Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Takhisis]

You could have just starved the Portuguese population out of the cities.

Some players insist on a surrender and replant policy: destroy taken cities whenever feasible (it can give you workers) and resettle with your own.

 

[Samson]

I took 6 cities off Portugal in the early game, but they are still stronger than me. I filled these cities with my workers to make them majority Mongol. Our culture level is almost identical on the graph but two of my six conquests have flipped back to him hours later, and although they were on the border with him they weren't in vulnerable positions for a flip. If I can somehow focus all my efforts on culture is there any hope of these majority Mongol cities might flip back to me at some point? He has been in a game long war and doesn't have much culture.

It is much much more efficient to do it with soldiers than cultural buildings.

 

[Takhisis]

That's why it's not always that efficient to disband armies units.

Also, you could have no cities flip if there were no Portuguese for the cities to flip to.

 

[tjs282]

Newly captured towns on (enemy) borders are always flip-risky, because they usually have some of their BFC tiles still inside the next nearest enemy town(s) Cultural borders, and are also quite likely to be nearer their capital than yours (both factors which increase flip-risk).

And unless you've built Workers(Foreign) out of them and/or starved them down to reach Pop1 before re-growing/ stuffing them with your own Workers, they'll also still usually have multiple enemy citizens, who might be resisting (counts double towards flip-risk) or, if the war is ongoing, are still generally unhappy with you -- often for the sins of their previous leader ("Stop the aggression against our mother country!", "No more Draft!", "We cannot forget your cruel oppression!").

So yeah, pushing the Portuguese into the sea would have improved the situation in almost every way...

 

[Takhisis]

"No more Draft!", "We cannot forget your cruel oppression!"

Those two are always terrible. The AI conscripts a few units to fight against me and/or work some popheads to death to finish something, then when I liberate the city I am bombarded with complaints.

Cue their starving themselves to death out of idiocy and/or my usually imposing an AI governor on them.

 

[tjs282]

Those two are always terrible. The AI conscripts a few units to fight against me and/or work some popheads to death to finish something, then when I liberate the city I am bombarded with complaints.

Yeah, I just liberated their town from their previous leader's oppression, they should be thanking me! That's why I send those ungrateful sods to Work in my land instead.

 

[CKS]

I took 6 cities off Portugal in the early game, but they are still stronger than me. I filled these cities with my workers to make them majority Mongol. Our culture level is almost identical on the graph but two of my six conquests have flipped back to him hours later, and although they were on the border with him they weren't in vulnerable positions for a flip. If I can somehow focus all my efforts on culture is there any hope of these majority Mongol cities might flip back to me at some point? He has been in a game long war and doesn't have much culture.

Is it possible? Yes. I've had cities flip from me and then later back to me. This has happened to me about the same number of times the AI has refused to take cities of mine that were trying to flip to them (maybe 3).

Is this a reasonable solution to your problem? No.

What are the flip risks in the other 4 cities? I'd take steps to reduce the chances that you lose them, too.

 

[r16]

my current game . Threw Angmar out of their core . Between my cities and their newish expansion zone there are multiple Mordorian towns , recently captured from Angmar . And ı suffer 3 or 4 flips to Angmar over 20 turns . And the Mordorian towns are safe and sound ... Particularly pertinent ı guess that am the lowest in overall score ...

 

[justanick]

I took 6 cities off Portugal in the early game, but they are still stronger than me. I filled these cities with my workers to make them majority Mongol.

This was a splendidly bad idea. Donnot do that while the portuguese tribe does still exist. Importantly it does not reduce the risk of loosing the city to flip, it may even increase it as larger populations are harder to keep from rioting or losing the WLTKD. WLTKD reduces the amount of military units needed to prevent a flip by 50%, but such WLTKD is unlikely to happen while you are still at war with the portuguese and afterwards it is still just mediocre attempt to deal with the situation.

The proper course of action to mitigate flip risk it to mitigate foreign population and foreign tiles in the Fatcross. The best course of action is to eliminate the portuguese as it will eliminate the flip risk. If the later is no viable option, then reducing the foreign population by rushing settlers by disbanding units to create shield available for producing one settler at the turn of taking a city is an option. This requires to have an abundant military.

If I can somehow focus all my efforts on culture is there any hope of these majority Mongol cities might flip back to me at some point?

No reasonable hope. It is a theoretical possibility, but only effective if you are willing to cheat by rerolling the dice many many many times. Culture is not the solution you should aim at.

 

[Fergei]

In my defence I'm playing custom rules with Feudalism available at Code of Laws and a very low assimilation rate to Feudalism. With war weariness I was getting bankrupt continuing such an extend war (which was an essential undertaking), so had to take peace (although my reputation was awful after breaking a military alliance after one turn (also essential) so I should have just resumed war immediately). Now my horseman army (which I kept and is now stationed outside his flipped town), doesn't look so hot against his musket men!

I'll continue out of experimentation to see if more or of my cities flip, but I think I've royally blown it as the ones that have flipped overlap territory with the ones I'm still holding. I did migrate all their slaves into my core to try and assimilate them (and reduce their long term anger to me).

I assumed the flip calculation would be based on the proportion of your citizens that are foreign in a given city, not the flat number of them. Logical but wrong!

If I could do it again I would have tried to make settlers and workers in my claimed cities immediately following peace and used a great leader I had to make a palace right at my border with Portugal (so my capital was next to my conquests) rather than rushing a forbidden palace next to my conquests (no effect on the culture flip fomula) and keeping my underwhelming capital in a tundra filled outcrop of the continent.

It's all good, I like that I am being punished for some poor choices. It's been possibly the most mentally taxing and intense game I've played and I'd rather a fun loss than a dull victory.

 

[vorlon_mi]

@Fergei you may also want to consider use of the city governors, as described in this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...disorder-automation-fix.658077/#post-15785007 Not sure if it will work as well with your custom ruleset.

Before reading that article, I followed the "starve down to size 1 and regrow" tactic. This required visiting the conquered cities every turn to keep resetting all the citizens into specialists, to keep them content.

After reading that article, I now set the city to "manage moods" for the duration of the war. It has *greatly* reduced the number of cities that flip away from me. I've still lost 1 or 2 over the last several games, but they were usually AI core cities that had generated a lot of AI culture.

If my war succeeds in eliminating the AI, I can go through the cities and turn off the governors. If I wipe the AI off the land mass, leaving them with an island city or two, I might make peace and move onto bigger targets. Once I have built a cultural building in the captured city -- so that it is starting to take on MY culture -- I will usually reset the governors also.

 

[Fergei]

@Fergei you may also want to consider use of the city governors, as described in this thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...disorder-automation-fix.658077/#post-15785007 Not sure if it will work as well with your custom ruleset.

Before reading that article, I followed the "starve down to size 1 and regrow" tactic. This required visiting the conquered cities every turn to keep resetting all the citizens into specialists, to keep them content.

After reading that article, I now set the city to "manage moods" for the duration of the war. It has *greatly* reduced the number of cities that flip away from me. I've still lost 1 or 2 over the last several games, but they were usually AI core cities that had generated a lot of AI culture.

If my war succeeds in eliminating the AI, I can go through the cities and turn off the governors. If I wipe the AI off the land mass, leaving them with an island city or two, I might make peace and move onto bigger targets. Once I have built a cultural building in the captured city -- so that it is starting to take on MY culture -- I will usually reset the governors also.

Thanks Babylonian 5 . At the risk lf horrifying the purests I have governors manage moods all through the game, so they didn't do their job here. I must have appointed Portuguese governors. :O

It helps me get through a game in anything from 5 to 25hrs on a large map depending on the amount of war and it's still possible to operate at approximate Emperor/Deity difficulty levels doing this.

I'll maybe try flooding the remaining cities with cheap military units, I already feel like I've lost so if the last ones flip and I lose my army it's no loss. I'd boosted the assimilation rate for most governments in my custom settings which would likely have avoided this scenario if I'd managed to get to Monarchy or Republic. I'm just punished for being backward and obsessed with horses and barracks.

It would be nice if there was a way to take partial territory from your rival without resorting to genocide (raize city) and/or ethnic cleansing (make all the population refugees (settlers and workers)) or relocating your capital (not foolproof).

 

[justanick]

In my defence I'm playing custom rules with Feudalism available at Code of Laws and a very low assimilation rate to Feudalism. With war weariness I was getting bankrupt continuing such an extend war (which was an essential undertaking), so had to take peace (although my reputation was awful after breaking a military alliance after one turn (also essential) so I should have just resumed war immediately).

I very much suspect that simply continuing the war without any peace treaty would have been the wiser course of action. War waeriness can be a pain and if you combine it with unit support expenses there can be unstable finances. But this is a pain that can be managed. Enduring such pain for a few turns is very much acceptable if you thereby gain a significant long term advantage.

Making peace and then declaring war again is also a very bad idea. You donnot lose war waerines, but you do gain the diplomatic penalties while gifting your enemy war happiness.

I did migrate all their slaves into my core to try and assimilate them (and reduce their long term anger to me).

This sounds like another terrible idea. Thereby you create the potential for your core to flip. Eliminate first, assimilate second. In fact once elimination has occured, assimilation no longer matters.

If I could do it again I would have tried to make settlers and workers in my claimed cities immediately following peace and used a great leader I had to make a palace right at my border with Portugal (so my capital was next to my conquests) rather than rushing a forbidden palace next to my conquests (no effect on the culture flip fomula) and keeping my underwhelming capital in a tundra filled outcrop of the continent.

This also seems like a bad idea. You want your developed core cities close to your capital. Also distance to capital does not matter for flipping if your military suffices to prevent flips. If however you cannot prevent them, then you should not try to prevent them. Instead keep offensive units nearby to retake flipped cities immediatly. Again not making any peace is essential.

 

[justanick]

It would be nice if there was a way to take partial territory from your rival without resorting to genocide (raize city) and/or ethnic cleansing (make all the population refugees (settlers and workers)) or relocating your capital (not foolproof).

It works somewhat fine if your global culture value is much higher. If it is the same as your enemy, then you need 2 military units per foreign citizen as military police. If it is the twice of your enemy, then you need one military unit per foreign citizen. If it is thrice of your enemy, then 2 military units per 3 foreign citizen suffice. Plenty cheap warriors plus the enormous free unit support in feudalism can work.

D=2000, in flip formula

Hey all, I've been trying to track this one down for some time. We all know (or should know) the flip probability formula. P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D where: P = probability that it will flip this turn F = # foreigners, with resistors counting double T = # working tiles under foreign...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Fergei]

I very much suspect that simply continuing the war without any peace treaty would have been the wiser course of action. War waeriness can be a pain and if you combine it with unit support expenses there can be unstable finances. But this is a pain that can be managed. Enduring such pain for a few turns is very much acceptable if you thereby gain a significant long term advantage.

Making peace and then declaring war again is also a very bad idea. You donnot lose war waerines, but you do gain the diplomatic penalties while gifting your enemy war happiness.


This sounds like another terrible idea. Thereby you create the potential for your core to flip. Eliminate first, assimilate second. In fact once elimination has occured, assimilation no longer matters.


This also seems like a bad idea. You want your developed core cities close to your capital. Also distance to capital does not matter for flipping if your military suffices to prevent flips. If however you cannot prevent them, then you should not try to prevent them. Instead keep offensive units nearby to retake flipped cities immediatly. Again not making any peace is essential.

Its complicated. Portugal were far ahead of me and I'd managed to get a weak third party (Carthage) on my side who immediately took away Portugal's only horses supply and I took away their only iron. So I slowly made inroads as their top military units were phased out and warmongering seemed a good decision. But during the war Portugal got an external supply of iron from another continent and with their tech lead got pikemen and medieval infantry against my horsemen and I was massively on thr defensive but managed to get a peace where he gave me 2 further cities. Then by the time of the cities flipped (literally hours later, possibly around 50 turns) they had musketmen and had turned their war against Carthage around, so they could dedicate more attention to me. I mean, I've never seen an AI pull off such an effort as Henry did to myself and Hannibal (who had iron at all times, the Great Wall and Numidean mercs, plus an ally in myself, but still managed to lose!). Infact, it's nothing to do with my shortcomings, it's all on Hannibal!

Plus my capital is in an atrocious low productivity area surrounded on three sides by water and 1 side by tundra. So my core is pathetic (hence conquest to try and at least get some decent land).

All part of the learning curve of ironing out my pacifist tendencies. I am nowhere near good enough at fighting a Deity level cost factor with a tech disadvantage, particularly with horses. You can't prioritise both the military and culture so I went with the Mongol Civ's traits and came up short, but I shall see this weekend if a bunch of horsemen can prevent further rebellion. I'm not far off Republic and have discovered the whole world, so perhaps I can tech at a great rate to Education, build universities, assimilate the Portguese and try relocating my capital to reclaim my rightful ancestral lands!

It's probably an opportunity for me to try my prioritise my espionage tech against those cities too. Educational futility!

 

[justanick]

Its complicated. Portugal were far ahead of me and I'd managed to get a weak third party (Carthage) on my side who immediately took away Portugal's only horses supply and I took away their only iron. So I slowly made inroads as their top military units were phased out and warmongering seemed a good decision. But during the war Portugal got an external supply of iron from another continent and with their tech lead got pikemen and medieval infantry against my horsemen and I was massively on thr defensive but managed to get a peace where he gave me 2 further cities.

OK, i can see some sense in this. Still horsemen are reasonable effective against pikes and muskets, at least if you consider the shields invested. Early wars can be messy. Next time you should attack with mere warriors.

If early war cannot be avoided it can be a decent option to stay in despotism for a while. Other goverments donnot perform well in early wars and anarchy prior to war changes the balance of power against your favour.

 

[Lanzelot]

Normally what I have done is just to get Republic (ignoring all other govs entirely), switch to that, and stay there for the game, but I'm wondering if switching might be better. Not sure what to think yet. Ideas?

The key about switching governments is to not switch governments. Anarchy is just too painfully expensive. It takes long to redeem the cost of the first anarchy from leaving despotism, but each additional anarchy usually takes too long to recover the costs.

What justanick said. A few more ideas to underline this: as long as there is no war weariness, there is no drawback of being a Republic. So if you manage to conduct the war in such a way that a) your units never stay too long in enemy territory and b) you don't suffer significant losses, then you can lead a war under Republic for quite a long time and never notice any negative impact. That means: prepare well for the war, strike hard and quick.

Even if the war drags on or goes badly and you start accumulating war weariness, just raise the lux slider by a notch or two, and everyone is happy again. The money lost due to this, is probably much less than losing the complete production and income of your entire empire for let's say 7 turns due to anarchy! It won't be forever: you only have to pay the higher lux for let's say another 20 turns, until the war objectives are successfully achieved and you can make peace again. (If you switch to Monarchy, and then make peace again 20 turns later, you may want another government switch, losing even more production and income in another anarchy, in order to get back the high income of a Republic...)

Now assume, your war weariness has grown so bad that you are almost going bankrupt. Then it's a clear indication that this war isn't going anywhere. So instead of switching to anarchy (which will not be good for your war effort anyway...) and then to Monarchy, it may be better to make peace, consolidate your empire, build up another good army, wait the 20-30 turns until war weariness is reset to 0 (according to Oystein's article, it takes 19 turns to drop from max WW to level 0 (<30 points) and 43 turns to drop from max WW to zero points), and then try again.

Those two are always terrible. The AI conscripts a few units to fight against me and/or work some popheads to death to finish something, then when I liberate the city I am bombarded with complaints.

That's why you should always gift the enemy Republic (or Monarchy), before you declare war. Kills two birds with one stone:

• for the first x turns of the war, your opponent will be in anarchy... (not being able to produce or rush any units)
• and later on, he cannot pop-rush defensive units, so less units to fight against, and no problems with unhappy citizens, once the enemy cities are captured!

 

[WeirdoJoker]

That's why you should always gift the enemy Republic (or Monarchy), before you declare war. Kills two birds with one stone:

• for the first x turns of the war, your opponent will be in anarchy... (not being able to produce or rush any units)
• and later on, he cannot pop-rush defensive units, so less units to fight against, and no problems with unhappy citizens, once the enemy cities are captured!

Does the AI always switch governments when it learns a new one?

 

[Lanzelot]

In my experience yes. (And it even does this on your turn...! Cheating weasels...)

I even used this trick to beat them to an important wonder once or twice: if I find out, that they are about to finish a wonder 2-3 turns before me and I have no way to speed it up, I have already gifted them a new government, they went into anarchy, and I was able to secure the wonder...

But I guess, it only works, if the new government is considered "better" than the one they have. In the early game, when they are still a Despotism, it always works. But if they are already a Democracy and you gift them let's say Fascism, it may not necessarily work. The AI loves Fascism, but only when at war. Whether they consider Communism better than Rep or Demo, may depend on the size of their empire?!

The trick with the wonder was in a 20K game of mine. We were both building Bach's, and I was about to lose by 2-3 turns. The AI was already a Republic, so I needed something "better". But this being a 20K game, I was of course researching towards Shakespeare's as my next project and already knew Democracy. I gifted it to them and sure enough they revolted and lost a handful of turns in anarchy...
(But this required delicate timing: I had to be sure to finish my own Bach's Cathedral at least one turn before the AI could potentially acquire Free Artistry. Otherwise their Bach's might cascade into Shakespeare's, and that would be even worse than losing Bach's... But no one knew Democracy yet at that point, and therefore no Free Artistry, so it was clear that I would be able to complete Bach's and get a little head-start on Shakespeare's, before any AI would learn Free Artistry, which I was of course not going to trade away...)
They way it went, was that the competing AI cascaded into Sun Tzu's (for which I didn't have much hope of getting it anyway), destroying the cascade of quite a number of other AIs, who were building that (including one Sun Tsu build of their own...) So by the time the other more important wonders like Copernicus and Newton came around, no one had a pre-build going, and I got those without much danger, too.

 

[Fergei]

Does the AI always switch governments when it learns a new one?

To go into more detail, in my experience with the unmodified game:

- the AI will always immediately select Monarchy or Republic over Despotism.
- it will almost always immediately select Republic over Monarchy (if not at war). If you tweak Monarchy to have less corruption the AI is much more varied in its response and may stick with Monarchy.
- the AI will never select vanilla Feudalism (is 'never' too strong)?
- the AI will usually change from Republic to Democracy if it hasn't got much of an army, hasn't had a recent war and doesnt have intentions of war. But it might not do so immediately on learning democracy. If any of those criteria don't apply it'll stand a good chance of avoiding Democracy completely.