Flipping at flipping problems

[Eclectic99]

I'm finding it hard to understand the best ways to deal with city flipping. After studying the formula for flipping probability (given in the FAQ here) it appears that when you want to attack a weaker Civ by transporting armies across ocean areas, it might be better strategy to carry along some settlers and raze the AI cities instead of capturing them, then start new cities of your own Civ. Otherwise, you have to tie up large parts of your army to garrison the captured cities and your attack stalls out.

When you capture a distant AI city, there's not much you can do to change the civs culture ratio, too late for that. The distance factor is also beyond your control. I don't understand what is meant by the factor "Cc", the local culture factor, but it may be as high as 2. If you capture a city with 4 resistors, you might have to garrison the city with 16 units (resistors counting 2 and a Cc factor of 2, making a total of 4 times the number of resistors) and still not be completely safe.

In the game I'm playing now, I can raze a city, found a new one, and garrison it with three strong units (riflemen in late medieval age) and be safe from attack by the weaker AI civ, and not have to worry about flipping. This beats garrisoning a captured city with 16 units that I've had to transport across an ocean. Am I missing something here?

Is there any way to get rid of the resistors in a captured city? Does turning them into entertainers help? Would building a temple or courthouse help? Do my large number of luxury resources ( available beause I immediately built a harbor in one of the captured cities) help by keeping the resistors happy?

Also, in the FAQ, there's a mention of the aliens assimilating after a period of time. but in other threads I believe it is said that captured people retain their citizenship throughout the entire game... this seems inconsistent...but the question is, how do you know when, if ever, it is safe to reduce the large anti-flipping garrison?

I apologize to all for such a lengthy post and hope you will bear with me. Thanks for any and all comments...you are all so helpful and I appreciate it.

 

[Angmar]

You are on the right path for sure. When I concur cities along way away I do garrison them with a large amount of troops, but not permanently. Each turn I turn all the "non resisting" citizens into entertainers. Each turn the city will starve down. Once resistance is ended Ill usually rush a settler or workers to help speed up getting the city down to one.

When the city is at one you really dont have much to fear for flips. You will probably always want 2-3 garrison units in such a location, and with 1 population .. no flips

The only trick is that you do have to slow your assault down such that you can keep large amount of troops in a city until you get it down to a managable number. I usually work with the 1 per citizen + 1. So if its a 10 city Ill have 11 troops in there .. forcing those punks to dance in the streets till they die

 

[Txurce]

An alternative that isn't discussed too often is taking a city and leaving it undefended while you starve it down (and send the would-be garrison to the front). The odds are excellent that the city will flip, but it will be defended by only one unit, and is thus easy to retake. In addition, the retaking reduces the population by one. As long as you have units adjacent to the city, the flipping won't even affect your ability to use that city's railways. And you will eventually starve it down to a size that can be reasonably garrisoned.

 

[Zouave]

In otherwords, the game encourages MASS GENOCIDE as a strategy.

I stopped playing Civ 3 owing to this crazy Flipping stuff. I thought people could turn it off if they had PTW??

 

[NobleLeader]

I like the way Flipping is on Civ3 / PTW.

The problem is French, playing with France (you or your enemy) there aren't almost any problems with flipping... Althought that, I think it's very "smart", because one could not simply take a big city with one or two units and avoid population reaction...

 

[ProPain]

I haven't studied the formula but the local culture factor could be the amount of tiles of your city radius being inside enemy/opponent borders. In other words city flipping chances increase when parts of the 21 tile city radius are inside another civ's border.

Razing cities and rebuilding them with a home-grown settler is certainly a good idea to battle flipping, but razing will hurt your reputation IIRC.

You can get rid of resistors by garrisoning troops in your captured city. The more troops the quicker resistance is quelled. The first turn after capturing cities never seem to flip, so putting in large amounts of troops right after capturing is a good idea. Take em out after the 1st turn if you suspect a flip because you'll lose all troops in a city when it flips.

BUilding temples, assiging entertainers, having lots of lux goods and a more advanced governenment are all factors that help battling cult flipping. They don't reduce resistance AFAIK, but they make quellled resistors happy and happy citizens are less likely to flip.

Citizens in a city do assimilate after a while (1 citizen every 20 turns IIRC) which reduces the chance of flipping also. Captured workers never lose their nationality. This also means that adding a foreign worker to a city results in a foreign national in your city. This foreign national will of course assimilate after a while.

this doesn't answer your final question but I hope it will clarify some things for you.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Txurce
An alternative that isn't discussed too often is taking a city and leaving it undefended while you starve it down (and send the would-be garrison to the front). The odds are excellent that the city will flip, but it will be defended by only one unit, and is thus easy to retake. In addition, the retaking reduces the population by one. As long as you have units adjacent to the city, the flipping won't even affect your ability to use that city's railways. And you will eventually starve it down to a size that can be reasonably garrisoned.

That is the easiest and often the best method. Just keep out of the cities. Starving isn't actually required. I usually just let the city reach its own natural equilibrium, often capturing very large cities that way. If the city flips, retake it. Once the enemy culture has been completely eliminated, then the chance of flipping decreases dramatically.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by ProPain
I haven't studied the formula but the local culture factor could be the amount of tiles of your city radius being inside enemy/opponent borders. In other words city flipping chances increase when parts of the 21 tile city radius are inside another civ's border.

The local culture factor is simply 2 if the civ it may flip to has generated more culture in that city than the current owner, and 1 otherwise.

I.e. if you capture an enemy city which has generated 1000 culture in the past, then this factor will remain 2 until you have built and maintained enough cultural improvements to pass 1000 culture in the city - i.e. a long time.

The 21 tile city radius is factored in in the first part of the formula where you add number of foreign citizens and number of tiles under foreign control.


So to combat culture flipping I suggest the following actions:

Long term: Get a high total culture. This is the most important factor.

Immediate (after having captured the city):
- Stack enough military units.
- Get rid of resistors and avoid civil disorder. Do this by having lots of military units, and starve the city. Make sure that there are more entertainers than resistors (if possible). The rest can be taxmen.
I.e. a size 12 city with 4 resistors should have 4 entertainers and 4 taxmen.
When there are no resistors you should make all taxmen (need to reassign them every turn) until it reaches a size you're comfortable with.
- Starve the city down as much as necessary. You will generally need 2 military units per foreign citizen if your total culture is equal. If yours is 4 times higher, then you need only 1 military units for every 2 foregn citizens.
- Make sure that all the 21 tiles are outside enemy borders. This can be done by rushing culture buildings and by capturing nearby enemy cities.


If you follow these advices, then you should be able to avoid CF's. But you can turn it off in PTW though.

 

[zeeter]

The question was asked: Can we turn off culture flipping in PTW.

Actually, I'm not as opposed to culture flipping as I am to losing a city a couple of turns after its capture due to keeping ten units in it instead of eleven or whatever. If I have a city near another civ and do not add anything to the culture of that city I don't have a problem with it flipping over to that other civ.

To some degree, this flipping of newly captured cities takes some of the fun out of the game and is a reason why I rarely even play the game anymore. If PTW gives me the option to turn this off then I may very well begin playing again.

 

[Angmar]

Excellent post Nice One. Taxmen.. how could I missed that.. EXTRA BUCKS

 

[Czarrillo]

Yes you can turn off culture flipping in PTW.

 

[Zouave]

That's a relief.

I would have prefered they fix the whole culture thing, which has been discussed ad nauseam, rather than just have an on/off toggle. But at least now I might get PTW, when the price drops to ten bucks.

 

[kmad]

Once, I took over a Spanish city, it flipped back to them, and then it flipped back to me, I thought that was kind of neat.