Is city flipping too straightforward?

[Playsoneasy]

I've had two cities defect to me in my latest game. I'm a cultural and tourism powerhouse, and virtually every other civ lists my ideology (freedom) as their preferred one (although I am the only freedom civ at the moment).

This is all nice to see (free cities, no complaints from me!) but it does seem highly unrealistic to see a city flip to a rival civ and for that civ's leader to do what they do at present, which seems to be precisely nothing. Is it really plausible for a civ's leader to see one of their biggest cities rise up and rebel and join another civ, and simply carry on as if nothing happened? That seems unlikely, so I wonder if the whole city flipping/defection mechanic needs a big overhaul.

One idea - a city can rebel, but it can't just "flip", instead an international crisis ensues, where the civ whose city if trying to break away, and the civ it's trying to flip to can be brought to mediation. Several options should then be available, including the city reverting back to its previous status (perhaps with a big unhappiness hit), the city getting its wish and defecting (perhaps with big diplomatic penalties for the civ receiving the new city), or even the option for the rebelling city to be given independence (effectively becoming a city state...). This could be arbitrated by a neutral third party, whose relations with the civs involved and city will be affected by how they mediate the dispute.

The above may not be workable, but surely there are better ways of handling this than the present "oh, has one of my cities joined my biggest rival? That's a shame, oh well back to what I was doing before..." way of handling things.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[darkpigraph]

I agree that it happens a bit abruptly - and in inexplicably the flipped city (i' ve had 20 pop cities flip to me) goes into resistance which makes it useless to the receiver for quite a while. I feel a more elegant solution would be for cities to lose population to the influential civ to simulate emigration, and perhaps at a critical point (such as city reduced to 5 pop), itcan flip.

 

[Heretiv]

Yes, it would be nice if there were more repurcussions.

Sounds like I need to work harder on my cultural game.

 

[mclericp]

I've had two cities defect to me in my latest game. I'm a cultural and tourism powerhouse, and virtually every other civ lists my ideology (freedom) as their preferred one (although I am the only freedom civ at the moment).

This is all nice to see (free cities, no complaints from me!) but it does seem highly unrealistic to see a city flip to a rival civ and for that civ's leader to do what they do at present, which seems to be precisely nothing. Is it really plausible for a civ's leader to see one of their biggest cities rise up and rebel and join another civ, and simply carry on as if nothing happened? That seems unlikely, so I wonder if the whole city flipping/defection mechanic needs a big overhaul.

One idea - a city can rebel, but it can't just "flip", instead an international crisis ensues, where the civ whose city if trying to break away, and the civ it's trying to flip to can be brought to mediation. Several options should then be available, including the city reverting back to its previous status (perhaps with a big unhappiness hit), the city getting its wish and defecting (perhaps with big diplomatic penalties for the civ receiving the new city), or even the option for the rebelling city to be given independence (effectively becoming a city state...). This could be arbitrated by a neutral third party, whose relations with the civs involved and city will be affected by how they mediate the dispute.

The above may not be workable, but surely there are better ways of handling this than the present "oh, has one of my cities joined my biggest rival? That's a shame, oh well back to what I was doing before..." way of handling things.

Thoughts anyone?

i have never heard of cities defecting from a rival Civ into your own civ. Is this G and K? I use BNW

 

[dashwinner]

I agree that this is an aspect that could use a little more work. The idea of becoming an independant city state seems nice. I do think there should be more of a process than a simple 'flip'.

Continuing with the 'new city state' principle, the city could become independant for a while, with its own rebels/army of said city state rising up to fight its old owner. The owner would have a certain amount of turns to either defeat this army and recapture the city with obvious repercussions on the diplomatic scale, appease them with gold or other possible promises (choice of next policy, choice of next building built in city, etc) for a much more favorable diplomatic result, or allow them to seceed.

There are definitely a lot of possibilities, which, in my opinion, would make the game a little more fun.

 

[Heerlo]

i have never heard of cities defecting from a rival Civ into your own civ. Is this G and K? I use BNW

I believe this was first added in BNW. It can happen when a civ is being greatly influenced by the tourism of another civ.

 

[Koiranputki]

So can someone explain this "city flipping" mechanic? Although I have heard that it is possible I have never had a game where I have seen it.

Do the cities have to be in revolt? I assume so? And how much of a "cultural powerhouse" do you have to be? Is proximity in play?

And I suppose if you don't want the city that flips you can always sell/give it to some other civ or maybe even give it back to the original AI???

 

[Zaimejs]

I have seen it happen once or twice in all of my games. I've won a few cultural victories without a single city flipping. I have no idea what causes it. I really liked the flip mechanic of Civ IV. Your culture literally bumped into that of another city and slowly oozed over it. Beautiful metaphor.

 

[GoStu]

So can someone explain this "city flipping" mechanic? Although I have heard that it is possible I have never had a game where I have seen it.

Do the cities have to be in revolt? I assume so? And how much of a "cultural powerhouse" do you have to be? Is proximity in play?

And I suppose if you don't want the city that flips you can always sell/give it to some other civ or maybe even give it back to the original AI???

When a Civ's Happiness reaches -20 or worse, their cities can start randomly defecting to whichever Civ has the most cultural influence over them (through Tourism).

It's very, very uncommon barring extreme Ideology pressure, as the AI has a hard time even dipping into the negatives. Your options would be either ideology pressure, or a big empire having most of its luxuries thoroughly pillaged.

 

[Browd]

In my experience, it is more common for civs to switch ideologies (to avoid losing cities).

 

[MattZed]

I haven't had a city flip to me since a couple weeks after BNW came out. To be honest, I forgot that was a mechanic until I saw this thread. (although now I know why I always get happy when I see a civ at -20 happiness) In my experience, civs usually change ideology before cities flip.

 

[reddishrecue]

Some ais can recover from revolutionary wave unhappiness. An ai had me fooled when she was in revolutionary wave and had up to 20 unhappiness. A few turns later, I re check again and she had dissidents. City revolts can happen if you let them.

 

[Gamewizard]

A city that flips to you shouldn't be in resistance for that long, considering unrest time is decreased based on how much influence you have over that civ.

I usually play immortal so I rarely see the AI in revolutionary wave unless I focused on tourism from the beginning of the game.

 

[Brettapod]

Cities don't always flip to whoever has the most influence over them. Last game, Neapolis went to the French, even though I had much more influence over Rome than the French

 

[echolalia]

Proximity also count. I believe a city will flip to the nearest civ with the prefered ideology. Don' t know what would happen if two ideologies had equal pressure. Only ever happen to me once when 22 pop Montreal unexpectedly decided to join the nascent Venician empire

 

[redwings1340]

I feel like this aspect was kind of clumsily done. The tourism resistance time decreases improves the mechanic a little, but I feel like if you're going to do this, you should make it an independent city (like, a new city state, I suppose), maybe taking a little bit of your military with it (an eighth of your military, whatever is closest to the city), and offering a substantial diplo hit if you retake the city by force. Maybe if you switch ideologies you could buy back your city though? Would that be interesting?

The way it is now... Half the time it's sufficiently late game that I don't want the city because of the resistance time and huge happiness hit, and I have no way to protect it. I'd love to see empires fall in to ruin because of huge ideological differences, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, they did not just become Americans.

Hehe, imagine. "Ukraine revolted from the Soviet Union and has become part of the United States of America. The American president has signed a proclamation to burn the new state down to the ground, as an example to the Soviet Union of what can happen when they don't have a freedom loving government. Although Americans were first dissatisfied with the order, the Ukranian peoples understood that burning down their homeland was for the greater good, and hey look, Justin Beiber."

That's basically how the city flipping mechanic works right now. Not a huge fan of the way they implemented it.

 

[thelesserevil]

I like the city flipping mechanic, since the AI seems to be willing to pay through the nose for pretty much any city. Whenever a city flips, I just look up whatever other leader has the most gold/resources and sell them the city. Usually they just raze it right after, which amuses me greatly.

 

[Callonia]

I rarely see cities flipping, what normally happens is them switching ideologies to mine instantly.... Well, I'm pretty mean. -109 unhappy for Poland because he went Order instead of autocracy. Next turn he switched to autocracy instantly <_<

But I agree with the general sentiment going on here.

Its funny because when i have a city flip to me the few times it happen, I usually have no choice but to raze them or sell it off immediately because its in indefensible location.

An city state should align with an ideology as well xD So that, an Freedom Loving city state of Love has declared Independence from Order aligned France! Would be cool to see.

 

[echolalia]

That's a very nice idea Callonia, ideologies should also affect the rate of influence decay.