Unbelievable Culture flipping

[Theseus]

Hey Coracle, got any new observations?

When you're not ranting, I think you get the game pretty well.

[Tuberski]

I agree, Theseus, he does seem to have the game pretty well. The ranting all the time does grate though.

[Venger]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
I have only one thing to say about culture flipping: Hong Kong and the Panama Canal.

That's one of the more inane defenses of the ridiculous culture flipping of Civ3.

When the Germans took Paris, it didn't revert to Free French control a few weeks later because the Parisians 'admired the culture' of the Free French.

Yet you want to use the Panama canal as an example of a culture flip? Please! You have two situations where treatied lands were reverted back to geographical and natural territories. This isn't the natives overthrowing the local constabulary, this is nations deciding to revert control of colonial or territorial possessions.

Culture flipping is anathema to a quality Civ game.

Venger
P.S. And whoever the jackass is who said that Civ isn't a 'historical' game better read the f'in box...

[MosesPresley]

I think the man said it wasn't a "historical simulation". Your quote was definitely taken out of context.

Didn't East Germany "flip" back to West Germany? Didn't Hong Kong "flip" back to China? Didn't S. Vietnam "flip" back to N. Vietnam?

The game can't handle all of the complex ins and outs of international politics. The politics have been simplified to something the AI can understand. The programmers reduced these complexities to an abstract expression. This is of course, the culture flip.

Look at the USA civil war. Virginia seceded from the union. West Virginia "admired the culture" of the Union and stayed with them rather than secede. Virginia itself admired the southern culture and joined them. The game's mechanics simply cannot cope with these kinds of complexities. So the concept was implemented through the culture model. It is a distorted reflection of reality, but then so is the entire game.

I don't know, maybe we are talking about two different things here.

[Capt Dizle]

Good to see Coracle back, and in fine form too. Tubes, you make me laugh, isn't that about the 27th absolute last time you responded to Coracle?

I believe that the guys at Firaxis were sitting around trying to come up with something new to put in Civ3 and Briggs came up with the culture idea. And probably Sid said, thats the dumbest idea I ever heard.

Then they decided to put it in, just to see if they could sell such an idiotic concept to the public.

Thats my theory anyway.

[Venger]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
I think the man said it wasn't a "historical simulation". Your quote was definitely taken out of context.

Really? So what is it then? Read the f'in box.

Didn't East Germany "flip" back to West Germany?

Why didn't they 'flip' back in 1948? Of, that's right, because the Soviets wouldn't ALLOW it.

> Didn't Hong Kong "flip" back to China?

Uh, no, Hong Kong was on a 99 year lease from China to Britain. The lease expired and the island reverted to Chinese control. The Hong Kong citizenry didn't overthrow British empirical control of the island and overwhelm their armies - their freaking LEASE ran out.

Didn't S. Vietnam "flip" back to N. Vietnam?

God almighty, you can't be more than 18 years old. South Vietnam FLIPPED? Yeah, flipped under the crush of the NVA who rolled in with tanks. Culture flip? Yeah, that image of the last chopper leaving the U.S. Embassy in Saigon shows all those 'culture flipping' South Vietnamese trying to culture flip their ass to America and out of SE Asia. Perhaps you've run into some of those 'culture flippers' in Houston or San Francisco, where large local Vietnamese communities exist. They culture flipped all the way across the Pacific.

This has to be the lamest attempt to justify culture flipping around...

The game can't handle all of the complex ins and outs of international politics. The politics have been simplified to something the AI can understand. The programmers reduced these complexities to an abstract expression. This is of course, the culture flip.

Why not just reduce the game to a coin flip since we can't simulate all the 'complexities' of history? Freaking please. Culture flipping is something that worked fine at the margins of the Civs in the early game, when a size 1 outpost comes under the control of a nearby Civ, but it absolutely DOESN'T work when a blitzkrieging army disappears after a city is conquered and 'reverts'. Hell, it cost 2 armor to take the city but you lose 10 when it reverts. INDEFENSIBLE game design.

> Look at the USA civil war. Virginia seceded from the union. West Virginia "admired the culture" of the Union and stayed with them rather than secede.

Oh my f'ing God, and I thought the Vietnam example was a steaming pile... Virginia culture flipped to the South? Are you CRACKED?

> Virginia itself admired the southern culture and joined them. The game's mechanics simply cannot cope with these kinds of complexities.

It doesn't have to. You've been busy trying to support the flawed theories while ignoring the in game facts - culture flipping doesn't reflect the U.S. Civil War, it in no way tries to. The South didn't join France, it seceded to become it's OWN nation. Mind you, in Civ2, if your capital fell, this could happen to you. They seemed to be able to figure it out in Civ2 without culture flipping...

So the concept was implemented through the culture model. It is a distorted reflection of reality, but then so is the entire game.

A granary is a distorted reflection of reality. Culture flipping is a horrendously failed attempt to make sure people go to all the trouble to build universities and cathedrals. Mind you, they couldn't find any other way than this NONSENSICAL culture flipping. I stopped playing a 1.21 game after taking a city on my enemies southern coast, establishing a beachhead, only to have it revert back destroying my armies within. And no, I shouldn't need 12 armored divisions to hold a city it took 2 divisions to take.

I don't know, maybe we are talking about two different things here.

I'll say...

Venger

[MosesPresley]

Venger, you are now ignored. You obviously can't read and you are needlessly rude to boot.

[notyoueither]

He's po'ed about a game feature that drives him to distraction and being told 'there, there your displeasure has no basis in reality.'

In other words, it's a hot topic. If you dismiss the positions of the people you disagree with on a heated issue, expect the flames to rise.

Tell me Moses, when did any major army just up and disappear with out a trace? The real issue to me is not the flip. It's the 1st SS Panzer Corps getting blottoed by a bunch of brick throwing peasants with no survivors from the military. I know I can prevent it. But I don't like the measures I have to use to do so. I would much rather leave liberated populations alone and have a portion my units retreat when a flip occurs. I think many of the 'complainers' would be quite happy with that. I could be wrong though.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by YuMMz
I really like Civ3 but someone really has to come up with a way to improve the serious annoyances of culture flipping. I am attaching a save game that really proves my point. I am Rome and am currently the games main superpower, and am on the verge of overtaking the world. Yet Egypt who has ONE 1pop city left somehow manages to culture flip one of my cities with 7-8 military units in it..... . . . Thanks for reading my rant!

Thanks for posting the game. First, you have 5000 gold and haven't rushed the temples. There are nine egyptian natives in New York and they outnumber your garrison. They get some idea in their heads that they are going to restore the Egyptian monarchy, and one night burn a bunch of buildings down. What's the big deal? You have tanks in nearby Seattle and can easily retake New York.

Basically, you are complaining because you lose an inconsequential city, of no strategic value, with a small garrison, losing 8 units out of an army of 276 infantry and 45 tanks. Meanwhile, your allies, the Chinese, have sent a huge army to take out the Egyptian capital (which you can see after you hit the end turn). I wouldn't sweat a bunch of would-be revolutionaries. They are the last gasp of an old regime.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by notyoueither
He's po'ed about a game feature that drives him to distraction and being told 'there, there your displeasure has no basis in reality.'

In other words, it's a hot topic. If you dismiss the positions of the people you disagree with on a heated issue, expect the flames to rise.

Tell me Moses, when did any major army just up and disappear with out a trace? The real issue to me is not the flip. It's the 1st SS Panzer Corps getting blottoed by a bunch of brick throwing peasants with no survivors from the military. I know I can prevent it. But I don't like the measures I have to use to do so. I would much rather leave liberated populations alone and have a portion my units retreat when a flip occurs. I think many of the 'complainers' would be quite happy with that. I could be wrong though.

I suppose my original post was too flip, which naturally prompts the wrong kind of reaction. You are correct, no army just ups and disappears, everyone knows that.

The point I was trying to make is that the game is an extremely dumbed down version of history. The game designers had to make certain concessions in the making of the game. It appears, and I certainly don't know this for certain, that they were trying to mimic such historical events as Hong Kong going back to the Chinese e.g.

This issue is obviously never going to be resolved.

Over and out.

[notyoueither]

You are right that the game is an extremely abstract version of history. The thing that offends many on this issue is the effect on game play of the disappearing armies (I believe). No problem with abstract from me, as long as it plays well.

As far as resolution goes... various Firaxians have said that a very large number of ideas from boards like these are implemented in the game. So maybe in the end we will all be happy.

Think happy thoughts.

[YuMMz]

Zachriel: If you noticed I rushed every temple but New York (which just went out of revolt this turn), and that was due to the fact that I had saved and lost the city and on the reload didn't rush it since it was a waste of my 300gold. What I am getting at with this post is the unreasonable nature of culture flipping at times. I am using this savegame as a example, since I don't have any saves from earlier when the culture flipping actually drastically effected my war efforts. Also losing this unimportant, unstrategic city is just damn annoying. This is not the first city I lost this game, as it so happens I lost 3 cities in the war with the Germans, 2 Babylonian cities, and 2 Egyptian cities (including this one). I hate the have to save every turn because I consider it cheating but I will be damned if I will lose a war because I move my main assualt force into a city and it flip and I lose every unit in the city without warning. This just happened to be the last straw. In earlier times losing 8-10 units can be pretty devastating to a civ and delay a war by quite a few turns. And any war delay will most likely result in 1 or 2 more cities culture flipping back (ugh!). They need to either allow you to disable culture flipping (if there is a way now please tell me) or change its effects and give you some kind of warning. There is no way those New York citizens would kill EVERY single unit stationed in their city in a revolt. Give me 75% of my force back or something! I love how a previously spearman/rifleman garrisoned city killed numerous tanks and infantryman.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by YuMMz
Zachriel: There is no way those New York citizens would kill EVERY single unit stationed in their city in a revolt. Give me 75% of my force back or something! I love how a previously spearman/rifleman garrisoned city killed numerous tanks and infantryman.

That is incorrect. Thousands of Somalis can indeed do a lot of damage to an occupying force. Better to keep your forces stationed out of the city. That way when they overrun any troops in the town, you can rescue them with forces stationed out of town.

More generally, you just need to develop a sense of when your troops are in a dangerous situation. If they are, and you decide to proceed anyway, then that is just the breaks. Flip mechanics are a quite playable aspect of the game. In a recent game, I stationed 30 stealth bombers in a newly conquered city. Of course, I had plenty of garrison, about 30 units in a city of 10. In another city, I lost 8 mechs in a city of 24. I knew it was chancy, but wanted to hold the railhead there without committing a lot of troops. It didn't work. In any case, I retook the city and ended the war within a couple of turns.

"Tell high command that the town is pacified."
"But sir, there are strange whispers in the night."
"We will not let this town stand in the way of our glorious advance. The town is pacified. Look at the happy people. They always smile when they see me."
"Yes sir. But those smiles are exactly what makes me nervous."

[Capt Dizle]

I am supremely confident Firaxis will have this awful problem fixed for PTW. The hue and outcry heard regarding the flippin flip so far would be magnified by a factor of 10 if allowed to go multiplayer.

No one in their right mind would invest time in a MP game only to see it decided not by player skill but by the arcane and inane vagarities of some barely comprehensible, illogical mathematical goobledeegook.

Military units do not go poof.

[Solver]

Jimmy, let me ask you this:

1. What do you say to that it's players' skills who determine can they build much culture, while also attending to other needs?
2. Would it be all right if the military units also flipped to the owner, with the city.

[Kryten]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I am supremely confident Firaxis will have this awful problem fixed for PTW. The hue and outcry heard regarding the flippin flip so far would be magnified by a factor of 10 if allowed to go multiplayer.

No one in their right mind would invest time in a MP game only to see it decided not by player skill but by the arcane and inane vagarities of some barely comprehensible, illogical mathematical goobledeegook.

Military units do not go poof.

Please forgive me if I'm wrong Jimmytrick, but you seem to give the impression that the only way to win a multiplayer game is by total military conquest of the world. Is it not possible to win a MP game by one of the various other methods that Civ3 offers, and 'flips' could be used by shrewd players to gain that alternative victory (please feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted you ).

But I do have a confession. As I posted in the "Decline & Fall of Empires" thread, for the last 6 months I have been a stern supporter of 'culture-flipping' and have argued tooth 'n nail trying to defend it. But I have finally realised that it is flawed, unhistorical, unrealistic, needs to be improved, and is a TOTALLY ARTIFICAL mechanism added to the game for play balance purposes only that has no equivalent in the real world, at least not in its present form (sorry Zachriel ). I realised that I was only defending it beause it's in the game! If some other mechanism had been included then I would probably be defending that instead. The basic idea was good, but the execution of vanishing garrisons, instant 'flips', no warning, and joining the nearest superpower does not fit what happens in the reality, or makes good gameplay.
I am not against 'flips', but I'd like them to be more representative of the events that happen in the real world and less 'artificially created for game balance purposes'.

You could say that I have been "seduced by the dark side"!

[notyoueither]

I hope they leave flipping in and allow some of the garrison to survive and escape to your capital.

Flipping itself adds dimension to the game. For me it's only the disappearing armies that need to go.

[YuMMz]

Zachriel: Thanks for your replies, I still disagree that those 8 egyptian citizens who are way behind on the technological ladder could overrun my infantry and tanks. I decided to do a test and move as many units as I could easily do into the town. I ended up with 20 more tanks in New York for a total of 28 units. New York did not flip, which surprised me, I figured those 8 Egyptians would have no problem killing another 20 untis. I'm going to load and see exactly how many I need to stop the flip. I guess I can work around this culture flipping but I would still like a option to turn the damn thing off for us players who don't like the simplified code that determines whether the town flips are not.

Solver: "1. What do you say to that it's players' skills who determine can they build much culture, while also attending to other needs?"

Cultural building is a pretty decent part of my game and my culture level is usually the highest are second highest. In this situation the Egyptians RARELY built anything cultural. They took some Russian cities early game and held them for over half the game (approx. 90-120 turns and the cultural border around these cities never expanded so in 90+ turns they never built a temple in these cities. Yet somehow New York is awed by their culture? What culture? My culture lvl has to be 5x theirs. So having a good culture lvl doesn't mean much. Firaxis seems to place alot of the flipping chance into Capital distance, which is amazing since it is IMPOSSIBLE to destroy a civs capital until you destroy the civ itself..... Or you can just garrison 20-25 units per city, which would make it pretty hard to keep the war advancing.

"2. Would it be all right if the military units also flipped to the owner, with the city."

It would be alright if some of your forces escape to your nearest city. The problem I think firaxis has with this is it would be too easy just to remarch those forces and retake the city. But they could do something like if a 8 pop city revolt you get 4 defensive units and the original owner has 75% of his force retreat to his nearest town, maybe even 50%. This would make it still a reasonalbe challenge to retake and the owner would not lose all his units unjustly. The military units flipping would be 10x worse than it is now, unless the enemy flipped the city using subversion there is no logical explanation why your military units would suddenly decide to join the enemy who just recently killed their comrades.

[DeepO]

Before you go out experimenting yourself how many units you need, check out the Culture Flip Formula thread. It contains a precise equation how many troops you'll need (which can be huge in certain situations!), plus other tactics on how to counter flipping (on page 3).

Sorry to be advertising my own writing again, but somehow it seems easier to just point people to this thread instead of answering the same question over and over again

DeepO

PS: I agree that the new patch should contain an adaptation of the flipping thing, somehow changing the vanishing troops, but if Firaxis decides to cut the feature completely I'm going to launch a spamwar similar to what flip-haters have going now. Culture is one of the best additions to Civ3, and without flipping there wouldn't be a point in being good at it. Give builders a chance to grow too!

[Coracle]

Originally posted by DeepO . . .
Culture Flip Formula thread. . .
PS: I agree that the new patch should contain an adaptation of the flipping thing, somehow changing the vanishing troops, but if Firaxis decides to cut the feature completely I'm going to launch a spamwar similar to what flip-haters have going now. Culture is one of the best additions to Civ3, and without flipping there wouldn't be a point in being good at it. Give builders a chance to grow too!

First of all, we should NEVER have to bore ourselves with having to figure out a tedious "Culture Flip Formula" for even a single city, let alone many.

EVERY city should supply AUTOMATIC WARNINGS telling us a flip is possible, or likely. We get Treasury warnings when it is low, so do the same for the CF nonsense. It is entirely logical to assume your local governor would have some idea if such a defection is become too likely.

NOTE: "Culture", and "culture flipping", are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

Culture is fine if what it does is create a more stable and productive civilization, and perhaps make a nearby civilization jealous and less happy. Culture is fine for determing some borders is open terrain, or for having more Diplomatic influence.

But CITY borders flipping over some other civ's garrisoned fortress and resource is ridiculous, as is blaming the victim of that flip forever for the war that results.

Cities that have been part of one civ for MILLENNIA suddenly switiching civs is ridiculous.

Cities or towns flipping with a gigantic enemy army two tiles away ready to exterminate them is preposterous.

Disappearing garrisons being unable to knock off some population points or even put flipping cities in disorder is a freaking joke.

The "proximity to the capital" of the flipping city is another joke as the enemy capital JUMPS FROM TOWN TO TOWN every time you capture that capital. Unlike Civ 2, capturing the real capital city no longer matters.

Razing cities (part of the warped braindead CF phenomenon) is absurd in concept, and promotes genocide. A single damaged unit can turn a city of millions instantly into grassland, kill everyone, and process all the corpses (into pet food?). What a laugh.

No one ever asked for this Flipping crap in five years of forum discussions after Civ 2 came out. What we did ask for we didn't get. What we EXPECTED (scenario building; the Multi Cheat function) we also didn't get. MP too.

I want to be able to toggle off this CF garbage. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does it screws up an entire long game. Thank god for autosave.

[DeepO]

Coracle, I don't know why I'm even replying, I know you won't (or at least not with decent arguments). But here goes nothing:

You do not have to figure out the formula for every city, you do not have to calculate anything. The culture formula thread also contains general guidelines, but avoids such general rules of thumb as "use as much troops as there are foreign citizens and you'll be okay" which only work in general cases.

The point of my post was that people should not start experimenting how many troops they need, as it is very hard to observe (adding or subtracting one troop will chance the flip chance, so the next result will be different due to a different random seed). There is a confirmed formula which does calculate it, if people are interested in precise numbers.

Culture and Culture flipping indeed are very separate things, in that one is a abstract concept, while the other is an abstract consequence of it. There would be no point whatsoever if borders wouldn't flip, this means that he who has the first cultural expanding knows his borders are fixed. Instead, flipping borders are now (at least in my games) incentives to do better in my city that in the opposite city, rushing culture so that piece of land becomes mine again.

Further, the aggresive aspect of culture is totally ignored by you, which I presume comes from being a warmonger without the patience to play with culture. I can't count the times I succeeded in getting that border-resource without having to go to war for it, just because I tried to use CF in my advantage. True, it is not so immediate as going to war (in which you know within a few turns whether you win or not), but it remains a nice, good aspect of the game (at least in my opinion). Plus, it gives a different option to gain territory without having to go to war, which, as a builder, is one of the best improvements over past games.

I'm not going to discuss with you whether flipping is historically accurate or not, it has been discussed to death, plus it doesn't matter much.

What auto-warning is concerned: that more or less is a good suggestion. I'd like it, however I can't understand why you would. So far, a lot of your arguments are based on "we should NEVER have to bore ourselves with having to figure out a tedious "Culture Flip Formula"", so why would you need an exact number if you can't reason with it? I hated the decision to keep things abstract, the culture flip formula should have been included in the manual (under a section 'advanced' so that casual players aren't bored to death), like many other more technical things. There should be some option to check the flippercentage, or some warning. There should be battle statistics (like SMAC), which gave strength according to terrain. All these things were left out to make the game more accesible, and I don't like it. But I understand it, if only to avoid posts like 'my flippercentage was below 1% and the city flipped!'

So, when you assess your chance of winning a battle, you not only look at the ADM of the two units, but also to terrain, position, fortified or not. Why would it be so difficult to do the same with culture flipping? There are also a small number of factors involved, which can be easily assessed (except for the total culture ratio, but at least you have an idea), if you more or less know how it works you will never have unexpected surprises. And you don't need to calculate anything either, you don't calculate battle statistics, do you?

Last: you toned down your rant of 'capital distance is everything for flipping', and changed it to 'culture is everything'. You might want to check that thread again, you should change it to 'happiness is everything'. Culture may be the biggest overall factor, happiness is the most immediate cause and solution to flipping problems. Digging into a (simple) formula does have it's advantages, doesn't it

DeepO

[Phil_de_geezer]

I don't mind culture flipping during peacetime as this represents the spread of a certain culture but flipping during a war is daft. A city should only be able to flip back during a war IF the city it left without a garrison.

Another problem with culture is that it tends to benefit larger civs. A large civ with temples in all its cities would be likely to have a better culture rating than a small civ with cathedrals, libraries and universities. I think this is a bit odd as i initially thought culture was intended to help small civs. In this respect i believe culture flipping should be more localised.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Phil_de_geezer
I don't mind culture flipping during peacetime as this represents the spread of a certain culture but flipping during a war is daft. A city should only be able to flip back during a war IF the city it left without a garrison.

If it is left with too small a garrison, it may flip. If there is a large enough garrison, it won't.

[Phil_de_geezer]

If there is a large enough garrison, it won't.

I know the formula and the fact is you need a lot of units to prevent a flip in most cases. It should only be one as i can't imagine any number of civilians overcoming a military unit.

[Capt Dizle]

Military units do not go poof. They might be driven out of hostile territory, but they do not go poof.

I am sure that tens of thousands of gamers have put Civ3 back on the shelf after losing multiple military units to the idiotic poof.

Stop the insanity Jeff.

[Solver]

Tens of thousands? I've lost about two dozen units in my civ games

You're really becoming a sick troll.

[Capt Dizle]

Tens of thousands of gamers, not units. And that is my opinion.

I am not calling you names Solver, why are you calling me names?

[Zachriel]

-ignore-

[Solver]

I'm not namecalling you, I was just refering to you posting about culture flips in some threads not relevant to it. Just look... why do you have to do it everywhere? OK, if you think that flipping ruins the game completely and utterly, post about it in the relevant threads.

Also, I can't imagine tens of thousands of gamers put it back. Do you really think everyone encounters 20 flips a game? I don't even encounter a flip each game I play, and when I do, this is usually in my favor.

[Cyclotron]

jt, let's at least get straight facts before we say things like what you just said. It bothers me that you are "sure" about a figure you have no informaiton about, have never attempted to find, and have no means of knowing. The next time you are "sure," see that you really are...