What is enough to prevent city defections?

[uh Clem]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


I don't think this works. If you build settlers/workers in a city that is another nationality, you get those units as their original nationality. When adding these units to a city, the still retain their nationality (as do captured units). I have swapped citizens from captured cities with citizens of mine in hopes of preventing defection. We'll see if that works.

It works with Workers, but maybe not Settlers. When a Worker is created, if you right-click on the unit, you'll see "Contact Barbarian Worker," or something like that. The box in the lower right corner says "ÿÿÿÿ€ Worker" (from ÿÿÿÿ€land, no doubt). When that Worker joins a city, it will be your nationality.

Or at least it has always been when I've done it.

[inca911]

In one of his discussions, Soren divulged a couple key points:

1. The culture you have generated in that city compared to what the opponent generated in that city is a factor in defection.

2. Each military unit prevents a citizen from thinking about defecting.

3. Over time, citizens change nationalities and become your citizens.

4. The cultural ratio of the different civs has a bearing and distance to capital is *very* important.

So I use less advance military units as garrisons in cities that are close to the enemy capital and that were long-time possessions of the enemy. I have only had one tiny city defect and it was due to only posting a one troop garrison in a pop 3 town. In short, moving your capital and garrisonning troop until either nationalities change or cultural improvements you have made acrue enough to outweigh the enemy is a good way to keep civs. On another note, if you destory an enemy civ completely, their cities do not defect to them. This is certainly the best way to prevent defections and is the prime reason for my genocide of the Japanese and Indians. Now I don't have to worry about city defections even though 2/3 of my empire used to be Indian and Japanese!

[dweez]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


I don't think this works. If you build settlers/workers in a city that is another nationality, you get those units as their original nationality. When adding these units to a city, the still retain their nationality (as do captured units). I have swapped citizens from captured cities with citizens of mine in hopes of preventing defection. We'll see if that works.

I was trying to swap citizens as well, but every time I tried to build a Worker in a mixed city it would always take my people first...

[jack_frost]

I've rome and berlin while they were celebrating WLTKD (both had wonders built by another civ). It helps, but if they wanna defect badly enough they will.

Having tested it a lot with reloads, if there are unhappy people, using luxuries can calm them. If there aren't, having military units will.

Making peace lowers the chance greatly also (probably due to happyness factors).

Get those culture producers quick, ditto w/ happy. Temple then market is my suggestion.

[Felan]

Looking at the edit rules part of the editor, I think you can see the built in values that buildings have. Marketplace and banks don't seem to have any built-in culture generating value to it. Temples, cathedrals, courthouse, and colleseum (sp?) do generate culture.

[barefootbadass]

Temple, library, cathedral is my usual sequence for getting culture going. And keep only what forces you need in the city(and not your best ones on defense either), leaving sufficient forces outside the city to retake it immediately if it defects.

[SanPellegrino]

No city of mine ever defected if the AI was at least impressed with my culture, lucky me. I thought that is the main reason, but that seems to be wrong. I also garrison at least 4 units in captured cities, i think it helps a lot (at least it quells resistance).

But there is another little bug: If you make a foreign worker join a city of yours, he has foreign nationality, but if you build a settler in a captured city, he is not foreign but barbarian (or sometimes a "Yß090ß"Settler or something) and when he settles down he is from your nationality.

[solo]

The sure fire way is to keep one military unit in the city for each citizen that might defect. Thus, 3 military untis keep a size-3 city safely on your side, allowing you time to implement all the other ideas listed above for keeping the city safe from defection.

[sachmo71]

Originally posted by solo
The sure fire way is to keep one military unit in the city for each citizen that might defect. Thus, 3 military untis keep a size-3 city safely on your side, allowing you time to implement all the other ideas listed above for keeping the city safe from defection.

In some instances, I have seen cities with hordes of troops revert to the original culture, but if I reload and move the troops out, it stays under my control. This has never happened to you, solo?

[solo]

sachmo71,

My information comes from the Soren Johnson chat transcript, so I believe it to be true, but to answer your question: No, this has not happened to me yet. It may be because I reduce captured cities to size 1 ASAP by building settlers or workers to reduce the foreign faces to just 1 citizen, which I also keep happy and garrisoned. Then I let the city grow and add cultural improvements.

I'm not sure I understand what you are accomplishing with a reload. Perhaps at the time a city is taken, not all of the pertinent information about the city's status has updated by the program until the game is saved and reloaded. If so, this is a programming bug, which should be corrected in the coming patch. Until then, I will save and reload right after taking cities to insure that captured cities behave the way they were designed to by the game's programmers.

[Admiral PJ]

Call me mad but i've built a city 4 squares away from Moscow, its on the middle of the big continent with me right up in the north, maybe I should move my palace.. anyone know how many cities you need on a large map for the forbidden palace?
perhaps if i build a harbour that will help link it better.
Russias culture is bad though, a bit worse than me already one of their cities defected to Ayr (i'm the english) along with their 3 dye luxuries!
Temples seem good, they give nice cheap culture and give some happiness to make people want to stay with you.

I'm sure the borders play a big part in this too, maybe linking up your cities borders with another of yours can prevent defection.

Anotether good TACTIC- if your short of land, like me with a vast tundra wilderness (though game and hills are ok) put cities in any small gaps of unclaimed territory, and you will get a 3*3 border with the city no matter on the enemies cultures which will give you their resources/ grassland.
This is what i'm doing to gain some nice river and grassland landscape.

[sachmo71]

Originally posted by solo
sachmo71,

My information comes from the Soren Johnson chat transcript, so I believe it to be true, but to answer your question: No, this has not happened to me yet. It may be because I reduce captured cities to size 1 ASAP by building settlers or workers to reduce the foreign faces to just 1 citizen, which I also keep happy and garrisoned. Then I let the city grow and add cultural improvements.

I'm not sure I understand what you are accomplishing with a reload. Perhaps at the time a city is taken, not all of the pertinent information about the city's status has updated by the program until the game is saved and reloaded. If so, this is a programming bug, which should be corrected in the coming patch. Until then, I will save and reload right after taking cities to insure that captured cities behave the way they were designed to by the game's programmers.

The reload was a cheat! I was playing my first game, and on a very easy level. I had already read about cities reverting for others, but it hadn't happened to me. So, it was late in the game and I was fighting the English. I took 3 cities and cut the continent in half. I had my troops outside, and was about to end the turn, but I didn't think the city would revert (bad logic!). That next turn, I get the message it reverted. So, since the end of the game was so close, and I just wanted to get thru MY FIRST GAME, I reloaded. Moved all of the troops out, and it didn't revert.

Now, it wasn't a scientific experiment by a long shot. It could have had more to do with chance, and since the city didn't go over to the English, I just pressed on. Note that ungarrisoned it DID switch back to the English about 10 turns later. I was hoping you had found that if your troop count matched exactly the number of foreign nationals in your city, it would never revert. Alas, I will probably have to find out thru experience. Thanks for the answer, though!

[ruoyu]

Originally posted by BiggN
If you don't want a city to switch sides on you... build a Wonder in it...

I've never had a City switch sides that has a wonder built in it.

I don't know if it's true for your own city, but I took over an enemy's city with a wonder in it and it defected right way.

[JNL]

(Yeah, I know it's a pretty old thread, but I think after several months of play, we may be able to find more precise answers on that ..)

I've captured a size-15 city, and garrisoned it with 2 Mech Infs, 10 Modern Armors, and 6 Bombers ; but those 18 military units were not enough to keep it from reverting to the Russians.

That proves that the Soren Rule : "Each military unit prevents a citizen from thinking about defecting" is not true - written like that.
Nevertheless, I'll try to check the following Rule : "Each military GROUND unit prevents a citizen from defecting". From what you've seen guys, do you still believe in it ?

[Coracle]

Originally posted by ElitePersian
I've had an original city defect. It was the stupidest thing you can imagine, here's what happened:

i founded this city called Tarsus around 1500BC, the city defected to the Aztecs around 1900AD. At the time, the city was a size 25 city, producing a lotta culture each turn, it had all the improvements possible, plus a couple small wonders, it had above average culture. The closest Aztec city was about 35-40 tiles away! And at the time, the aztecs were getting conquered like mad by the americans and the english, they were down to like 5 cities. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason why my city should have defected, im pretty sure this is a bug in the game, there's no reason why that city would defect.

Wow. Even I have never had a Culture Flip THAT stupid.

The worst I have seen was when a city that had been Roman for 5,000 years, Antium, filled with all manner of improvements, flipped to me. Was I happy? Hardly. I thought it RIDICULOUS.

I've had BORDERS flip over my improvements, fortresses, and even strategic resources!! I am then expected to just walk away, and if I don't I am forever known as a "warmonger".

It is just absurd even only in game terms. Historically it is nonsense.

Culture Flipping is itself a BUG dreamed up by Firaxis and should be euthanized ASAP. And more and more people are realizing it. Hopefully, it will soon sink in with Soren, too. Hey Firaxis, WAKE UP!

[DeepO]

Talk about awakening the dead! 6 month old threads should stay burried, if only it was to prevent Coracle to get new ideas for whacky arguments, like using pre-patch examples to prove his point.

JNL, the "Soren rule" as you put it never was true, it is a guideline that works in general situations. It assumes things like your overal culture being bigger than the enemy, no disorder, and your original city defending instead of an enemy city you want to keep (in that case, the rule of thumb says there have to be twice the number of troops than there are foreign nationals and tiles in your city).

More information can be found in this thread , where I also posted some tactics to avoid flips (on page three). If you don't want to read it, fine, just one piece of advise: don't ever use troops to battle flipping, it is the worst tactic around.

DeepO

[Txurce]

I am playing my first game with v. 1.21. I conquered Rome, which had the Pyramids, built the FP in it, and kept it near size 12. Centuries later, I was at war with the Romans again, but had pushed them off the continent - they were down to three island cities, whereas I had about ten of theirs on the mainland. I was in monarchy, and had low culture, although higher than the Romans.

Rome defected. To a faraway little civ, centuries after I built the FP in it. Yes, it's outrageous. Now what would have prevented it? Garrisoning the joint. It was empty (but so were all my other Roman cities, including one almost as big as Rome). I tried it again with three units inside, and no defection.

Fortunately for me, my low-culture, high-military civ had a leader to spare, so I could retake Rome, rebuild the FP, and have a nice campfire story to tell that had a relatively happy ending.

[DeepO]

Okay, there are specific cases in which garrisoning help. It is the only way to totally negate the flipping chance. And once you have more culture in that city than the previous owner had it becomes doable (troops only half the number of foreign nationals).

It does sound like you were very unlucky, even if you had a totally undefended city. If the Roman capital was far farther away than yours, the chance would have been very small. But a very small chance is a chance; people still win the lotery.

DeepO