*Spoiler2* - Gotm19-Ottomans - Full Map - Mag+Grav

[Darkness]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
I didn't suicide any galley in my game. I sent a galley (loaded with a settler and a horse) to colonize the Ivory on the Roman Island. My galley sneaked in and out of the sea tile as it headed toward the Ivory...then suddenly it saw a blue (or was it green?) boundary from the distant land ... and the rest is history. I kept all contacts with Spain, China, India, and Egypt for myself. The Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Celts weren't able to make contact with the other continent until Spain discovered Navigation.

I had no such luck unfortunately!
Carthage built the lighthouse, and I wasn't paying enough attention to that fact. Next thing I know all the AI know eachother....
Oh, well, I'm still winning big...

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Darkness
I had no such luck unfortunately!
Carthage built the lighthouse, and I wasn't paying enough attention to that fact. Next thing I know all the AI know eachother....
Oh, well, I'm still winning big...

The Carthaginians built the Great Lighthouse in my game too. However, I took it immediately right after they finished it; therefore, none of their galleys were able to make contact with the other continent.

PS: Does anyone know what happen to my QSC timeline that I posted in the first spoiler thread? It is gone now. Mine isn't the only one that disappeared without explaination, Aeson QSC timeline is also gone too.

 

[Darkness]

I heard there were some server problems and some things dissappeared, including entire posts...
Maybe something like that happened to your timeline?

 

[cracker]

One of the server glitches, killed a central section of the first spoiler thread and we lost 40 message posts. The posts are welcome and if you detect that yours is missing and you can recreate them from your QSC notes or text files please feel free to reproduce them in the starting thread.

I apologize for any disruption this may have caused and I am still looking into the things that may have caused the glitch (spam load, relationship to underlying vBulletin commands, etc.)

 

[Moonsinger]

Cracker,

Thanks for the explaination. I will see if I can recreate them.

 

[pilferman]

Well, I accidentally deleted the folder containing my saved games. That means I won't be able to submit my game this month. I'm re-playing from my QSC 1000BC save file (which I retrieved from Outlook). I replayed about 1500-2000 years so there is no chance I'll be able to submit. At least I got the QSC in.

When I replayed the conquest of Rome, I noticed a few peculiar things. On two occaisions conquered cities culture flipped after 2 turns (as far as I could tell). I thought there was a 3 turn grace period before they flipped? Was this changed by the GOTM staff or am I counting wrong? Here is what happened on one occaision:

Turn 0 - I captured Rome, moving still-active units inside to fortify.
Turn 1 - I move damaged units inside Rome to begin healing.
Turn 2 - Let the damaged units sit (to heal)
Turn 3 - Culture flip to Romans

If there is a 3 turn grace period, shouldn't it flip at the beginning of turn 4 instead of turn 3? If it flips at the beginning of turn 3, that means it was only in my posession for 2 full turns. Does the game count the "capture turn" as turn 1? I've never had a problem with that until this game and it has happened 2 times with devastating consequences.

Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

The rest of the world is in chaos. I've conquered the Celts, Carthage, and I'm still attacking Rome. India has gone on a rampage and has taken over everyone else except China. Needless to say, they are huge. Rome is becoming a major headache because of what I think are early culture flips, having eaten about 30 Sipahi units. They will eventually fall, but at what cost? That's about it for me. Again, I won't be submitting this game.

 

[Shillen]

The 3 turn grace period on culture flipping is a myth. Or maybe it was the case in vanilla I don't know. But I've had cities flip in 2 turns several times in both GOTM and non-GOTM games. I haven't had it happen in 1-turn yet so I don't know if that's possible or not.

 

[Aeson]

The first turn the city is captured it never flips. Anytime after that it can though.

 

[Qitai]

Like Shillen and Aeson said, the 2 turn grace is a myth. I had city flip 1 turn after capture in vanila1.29 before.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Don't forget folks, you can prevent flips if you have a big enough garrison in the captured city.

For those who want the full formula, this is a good link

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24928&highlight=garrison

Personally I just use the rule of thumb that, if the AI civ has a culture equivalent to yours, you will need one ground unit (not artillery) for every population point in the city. So a captured size 12 needs 12 troops (maybe more if they've got a higher culture) to prevent the flip.

I'm sure most of you know this - but I didn't until recently.

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by CruddyLeper
Personally I just use the rule of thumb that, if the AI civ has a culture equivalent to yours, you will need one ground unit (not artillery) for every population point in the city. So a captured size 12 needs 12 troops (maybe more if they've got a higher culture) to prevent the flip.

Actually, the distance between capitals seems to be an even larger factor than the overall culture, though the overall culture can play a large role as well. Putting 12 units in one city may reduce the risk of a flip by a great deal, but it also means if the city does flip it will hurt you a great deal more since you'll lose those 12 units. In gotm17 I had a size 7 or so city flip with like 7 cavalry in it. With the island map it really delayed my war because I had to ship more troops all the way over there.

IMO if you're so afraid of a city flipping that you'd need to put 12 units in it, then you should have razed that city instead of capturing it. Only exception is if it has a wonder you want to keep.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Shillen
The 3 turn grace period on culture flipping is a myth. Or maybe it was the case in vanilla I don't know. But I've had cities flip in 2 turns several times in both GOTM and non-GOTM games. I haven't had it happen in 1-turn yet so I don't know if that's possible or not.

Based on my experience of having to spend countless hours on Civ3, the Culture Flipping really come down to this:

There are actually two different types of Culture Flip:

Type I:
It flips because of the Culture Squeeze. In this case, the Culture of the near by cities are too strong; therefore, it causes your city to flip. I'm sure everyone has known the tips and tricks for this one; therefore, there is no need for me to explain it any further.

Type II:
Whenever there is Civil Disorder somewhere in your kingdom, there will be an immediate chance that one of your cities will flip. Here is an example: Let's say you reduce your enemy to only 1 city and and he is in some remote island far far away from your nearest cities. His border isn't touching your border in anyway; however, suddenly, one of your cities flip back to him. Why? If you squeeze out the rebellion from your recently captured city too quickly, that city may fall into Civil Disorder for 1 turn before you can starve its citizens; therefore, an immediate chance for your weakest cities to flip.

Therefore, sometimes it may be a good idea not to squeeze out the rebels right away. I usually ignore the rebels and go ahead to eliminate their former ruler first then come back to deal with the rest of the rebels later. If I need to deal with the rebels right away, I would make sure that I have plenty of troops to prevent the Culture Flip and I also make sure that I move all of my troop out of my other cities just in case. Basically, just as long as none of the cities under your control fall into Civil Disorders, your 3 turn grace period will be safe.

 

[Nightfa11]

I posted something about culture flip a while back. Something odd I noticed was that culture flip would occur, I would leave the city empty after retaking it (at that point, it was in complete resistance 8/8 pop) and it never flipped back. I kept a couple of units nearby to kill opportunistic AI, wiped out the Carcinogens (just a little joke) and then settled the city w/ no problems. I had about 1/5-1/10 of the Carthagenian culture, so I know a flip should have happened (mathematically) in the 10-20 turns it took me to wipe out the rest of Carthage.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Nightfa11
I posted something about culture flip a while back. Something odd I noticed was that culture flip would occur, I would leave the city empty after retaking it (at that point, it was in complete resistance 8/8 pop) and it never flipped back.

That's a good example of what I was talking about. Just as long as none of your cities fall into Civil Disorder, that 8 rebbels won't cause that city to flip with the "Type II" method; however, it would still be possible to flip by the "Type I" method. Since the "Type I" method would only kick in by the culture expansion of the near by cities, we need to continue to take/raze the near by cities as soon as possible to eliminate that threat.

 

[jack merchant]

One good way to prevent Type II flips is to temporarily turn the governor on to manage moods when you capture a city. This way, the city won't fall into disorder when resistors become unhappy citizens. You can then turn the governor off again after the resistance is quelled.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by jack merchant
One good way to prevent Type II flips is to temporarily turn the governor on to manage moods when you capture a city. This way, the city won't fall into disorder when resistors become unhappy citizens. You can then turn the governor off again after the resistance is quelled.

Excellent idea! Thanks! From now on, I will definitely turn on the city governor (not the global governor) to manage moods for the city that I just capture. Then I will turn off the city governor after the resistance is quelled. I think my technique for dealing with the rebbels has just move up a level. Thanks for your help.

 

[pilferman]

Wow! I'm a bit surprised by the responses to my post. Now that I know that the grace period doesn't actually exist, I think I'll have to adjust my strategies in future GsOTM. I've never had a city flip in less than 4 turns...ever. The two Roman cities that flipped in 2 turns came as quite a shock to me...and to my military. The only Roman city I took on their main island (so far) that didn't flip has Shakespeare's theater and JS Bach's, both build with great leaders. I know those wonders won't guarantee safety, but I think it'll help a bit. In Rome, by the way, I rushed a military academy. I wasn't sure how much wonders deterred flipping and I had an extra GL, so why not? 2 turns later I found out how wrong I was.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

 

[DaveMcW]

I made a Flip Calculator for anyone who wonders the exact chances of a culture flip.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by DaveMcW
I made a Flip Calculator for anyone who wonders the exact chances of a culture flip.

That leads us to the next question: Is it ok to use the "Flip Calculator" in the GOTM? Because in the past, some people had demanded that the milkers should count the tiles manually instead of using MapStat program to determine the Domination Limit; so we need to be sure before using it?

 

[CruddyLeper]

Doh! I knew those governors were good for something! Thanks Jack.