Take with might, lose with culture- can I stop this?

[ironfang]

In my opinion (as stated in previous posts) the computer will punish you if you are too unbalanced. Even if you are a "peace-loving" civ, who favors technology over war and culture, you still need to build both to some degree in order from being conquored. If your an isolationist, other countries will band together against you, if your too outwardly diplomatic, you will end up being drug into untimely wars.

If you wanna be a scientific/cultural civ, take good notes on how the computer plays them first.

ironfang

 

[SouthpawSamurai]

I think the worst thing about losing a recently captured (or precarious border town) is that you lose all the troops you had garrisoned there. I had captured an Egyptian town and, fearing insurrection, stationed my entire offensive army there (I wasn't going to push the offensive until I had more troops anyway). There must have been a dozen strong offensive units with a few defensive ones in that city. Two turns later, it defects back...and all the units (what amounted to 80% of my offensive military strength) went 'poof'. It doesn't seem like they defect, as I retook the city the next turn (foolishly, as I lost it again culturally) and it only had one defender and I had units stationed around the city, so I would've seen a mass exodus.

Apparently, the citizens revolted and massacred everyone of the fifteen or so units of veteran or better military forces. I can see some extreme casualties...I can even see some of my troops defecting over because of the better gladiator cable channels the other culture has...or even for them to disband and become citizens in the city...but to have them just vanish seems really odd and harsh. It definitely makes one fear using a large force to quell resistors in a city you fear will be taken back over.

Since that lesson, though, I've learned what cities to hit (and what cities need to be taken in coordination) or to make sure my cultural sphere of influence is pretty well defined before attempting to take towns....otherwise, as has been suggested, I just raze and build my own...

 

[ironfang]

Hrm. That suxs SouthPaw. I had recently been through a massive war with persia, and have capture maybe 8 or so size 10-12 cities and have only had one of those cities revolt (which was subsequently RAZED when I recaptured it... hehe). The city that DID revolt, did so when only one unit was garrisoned there. The other cities that revolted in the past revolted with 2 or less. I have never had a city revolt with 3 or more soldiers. . Its probably because I have HUGE culture .

I hope this never becomes a problem. hehe. War sucks, but it sucks less than being conquored.

ironfang

 

[Jake]

They defect anyway. Making peace does make your people happier, so perhaps it lowers the chance of them defecting.

Also, if the city you're fighting with is too far away, corruption prevents you from building anything very quickly, so it's impossible to build the happiness buildings fast enough. Even when the resistors are gone rush building all the improvements you'll need is prohibitively expensive if you have captured more than a few cities.

Putting units in a city may stop resistors from overthrowing but does it do anything to stop the culture defectors?

 

[Galen Dietenger]

Id like to point out that makeing peace does *NOT* prevent cities from rejoining there old nations, at least under communism at any rate. Also the presence of troops does not seem to have much effect either-they quell rioters yes, but they seem to have little effect on the culture vultures. It got so bad for me on my current game(pangea huge) that I ringed all the (former)Eygptians cites with tanks artillery and troops for the inevtiable deposeing of my governors,(one city I lost 6+ times) got tired of loseing tanks garrisons and equipment, only to have a hostile or neutral enemy in my rear that I just spent the focused efforts on my entire empire to conquer. Not only that they repop with conscripted infantry+odds and ends prmitive troops that still take 4 or 5 tanks to retake in a single turn, its worse if your outside there culture perimeter.

Two other things are worth noteing as well, on my current game even tho after a massive effort I took Eygpts lands and citys, In the end I have little to show for it, 90% of there citys are 1pop and are *NOT* growing, in fact-I think there a huge drain $$$ wise too. Of course POS other civs moved in and built 3 citys within my lands as well-its worth noteing they build on the *EXACT@ same sites as the citys I burned to the ground-lesson to be learned. So even if you burn a enemy city that economically unviable and militarily worthless, one of your 'allies' will come right alone and pop a city in its place..great. Other thing is Ive come to think its almost not worth the effort to capture citys anymore. Many enemy cities start out with pop 25+ and many improvements. By the time Im done-there pop 1 and nothing is left standing in them-and there pretty much guarenteed to revert to boot.

Other thing is -(currently on my game) even tho Eygpt was on the ropes and down to a handful of tiny cities, there culture continued to dominate-I lost many cities. Even tho i captured Magellans voyage(my only prize whole campaign). In fact even when they had 2 citys left( pop 2 and 1) I still had a pop 12 city revert...


I would like to point out tho my Civ was no great deal culturally I had every culture improve I could in my citys and a few minor wonders, with a credible culture. On the whole tho, culture is more of a threat than any army, perhaps too strong.

 

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by Arrian
p.s. In case you were wondering, the Germans started it, but I finished it. They have one city left on a small offshore island. It kinda reminds me of the token city I'd leave alive for the endgame in CIV II.

Tangent: That's basically what I did to the Babylonians in my game. I'm on the Earth map, and my home is Africa, the Middle East, India, and Great Britain. The Babylonians were in south Africa, but they pissed me off and I wiped the floor with them, leaving them with only two cities: one in Malaysia and one in South America. At some point, I'll send a few boatloads of troops over to finish them off.

 

[scriptorum]

Southpaw, that reminds me of the pop-12 Aztec capital I took last night. I attacked the city with two full Persian ARMIES. One consisted of veteran and elite immortals, the other of veteran knights. It was a fairly easy conquering, althgouh they took a little damage. Since the rebellious new members of my society posted eight resisters, I decided it was a good idea to leave both armies there to garrison and recouperate. Oops, bad idea.

One turn later I had managed to bring the number of resisters down to seven, but the next turn the city revolted and rejoined the Aztecs -- TAKING MY TWO ARMIES WITH THEM! Now I was no slouch with culture, but this place must have had gold leaf toilet paper or something to woo Lyle and Larry the Leaders. The conquering army should get busy pillaging, raping and looting, and spend less time oggling at the freakin platinum-plated bidet with marble foot-rest.

I'm not sure how to combat this problem. What about rush-building a settler in the conquered city, then having a settler of yours join the town? Sort of dilute the mix. Or turning everyone into entertainers and hoping they don't notice the severe starvation problem? Also, if it's so easy for a city to convert others, how come you never see a unit walking NEAR a city get converted?

 

[Larry]

Bring a settler when you attack, raze, and rebuild the city, if you like its location. =)

 

[Fossa]

Raze the city and rebuild if its near a city with good culture. It will be harder for them to take plus it will be "pure" . Dont ya just love razing cities though? I mean really. BURN THE B******S HOMES TO THE GROUND!

 

[Ulthien]

I think everyone is too busy expressing themselves to read the posts of others hehe

Did anyone have a city defect when it was not bordering on enemy cultural borders?

 

[Sam_Catchem]

Hmm..I found the best thing to do from having captured cities leave is rush build temples. I have been playing only religous civs lately..but I found that there influence keeps expanding. I haven't lost one yet. I have even taken over other civ's captured cities via culture with my captured cities.

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Ulthien
I think everyone is too busy expressing themselves to read the posts of others hehe

Did anyone have a city defect when it was not bordering on enemy cultural borders?

Culture defection is 100% tied to borders When two cultural borders overlap, then a defection is possible.

 

[ozymandyus]

Just a couple of notes for you guys, take it for what it's worth. Firstly, in my experience defections are NOT tied to war and do NOT require a shared border. I shared a continent with another civ, went up and kicked the crap out of 'em. They were left with a size 3 city on an island out in BFE, nowhere near me. I negotiated peace with them. Two turns later, a size 10 city I'd captured defected. Makes no sense, really.

I have, however, found one sure-fire tactic that seems to keep cities from defecting...have them make workers. It may be just coincidence, but I have never had a city rebel when building workers, and they're had plenty of opportunities. Plus the new workers help repair war damage, and although they work more slowly, they're not in the city plotting sedition against my regime.

--Oz

 

[Genghis Sean]

Two questions:

1. When a city defects, do the units defect with it? One of the posts above seems to believe his did not, but the guy who lost the armies seemed to indicate that they defected with the city.

2. Does the AI use armies? I've played one fairly full game and a several partial ones, and I've never seen an AI army.

 

[RagingBull]

Can you guys give some specifics as to what kind of units to build during the ancient era? To keep take over a continent and maintaining expansion?

I have played the Romans, Japanese, Aztecs, and Germans, and none of them seems to have a clear advantage in the development of my territory. The computer expands like a mutha@#!.

Playing the Chinese:
On Monarch level, i built 3 cities in N.America and then took over 2 more from the Romans. With Science set to 0% and happiness to 20%. Everything went fine, until the Romans sent a group of 6 warriors into my capitol... then they founded a new city right next to that. i sent my own (2 warriors and 1 pikeman) into their newly founded city. Destroyed their defense, but then the AI built another two units!! This is within 2 turns!?

IMHO i think firaxis should curb the AI from being able to rush build an army from a size 1 city... giving the AI advantage to where to develop and some extra cash, and fast techs is cool, but this is clearly a problem in logistics. There is no strategic sense in cranking out settlers from size 2 cities WHILE still protecting that settler with a military unit AND keeping another to defend the city...

anyways... how do i combat this??

 

[Flashpoint]

Not sure if anyone has actually touched on this yet. The biggest issue with keeping those cities from reverting to their original owner is the nationality of the citizens.

If the Germans capture a French city, the citizens are still considered French. As a result they do not resist recapture by their countrymen and naturally gravitate toward French culture. The reason building workers helped prevent defection is you were removing citizens of your rival nationality - similar to the "ethnic cleansing" tactic. Any growth to replace those workers will then produce citizens of your nationality. (less likely to defect)

In my limited (2 days) play, it seems best to cull the captured cities population a bit. And run workers of your own nationality in behind your armies and join them with the city - adding some resistance to the rival civ's culture. I have no idea how well this works if your rival happens to have a much higher cultural rating. (haven't experienced that yet)

 

[Ruffin]

It's a function of distance-to-capital (among other things), right? First thing - make sure they have no capital.

Not sure, but I think religious societies tend to have an advantage on this. Maybe they're just more inclined to build culture. I keep losing border cities to the Indians, but never with my other neighbors.

 

[Arrian]

My understanding is that city defection is based on:

Ethnicity of the citizens
Overall culture rating of the two civs
Individual culture rating of the city (and the nearest enemy city?)
Relative distances to the Capitol cities of the civs
Happiness (if it's in disorder, it's more likely to defect).

Possible solutions to captured cities defecting (other than razing and rebuilding, which is what I tend to do):

1) Starve the hell out of it while it has resistors... after it's under your control, any NEW citizens will be of your nationality, and thus the city will be less likely to defect.

2) Rushbuild cultural buildings (temple, library, cathedral, university, colliseum - in that order). If you're a despot,

3) Move your palace closer to the front... although this opens up other problems.

4) I'm not sure of this one, but it appeared to help me in one game: the Forbidden City acts as a palace w/respect to corruption, but I think that it may also help with city defection.

5) Prepare for the possible loss of the city (ok, this isn't a strategy to avoid the loss, but hey). I usually only put 2-3 units MAX into a new conquered town. Firaxis has said that the suppression of resistors works at about a 1-1 ratio of units to resistors. If you have 3 resistors, 10 units isn't going to help.

6) Bombard the city down to a low population before taking it. Sure, this takes more time, but it will also save casualties among your offensive units that eventually attack, as the defensive bonus for the AI's units will be reduced (smaller city) and they will be beat up.

I hope this helps.

-Arrian

 

[alexed]

I'm impressed with some of the creative approaches that you fellow gamers have innovated to work around what we're dealing with here, but I'm curious how many of you agree with my basic premise, which is that the implementation of city defection IS A PIECE OF **** RENDERING THE GAME MUCH LESS ENJOYABLE AND SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY FIXED IN A PATCH.

It's absolute bull**** that players should have to resort to extreme solutions like starvation/cleansing and dinking with the question of shared borders.

I'm incredibly disappointed and disillusioned by Civ3, all because of this one element. I've been a Civ player from the very beginning and have never run into anything that caused so much pain. It's practically impossible to wage war unless you have massive culture advantage, and in that case, you don't need to wage war. I'm a pretty sophisticated player and have never had trouble suceeding at the equivalent of Regent level.

There was absolutely no call to implement such a draconian model. At the very least, cities should not be able to unilaterally revert when there's massive presence of strong troops.

Is there any agreement that this should be CHANGED and not just endured? Or am I offbase here...

Alex

 

[Hommer]

If you want to build temples quickly on Despotosm, bring to new cities a WORKERS and add it to city. Then hurry up production.