more on patch 1.17f

[BillChin]

Here are a few interesting quotes from:
http://apolyton.net/civ3/

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From Soren Johnson

Pop rushing: Pop rushing has not been eliminated but... You can not sacrifice over half the population of your city anymore as city unhappiness can "go negative"

Number of units to supress cultural reversion: cities with 2 or 3 foreign nationals and full control of their city radius probably will be under no risk with 4 to 6 units

There have been a lot of improvements to the AI, most of which are not really appropriate for the readme (you wouldn't want us spoiling the surprise, would you?)

Odds for mobile units being able to withdraw: it is 50/50. Experience for the attacker and defender can skew these odds...
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I have started a couple of games since patching. I really noticed the improved AI. In one game I was on a large continent with several neighbors, Emperor, standard size map. I dared not go to war at my usual time (around 700 BC to 10 BC). The French were my closest rivals and moved big stacks of swordsmen through my territory. Seeing those stacks and figuring there was little chance to get enough firepower to counter, convinced me that peace was the better option.

On pop rushing, you can sacrifice more than half the pop, just not all in one turn. I generally do not use this tactic, but wanted to test the new patch. I had a pop 3 city and rushed two citizens (one at a time) and then another one several turns later. However, happiness can go negative. In this case my city was left with one entertainer. Basically, it means the city becomes junk for the rest of the game (40 turns). With a size six city you can probably get four rushes out of it, though some citizens may starve before they get popped.

On culture flips, it means that it will be extremely rare to get an enemy city via flip because the AI puts several units in border cities.

On mobile units withdrawing, I have not noticed a big change. Under 1.16 sometimes the fast units would die before retreating.

 

[wervdon]

"On culture flips, it means that it will be extremely rare to get an enemy city via flip because the AI puts several units in border cities. "

Actually I got 4 egyptian cities from flips in my last game and didn't lose any. Although I think it was just because of the situation

I started on the south end of the smaller of 2 continents in the world. To the north (fairly distant) was the egyptians, beyond a isthmus north of them was the english and north of them the iroquis.

I built up a fairly decent civ without attacking the egyptians (the ussuall eliminate the closest neihbor thing, but they was too far away so I didnt try). Then the english went to war with the egyptians (not sure who started it). I took advantage of it and settled a line of cities straight through the middle of their empire in the space cleared by 1 city getting torched. Then stationed literally about 10 spearman per city and worked on culture throughout the game. In the end those cities and my original border cities caused every egyptian city south of the ithmus except for thebes and the 1 city north of it to flip Which of course resulted in egypt being eliminated by england I got alot more territory out of it than england did and never fired a shot

I told the story to say I believe what happened is this:
1) The spearmen were enough to keep my cities from flipping in their infancy.
2) The egyptians moved all their troops to their northern cities that were under attack.
3) Eventually I had enough culture to flip their southern cities They probally had enough to flip to mine too, but I had too many garrissoned troops
4) the loss of their core cities made them lose the war


I like it It was the most fun ive had in a game of civ in a long time. It got even better when the greek's got into it later, but that story has no relevance to the patch unless you want to count stack movement


One observation though.....does shift Y actually work? I used it with my subs and battleships vs greece and they never woke up once. Perhaps the enemy has to actually move next to them and not just in the line of sight? If so, I think it'd be more useful if it was their line of sight

 

[Beard Rinker]

From Soren Johnson

Number of units to supress cultural reversion: cities with 2 or 3 foreign nationals and full control of their city radius probably will be under no risk with 4 to 6 units

From BillChin

On culture flips, it means that it will be extremely rare to get an enemy city via flip because the AI puts several units in border cities.


I think the difference wrt cities flipping is quite minimal. I believe the patch was only intended to prevent the really quirky flips.

The key points in the new rules are you must have full control of the cities radius and 2 - 1 ratio of land units to foriegn nationals. This means the city can't be a front line city and it is also unlikely you have enough troops to maintain such a large garrison in all conquered cities.

The strategic changes can be boiled down to a few points:
- Conquered cities far from enemy borders are now good candidates for the forbidden palace. If you keep a large garrison in the city, there is no risk of loosing the city to cultural flip. I've read a few posts from people who built their forbidden palace in a conquered city only to have it flip back even though the civiliation the city was taken from was banished to some remote island.

- Using a conquered city with barracks as a resting place for weary troops is no longer a risky strategy. The selected city should have a low population and not be a front line city.

As for enemy border cities spontaneously flipping, this should be no different as these cities are in your sphere of influence.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Beard Rinker
From Soren Johnson

. . .no risk of loosing the city to cultural flip. I've read a few posts from people who built their forbidden palace in a conquered city only to have it flip back even though the civiliation the city was taken from was banished to some remote island. . .

True. I once totally led another civ by far in all categories, and had just beat them in a war. But one of the conquered small cities flipped away despite the garrison therein. It was nonsensical.

My conclusion is that a large number of foreign nationals in close proximity to the enemy capital - no matter how weak the civ - is in danger of flipping.

As I said, nonsensical.