How do I prevent culture flips?

[seanos08]

How do I prevent my cities culture flipping (I play diplo-honest and expansionist on Regent).

Is there here is no way of telling when a city is likely to flip?

I do build culture in border cities heavily and garrison them well.

 

[zagnut]

Check here for a culture flip calculator: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53181

Very basically, you can minimize culture flips by having more culture than the other civs. If you capture a city from a civ that has more culture than you then consider razing the city. If you want to keep it then don't station more units in the city than you can afford to lose.

If the enemies capital is close to the city you captured the chances of a flip are greatly increased. To be safe you can fortify an offensive unit or two next to the captured city so that when it flips you can take it back in the same turn.

It is not the culture in the border city that determines whether the city will flip but the total culture of the two civs and the distance between the captured city or cities and the enemy capital. There are other factors, but those are the main ones.

 

[dgfred]

Culture flips are one of the things I hate the most in Civ. . I prevent
this by turning off culture conversion in alot of games . But it can
be a good thing if you are the one with the most power and culture ,
so it can hurt you some in the later game by you not getting the AI's cities
that would have probably converted to you . I play the Celts alot so
their culture is usually pretty high and if they do not convert I can always
send in the Gallic Swords for some .

 

[Somnolent]

If all else fails you can try starving them to size 1 to replace their citizens with your own people. This works really well if you're using a forced labour government and can pop rush some buildings after they stop resisting.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Very basically, you can minimize culture flips by having more culture than the other civs. If you capture a city from a civ that has more culture than you then consider razing the city. If you want to keep it then don't station more units in the city than you can afford to lose.

Doesn't it also depend on the culture the city been flipped has? Last night, I was playing a game where I took over the AI's capitol city. The AI still had a large amount of land/cities left, it just so happen that in this scenario the AI had it's capitol near the edge of my civilization, while the rest of it's territory ran the other way.

In anycase, I took the capitol city and immediatly built some high culture buildings in it. It never flipped.

Later in the game, I built a city near the previous capitol of the enemy. I didn't get a chance to build culture up on the new city and ended up flipping over to the enemy.... even though his previous capitol which was filled with his people is closer than the new small city I built.

Having experience that, it would appear that the culture within the city that is in danger of been flipped, has a factor with whether or not it flips over.

Mad Hatter

 

[LouLong]

Capturing an enemy capital is a major blow since C3C so there are few chances an ex-capital would flip back to its former owner, especially since there is a new capital that hasn't had much chance of culturally developping thanks to the palace since it is so recent.

 

[Denarr]

Cities with little culture who are members of culturally-poor civilizations can defect to other, stronger, more impressive civilizations. This can occor when the city is located close to a culturally rich rival civilization or when foreign nationals are still present in the city.

Defections are made more likely by:

• The application of propaganda by the other civilization.
• Civil disorder in the city.
• The proximity of foreign territory.
• The proximity of a foreign capital.

Defections are made less likely by:

• The presence of ground combat units in the city.
• We Love The ___ Day.
• The proximity of your capital.

 

[Rammstein]

I always practice ethnic cleansing. Not very civilized, but anyhoo...

If I take a city I starve the city down to size 1 (unless I haven't already pounded the city down to size 1 using cannons or artillery), while keeping a sizeable stack of units in the city. Then I let it loose again, quickly build a temple, and once it has grown there is no way it will flip back. I've done this hundreds of times, and I have never once had a city flip back on me.

 

[scoutsout]

There is only one sure-fire way to prevent a culture flip: Sack the cities. That's right, burn 'em to the ground. If you want a city there - resettle it.

-rant
In a SG I'm in, I recently lost a Cav ARMY, an couple of infantry, a couple of cav, and some artillery to a size 1 city with one happy citizen who had access to 6 or 7 lux. Anybody that tells you that you can put X units in a city and prevent a culture flip needs to quit posting and sack some cities.
/rant

Seriously - I hate culture flips. And anyone who also hate culture flips - is one I call friend.

 

[Dell19]

I like the idea of culture flips, I hate the idea of losing troops. Razing is especially useful in some of the conquests where your reputation doesn't matter and flipping is likely.

 

[Offa]

-rant
In a SG I'm in, I recently lost a Cav ARMY, an couple of infantry, a couple of cav, and some artillery to a size 1 city with one happy citizen who had access to 6 or 7 lux. Anybody that tells you that you can put X units in a city and prevent a culture flip needs to quit posting and sack some cities.
/rant

Why are you still garrisoning captured towns. Believe me, the flips are so much less painful if you don't leave troops behind. If you must garrisson towns then reg warriors will do.

 

[Dell19]

Don't you have to garrison in case the AI couter attacks?

 

[zagnut]

Don't you have to garrison in case the AI couter attacks?

That is a risk for your border towns. But I think the theory is to leave your interior towns ungarrisoned and just station an offensive unit next to them so that you can re-capture it if it flips.

 

[scoutsout]

Why are you still garrisoning captured towns. Believe me, the flips are so much less painful if you don't leave troops behind. If you must garrisson towns then reg warriors will do.

In this particular case the town was right on the front lines, and needed to be defended. It also had a barracks. The cav army was a little beat up, and armies take forever to heal without a barracks...

 

[Dell19]

Thats basically what I was questioning, surely you have to garrison some captured cities as otherwise the AI will just recapture the city with it's own units. Also like Scoutsout I usually need to heal my troops by healing them in the nearest available city.

 

[dmanakho]

Hate culture flips, and it looks like the harder level is to easier cities flip.
I guess another factor is that on harder levels AIs have more culture...
I never had troubles with culture flips when played on monarch and below. But I was so pissed off when i switched ot emperor and started losing captured cities while using the same strategy as i did on levels below.

Better results can be achieved if you start massive and powerful strike on AI and capture his most cultural cities including capital as fast as you can (you do need a big army to do that with a good war preparation). I hope there is a rational behind this tactic of mine.

 

[zagnut]

Thats basically what I was questioning, surely you have to garrison some captured cities as otherwise the AI will just recapture the city with it's own units. Also like Scoutsout I usually need to heal my troops by healing them in the nearest available city.

Healing your troops in a captured city with a barracks is certainly necessary. But they shouldn't be left there too long if your culture is less than your enemy's culture. There is a rumor that no flips occur for 3 turns after the capture, but this is not true. If you have to heal your troops then get them out of the captured city as soon as possible.

The city can flip even if your culture is higher than the other civ, but the chances are less. Also, note that a civ with more culture than you retains its cultural rating for some period of time after you decide to make peace. Even if you leave it with only one city its overall culture will still be more than yours. It is not the number of cities that is important, but the overall culture. You may have 50 cities to their 1 and one of their captured cities can still flip back to them.

 

[Khift]

The easiest and best way to prevent cultural flips is to disable them.

I see no point in them. Something that is unstoppable, unpredictable, historically inaccurate, and just plain not fun has no place in my Civ games.

 

[zagnut]

That is the chickens way out. There are a lot of things in this game that are random. When Civ III first came out there were endless rants about culture and corruption. But after awhile players learned to deal with them and they just became another factor in the game. I think it adds a little more strategy to the game. You can't just go on a rampage and invade the other civ without thinking and planning.

 

[Rammstein]

The easiest and best way to prevent cultural flips is to disable them.

I see no point in them. Something that is unstoppable, unpredictable, historically inaccurate, and just plain not fun has no place in my Civ games.

Weird, I think it's one of the better ideas ot his game...