How big is your garrison?

[DigiTan]

...and by that, I'm not trying to make some kind of subtile sexual innuendo. The reason I ask is because recently, I captured a settlement against a moderately-weak AI, then had the place CF against me just a few turns later. All-in-all I lost 1 modern armor, 2 panzers, 3 infantry, 3 artillery, 4 bombers, at least 1 marine, and a partridge in a pear tree. I though being more culturally advanced would keep me safe from this, but appearantly size matters. I need to know is this typical, and how many units do you leave behind in an occupied city to stop this from happening? And should I make more entertainers next time?

Also, I need some advice for how large my garrisons should be in general. So far, I've been leaving 2 units in remote regions, around 5 in major cities, and at least 8 in high-risk areas. Is this reasonable. Usually, this either leaves my profit margins in the negatives, or results in painfully long technology research times. I've got the crazyeyes.

 

[BCLG100]

I normally have more of a garrison on my border and often none in my major cities, i always try and leave at least double the military units in a city than that of the resistance.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Ideally none. I find it better to make sure that my cities cannot be attacked by trying to cut any routes my (potential) enemies could take.

 

[DigiTan]

What about captured settlements? Do you raze the city or do you leave some percentage of your fighting force to stay behind and guard things?

 

[Rustwork]

use mapstat or civassitII to give you numbers for garrison. you should be able to find these in the utility section here on the forums. from what i remember the calculated garrison is impractically huge. like dozens of units normally. these utilities will also give you flip %. culture flip is frustrating for everyone. like having a city with less than 1% chance flip after you reach peace. . . . yes it happens!

i try to lower the chance, hope it doesn't occur, and recapture it as soon as i can if it does. a large, high culture city i'll usually raze unless i need the wonders. razing does hurt your reputation so be warned if this is an issue for your game, primarily if you are going for diplomatic victory. a few razed cities doesn't seem to have much of an effect, and can be overcome.

try starving the population down to one, but this will also hurt your rep. again, the AI is tolerant of some starvation.

eliminate the enemy as quickly as you can. once they are gone their cities will no longer flip.

a resisting city will have a higher chance of flipping, so a small garrison to stop resistance will help, but i don't normally like to do that for fear of losing the units. along with that is the fact that you slow your attack. i'll garrison a couple units one square away in high risk cities and then just recapture after the flip. the rest of the units i use to take out the civ as quick as i can, thus ending the chance for flips.

what i find to be more difficult is when the AI has founded some distant island or city and i have no chance of eliminating them, so flips are a fact of life. if i think another civ could capture that lone city i will align with them and hope they take that city.

basically, preventing culture flip is hard to do. try to lower the chance, and learn to deal with them. i advise against large garrisons because losing so many units hurts bad (as you know). wait until you lose an army this way .

 

[DigiTan]

Okay, so since there's no sure fix, I guess I should only have the essential units hold down the fort. If a city CFs out from under me it's just the units inside the city that are lost, and not the ones in the city limits right?

 

[gmaharriet]

Okay, so since there's no sure fix, I guess I should only have the essential units hold down the fort. If a city CFs out from under me it's just the units inside the city that are lost, and not the ones in the city limits right?

Correct, and you can retake it immediately as they usually have little defense after a flip. Just be sure you haven't made peace with the civ you took the city from...a peace treaty is 20 turns and you'll destroy your rep if you break the treaty.

I agree with Rustwork about getting mapstat or civassitII to help you calculate flip risk. Those tools are so valuable for many aspects of the game.

If flip risks are high, I try to bring along "combat settlers" to raze and replace the city (unless it has a Great Wonder I really want). Razing will affect the AI attitude, but not your rep. Also, I find flip risk seems to go down as you capture or raze the cities surrounding the one(s) you want to keep.

 

[Padma]

If you search the forums for "Culture Flip", you should find the formula that is used to calculate it, as well as to calculate the number of combat troops needed for garrison.

*VERY ROUGH* RULE OF THUMB: Count the number of enemy citizens in the city. (Count resisting citizens twice.) Count how many tiles of the 21-tile "Fat X" of the city's radius are not owned by you. Add those numbers together, and double it. This should be a "ballpark" guesstimate. If the city is in resistance, it could be double that, again (or more). If it is "We Love The King" Day, it could be half that. If you want the exact numbers, use a flip calculator, like that in CivAssistII.

FWIW, I almost never have a city flip against me, even during war, and distant from my capital. I starve the city down, rush culture in it, and post what feels like the right amount of garrison troops in it. If a city I attack is too close to the enemy capital for my liking, and/or too large, I may raze it and plant "combat settlers" instead. (I do all the calculation in my head, BTW. I don't bother with the calculation tools. )

And one more thing: Artillery, Aircraft, and Ships don't count as garrison troops. Only Land troops with an attack value of at least 1.

 

[Evil Tyrant]

I usually put heavy garrisons in captured cites. Generally 3 times the number of inhabitants. If it is a large city, I mostly find it easier to just torch the place and build a new city with my own people.

 

[gmaharriet]

And one more thing: Artillery, Aircraft, and Ships don't count as garrison troops. Only Land troops with an attack value of at least 1.

Another good tip is kinda implied in Padma's last statement. If you're a long ways from home, have railroads for fast movement, and still have old warriors or archers who haven't been disbanded, obsolete units work just as well at preventing flips as up-to-date units. If you should lose them in a flip, oh well.

 

[jgoodguy]

One oddity, mobile SAMs count as occupation troops.

I've had few flips myself.

I create workers and settlers-remember those settlers are composed of foreign citizens at first, not good for immediate use, but can be used later. Bring in natives settlers and workers to join.

I seek to end the civ or at a mimimum put the capital city far far away.

I try to have as many happy faces as I can. Obsolete troops are good garrison troops if upgrading is too expensive. Loss of those is not too much of an ouch.

 

[boodlefoof]

Culture flipping is a pain in the neck! I've had recently-taken cities flip back and lose me two armies full of cavalry and tanks before... Ugh, it makes me mad!

 

[vorlon_mi]

Most of my recently-conquered-culture-flips happened because the city
fell into disorder, once the resistance had been quelled. So I try to ensure
that the city gets connected to my road/harbor network, so my new subjects
have access to the same creature comforts as my old subjects.
If that's not possible within the first few turns (say, because it's on another
landmass, and I can't rush the harbor until after the resistance ends),
then convert citizens to entertainers, and let a few starve. Then cash-rush
the harbor or marketplace.
Disorder, IIRC, really increases the flip probability. If you can keep enough
of them happy, a moderate sized garrison should suffice. If you have a
serious culture deficit with the civ that formerly owned the city, it's
gonna be an uphill battle, no matter what you do.

 

[Matto the Hun]

I had a culture flipping issue in a recent Regent game. After I (Romans) took London from the English, the city flipped back. I retook it, but then it flipped, then i retook it.... it might have flipped again... I don't recall.

The point is, I thought about the situation, went back to a save just before I took London the first time and applied the lessons of culture flipping. I took London and turned as many citizens as i could into clowns and starved out the pop. I starved them down from pop 9 to pop 3. I kept a large garrison in the city (mainly my whole stack - 12 units i think?) pretty much until the pop hit 5 at which point I moved a majority of my troops out to take the neighboring cities. I also brought a couple settlers in to make a majority Roman population.

I don't know if I needed to garrison the city for so long, but it just seemed the safer thing to do. It seemed to work at any rate. So thats mainly what I've started doing, starve the natives down to a low pop and re-populate with my loyal citizens.

 

[Tone]

The point is, I thought about the situation, went back to a save just before I took London the first time and applied the lessons of culture flipping. I took London and turned as many citizens as i could into clowns and starved out the pop. I starved them down from pop 9 to pop 3. I kept a large garrison in the city (mainly my whole stack - 12 units i think?) pretty much until the pop hit 5 at which point I moved a majority of my troops out to take the neighboring cities. I also brought a couple settlers in to make a majority Roman population.

I don't know if I needed to garrison the city for so long, but it just seemed the safer thing to do.

Be careful with putting your whole army as a garrison. If you are culturally poor, it can still flip and you end up losing a large part of your decent units due to one roll of the RNG. I've had games where the minimum number of units required to ensure that the city doesn't flip has been 50+. In such games I prefer to use those units to wipe out the rival civ; the cities won't flip after that.

I agree totally with starvation although I take it all the way down to pop size 1 if I'm not close to eliminating a civ in the next few turns.

 

[Matto the Hun]

@ Tone

Yes. I believe that actaully happened the first time I took London, Now that you mention it. I probably lost around 6-8 units.

When I came back on the reload I used more units. Don't recall how many, maybe 12-15? Although, seeing as you mentioned the case of the minimum number of 50 units (YOW-ZA!) I can't help but think that while the extra troops might have helped for a spell, the starvation was probably what cinched it.

This was the first time I starved out units... I have too much of a concience about these things for some irrational reason even thought I know full well it is just a game. Still, having your newly aquired cities flip makes you realize very quickly that you are just starving out computer code and specifically arranged groups of pixels... and it alllll becomes oooo-kaaaaay.

 

[Raiju]

i usually left an artillery unit, and 2 defensive units in my major cities (only the major that are in the core of my kingdom, if they are in the borders its another thing)

in my border cities (no matter the size) i always put between 5-10, depending if im in war or peace

*all my border and coastal cities have an artillery unit

 

[Empiremaker]

0-3 units. Interior cities have none, unless I have ROP with a nearby neighbor, then usually 1 just to prevent ROP rape. Border cities get 2-3 just in case war is declared I can't get troops there in time. After Rails I don't care as much, just as long I can ROP raped.

 

[Desertsnow]

I recently had a recently-taken Russian city (Vladivostok, I think) with umpteen knights in it flip back.

 

[The End Is Nigh]

Two defence units (spearman-musketma-rifleman-infantry-mech depending on era) plus two jets later on. That's more that enough.