Make City Flipping an option

[Phat_Phal]

Then they should call it an arm rebellion. That would be a more suitable explanantion than, your city has turned cause of culture.

[DeepO]

Maybe that's the solution then: instead of adding an option to disable culture flipping, Firaxis should add an option to call it an 'armed rebellion'. If that makes everybody happy, I'm sure Firaxis can live with that

DeepO

[Mikhail]

Which reminds me....Civil Wars. I want them back. The only aspect of Civ 2 I'd like to be re-implemented

To be on topic, if I'm not mistaken, there's already culture options in the editor (Kitten's world map changed them), where you can set the 'in awe of' ratio high enough so that culture flips will never happen unless your culture is REALLY inept.

Anyway, I personally like culture flips, though I've never been on the receiving end of one. Even in military campaigns, i'm pretty methodical and work for the outer edge ones, and go inward. after about 5 edge cities taken, the civ will usually be 'desperate' and go into the 'give anything to stop the war' mode.

As someone else said, just leave your military on an adjacent square, rather than inside, so you can reconquer.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Phat_Phal
Then they should call it an arm rebellion. That would be a more suitable explanantion than, your city has turned cause of culture.

If all you needed was a name change before you accepted the concept, you probably have no real problem with the concept, right?

Culture, however, still plays a role in armed rebellion. People with strong national identity rebel; those coming from a weak conglomerate of cities do not. It makes sense to me... and people should realize that even a few units parked in a city won't stand up to the armed fury of an entire city.

Military units are already a factor in preventing flips. Should they be a bigger factor? Probably. But that doesn't make the concept invalid as a whole.

[Phat_Phal]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


If all you needed was a name change before you accepted the concept, you probably have no real problem with the concept, right?

Culture, however, still plays a role in armed rebellion. People with strong national identity rebel; those coming from a weak conglomerate of cities do not. It makes sense to me... and people should realize that even a few units parked in a city won't stand up to the armed fury of an entire city.

Military units are already a factor in preventing flips. Should they be a bigger factor? Probably. But that doesn't make the concept invalid as a whole.

The name change would clear up a concept but not change my feeling towards this.

If an entire city is openly rebelling the military takeover then I can see that happen. But thats a fictional and poor excuse for this topic. Sure their maybe rebellious attitudes to the takeover but its not like those military units are going to sit idle as the town/city swarms them.

You can't just include something like Military units, bring up a question slightly relating to my case. And then go and rebut it like that was the point of the whole concept.

If they weren't willing to make this an option. At least give us some indication of how many units in the city we need to keep it.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Phat_Phal
If an entire city is openly rebelling the military takeover then I can see that happen. But thats a fictional and poor excuse for this topic. Sure their maybe rebellious attitudes to the takeover but its not like those military units are going to sit idle as the town/city swarms them.

In what way is an armed rebellion fictional? The military units don't sit idle... they die.

You can't just include something like Military units, bring up a question slightly relating to my case. And then go and rebut it like that was the point of the whole concept.

The main problem with culture flipping seems to be that people are frustrated because it doesn't make sense to them that their military units dissapear. I was pointing out that they actually do do something, not nothing. If you feel I was rebutting the wrong argument, feel free to point that out to me.

If they weren't willing to make this an option. At least give us some indication of how many units in the city we need to keep it.

You can already deduce that quite readily using the formula. Problem solved!

[deosilmau]

*can't be bothered to read through all the messages*

Make it optional. Why not?

- "the game was balanced with culture flipping taken into account"
- "make the option deduct points/eliminate/do the hanky panky with their score"
- "don't give people the option. It ruins the game!"
- "getting rid of culture flipping makes the game too easy!"
- "it gives the Ai/the player/my pet dog an unfair advantage!"

WHY DO YOU PEOPLE CARE HOW OTHER PEOPLE PLAY THE GAME?!?!

Does another person's game, another person's score, another person's likes or dislikes actually have an impact on your life in any fashion whatsoever?!? Let them turn off culture flipping. Let them play with no combat. Hell, let them screw around with the game mechanics until the game no longer resembles Civ3, I don't care. I'll still play the game I love.

After all, it's not even like it's hard to get around culture flipping in the first place. Every single time I've lost a city due to culture flipping that I absolutely needed, I just reloaded the last turn, moved all my military units out of the city, and it stayed mine.

[Kryten]

Here are some thoughts (and please forgive me if you have heard them before....)

Is Civilization a game? Yes, but it's a game based on history. For example, why can't the English build elephants? (after all, they could in CivI & CivII)....because they never did in reality. Why can't the French build Samurai?....because it would be unrealistic. Why can the Germans build Panzers and are Scientific+Militaristic?....because for part of their history they were, and CivIII is trying to portray then in a realistic manner. So, the game IS trying to be realistic. But is 'culture-flipping' realistic?

Well, there are many, many examples in history of non-violent changes of political control WITHOUT a war, revolt or revolution, DISPITE the size of the garrison or nearby troops.
'Culture-flipping' can simulate this. Here are some examples:-
1999 - Poruguese Macao ceded to China.
1997 - British Hong Kong handed back to China.
1990 - East Germany reunited with West Germany (now THERE's a culture flip!).
1982 - Israelis withdrawal from Sinai (captured in 1967).
1950 - India becomes independant from Britain.
1938 - Sudetenland annexed by Hitler following the Munich agreement.
1936 - The Ruhr, controlled by France since 1923, German in 1936.
1935 - The Saar Region, under French rule since 1919, returned to Germany by plebiscite in 1935.
1918 - Bessarabia united with Romania (but annexed by the USSR in 1940).
1846 - Oregon Country, joint Canadian/US occupation since 1818, ceded to the US.
1818 - Red River Colony ceded to the US from Canada.
(and the further back in time I look, the more examples I find, all DISPITE the size of the garrison!).

So, if a city or region in history changed polical control from one country to another (and there are many examples that they did), then 'culture-flipping' can SIMULATE this. The CAUSE may not be totally correct in a purist sence, but the EFFECT is. In history there are many CAUSES of why cities/regions change control from nation to another (Hong Kong for example), but in the game they all have the same effect. After all, we can't expect an abstract game like CivIII to accurately reflect all the thousands of different reasons can we

And what happens to the garrison? Well, in the case of East Germany 'culture-flipping' back to the West, you could assume that they were disbanded due to economic/social reasons. In South Africa, which 'culture-flipped' from a white only government , you could assume that the army was disbanded by the new government because it didn't trust their loyalty. In India, maybe the localy recruited army was disbanded due to religious/caste reasons. Thousands of different reasons, thousands of different situations.

However, I DO agree with being able to switch off culture flips if the player wants to. Everyone should be allowed to play the game the way they want (if I was making a Crusade scenario then I certainly would not want a Muslim city flipping to the Christian invaders!....but as Zachriel once mentioned to be before, there would be a good chance that the people in the city would, and in reality did, flip the other way!).

[Capt Dizle]

Mark, can you clarify what we can say about Soren without being banned. I think its fair game to criticize his work, I don't think that is a personal insult.

Coracle was refering to the work, not the man. So, I don't see that as a problem. If you ban people for being critical of the game, well, I just couldn't understand that at all.

Part of the problem could be language. From Coracle's post, in the English language, idiotic is an adjective applying and describing the noun "brainstorm", which would be the concept of culture. It is clearly not a case where Coracle called Soren an idiot.

If you take the position that one cannot express opinion on the game concepts, then you have gone far beyond the TOS AFAIK. If there is something in the TOS that covers this, just tell me and I will go read it again.

I understand that you get upset with the constant unending barage of criticisms, many harsh and deliberatively provocative (trollish?) from Coracle and myself and others, but..

From our point of view, we as fans of the civ series, think it is extremely important to voice our criticisms in the hope that the next rendition of civ not be done by Firaxis. We feel this way because we take the position that Firaxis did a great disservice to the Civ tradition, the game industry as a whole, and the gmaing public by releasing a game that was incomplete and unfinished and contained game concepts that many people find subpar to the standard that the Civ series has achieved in the past.

Respectfully submitted,

jt



ps. Please explain what you consider to be a personal insult versus a valid criticism.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Mark, can you clarify what we can say about Soren without being banned. I think its fair game to criticize his work, I don't think that is a personal insult.

Coracle was refering to the work, not the man. So, I don't see that as a problem. If you ban people for being critical of the game, well, I just couldn't understand that at all.

Part of the problem could be language. From Coracle's post, in the English language, idiotic is an adjective applying and describing the noun "brainstorm", which would be the concept of culture. It is clearly not a case where Coracle called Soren an idiot.

If you take the position that one cannot express opinion on the game concepts, then you have gone far beyond the TOS AFAIK. If there is something in the TOS that covers this, just tell me and I will go read it again.

I understand that you get upset with the constant unending barage of criticisms, many harsh and deliberatively provocative (trollish?) from Coracle and myself and others, but..

From our point of view, we as fans of the civ series, think it is extremely important to voice our criticisms in the hope that the next rendition of civ not be done by Firaxis. We feel this way because we take the position that Firaxis did a great disservice to the Civ tradition, the game industry as a whole, and the gmaing public by releasing a game that was incomplete and unfinished and contained game concepts that many people find subpar to the standard that the Civ series has achieved in the past.

Respectfully submitted,

jt



ps. Please explain what you consider to be a personal insult versus a valid criticism.

AH HA!!!

Jimmytrick is right again.

Here we go. So it starts on this site, too. Criticism of Firaxis results in the poster getting attacked and threatend??

I don't know Soren Johnson from a hole in the wall. I have not the slightest knowledge of him personally.

As for ad hominem personal attacks, many of us including Jimmytrick have received it in waves here from the sycophantic Firaxis fanboys. No sale, fellas.

But Soren has presented his flawed work to us at $50 a pop. I paid fifty bucks, plus $13 for the crummy Strategy Guide, and wasted countless hours editing, tweaking, and finding bugs in this game.

As such, that WORK, "Soren Johnson's Culture" (the real name of this game), being submitted to the public is to be subjected to public evaluation.

My evaluation is the game has some merits but was grossly dumbed down for marketing reasons and is far less historical than even Civ 2. Naval warfare is a joke.

So many ideas we considered for a Civ 3 game after Civ 2 were disregarded by Firaxis. Civ 3 is, however, fatally flawed in my estimation if concepts such as Culture Flipping and massive corruption are not addressed and solved.

Culture Flipping is a totally illogical braindead idea that is also implemented poorly in game terms, besides being non-historical. It even encourages what amounts to mass genocide and Ethnic Cleansing, and the game peforms these functions in ways a thousand times more efficient than anything the Nazis ever dreamed.

Culture Flipping has to go. Soren dreamed this up - an idea totally divorced from Civ 2's system. No one ever asked for it in over five years of discussions on various forums as we speculated on what should be in the coming Civ 3. Too bad Firaxis didn't heed these suggestions.

Hey Soren, your idea sucks. And that is not "personal". Unlike the fanboy attacks from those who haven't passed 10th grade Global Studies yet.

[Capt Dizle]

Hey C, you are pushing it man (shakes head).

Don't you know that you can Return from Mingapulco but those MARKed for Death never return.

[notyoueither]

Given the vehemence of many players in hating flipping, I believe wise designers will put in an option to prevent it. It would not be a lot of code. It shouldn't be.

I'll keep it. I've learned how to cope with it. Quite easily. I can't imagine how some other players haven't.

[notyoueither]

jt. How does C's last post beg for banning? He didn't insult anyone personally. True, he did continue his tradition of blaming one of the publically visable developers for a feature he does not like. But when was the last time anyone was banned on Poly for being stupid?

A better queston would be: why are you scouring the boards for allies such as him?

jt, Coracle.

OK. I can see it.

[Capt Dizle]

Nice post notyou. I have no problem coping, I don't like it, its screwy gameplay, at least the part about armies dissappearing into thin air. But I hold out hope of playing MP and there it could ruin the game. Playing against human, losing a large stack to a flip could indeed decide the game outright. I have played a good deal of SMAC PBEM and those games can be nail biters.

Therefore, for PTW, it only makes sense for them to have an option switch to turn it off or eliminate the loss of units somehow.

jt

[notyoueither]

If you campaign against someone with FAR superior culture RAZE, or...

Turn all citizens to specailists and starve, until pop 1 is reached.

Problem solved.

It's not as if cities far away from your capitol will ever be producers anyway.

[Nubclear]

Although I strongly disagree with Coracle and his methods of presenting his arguement(s), I do not think that he should be banned for it. He is speaking his mind, as we are all doing here.

Yes, posts that only contain "this sucks" or "i hate this stupid idea" should be condemned, and if one certain person posts a large number of 'empty' posts at a high enough frequency, should be temporarily banned, but permanent ban is a VERY extreme measure and in my opinion should only be taken in extreme cases of harassment, etc...But this is not a case of extreme harassment.

And Coracles post did have some substance, it was not just an empty post. He presented his evidence which is debatable, but it is still evidence. 'The Romans got cities through military, not cultural reversion' is what Coracle says. That, IMO, is not an empty post. That is an arguement. "Well culture flipping should not be in just because I say so. I think there should be Banana flipping" is an empty post.

Even now, I am beginning to fear wheather I should post this or not. I am beginning to think that if I disagree with you, Mark, then I will be banned. There are many threads which I want to reply to, but I am afraid that if I do then I will be banned by you because of any comments that you may take as 'extreme'. Therefore, I haven't posted too often. More and more often I find myself only coming to Apolyton for a split second to see if something happend in the Civilization world.

On the topic of Coracles last comment, the "idiotic brainstorm", I've seen plenty of people on these forums say things like "he sucks" or "he is a spammer/troll"...If what Coracle said is a personal insult, then so are these. Yet the people who make these comments are not even approached by any moderator, so why is Coracle being approached?

And the above to perpetuate my fear of posting. If Coracle is begin targetted, then what if I will also be put on "the list"? Better not risk it, I say to myself as I just go off to another Civilization forum and begin posting.

As Pravin Lal says, "but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism." Banning Coracle for excerising his freedom of speech is the first step in constricting free information.

Well, now I'm going to go about my merry business, lurking in the forums......

Tassadar

BTW: Culture flipping should be optional. Although I like culture flipping (because they always flip to my side ) there appear to be many people who don't. I don't think the pro-culture flipping side should be able to choose for the other, and vice-versa.

Yes, I agree with notyoueither. They probably will make it optional because a lot of people are beginning to complain about it....Although in the last patch they did address the issue slightly by saying "with a large enough military garrison, one can completly prevent culture flipping" (or something along those lines)

[notyoueither]

Have no fear Tassadar. I know of no Civ3 poster who has been banned and marked for death.

Yes, a couple of them got a one week vacation when they started to comment on each others anatomy. But that has been the rare exception to the general rule of tolerance hereabouts.

I've often wondered if I've gone too close to the line, or over it. At least once I did. I got a warning. Fair?

I'm here because the owners run a good, fair, open site. You can call the game down. Have no fear. You can praise the gods for Civ3. Have no fear.

However, I do not blame the owners of the site for tiring of some people blaming every perceived shortcoming of Civ3 on a single one of the designers/programmers, personally. I think you might agree that after a time that might become tiresome, especially if those citicisms often invoked the words 'idiot', 'stupid', etc.

Keep on civ'in

[MarkG]

jimmy,

1) you have been here a long time to not need any clarifications on the rules here

2) criticism is not about calling someone's work "idiotic" and saying that "it sucks" especially coming from someone accusing a computer game feature of encouraging "what amounts to mass genocide and Ethnic Cleansing"
criticism is not repetitive one-line and often unlrelated-to-the-thread-topic replies agreeing with other people observations

criticism is about giving arguments and justifying your opinion

3) if you want to play the "official rules"/"free speech" game, here's this quote from the rules that you agreed on your registration

Use of these forums is a privilege, not a right; in return for this privilege, you are asked to follow a few simple rules. The "freedom of speech" guarenteed by the U.S. Constitution only protects you from governmental intervention in your right to express yourself -- it doesn't give you free reign to use computer resources against the wishes of their owner.

4) i dont know if you have ever worked on something and then put it on public display or offered a service that was open to public criticism, but from my experience he who does such thing ignores repititive and simplistic whines and trolls even if they are somewhat right. this is human nature.
so telling the "truth" in a "provocative" way does absolutely nothing in terms of achieving the supposed goal of improving the game

[MarkG]

Tassadar5000,

your first three paragraphs of your post describe exactly how we would like people to post here and the attitude of the administration towads people who do not post like that

but on the matter of fear(!) of being banned(!!!) for disagreeing with me, i think it was no base. please tell me when was the last time you saw someone banned or a post a deleted for the simple act of a disagreeance with me. for crying out loud, we have here people begging to get banned and they fail!

[MarkG]

something more: on the issue of not geting everyone who breaks the rules. we're not everywhere, we cant 2-3000 posts every day. there is always the report link on each post. if you feel an action should be taken, use it. if you dont use it, i'm sorry but you dont have any base to accuse us of unjust treatment

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Kryten
Here are some thoughts (and please forgive me if you have heard them before....)

Good examples. Now consider Alexander's empire. The Greek capital was too far way, the armies too greedy, and ancient cultural influences too strong.

After Alexander's death, Ptolemy ruled as an Egyptian Pharaoh. Seleucus restored the ancient Babylonian culture and became a King. They, and their armies, became independent of Greece.

[Jaybe]

Zach,
But, but, this is an OUTRAGE!
In Civ3 when a city flips, all the new owners get is ONE defensive unit!

Great historical example, BTW.

JB

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Kryten
Well, there are many, many examples in history of non-violent changes of political control WITHOUT a war, revolt or revolution, DISPITE the size of the garrison or nearby troops.
'Culture-flipping' can simulate this. Here are some examples:-
1999 - Poruguese Macao ceded to China.
1997 - British Hong Kong handed back to China.
1990 - East Germany reunited with West Germany (now THERE's a culture flip!).
1982 - Israelis withdrawal from Sinai (captured in 1967).
1950 - India becomes independant from Britain.
1938 - Sudetenland annexed by Hitler following the Munich agreement.
1936 - The Ruhr, controlled by France since 1923, German in 1936.
1935 - The Saar Region, under French rule since 1919, returned to Germany by plebiscite in 1935.
1918 - Bessarabia united with Romania (but annexed by the USSR in 1940).
1846 - Oregon Country, joint Canadian/US occupation since 1818, ceded to the US.
1818 - Red River Colony ceded to the US from Canada.
(and the further back in time I look, the more examples I find, all DISPITE the size of the garrison!).

I appreciate the work that went into your post. But I don't agree that your examples support your hypothesis.

The reunification of Germany occured with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cause and effect is clear here, remove the military threat and the provinces reunite. If you want to find a place in the game where this situation is modeled it would be after military conquest and occupation the conqueror withdraws his garrison and triggers reversion. I have no problem with that happening in the game as long as the troops withdraw first and are not vanished into thin air. But reunification had nothing to do with culture.

I also cannot believe you used Nazi examples! Nothing to do with the Nazis had to do with culture. It was all military intimidation, although many admired the Nazis in their time.

As I have said before, limited flipping in certain peaceful situations is okay, the vanishing of armies just has to stop. No one's culture has ever vanished an army.

[Kryten]

Good point Zachriel. How about Caesar's conquest of Gaul?

58 to 55 BC - Caesar conquers most of Gaul, then has a holday in Briton (and why not!).

54 to 53 BC - He comes back and finds that the Gauls have 'culture-flipped', massacring his garrisons, so he has to conquer then for a second time, then goes to Germany for a vacation.

52 to 51 BC - He returns and finds that the Gauls , led by Vercingetorix, have 'culture-flipped' AGAIN, and he has to conquer them for a THIRD time!

49 to 44 BC - Now feels that he needs a bit of a rest, so decides to take some of his boys and pay a visit on his old mate Pompey in Rome....

[Kryten]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
As I have said before, limited flipping in certain peaceful situations is okay, the vanishing of armies just has to stop. No one's culture has ever vanished an army.

That list of mine was only an example of 'non-violent political changes, without a war, revolt or revolution, due to circumstances beyond the control of the current owner' (I'm going to be accused of spamming soon, as I'm having exactly the same discussion in another thread!).

Ah!, but I DO see your point; it's the word 'CULTURE' in 'culture-flipping' that is causing most of the trouble. So, just for the sake of argument, suppose the name was changed to....say....'popularity'....or even better, just assume it means 'non-violent-poltical-changes'. That's a nice bland phrase that can be used to cover a much wider set of historical situations.

As for where the garrison goes....
massacred by the citizens, or surrendered and become POWs, or deserted and thrown their weapons away ("we ain't gonna fight no more"), or joined the other side (a very popular choice in Roman & Medieval times), or routed and dispersed home, or died of plague (thus giving the citizens the opportunity to 'flip'), or -and this is my favourite- could it be that due to the loss of territory, Parliament/Congress has decided to make economic cutbacks and has disbanded the garrison against your wishes (now, you've got to admit, that DOES sound realistic, especially under a democracy ).

It does not matter which of these you think is the most plausible, because they all have the same effect. Remember, CivIII is an abstract game.

When I play a game of civ, I like to asume that I am the LEADER of that nation, not an omnipotent god who has total control over all events. So, like every leader in history, no matter how powerful, I am quite ready to accept that some events in the world are beyond my control. This sometimes includes my citizens and soldiers, who occasionally follow their own political agenda and not my imperial will.

[Capt Dizle]

I get your point! But my problem is not the word
"culture". Its the dissappearing army. In MP this can be a gamebreaker. Abstract or not armies do not vanish like that.

Unless this is changed MP will be unplayable. If folks think the complaints heard so far are significant, just wait until people start to experience this in PTW!

[Kryten]

I agree. We do need an 'off' switch, so that people can play the type of game that they prefer.

(Mind you, can you imagine the 'fun' of seeing an opponent assembling a huge army in a nearby city, just when you apply a judicious bit of prapaganda against it..... )

[Cyclotron]

Losing garrisons should not be a problem if you placed them correctly, i.e. didn't garrison. No problem. If you play with Civ2 tactics (pile all units into newly captured city) you should expect to win Civ2, not Civ3.

[Capt Dizle]

Vanishing units is not good gameplay. I hope this can be changed.

[Coracle]

You all see the personal insults from the Firaxis defenders continue unhindered here. Typical.

I insulted no one, nor did my last post violate any TOS, nor was it personal, vulgar, or a flame. The many flaws with the game EXIST and Firaxis should have their feet held to the fire for this.

Jimmytrick, try not to be so pusillanimous. As for him finding allies, most of them are off playing other games by now. (anyone hear from Libertarian in the past several months?!).

Civ 3 - Soren's bad idea.