This is for Polonius (and anyone else) -- the old thread seems to have disappeared when the board went down.
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Standard Size, Chinese, fourth from the bottom in difficulty, prepatch.
I have had an astounding number of flips to the Persians in this game -- at least seven times. Our overall cultural levels are roughly equal.
I took four cities from them, and within a few turns two flipped losing me a lot of units. They were small population cities. I was under Democracy at the time and rush built templs and libraries in all of them. I retook the cities, and they both flipped again. I ended up razing and rebuilding them. They have not flipped again.
I VERY CAREFULLY documented through reloads the following:
* my garrison strength was more than double the population
* there were roads into the town bringing about six luxuries
* populations were happy, not content, but happy. There was not a single unhappy or content citizen.
A while later in the game, I was at peace with the Persians and started a war with them. Immediately, one of the other cities I had taken from them flipped to them, taking half my air force with it. It was also small, connected, and overgarrisoned. The cities were all closer to their capital than to mine, but equidistant to my Forbidden Palace.
Several other cities flipped during this marathon game, all to the Persians.
Meanwhile, Japanese have had about a 3:1 advantage on me on culture. We have shared a common border for 3/4 of the game. We have never been at war. My border cities with them were all taken militarily (from the English) and not one of them have flipped to the Japanese.
Obviously:
1) Garrisoning does not prevent flipping; it might decrease the probability but not very effectively in this experience.
2) Military capture seems to have something to do with it as you noted, BUT
3) I THINK, that racial/cultural alignment may play a significant part -- the Japanese/Chinese alignment seems more acceptable than the Persian/Chinese one. I have not seen this mentioned, and wonder if you have any info on it.
Just more grist for the mill...I still think this adds a major random element to a game that should be purely strategy.
And I cannot understand why Firaxis won't give us a formula for the flips like they do every other aspect of the game.
Frankly it makes it more challenging, but can be extremely aggravating to lose a huge army/air force in a flip. How realistic is that?
===========================================
Standard Size, Chinese, fourth from the bottom in difficulty, prepatch.
I have had an astounding number of flips to the Persians in this game -- at least seven times. Our overall cultural levels are roughly equal.
I took four cities from them, and within a few turns two flipped losing me a lot of units. They were small population cities. I was under Democracy at the time and rush built templs and libraries in all of them. I retook the cities, and they both flipped again. I ended up razing and rebuilding them. They have not flipped again.
I VERY CAREFULLY documented through reloads the following:
* my garrison strength was more than double the population
* there were roads into the town bringing about six luxuries
* populations were happy, not content, but happy. There was not a single unhappy or content citizen.
A while later in the game, I was at peace with the Persians and started a war with them. Immediately, one of the other cities I had taken from them flipped to them, taking half my air force with it. It was also small, connected, and overgarrisoned. The cities were all closer to their capital than to mine, but equidistant to my Forbidden Palace.
Several other cities flipped during this marathon game, all to the Persians.
Meanwhile, Japanese have had about a 3:1 advantage on me on culture. We have shared a common border for 3/4 of the game. We have never been at war. My border cities with them were all taken militarily (from the English) and not one of them have flipped to the Japanese.
Obviously:
1) Garrisoning does not prevent flipping; it might decrease the probability but not very effectively in this experience.
2) Military capture seems to have something to do with it as you noted, BUT
3) I THINK, that racial/cultural alignment may play a significant part -- the Japanese/Chinese alignment seems more acceptable than the Persian/Chinese one. I have not seen this mentioned, and wonder if you have any info on it.
Just more grist for the mill...I still think this adds a major random element to a game that should be purely strategy.
And I cannot understand why Firaxis won't give us a formula for the flips like they do every other aspect of the game.
Frankly it makes it more challenging, but can be extremely aggravating to lose a huge army/air force in a flip. How realistic is that?
