Flippin' city

[Mistfit]

I am currently embroiled in a pangea regent game. I took over a size six city from Hietties(sp?) I have the largest civ on the map and my culture is 1/2 again higher that anyone elses. The city I took was contigious with the rest of my empire and further from His capital than mine. I took over the city with a SoD and had it camped out in the city for recoup. On the second turn it flipped back to Hietties. what gives? what could have I done differently to not lose this city and my Sod?

 

[Vizurok]

This is the worst thing in Civ3! I can't understand how can a city guarded with heavy military units just flip culturally to the other civ!!!!!!!!!!
The solve is simple: raze the cities!
or
Its a bit risky but sometimes works: do not protect a cities, just station a unit near the city and when it flips: quickly take tha tback!

 

[Padma]

Misfit: How *big* was your SOD? You might have needed up to 4 units per citizen, there, or more, to prevent the flip. And remember, only *combat* units count, barrage-only units (cannons, artillery, etc) do not.

And your overall culture has little to do with culture flips. *Local* culture is far more important. If they had a LOT of culture in that city (from a Wonder, or ancient buildings), it could be *very* hard to hold.

Also remember, even if you reduce the chances to *miniscule*, there is still a chance the RNG will go against you. The only way to prevent a flip is to use "sufficient" combat units as a garrison.

@Vizurok: the units apparantly weren't heavy enough. Look at Fallujah, in Iraq, right now, for instance....

 

[Mistfit]

T.Y. for the replies

You point about "combat" units may have been the answer. Is there a formula? Is it 4 per citizen? wow I would have needed 24 Combat units? I think in that case Visurock may have had the right idea.

(edit) more Questions

I how long do they need to be stationed there? indefinitely?

I have also heard of people "selling" the improvements off before the raze a city. How do you do this?

 

[Tomoyo]

Originally posted by Mistfit
I have also heard of people "selling" the improvements off before the raze a city. How do you do this?

You capture the city, sell the improvements, then abandon it.

 

[Mistfit]

Where do i sell them? I've not seen where I can Do that.

 

[Halcyon]

Right click on the improvement in the window on the bottom left and select 'sell'. You'll not get any free workers if you take the city and then abandon it, though.

 

[Chieftess]

Use a culture flip calc (like mine) to see if it might flip. The closer the city is to the AI capital than yours, and the more foreigners/resistors, the higher the chance. There's also other factors too. Some good ways to reduce the chances are: more troops garrisoned, having more culture than the AI, starving the city, building (rushing) culture in that city, and keeping them happy (WLTKD). A rioting city is more likely to flip.

 

[phil87]

On a sort of related topic can u flip human cities in hotseat games? I can never seem to manage it- in my current game despite the fact that I rushed all culture buildings in a city i captured i cant flip his city- his city contains some foreigners is a reasonable distance from his capital and most importantly has 0 culture and its only 4 or 5 squares from my city.....

 

[Oystein]

Originally posted by Padma
*Local* culture is far more important. If they had a LOT of culture in that city (from a Wonder, or ancient buildings), it could be *very* hard to hold.

As far as I know, there is only a check of who has most local culture. And in newly captured cities, that is of course the enemy.

In other words. Local culture doesn't mather.

 

[The Economist]

Local culture does matter though- a city isn't going to flip if its 50 squares away from the nearest enemy culture border.

In my experience, flipping never really works against me (yes, I have cultural conversions turned on)- but probably it has something to do with me capturing other nearby cities as well Once you capture 3 - 4 core cities, the other civ's national culture starts to drop a LOT, and flipping becomes less likely.

 

[dreamvirus]

I had this problem for a while in Deity level - because my culture was so low in the early game, my archer rush strategy didn't work because all the cities I captured flipped back to the other civ within a few turns. Very frustrating. In your case you have lots of culture so I don't know what the problem was - you may just have been unlucky. There are factors influencing a culture flip but in the end it's just a throw of the dice. I demonstrated this in a game a few months back. I had a vital iron resource city right next to a high-culture neighbour. It flipped, so I reloaded a few turns back, and rushed a cathedral. It still flipped. I reloaded again, didn't rush the cathedral, and instead moved military units OUT of the city. It didn't flip! What this shows is that the flip is random. Moving my units out probably increased the chance of a flip from say 10% to 8%, but it threw up a different random number and I got lucky. Sounds like you just got unlucky.

P.S. I have stopped reloading like that in my games. It's a lot more fun to just take your hits and deal with them, and it teaches you to prepare properly to prevent stuff like that in the future. Just a thought.

P.P.S. Economist - you're not entirely right. The chances of a flip far away from an enemy are lower, but they're not zero. I once had a city in the middle of my empire flip to a neighbour. It was a conquered city, but I'd conquered it from a DIFFERENT neighbour! Stuff like that just weirds me out. The city stayed flipped for the entire game.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by Oystein
As far as I know, there is only a check of who has most local culture. And in newly captured cities, that is of course the enemy.

In other words. Local culture doesn't mather.

Yet, from what you just said, local culture *does* matter.

Yes, when you first capture the city, you will have zero local culture. The "enemy" civ will have whatever it has (might be very little). The "enemy" culture will never be reduced (except to zero, if the city is destroyed ), nor will it increase unless they recapture the city. If you can hold the city long enough, you can build your own culture-generating improvements. Eventually, your local culture will overtake theirs, and reduce the chance of a flip. (If you have more local culture in the city, than the enemy, the number of garrison units needed to prevent a flip is halved.)

Check out Chieftess' culture flip calculator linked in her post for more detail.

 

[alamo]

You didn't have enough troops to hold it. Those angry hittite farmers are experts at guerilla warfare!

You can park your troops outside the city and simply retake it if it flips. You can also bombard it down to size before taking it, if you don't mind loosing improvements.

Once disorder is quelled, starve down the mutinous hoard, or rush workers if you have the money.

I have never had a city flip after taking it down to pop 3.

 

[Oystein]

Padma,

I was talking about newly captured cities (Mistfit lost his city 2 turns after capturing), and assumed some culture. I agree that local culture eventually has something to say, but by that time the city is starved down to 1 foreigners, the city border is expanded and the enemys capital migth even be moved. And that is much more important. I still cant see that it is worth thinking about local culture.

 

[Sukenis]

If you have the income, another way to help is to rush a worker every turn. 80 gold a pop is cheap at times, and helps. It also gives workers to help improve the taken land.

After the war, you can join the workers back into that city (or any other city). If I do not raze a city, I do this.

 

[Catt]

Actually total culture plays an important role in flip calculations -- I'd call it one of the three "biggies": (1) enemy citizens/tiles in the city radius; (2) number of troops stationed in the city; and (3) total civ culture ratios.

I don't think of local culture as being all that important, primarily because unless you're reconquering a city of your own lost a short while ago, the AI's local historical culture is always going to be larger than yours in the city for some time after capture. Furthermore, the only caluclation in the flip calculation is an either/or sort of calculation -- whether local culture is greater or not (i.e., not a ratio between your and the AI's relative local culture generated). Whether the city built a bunch of wonders or only a temple for a few turns means the same thing for flip purposes; in practice it's probably best to just assume that the city has more local AI culture and factor that modifer into the back-of-the-envelope estimate as to flipping chances.

By contrast, the ratio of the AI civ's total culture to yours varies considerably from situation to situation and can have a large direct impact on the flip chances (as well as an indirect effect -- weak culture produces more resistors and requires more time to suppress them and eventually assimilate them, and resistors count as two citizens for flip purposes). All things being equal, I'll usually let total cultural ratios play a very important role in decision-making as to whether to try and garrison the city or simply plop a defender or two inside with a few attackers left behind to retake it if it flips. A culture lead means I'm far more likely to try and garrison the city for several turns; starting from a cultural hole means I'll expect flips and plan accordingly.

 

[Mistfit]

Does it make a difference on what I garrison there? I know Padma said it had to be combat units, but if I have some out-dated units, ie. warriors that I havent had the chance to upgrade do they count the same as if I were to station Pikemen or do stats make a difference?

BTW thank you all for the information. This is the 1st Forum I have ever been involved in that the "Vererans" seem to actually care about, and take time to help us n00b's.

 

[Padma]

Misfit: the type of units doesn't matter, as long as they are actual combat units, not artillery-type. You could stuff all your leftover Warriors into a modern-day city, and they would be as effective as the same number of Tanks.

BTW: You're welcome. And I agree that this forum is something special.

@Catt: Who am I to argue with you? I usually look to your posts for advice in my own games!