Simple patch idea to save units in defecting cities; please support

[nato]

I want to repeat this idea because I think it is good and stands a real good chance of being doable.

This is a simple solution to the problem of losing units in culturally defecting cities. The main problem is when a huge army is destroyed in a rebeling city that you recently conquered.

Currently any units in the city are simply deleted.

Instead, how about kicking them out of the city and to the nearest border? This is attractive because there is already code to do this. This code is used when units are trespassing in another civ's territory while at peace. When asked to be diplomatically removed, the units are kicked out to the nearest border.

How about using this already existing code, instead of deleting armies? The units could even be damaged, though that would require more new code so is optional. Maybe only some of the units would make it back, the others deleted.

(I don't pretend to know it is easy to program, but that routine does already exist, so that should be a big help.)

The city would be reconquered, but at least it would still be a setback without lots of units just disappearing.

I apologize for posting this twice, but I think it is a good idea and, best of all, it could actually be done. I might even post it again, just to try to get it heard.

Any support for this idea? If so please respond to help get it heard.

Thank you for reading.

[kimmygibler]

The big problem with this is that is would defeat the purpose of cultural revolts. If the units got kicked to the nearest border, you would just come and take back the city on the next turn. The city would be defenseless. (unless you're willing to give the city a bunch of free defense units) Its not very realistic, but I say keep it the way it is for the sake of the game. Lets face it, this is only a game. It is not realistic to begin with so I say we should take game balance over realism all the time.

[zipnar]

if all the booted units are reduced to 1hp they couldn't immediatly re-attack.

OR

an army stationed in a city means it can't dispose you no-way/no-how no matter what

i really like my army idea haha...i just thought of it as i was typing the first part. would make armies worth the 3 units + great wonder you spend to make them.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by nato
Currently any units in the city are simply deleted.´

Good. They shouldnt change it.

If you havent prepard yourself enough to avoid above things from happening (and it IS possible to do that), then you should pay the ultimate price.

Instead, how about kicking them out of the city and to the nearest border?

I dont like it. Then one just go right back in and easily reconquer that weakly or non-defended city all over again. It would work inflationary one the whole concept of cultural power.

[nato]

kimmygibler - I acknowledged this in my post, it is a good point. That is why I gave the option of damaging the units or even deleting some, say half.

As far as I can tell, the AI cities automatically get a free defender as it is. Maybe increase this to two.

I would really find this preferable to the way it is now. As it is, this and stack movement basically make me not want to play at all.

I agree with game balance, at least up to a point. Obviously there has to be some realism though ... but I am not motivated by realism. I am motivated by fun and balance moreso. I just really don't think it is good game balance to have whole armies destroyed due to rebellion. I think my solution is a better balance.

Or at least more fun. Just my vote.

[nato]

I was not so worried about the reconquest problem, because armies that keep bouncing back to the border aren't going anywhere.

However, perhaps using the diplomatic code that transfers workers to your capitol during trading could be used ... thus armies could be sent back to your capitol. I prefer my original border idea, since it makes a lot more sense, but just a possibility.

[kimmygibler]

I think a good solution would be if we knew specifically what caused a city to revolt. If it was possible to determine how many units you needed in the city, or what the chances were of revolt there would be fewer surprises. As it is, there are too many shocking revolts were a size 6 city will overthrow about 10 tanks. We need to know what causes this to happen, and what the calculations are.

[Kolyana]

Originally posted by kimmygibler
The big problem with this is that is would defeat the purpose of cultural revolts. If the units got kicked to the nearest border, you would just come and take back the city on the next turn. The city would be defenseless. (unless you're willing to give the city a bunch of free defense units) Its not very realistic, but I say keep it the way it is for the sake of the game. Lets face it, this is only a game. It is not realistic to begin with so I say we should take game balance over realism all the time.

Codswallop

If military units are destroyed, then one assumes something destroyed them, right? Or are we meant to believe the rather incredulous angle that the military revolted also?

Let the city defect, allow some or all of the military to retreat (I could live with some), turn some of the populace into sentry units.

If this is your city, taking it back could destroy improvements. If it belongs to someone else, it could start an international incident. Either way it's more pallitable (sp?) and agreeable game-wise.

Yes, this has my vote.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

So what happens if you take a city adjacent to water and build a battleship, and when it culture flips back to its original nationality, you no longer have any cities capable of supporting sea units?

The "get out of my borders" code never has to deal with a pile of "mixed" units so it's not as easy as just using that existing functionality.

Dan

[Stryfe]

I guess there are 'measures' that prevent cities from revolting, but they are unrealistically difficult on higher difficulty levels. I really don't know what to say about events where



size 6 cities defeat 24 units of mech. infantry and modern armor.


I think it says everything for itself. The city should have been razed to the ground by the vastly superior force represented by the military stationed there.

[Venger]

How about y'all fix the real problem, cultural defection in cities that have large numbers of military units.

How about you REALLY fix it and create a cultural defection switch? People who wear cotton lined panties can keep it on, and people who want something approaching a reality that may exist in this universe can turn it off...

Venger

[Stryfe]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
So what happens if you take a city adjacent to water and build a battleship, and when it culture flips back to its original nationality, you no longer have any cities capable of supporting sea units?

The "get out of my borders" code never has to deal with a pile of "mixed" units so it's not as easy as just using that existing functionality.

Dan

If the code only moves the units outside of the borders, then there is no problem. This is only a problem if the units are moved into the capital....and I've seen plenty of AI civs with battleships moving about despite having lost all of their coastal cities.

[Kolyana]

Dan, destroy ships and planes ... they've never counted as defending units. C'mon, you know that.

Now, I've seen the AI units mystically teleported *MANY* squares once prompted to get out of my land, so I'm sure you could do the same under cultural circumstances, too.

Sorry, I respect you and your position and everything, but your answer was a little ... lame?

[Falconius]

nato, I agree with you 110%.

The cultural switchover bull is the game's worst aspect. There's this crazy catch-22 of how many units to move in to keep the city, but how many can I afford to lose if it flips anyway.

Cultural assimilation, in real life, only works over a great deal of time. Our troops in Afghanistan aren't going to flip-flop just because someone hands them a copy of the Koran. Such indoctrination would take years.

Something needs to be done to lessen the disaster of losing your entire army to a non-military force.

And for those anti-realists who reply, "It's not supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be fun," well, guess what, it ain't fun either.

[Code Monkey]

There is a huge problem with people's understanding of the game mechanics regarding city defection.

As best I can tell, a city cannot defect back to the motherland while there are resisters.
As best I can tell, the only thing more units do is speed up the rate of quelling resisters.
As best I can tell, once you've put down the resistance, the number of units garrisoned has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not a city defects back to the motherland.
As best I can tell, the chance of a quelled city revolting are increased several fold so long as there is any of the motherland's cultural borders butting up against that cities.

Conclusion: Don't garrison more than two units in any city while you're taking it and keep on moving. There is no benefit to putting down resistance while you are actively at war with the parent country because it just introduces the possibility of that city defecting. There is no reason to garrison heavily if you're on the offensive because if that city does defect you'll be out a bunch of units. I've stuck by these rules and I rarely lose a city to defection, I never lose more than a handful of units, and I don't see the problem.

This is another fine example of "I'm not going to learn how to play the game, I'm going to demand they change the game to play how I do!"

[Zurai001]

Originally posted by Code Monkey
As best I can tell, a city cannot defect back to the motherland while there are resisters.

Incorrect. As a matter of fact, the chance to defect is INCREASED for each resister. You want to garrison an overwhelming number of units in that city for two turns or so until all the resistance is gone, then leave just one or two defenders. If it's near their capital, don't even bother capturing it, you'll have resisters and culture working against you.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Code Monkey
As best I can tell, a city cannot defect back to the motherland while there are resisters.

Incorrect.

As best I can tell, the only thing more units do is speed up the rate of quelling resisters.

Not really a fix.

As best I can tell, once you've put down the resistance, the number of units garrisoned has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not a city defects back to the motherland.

Absolutely incorrect. It is directly related. If you have more units that citizens, it will not revert.

As best I can tell, the chance of a quelled city revolting are increased several fold so long as there is any of the motherland's cultural borders butting up against that cities.

This does seem correct, which basically means the best way to keep City A from defecting is to sack City B, which will defect unless you sack City C, which will defect unless you sack...

Conclusion: Don't garrison more than two units in any city while you're taking it and keep on moving.

You'll lose the cities this way.

This is another fine example of "I'm not going to learn how to play the game, I'm going to demand they change the game to play how I do!"

And your post is another fine example of "I'm going to hand out bad advice based on my own incorrect understanding of how the game works."

Nice move. Go spank your code monkey.

Venger
P.S. Zurai - even after you have quelled all resistance, a city will STILL revert. Trust me.

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by Zurai001
Incorrect. As a matter of fact, the chance to defect is INCREASED for each resister. You want to garrison an overwhelming number of units in that city for two turns or so until all the resistance is gone, then leave just one or two defenders. If it's near their capital, don't even bother capturing it, you'll have resisters and culture working against you.

Actually, number of units garrisoned having no effect is also incorrect. The only times I've had a city defect back, I had only a unit or two in that city and it was near the enemy capital. When I garrison at least one unit per population point, I have never had a city defect. From what I hear, you need two per pop point to *completely* get rid of the possibility, but one per pop point drops the chance so low you can feel moderately safe. (For these purposes, "garrisoned units" only include ground units with an attack value. Workers/settlers/scouts/explorers, bombardiers, ships, and planes don't count.)

If you're trying to capture cities with under 100 units late enough in the game for culture to have this kind of effect, you're screwed anyway, so you can afford to leave 8 or 9 behind in a city, right?

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by Xentropy


Actually, number of units garrisoned having no effect is also incorrect. The only times I've had a city defect back, I had only a unit or two in that city and it was near the enemy capital. When I garrison at least one unit per population point, I have never had a city defect. From what I hear, you need two per pop point to *completely* get rid of the possibility, but one per pop point drops the chance so low you can feel moderately safe. (For these purposes, "garrisoned units" only include ground units with an attack value. Workers/settlers/scouts/explorers, bombardiers, ships, and planes don't count.)

If you're trying to capture cities with under 100 units late enough in the game for culture to have this kind of effect, you're screwed anyway, so you can afford to leave 8 or 9 behind in a city, right?

It's posts like these that make me wish Firaxis would disclose the actual mechanics. I have never observed garrison size having any effect beyond the rate of quelling resisters and I've never had a city that was actively rebelling and not right next to a capital revert. I have lost plenty of cities early on when I thought troop number meant something and I would heavily garrison instead of pushing my offensive forward. Basically, we're all going on a bunch of assumptions based on our experiences and hearsay from other's experiences.

Given that it's the second most annoying game feature other than combat mechanics themselves, you'd think they could at least say definitively what plays a role.

[Redstar]

that benefit from having "police"

you need to send in 2x(+2) units to quell resistors on 1st turn (very close to the real number).
you need to build a temple asap
you need to make 2 extra entertainers
razing nearby cities helps.
making peace helps (not a real possibility since patch)
blast the city under 10... makes things alot easier.

this will usually avoid the switch back in 3 turns. However, despite all these precautions, the odd time a city will revert back (even 1 well behind a frontline..a city that has many culture improvements but has not had the time to "grow" 'em).

starting at 0 culture is definately a large hole to come back from.

"So what happens if you take a city adjacent to water and build a battleship"

I would be very suprised if you could even build 1 before it revolts back.

I would be quite happy to lose 4 units --except i hate having to lose more improvements and then start the culture process all over again.

[felder]

I really like one idea that was expressed on this thread, and that was to make it so sticking an army in a captured city would keep it from revolting.

It'd actually give some purpose to those crappy things...

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Kolyana
Dan, destroy ships and planes ... they've never counted as defending units. C'mon, you know that.

Now, I've seen the AI units mystically teleported *MANY* squares once prompted to get out of my land, so I'm sure you could do the same under cultural circumstances, too.

Actually it was an honest question, I wondered what your take on this problem was. The two I thought of were pretty much the same as what were offered: destroying units that can't be "teleported" or trying to "teleport" every unit just outside the nearest border.

Sorry, I respect you and your position and everything

Based on the treatment I normally get around here, I've come to cherish just plain common decency... but I don't think "my position" warrants any special respect above and beyond what would be shown to a fellow Apolytoner.

Dan

[Kolyana]

Ah yes, but how many are 'web wizards', um?

Now, if you were just a 'web grunt' ...

[Andy]

IMHO the answer is to simply not allow cultural defections during times of active war. I realize that this is a game, but it is based in reality, and this type of defection would NEVER happen in the real world. I mean the citizens of Paris didn't enjoy being occupied by Nazi Germany, but they couldn't simply defect whenever they wanted to. The military stationed in paris would simply have killed everybody associated with the plot.

I suggest that cultural defections during times of active war shouldn't occur. Instead, when a cultural defection would have occured, have like the resisters destroy a bunch of improvements or like half the units in a city.

This would still be a thorn in the side of the invading force. Just as the french resistence during WW2 destroyed lots of the enemy and thereby helped the allies retake Paris. Rather than simply proclaiming that they didn't like the germans and reverting back to the french, meanwhile destroying any of the german armies stationed there.

[nato]

I want to thank everyone who took the time to respond.

"I'm not going to learn how to play the game, I'm going to demand they change the game to play how I do!"

I don't really feel this is relevant to what I am saying, though it may have a point. I do play Civ3 fairly well, and I think I have learned how to play it. I win my Monarch games, almost always with lots of conquest.

I usually have about double the culture of my enemies, and large armies, and I rush buy temples ... all of that. It is just no fun when large armies vanish. I want it to be harder to conquer ... I want troops tied up occupying recent conquests ... but I don't want massive armies to just disappear. That is not fun or particularly balanced.

I just do not enjoy this feature one bit, to the point that it kind of ruins the game for me. I have seen others say they don't like it, so I felt I was not alone. With that logic, you could never change anything at all about a game... just learn to play with the problem.

If most people don't mind this feature, I'll shut up and just not play. But I do think a good number might agree with me.

Also, please don't put insulting words in my mouth. I'm not a bad person or player.

So what happens if you take a city adjacent to water and build a battleship, and when it culture flips back to its original nationality, you no longer have any cities capable of supporting sea units?

The "get out of my borders" code never has to deal with a pile of "mixed" units so it's not as easy as just using that existing functionality.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond.

I know even reusing code is difficult, and I know I have no idea what extra problems might come up. Still I really feel that having the larger part already written must help a lot, and smaller issues like these shouldn't be too massively hard to deal with (at least compared to adding whole new features).

I think Kolyana has a real good, not too complicated to implement solution. Just delete air and naval units. Yes a few extra lines would have to be added in ... but its not a real hard or complicated solution. Its not a completely new and big feature.

Thanks Kolyana!!

Please give this idea a chance ... the programmers might like it. Its main strength is that it is simple and shouldn't be too super hard to program (I know it is all hard, but not TOO super hard).

Compared to stack movement its a snap!

Anyway thanks very much for the response, it is cool to know this idea at least has been seen by someone in the company.

Andy your idea is cool too, and I would be happy with it. Mine might (or might not be) easier to code though. I think it is important to minimize requests, or they just can't and won't happen.

Thanks everyone for support and/or criticisms!

[Trifna]

I do support it... but just wondering why exactly they put this 1st rule making all unit lost. What could be the reason? It's not like that in reality and in term of gameplay it's causing problems. And it's certainly not for fun factor.

[Krypter]

I definitely support it. The current system is unrealistic and incredibly frustrating. It makes military forces weak and useless. There are all kinds of annoyances like this throughout the game. Anything to get rid of them is good in my book.

[Marko Polo]

Originally posted by Andy
IMHO the answer is to simply not allow cultural defections during times of active war. I realize that this is a game, but it is based in reality, and this type of defection would NEVER happen in the real world. I mean the citizens of Paris didn't enjoy being occupied by Nazi Germany, but they couldn't simply defect whenever they wanted to. The military stationed in Paris would simply have killed everybody associated with the plot.

I suggest that cultural defections during times of active war shouldn't occur. Instead, when a cultural defection would have occurred, have like the resisters destroy a bunch of improvements or like half the units in a city.

This would still be a thorn in the side of the invading force. Just as the french resistance during WW2 destroyed lots of the enemy and thereby helped the allies retake Paris. Rather than simply proclaiming that they didn't like the Germans and reverting back to the french, meanwhile destroying any of the German armies stationed there.

I was just about to to post this suggestion when I found out this post of Andy's. I definitely support the idea of not allowing cultural defections during war. In the real world this just doesn't happen. I even thought of using the same example as Andy (about Paris CULTURALLY defecting back to France during WWII.. )

I also support the idea that if city DO defect (during peace time) then the garrisoned troops should withdraw to the nearest border or even capital.. and let ships & airplanes destroy. The withdrawing troops might maybe be injured as they are fleeing away from the angry mobs of those defected citizens.. I don't know. Then you really have to think whether to start a new war to get back that city or not. More interesting decisions to make..

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

In Civ2, when an Alliance was cancelled, all units near your former allies territory were instantly moved back to the nearest friendly city!!! So why not just do that now?! If a city is taken over culturally, any units in the city take minimum 1hp damage and are then shunted to the nearest FRIENDLY city!!! The amount of hp taken would be based on the size of the defecting city! Obviously, if you have enough units in a city, the city should be unable to defect (isn't that how it already works?)
I actually have a question partly related to this topic and that is, if the Civ3 engine was, in part, based on the engine for SMAC, then why can't units be stationed in allied cities in Civ3??? This was a great SMAC feature. Please, Dan or Soren, please let me know why this feature is missing and if you plan to put it back in at any time??

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by nato
I usually have about double the culture of my enemies, and large armies, and I rush buy temples ... all of that. It is just no fun when large armies vanish.

My solution has always been to use a few token weak defenders to suppress the resistor. The others I kill off by bombardment prior to taking and I place the bulk of my force around the city to defend and reinvade if necessary, or move on to the next city. I buy a temple as soon as the resistance is quelled, library or cathedral on the next turn, and the other one on the third, and build workers as soon as possible or pop rush to have your citizens in place of the old ones. This usually works(up to monarch so far) for me and if it does defect back I can usually take it immediately.