FYI: Zero Resistance rates does NOT Stop CF.

[Zouave]

FYI. For those who asked. . .

Going into Editor, Culture, and dropping all Resistance rates to ZERO does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it has any effect on CF I know not; I suppose that is one of Firaxis' little secrets.

See attached image. I am dark green Persians and have almost wiped out the Americans. My overall military, economic, and cultural strength blows him away. But a town of '6' still flipped back to him - the citiziens there merely guaranteed their own extermination within a few turns. Neither logical nor smart.

I can just see this in scenarios. How about World War Two? We are invading Germany and take Hamburg. Then, because of how close it is to Berlin, and how many Germans are in that city, half my offensive force vanishes in a flip!! Yea, surre.

No thanks. Firaxis either gives us some options and explanations or Hell will be awfully cold before I would even look at PTW.

 

[Furry Spatula]

I dont know how much of a problem this will be in scenarios as you can set the cities to have 0 culture and you can change the .mod to make sure that no building produce culture, right? Well anyhoo, i agree this may be intersting for scenarios.

 

[Zouave]

Interesting thought. I posted elsewhere it would be funny if the U.S. Marines took Iwo Jima. . . only to have it flip back to Japan because it is so close to Tokyo, with all the Marines vanishing into thin air. Hey, I guess all the CF fans around here would find a way to explain it.

 

[Furry Spatula]

I haven't tried the editor but how does setting the city radius and such work if a city has zero culture? Can you give a city a size 4 radius with zero culture, through the editor of course.

 

[GeneralTacticus]

Interesting thought. I posted elsewhere it would be funny if the U.S. Marines took Iwo Jima. . . only to have it flip back to Japan because it is so close to Tokyo, with all the Marines vanishing into thin air. Hey, I guess all the CF fans around here would find a way to explain it.

There wasn't exactly much left on Iwo Jima TO flip back to Japan.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Zouave, thank you for spending time trying this out. It was to be expected it wouldn't work, and I appreciate that you took the time and did it.

THANX!!!!!!

(P.S.: I also think we need a CF-off switch for scenarios)

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


There wasn't exactly much left on Iwo Jima TO flip back to Japan.

Not the point. And I didn't think anyone around here cared about History.

OK, then, OKINAWA. Filled with Japanese nationals. In the goofy Firaxis CF model it surely would have flipped with all the U.S. Army troops vanishing.

Or maybe Kiev would have flipped to the Soviet Union in 1942; after all, it was a lot closer to Moscow than Berlin.


Yea, I'm going to love it when people bust their butts working on "historical" scenarios - only to see their plans screwed up by some weird "Flipping" with military units just disappearing.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
Zouave, thank you for spending time trying this out. It was to be expected it wouldn't work, and I appreciate that you took the time and did it.

THANX!!!!!!

(P.S.: I also think we need a CF-off switch for scenarios)

I will happily bring in a witch doctor and sacrifice a chicken if there is a chance it can stop this idiotic Culture Flipping. If History was actually still taught in public schools most people would hold this concept in as much disdain as I do.

As I said in the above post, it will be fun indeed to see people's well-developed "historical" scenarios RUINED by a totally absurd flip.

You bet we need an on/off for CF - especially for scenarios. I know I do not have the time to spend hours on a game only to see the bulk of my offensive units vanish without warning. Enough. And don't tell me to "keep them out of the town/city". First of all, they need to heal; second, how braindead would the population be to "revolt" (or whatever it is they do) with a huge military force just outside the town? They'd be too afraid to.

We also need to have an OFF switch for "razing" in historical scenarios, especially those beyond the Ancient period.

 

[Agamemnus]

Yea man, I agree.

They should put back partisans if they wanted to show 'revolts'...
at least that's realistic.. sort of..

And also, from what I'm getting in http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28284, perhaps a slider for the random factor. It seems that the random factor just doesn't have a range at all..

 

[mad_stork]

Originally posted by Zouave


I will happily bring in a witch doctor and sacrifice a chicken if there is a chance it can stop this idiotic Culture Flipping.

Good one Zouave!

 

[SirJethro]

Originally posted by Zouave
FYI. For those who asked. . .

Going into Editor, Culture, and dropping all Resistance rates to ZERO does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it has any effect on CF I know not; I suppose that is one of Firaxis' little secrets.

I think it only makes a difference on how long a city stays in resistance once it is captured. I think it may make a difference on CFs while the city is still in resistance, but once resistance ends, I believe all bets are off.

 

[MeestaDude]

Did you drop resistance rates to zero?

I thought in order to decrease culture flips you needed to increase resistance rates towards 100%?

Perhaps I read your post wrong, but dropping resistance chance initial and continuous to ZERO should result in more culture flips. Increasing it to 100% should (theoretically) prevent all culture flips, though I've yet to conduct an experiment. If that is what you meant that you tried I apologize, disregard this post.

I do think the rates have some effect on culture flipping. I actually have decreased the resistance to culture flipping in my games, as I want MORE culture flips to occur. And I have seemed to see a relative increase in the number of culture flips that occur.

 

[Exile_Ian]

First off - thanks Zouave for testing this out - although there seems to be some confusion as to what 0% or 100% resistance actually means.

I didn't expect it to remove CF completely (which I know you were looking for) - as the cultural influence of neigboring opposing cities is actually what causes the flip (isn't it). So if' you're within that sphere of influence (and its stronger than your own culture, as would be the case when near to a large city), as the opposing city expands its influence over your city, you flip (just like when one of your colonies is suddenly absorbed by an opposing Civ's boundaries).

All fairly obvious stuff I know, but in that context, CF isn't going to go away without a switch. And for the sake of peace I agree that Firaxis should/could provide it - even if its only in the editor if not a Preference in the game itself.

Personally, I accept CFing as it stands and work with it. I guess its more relevent to ask for that feature to be turned off rather than endlessly debate whether it's historically accurate or not.

 

[Kryten]

Thanks for posting your findings Zouave.

It's a shame that it didn't work, but I think that it's too early to thrown in the towel just yet as we haven't exausted all the possibilities.

As MeestaDude says, have you tried increasing both the initial and continued resistance chances to 100%?

And what about a variation of Furry Spatula's idea: how about making ALL buildings (including the Palace) generate zero culture, with the exception of the Temple which only produces 1 culture per turn? This would make city boundaries grow much more slowly it is true, but may have the added side effect of reducing another one of your pet hates....city boundaries that 'flip' on to your irrigated/mined land. And it does mean that the AI will try to colonize the gaps between cities, but adjusting the optimal city percentage may compensate for this. It would certainly make a much more challenging game!
And removing or eliminating 'flips' would also reduce the need to raze cities as well.

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I should point out to everybody that I am not against culture-flips in an ordinary 'random' game of civ, as they are rarely a problem for me because I'm more of a 'builder' than a 'conqueror'. I just tend to treat them as another challange to be overcome, even if they are not quite 100% accurate (....but hey, tell ONE THING that IS a 100% accurate in this game! It is only a simulation after all. Although it's true that some things are better simulated than others....).

My main concern is with scenario creation. And many scenarios NEED MORE culture-flips to simulate real world events such as Persian cities flipping to Alexander the Great without a fight, or the cities of southern Italy and Syracuse flipping from Rome to Hannibal during the 2nd Punic War, or the cities of Greece flipping to Mithradates during the Roman civil wars of the 1st century BC.
But equally, there are many scenarios where culture-flipping, like respawning civilizations, barbarian creation and pollution, should be switch off. The American Civil War is a good example where culture-flipping would distort the historical events of the scenario. And how would you like to play a WW1 scenario and be told that "Sir! The French city of Verdun has joined the Kaiser, and the entire 9th, 10th & 11th armies are gone!". Or even worse, "Sir, in 1944 the city Caen that we just captured has joined the Nazis, and the entire D-Day invasion force has been lost!!!"

Sooooo.....sometimes culture-flips are a very useful and indispensable tool in a scenario....but at other times, like respawning civilizations or pollution, it would be better if it was switched off.

 

[sabo]

Originally posted by Zouave


If History was actually still taught in public schools most people would hold this concept in as much disdain as I do.

They don't teach history in schools anymore?

 

[Woody]

I can just see this in scenarios. How about World War Two? We are invading Germany and take Hamburg. Then, because of how close it is to Berlin, and how many Germans are in that city, half my offensive force vanishes in a flip!! Yea, surre

Well, if your silly enough to leave half your offensive force in a newly captured city you deserve to have them vanish. I would never get caught in that kind of FUBAR, leave one or two defensive units in the city and park a dozen tanks outside, then if it does fllip its yours next turn, and if it doesnt you use those tanks to get berlin.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zouave
Going into Editor, Culture, and dropping all Resistance rates to ZERO does NOT stop Culture Flipping. Whether or not it has any effect on CF I know not; I suppose that is one of Firaxis' little secrets.

Great job Zouave!
Very constructive contribution.

 

[XCalibyr]

You know, I don't have too big of a problem with culture flipping, so I've stayed out of the argument for the most part. But I feel forced to comment on this:

Originally posted by Woody


Well, if your silly enough to leave half your offensive force in a newly captured city you deserve to have them vanish. I would never get caught in that kind of FUBAR, leave one or two defensive units in the city and park a dozen tanks outside, then if it does fllip its yours next turn, and if it doesnt you use those tanks to get berlin.

His point is that it shouldn't BE stupid to leave a force in a city. It makes sense to do so. From what you're saying, it would have made perfect sense on D-Day for the Allies to take Normandy, then pull their forces back onto the transports, leaving two privates to control the city, and saying "Yeah, go back to Germany, we'll just take it again!"

It doesn't work that way.

When you capture a major city, you leave as many forces there as you can, both to control the population and to defend against retaliatory attacks. You do not leave as many forces as you can five miles away from the city limits so that you can take back the city. You're not supposed to lose it in the first place! That's why you leave a sizeable force there.

Now, in Civ3 terms, you're partially correct - at this point, the smart thing to do is leave a minimal force in the city and park your troops outside to retake in the event of a flip. However, give it a bit of thought, and you'll realize how completely illogical that is. And therein lies Zouave's point - the cultural flipping is not logical in theory and certainly not executed in a logical fashion.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by XCalibyr
From what you're saying, it would have made perfect sense on D-Day for the Allies to take Normandy, then pull their forces back onto the transports, leaving two privates to control the city, and saying "Yeah, go back to Germany, we'll just take it again!"

It doesn't work that way.

You're right. It doesn't work that way.

First, there was no significant German culture in Normandy, only Allied.

Second, the allies did not leave a middling force in Normandy, but a huge one. In Civ3, cities do not flip with a sufficient garrison.

 

[whosurdaddy]

Originally posted by Furry Spatula
I dont know how much of a problem this will be in scenarios as you can set the cities to have 0 culture and you can change the .mod to make sure that no building produce culture, right? Well anyhoo, i agree this may be intersting for scenarios.

It doesnt matter. As long as conquered cities still have substantial amounts of foreign nationals in them (and/or enemy culture tiles encroaching on the city radius), they will still flip to the enemy, even if both sides have 0 culture.

Thus, I tried changing assimilaton rates to try and get around this factor, but even pumping them up to 100% doesnt seem to work because foreign nationals do not begin assimilating until they have been a part of your empire for at least as long as the enemy empire (I confirmed this in an e-mail from Firaxis). In order to get around CF, we have to find a way to dramatically speed up assimilation (cause it is usually foreign citizens in your city that makes it flip), however the fact that Firaxis made it so they dont assimilate till after they have been in your civ longer than the enemy civ means we can't get around this.

Setting resistance rates to 0 in the culture tab means foreign nationals will not resist once u conquer the city, which will speed up the assimilation process further, but it still does not do enough, meaning there WILL BE CULTURE FLIPS.

And I agree that we will need to be able to turn of razing in historical scenarios. I dont want the Germans razing Paris in a WW2 scenario for example.