Well, to pick up from the other thread, yes it does work on Independents, but only if they belong to the same independent faction. (Bamiyan was flipped after I razed Margus).
However, Rhye, the radius of 4 just isn't true. You see in this pic I've razed an Aztec city (size 5) 2 turns ago, actually had a Marine right east of Tlatlelolco the turn before, and now I've got more units 2 blocks east of it, and it still hasn't flipped. (And no, the plague did not make it not work, because Tlatlelolco was size 4 before the plague.)
So I'm going to wait for the patch before I play any further.