become subjects of the Vandals and stay that way until another culture came along and conquered it again. Rather, the invader came, despoiled in many cases, and left. No foreign culture, no matter how militarially superior implanted itself permanently upon that city and she's been had plenty.

As for the question of reputation affecting flipping, I dunno, but I do know that a democracy taking communist or monarchial cities will suffer less flipping.

Someone said that the rule makes the game impossible for militaristic civs. I find militarism holds up well in the game, both when I run a militaristic civ and when the AI does.

Consider all of the strategies in this thread devoted to this one rule, all of the invention and scheming. Without culture flip, conquest would be too easy.

 

[Grotius]

I agree with the last poster: culture puts more challenge into conquest. I hate it when one of my newly-conquered cities flips, but I see it as one more challenge to overcome, and challenge for me is fun.

 

[Ironikinit]

I really think that this whole furor would've never started if cultural reversion was just discussed in the manual. Some warning is needed for what can be such an upsetting turn of events.