PTW Suggestion: Change Cultural Flip to Immigration Effect

[Architect]

Instead of entire cities flipping allegiances due to culture it would be more interesting for single units of population to leave one civ and show up in another civ in the form of bonus population. These immigrants could come in the form of workers or if that was too powerful then in the form of additional population points directly added to cities that had room for them. This way a cultural war could be waged and the effects wouldn't be as devestating as an entire city changing hands. As the population of a city gets smaller and smaller the chance of a full flip increases to where a size 1 city under cultural pressure would flip pretty often. Newly founded cities would always have some resistance to flipping for a "honeymoon" period (like 40 turns) as the founders kept the faith towards the motherland.

With this system you would see much more activity on the cultural front rather than the random and pretty rare cultural flip. It would give you time to react to cultural pressures and adjust strategy accordingly. You could also use this to gain population in a non military manner. In wartime, it would simulate the fleeing of refugees from a captured city (maybe at an increased rate) and reduce the devestating stack destruction that occurs today from a flip. A captured city could still flip destroying your stack in an citizen uprising, especially size one cites, but at least you could see it happening and then only have yourself to blame.

An interesting point to consider is whether the aquired population either as workers or citizens would retain their original nationality. If they did then it would make attacking militariliy a civ in which you recieved large numbers of immigrants more problematic.

Another thing to consider would be the total amount of a nationality present in a civilation increasing the immigration effect. For example, if out of 100 total population 25 of them where Japanese then the affect of your culture on future Japanese immigration calcs would be increased because of the strong Japanese cultural presense already in your country. This would encourge the joining of captured workers to cities too in some cases.

I think this change would make razing cities a more difficult choice.
It would simulate some real world cultural patterns.
It would stop the starving of cities to prevent cultural flips as these citizens would just leave rather than die of hunger.
It would alter the dynamic of culture in civ 3 to something interesting that a human player could play towards but not be so difficult that the AI couldn't cope.
Culturally focused civs like the Babylonians would benefit from this change and make them more challenging opponents.

Does anyone else think this would be a much more interesting way to represent cultural warfare than just mostly random city flips?

[ranskaldan]

That's a pretty good idea.

It certainly simulates a lot of things very well.

However, immigrants tend to assimilate after a few generations (2~3), how would that be represented?

[Imp. Montezuma]

Creative idea! But I want both the immigration an fliping. Let they make it an option in editor.

[civman2000]

Both should be there:

1. Workers have a chance of immigrating, they keep their nationality.
2. Citizens have a chance of immigrating, keep nationality.
3. WHenever a city grows, the new citizen has different probabilities of being of different nationalities. If a size 7 city has 6 Americans and 1 Japanese, there is a 6/7 chance of being american and 1/7 chance of being japanese. THis can allow minority groups to not get assimilated and is more fun.
4. You can sign anti-immigration agreements with civs, patrol your border for immigrants of certain civs, and try to stop people from emigrating by guarding the borders in order to decrease immigration. These should all come with nationaliism.

[zulu9812]

Absolutely not! Culture flipping is essential to the game! Without it there is less reason to build cultural improvememts and a civ game degenerates into a wargame. However, there are two changes I would make:

1. A pop-up warning if your city is close to flipping.

2. Not all troops should be killed. Hald dead and the rest retreat.

But keep culture flipping!

[civman2000]

Culture flipping
Immigration also

[Solver]

I love culture flips they way it is, but the immigration, at least some points of it sound good, too.

[Apocalypse]

Culture flipping in fine.

Immigration is also good, but it would seem better if it involved unhappy citizens from other cities going to your own.

[Solver]

/me waits till Jimmytrick shows up

[Nikolai]

I think the imigration idea is interesting. I'm too tired to write much more now , but I found this from The List. Maybe it's interesting for you?

1.7.4. Refugee:
Created when a city is captured. Number created depends on destructiveness of invading army as well as extent of differences in SE choices between the conquering and conquered Civs. Refugees have 0 ATT, 0 DEF, and 1 MOV. Refugees will try to travel to a city friendly to the Civ they just left, and will confer 1 population point to that city. They are controlled by the computer and can move through any unit. Attacking a unit with a Refugee on the same square may destroy the Refugee, which would carry a slight diplomatic penalty with it. Refugees mooch off the land, so if you’ve got too many camping in a terrain tile you cannot farm or mine in that tile because the refugees have eaten all the food and stripped all the resources.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Solver
* Solver waits till Jimmytrick shows up

Too bad, you'll have to settle for me instead.

Only one point: Culture was created as a balance to war. Thus, it needs to be important. The average player really is not affected by losing or gaining a few population points. By iteslf, immigration is an insufficient result of culture.

However, Harlan and others (including myself) have been working on an idea with both immigration and flipping... plus partisans... so if you are really interested, check out Harlan's Civ3-Gen thread "Culture flipping: solutions only."

[Jethro83]

I think the current system is to an extent fine. However, the cultural advisor should definitely give you a warning if a city is at risk of flipping, as well as giving you possible options to rectify the problem, based on your system of government, how many shields have been produced in the city already, and how much gold you have (in the case that you're not despotism/communism).

But immigration could also be in, until a settlement is down to size 1. Any cultural overrunning would then result in a flip.

[FrantzX]

What a little screen in the city view that would show you the percentage chance that the city will flip in next 1, 5, and 10 turns?