How to avoid cultural flipping when taking over cities

[The Moose]

Maybe there's been a thread about this before, but I've found the following helpful:
If you take over the AI's capital, his palace will (afaik) be moved to the most populous of his remaining cities. So, before taking over make sure this city is as far away from his present capital, preferably on an island half across the world (you might have to pound a few others of his cities to a population less than that). When you take over his capital, his palace get moved far away. His previous core cities are ripe with corruption, so he might be willing to hand them over to you on a silver plate (for a peace treaty).......
I've used this strategy quite a few times and it worked out for me more or less.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I've only played on lower levels, but I find that the easiest way is avoid flipping is to make war using the Powell principle: go in with overwhelming force, or don't go in at all. I've never had a city flip on me once I've garrisoned 6 state-of-the-art defensive units, even if the capital is right next door.

[aaglo]

Yep, you propably need a lot of units in the captured city (to quell resistance and keep city from flipping). Build happiness and culture; temples & libraries & marketplace (provided with trade network - road/harbor/airport).

The foreign population also affects the flipping tendency, so you could starve the native population (this is a bit slow progress).

[fittstim]

Originally posted by aaglo
Yep, you propably need a lot of units in the captured city (to quell resistance and keep city from flipping). Build happiness and culture; temples & libraries & marketplace (provided with trade network - road/harbor/airport).

The foreign population also affects the flipping tendency, so you could starve the native population (this is a bit slow progress).

Actually, having a lot of troops in the city will make it MORE LIKELY to flip. I don't know if this is a bug, a built-in cheat or what but it has been proven over and over by various people on this forum (including myself).

If you stick a lot of nice, valuable troops in a freshly captured city and it flips, reload the game, capture the city but leave the troops outside. Violá! No flip. Weird but true.

The starvation was a good suggestion and doesn't take a long time either. Just switch all the population in the city to entertainment. The city will shrink by one each turn. Just remember to reset the entertainment each turn because the AI automatically switches this when the city shrinks. Thus in five turns, a size 6 city is reduced to a size 1.

Note: this strangely doesn't work when the city is in revolt. For some reason, the revolting citizen refuses to not produce enough food to avoid the population shrinking down to nothing...

[Jaybe]

Resistors don't need food.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by aaglo
The foreign population also affects the flipping tendency, so you could starve the native population (this is a bit slow progress).

That's usually my strategy. Another is to burn the city, and then pull in a settler the same turn and rebuild it. It will grow quickly due to the old improvements, and you get a wealth of slave labor to do work or serve as bargaining chips. It's a bit Shermanesk, but it works.

[ArmaGeddin]

I play on Monarch all the time and I almost never have cities flip on me. I always rush build a temple and a library within 4 turns of capture. I always try to save as much of the population as possible. I garrison troops only until the rebelion has ended and then I leave only one infantry type unit (spearman, musketmen, ect...) as I move on to the next city I plan on taking. I spend about 4 turns on average per city per attack group. So If I have three attack groups I take three cities every 4 turns. I produce infantry units in a steady stream from my core cities to send along behind my advancing attack groups to garrison in cities along the way. And I keep a group of 4 or so workers to follow along behind each attack group to build roads as needed.

My attack goals are usualy small, I almost never take more than 6 cities in any battle before asking for peace. I attack only those cities I need for what ever my attack plan is. ie... Improving my property line. Expanding my empire. Whacking back a large civ by killing his core cities. Taking a resource citiy, ect...

[Traelin]

Originally posted by The Moose
If you take over the AI's capital, his palace will (afaik) be moved to the most populous of his remaining cities.

Actually this isn't true. I demonstrated it in a previous game when I was the Americans. The French capital moved to a less populous city. It must be based on other factors.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

One thing Ive done in a recent game is capture cities then sell every possible improvement to raise some gold before abandoning them after my troops have healed for 1 or 2 turns.

In late game you can raise quite a lot of gold from this especially from an advanced civ.

[dac]

Never tried this before, but here is a link from Firaxis discussing exactly how city flipping is calculated:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...322#post698322

apologies if I screwed up the link.

[player1]

Simple.

Always starve foregin pop if city is big.
If will quickly regrown later, and new pop will be of you own nationality. Addin your own worker in could be good too.

Also, buy Temple ASAP, in order to expand city culture to radius of 2.

If you are using Desp. Of Comm. then POP rush Tempe. You do two things in cost of one.

[Coracle]

Culture Flipping is absurd, unrealistic, and I will play no game with it. It happens far too randomly, and often ruins the game.

Check this thread to see how ridiculous it truly is:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...nally+Happened

[The Pioneer]

Blah, blah, blah.... aren't you tired yet Coracle? What you should be asking yourself is "Why do I stay with the game so long, if I don't like it?"

Well I had a few captured cities flip back but the it was a rare occasion and an interesting turn of events to say the least. Conquest happens a lot slower in Civ 3 mainly because of the flipping factor. You have to secure your cities before you proceed to the next one. I usually move a lot of units in a city, usually absolete units that follow my attack. I then combine them with a couple newer defensive units.

So long....

[vmxa1]

Flipping is not much of a factor, but you can disable it anyway, what is there to cry about?

[player1]

Originally posted by Coracle
Culture Flipping is absurd, unrealistic, and I will play no game with it. It happens far too randomly, and often ruins the game.

But what that has with this topic.

Since the topic is: How to avoid cultural flipping when taking over cities?

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by fittstim

Actually, having a lot of troops in the city will make it MORE LIKELY to flip. I don't know if this is a bug, a built-in cheat or what but it has been proven over and over by various people on this forum (including myself).

If you stick a lot of nice, valuable troops in a freshly captured city and it flips, reload the game, capture the city but leave the troops outside. Violá! No flip. Weird but true.

NOT TRUE! NOT TRUE!

This has been brought up on the boards before and you've miss understood something fundamental.

Even under the worst circumstances, the odds of a flip are still low (though it doesn't seem that way when it happens to you), say 1 in 10 or 1 in 20. So it you reload and do ANYTHING you are more likely NOT to have a flip.

Moving troops into a city does decrease the chance of a flip.

[bongo]

Originally posted by TacticalGrace
Even under the worst circumstances, the odds of a flip are still low (though it doesn't seem that way when it happens to you), say 1 in 10 or 1 in 20. So it you reload and do ANYTHING you are more likely NOT to have a flip.

Moving troops into a city does decrease the chance of a flip.

Right on!

The two most important factors in a flip is foreign nationals and other civs culture overlapping a city's 21 tiles. There are other modifiers of which troops is the least significant.

Maximum change for a flip any given turn is 10%(which give a worst case of 65% change for a flip in 10 turns)

My strategy is as follows

1 Push back enemy borders.
2 Remove foreign nationals.

In that order. There's nothing wrong with doing both at a time.
Until I have reached #1 all I do is to make sure the city is not rioting. After #1 is accomplished I start to quell resistance, build temples, starve citizens ..

[SMIFFGIG]

Why does everyone hammer down Coracle, leave him too his opinion

Just cause he may find Civ3 a poor substandard game, doesnt mean to say the (majority) on this board have to bring him down for everything he says

HES RIGHT

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Coracle
Culture Flipping is absurd, unrealistic, and I will play no game with it. It happens far too randomly, and often ruins the game.

Check this thread to see how ridiculous it truly is:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...nally+Happened

Hrm I never have it happen to me (i.e., my cities never flip), so you must be doing nothing but warmongering and building no cultural improvements. And we all know what happened to RL Civs with no culture. *Poof*

[Traelin]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Why does everyone hammer down Coracle, leave him too his opinion

Just cause he may find Civ3 a poor substandard game, doesnt mean to say the (majority) on this board have to bring him down for everything he says

HES RIGHT

We "hammer" him because it's the same record skipping over and over and over and over and over. Plus he obviously enjoys the game or he wouldn't keep posting the same thing. People who are truly frustrated will post once or twice and vent their anger, then leave.

[Fitz]

Here is my old thread on the culture flip fomula, based on part on the thread linked to earlier in this thread.

Basically, your options poil down to:

Garrison troops
Reduce foreign poputlation (starvation)
Reduce foreign squares in production radii (conquer nearby cities/build 10 pts culture)
Get more culture in that city than they had previosly (can be hard in old cities)
Get We Love the King Day (hard with resistors)
Get rid of resistors (side effect of Garrisoning troops anyway)
Change distance to enemy capitol (ie conquer old capitol)

Of these all, generally speaking garissoning troops is the fastest. However, DeepO offers some good analysis of the most effective means on the last page of the thread I linked.

What's this about a 10% max chance of flip? I've never seen anything about it. Is there a reference, or is it just hearsay?

[Theseus]

Coracle, you crack me up.

Are you still playing (with CF turned off, obviously)?

OT: I still say, if religious you gotta try Commie poprushing.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Why does everyone hammer down Coracle, leave him too his opinion

Just cause he may find Civ3 a poor substandard game, doesnt mean to say the (majority) on this board have to bring him down for everything he says

HES RIGHT

As was mentioned it is due to scores of post he has made saying the same thing over and over. He claims to not even have PTW and still chimes in on it.
I am not even sure he believes what he says and may post just to get a reaction. Many people have come on the board in the early days and made their points and left it at that and they were respected. After all of these months why would any one come here to repeat themselves?

[player1]

By the way, I am curious.

What exaclty Coracle doesn't like in Civ3 exept culture flipping, and Firaxis PR?

[ArmaGeddin]

Well, with the advent of PTW culture flipping can be turned off so his post is without any basis anyway. His point of not playing any game that allows culture flipping is mute. And thus his whole posts only point is to vent his frustration at not being able to beat the AI.

So he is pissed because he looses all the time and he is crying in the forum about a game feature that no longer effects his game.


Looooooooooooosssseeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr!

[vmxa1]

I do not begrude anyone from not liking a game. My best friend liked every game I gave him, except Civ2. He did not care for it at all. I was shocked, but no way to change that opion, so it was forgotten.

[The Pioneer]

Originally posted by player1
By the way, I am curious.

What exaclty Coracle doesn't like in Civ3 exept culture flipping, and Firaxis PR?

You should flip your question and ask what he likes, you will probably get a much shorter and swifter response to that question!

By the we do not hammer on Coracle, it's he that plays like a badly scratched DVD where the scene gets stuck for eternity!

So long...

[Redstar]

I found culture flipping too darn annoying with the first release of civ 3.

But it hardly ever happens any more with the last few patches.

plus if you take over a city surrounded by the enemy..it is liable to flip within 3-4 turns (unlesss you speed up your culture improvements). To make real sure you just capture many cities on the same turn...then the chance goes down.

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by ArmaGeddin
Well, with the advent of PTW culture flipping can be turned off so his post is without any basis anyway. His point of not playing any game that allows culture flipping is mute.

by mute do you mean it is silent...???

do you mean that it is a moot point?

[Grumbold]

Don't bash Coracle for repeating his opinions. Everything said in the thread here is a repeat of what has been said before since this topic has been discussed so much. If you have to bash him do so for being off-topic.