Interesting/Important Debate - COTM without Cultural Conversions (flips)

[eldar]

Keep the flips. They're part and parcel of the game, they're a risk everyone has to run, and in the end they very rarely affect the outcome of the game.

How may of you have benefited from the boot being on the other foot (AI captures one of your cities, it flips back to you?), or peactime flips, and thought 'ooh, that was good luck'? Probably just as many, if not more times, than a captured AI city has flipped back.

For the record... in COTM1, I lost an Army when a Sumerian city flipped back. I felt a bit dumb leaving the Army there, but next turn a stack of Cavalry re-took it. That city was right next door to the Sumerian capital and had max population, so it wasn't so much of a surprise. GOTM32, an Iroquois city flipped back; as I was starting to lose the war by that point, I wasn't too worried as I'd captured two other cities and not lost any of my own.

But the flipside, in COTM1, were the two Arabian cities deep in my territory, one of which flipped peacetime, the second flipped just as a stack of Knights was about to hit it (sensible people).

Take the rough with the smooth... and just keep a minimal garrison, starve them to death, and if the worst comes to the worst, pick yourself up and get on with it.

Neil.

 

[AlanH]

and if the worst comes to the worst, pick yourself up and get on with it.

I cried myself to sleep (well, not quite ) the night Salamanca flipped back to the Iroquois in GOTM 31. Not because I lost a big garrison but because it had the Lighthouse, and I had half a dozen galleys loaded with knights on sea tiles. All sank without trace . I still won though

 

[grs]

Removing flips is no good idea. If you don't want a city to flip - raze it. The keep or raze decision would be taken out of the game; warmongering would be made even more powerfull; overall the game would be less of a challenge. I see not a single good argument for removing them. The randomness argument blows the same horn like the tank/spearman discussion. Making the game too predictable makes it too easy. Much of the fun comes with planing and making them work - I agree - but the real thrill comes from taking a risk - like keeping a flip risky town.

 

[Lord Jimbob]

I say keep the culture flips because it maintains game balance, i.e. it's one more straw preventing the game from becoming a sophisticated Risk game.

As for GOTMs, military victories already dominate the place finishing, so why make it easier to neglect the other aspects of the game, like culture? I have been burned by culture flips in the past, but now I build a little culture early on so I don't fall behind relative to the AI. I also rush a temple or library as the 1st build to expand the culture boundary in the captured city, and I move non-garrisoned units out of a captured city as soon as they heal. Even if you are forsaking all culture so you can roll over the AI as early as possible, one can avoid the most painful flips by avoiding keeping the majority of your force in a recently foreign town. Just my $0.02.

 

[eldar]

Another reason to keep Culture Flips - you've got to give the AI some kind of hope to cling on to

Neil

 

[tutch]

The bigger army in a captured city, the more likely it will flip.
Exception is when it is just captured and there are resistors in it, then its usually safe to use for healing 2-3 turns.
Armies will light out the resistors quickly so I prefer to use cities more in the back for healing armies.
When there are no resistors keep a minimum amount (0-3) of units in the city.

 

[Sandman2003]

I had quite a few flips in COTM01 and seem to be having a few in COTM02 as well, in spite of a much more aggressive raze, abandon strategy. The really annoying ones are in that city well behind your front lines, where there is no cultural pressure being exerted by any other AI cities, where you have almost starved the city down to one citizen (how realistic is that need?), and they still flip, and then present you with a large cultural border to have to slowly advance through and retake the city. Still having said all that it is a deliberate part of the game, albeit one not implemented ideally, that demands more from the coonquest style player. More in terms of thinking through the minimal culture strategy, the size of military needed for a rapid destruction of the enemy, or realising the replacement settler for all those razed towns is a necessary component of your war.

So as much as I have it happen to me, and hate some of the occurrences, I think it is a necessary dimension to the game and should remain in the COTM. It would be nice if we could get the parameters driving the cultural conversions modiifed a bit, but I doubt that is going to happen, so I can live with it.

 

[leif erikson]

I say keep the culture flips because it maintains game balance, i.e. it's one more straw preventing the game from becoming a sophisticated Risk game.

As for GOTMs, military victories already dominate the place finishing, so why make it easier to neglect the other aspects of the game, like culture?

This is a good summary of the situation. I think we need to keep culture flips in the game to maintain game balance.

Besides, the risks are well known, as is how to deal with them. I used to curse them but have learned to live with them.

 

[scoutsout]

Some comments on this thread regarding "balance" have prompted me to put my thoughts a different way.

YES - Culture Flips are a part of the game, and I hope they're around in Civ4... but I think implementation needs some adjusting. As I said before, a size 12 city in full riot ought to be a handfull, even for a heavy garrison.

But native cities that are awaiting their third border expansion, and closer to my capitol than the AIs should not flip. Size 1 cities should not be able to wipe out the Civ equivalent of an Army Corps.

There is simply no way you culture flip advocates are ever going to convice me that this is somehow "balanced" or that it somehow adds "balance" to the game. At the very best, they are another tactical speedbump on the road to conquest.

While luck is an element of real life (and probability events are needed to make civ "work") it is the depth and complexity of this game that sets it apart from games like Risk. The inter-relatedness (?) of all the different elements... that's what sets this game apart. Not random rolls of the RNG... Having said all that:

I will still play the game gOTf (game Of The fortnight) with culture flips enabled.

I will leave 'contingency' troops near captured cities 'just in case'.

I will raze cities I think I cannot hold culturally.

I will accept the fact that culture flips are "part of the game".

I will not accept the notion that the current implementation is somehow "balancing". And I remain suspicious of the way it is coded with respect to the proportion of units in garrison compared to the total forces in the area.

In short: You can make me accept culture flips. You cannot make me like them, or even "appreciate" them in any strategic sense.

 

[samildanach]

Are flips more likely in conquests? I remember playing the Rise of Rome scenario and lost three armies in a Carthaginian city that flipped. I've never had flips as bad in PTW. In COTM 2 I had 2 flips in the same turn; both cities had armies in them. I guess on one level flips may be more likely in conquests as the F.P is built as an extension of the core instead of as a new core which helps to to suppress flips.
I've stopped playing COTM 2 until I can calm down enough to continue playing. Flips are the pits.

 

[leif erikson]

There is simply no way you culture flip advocates are ever going to convice me that this is somehow "balanced" or that it somehow adds "balance" to the game. At the very best, they are another tactical speedbump on the road to conquest.

I don't think any of us "flip advocates" believe that it is well implemented. I think the point is one of whole game balance and the advantages that warmongers would accrue by eliminating culture flips in the COTM. All of us, I'm sure, have had bad experiences with culture flips. Once you accept that they'll happen and take steps to minimize their effect, it is just another aspect of the game. As you say, it is another "speedbump" on the road to conquest that, if you are not careful, will bite you big time.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Since it is a rare enough occurence that doesn't greatly affect the scoring of the game, there is no reason to disable it.

 

[scoutsout]

I think the point is one of whole game balance

Please tell me... exactly how culture flips add balance to the game itself? I simply do not see it.

...and the advantages that warmongers would accrue by eliminating culture flips in the COTM.

It seems you're talking more about comparitive results than the game itself; the score in a conquest/domination victory versus a diplomatic/spaceship. We have a much more meaningful tool to add "balance" here: The Jason Score. This is the manner in which the warmongers "advantage" (firaxis early win bonus) is "balanced" against the requirements (required techs) needed for these late game wins.

No disrespect intended here...I follow the argument. I simply don't agree with it.

 

[mad-bax]

There are many things in the game that depend to a certain extent on chance.

Leader Generation,
Goody Huts
Culture flips
Suicide galleys,
War declarations by the AI
Pollution
Battle outcomes
turns of anrchy
disease

and you can go on and on. If we strip out the pRNG and everything is predetermined, what a sterile game it would be. 18 units in a resisting city is a lot, but if you are a cultural minnow next to your opponent, not nearly enough to prevent a flip.

Flips add an element of risk to capturing towns. You can choose not to take the risk by razing and replacing at the cost of 30 shields and 2 pop.

Keep the flips in.

 

[ainwood]

But native cities that are awaiting their third border expansion, and closer to my capitol than the AIs should not flip. Size 1 cities should not be able to wipe out the Civ equivalent of an Army Corps.

[/LURK]If a city has no squares of its territory controlled by another civ, and zero foreign nationals, then the chance of a flip is exactly zero. In addition, for natives cities, the culture of the city itself is only of minor importance - its the culture of the entire civ that has the main effect.[LURK]

Just keeping an eye on the discussion is in this thread.

 

[scoutsout]

@ Mad-Bax: Once again, your perspective is excellent.

Please note that I am not truly advocating keeping flips out, just stating (or overstating) that I think the current implementation has certain elements that I think are bogus.

When the game is over, these little speedbumps do provide another source of amusement... especially if one takes a little screencap so that his pain may be shared with others who have had similar experiences...

...hmmm... shared experiences of adversity... perhaps another compound in the glue that binds us together as a community.

Perhaps I have just stumbled into the single redeeming value of the culture flip....

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I vote (not that GOTM is a democracy) to keep flips on. Otherwise it will be too easy to win a domination victory. Just leave the town resisting and come back and suppress the city much later.

 

[Bibor]

Do i understand this correct:
Would all this mean that IF i want to take a city (probably capital) of a foreign nation that has two very important improvements (like sun tzu and bach's catedral for example) i would need to Wipe out all the "surrounding" cities so to make sure that no enemy tile is overlaping with the newly captured huge 2 wonder city.
Would this mean that if:
1) i quelled rebellion
2) there are no enemy culture tiles in the target city's 20-square box
3) my total culture is higher than of the defender
___
there is 0% chance of flip?

If this is so, than culture flips can be negated by strategical movement (keep the important cities by razing the surrounding ones and replacing them with your fresh settlers.

????

- bibor

 

[grs]

@bibor: not quite, but the chance is very low. It also depends on the number of non resisting foreigners. Under the condition you mention you need 1 garrison per non resisting foreigner to have a 0% flip chance. You can use anarres flip calc to sort this out.

Basically what you describe is the way to overcome flips, only missing starving down enemy pop to 1 or 2 and then setting up a garrison as mentioned above.

Edit: Forgot the link...here it is.

 

[Denniz]

So two unbalancing for regular players. What about conquest class?