How does cultural conversion (revolts) work?

Weakling

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 27, 2011
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I've put my question in the title, I don't know exactly when a city is going to revolt and couldn't find anything on it in the civilopedia, as it only says there that "superior culture" can dominate opponents' cities. I've now noticed that I now actually have more culture on the tiles on my opponent's side of the border - it says something like 70 % me, 30 % opponent. However, the affected citiy does not rebel.. Are only the "big steps" (10, 100, 500, 5000... in culture important for cultural domination or does the actual value (also in between such jumping points) also count? Well actually you realise I don't have a clue about this issue - and also have trouble formulating what I want to know :wallbash: I hope I'll get some answers anyway ;)
 
I'm pretty sure an enemy city has to have yours in its potential cultural radius for your city to have a chance to revolt.

I based that on the fact sometimes when I conquer a city, even if it has 99% enemy culture and is guarded by a single warrior, yet has 0% chance to revolt; while sometimes I have over 20% my culture, but still revolts.
 
The city has to be within the actual cultural radius of a city belonging to the other civ. If it is not in the reach of any of their cities then there is never a chance of revolt from their culture.

There is a percentage chance of revolt that is based on the relative amount of culture. If you have more culture than they do (regardless of what any 3rd party may have) then there is no chance.

Every military unit has a value called "iCultureGarrison" which is used to reduce the revolt chance (it is 0 for non-military units like workers). Stacking more military units in a city reduces the chance of revolt. Stronger units have higher values, but it is not directly proportional although it is close (and there is nothing in the game that will tell you what the value is, unless you are playing a mod that tells you what it is in the Civilopedia) and I'm not sure how the value is applied - but bigger is obviously better. (It is possible for a promotion to supply increased revolt protection, but no promotion in regular BtS does so.)

You can find the percent chance of a revolt by hovering over the culture bar to the lower left in the city screen - the upper one that shows the relative amount of culture from various civs. It is the last thing listed in the pop-up and if none is shown then there is no chance.

Edit: forgot to add these two points:

A city will flip ownership on the second revolt, so you get one warning revolt. Except...

Unless you change an option, possible when starting via Custom Game instead of Play Now, a city will not change ownership back to the civ you captured it from. It may keep revolting time after time, reducing its usefulness, but it won't flip ownership back to them.
 
Unless you change an option, possible when starting via Custom Game instead of Play Now, a city will not change ownership back to the civ you captured it from. It may keep revolting time after time, reducing its usefulness, but it won't flip ownership back to them.

Just to clarify. With the default options, cities can never flip back to any civ that has previously owned the city - not just the original civ.

(In K-mod I've changed this behaviour so that cities are only prevented from flipping back to the most recent owner. So that, for example, if my city is captured by barbarians, and then some other civ captures it from the barbarians - In K-Mod I would be able to flip that city back, but in standard BtS I would not.)
 
Weakling, from the wording of your question, I see another problem. It is not the culture influence of yours on their side of the border that counts towards a city flip. It is the culture percentage on the city tile itself. That said, once your culture on the city tile is greater than theirs, the city can flip. The greater the difference, the more likely the revolt and/or flip. God-Emperor covered the rest of the details.
 
This article in the war academy describes the mechanics in detail. Scroll down to the paragraph that starts "Anyway, let's move on to the topic of revolts." Some factors are mentioned above, but other factors include the number of tiles adjacent to the city that you control, the game era, the units in the city, the religion(s) in the city (if any) and the state religion of the two civs (if any).
 
Since you were having trouble formulating your question, let's try taking the good info from the other posts and re-arranging it.

Offense: I want an AI city to revolt, and flip to me
-- The target city has to be within the cultural radius of one of your cities (from G-E)
-- Your culture *in the city tile itself* needs to be greater than the AI's (from s.b)
-- The city garrison that the AI has put there is insufficient to stop the revolt (from G-E)

Often, using a Great Artist as a culture bomb in one of your border cities can help achieve one or both of the first two goals. But it's still not guaranteed.

Defense: I want to keep one of my cities from flipping to the AI
-- Build your own culture in the city, often using the whip
-- Increase the strength of your own city garrison

As Keradoc and God-Emperor noted, with the default game options, you may have an innate defense against flipping, if this city is one that you captured from an AI. It won't flip back to that AI, but it might have frequent revolts which make it less productive. I had a recent game where I invaded an AI border city which was also near our common border with another AI. Foolishly, I didn't keep the garrison up, and the city flipped -- to the *other* AI, not the one I took it from. :mad: I wasn't in a position to invade that civ at the same time, so I had to wait to get it back.
 
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