New Idea to Prevent Losing Huge Armies to Defection

[nato]

I really dislike losing large armies to cultural defection. My earlier suggestion of using the diplomatic kick-out function on units in a defecting city got mixed reviews ... here is a new idea.

I really don't think anyone enjoys losing very large armies this way. I don't think many people enjoy the solution of garrisoning recently conquered cities with a number of units equal to its population size.

My new idea is pretty simple: if you have 3 (or maybe 4 or 5, the exact number is negotiable) military units in a city, that city cannot defect or revert to a civ that you are at war with.

Cities with less than 3 (or 4 or 5 or whatever) military units are treated normally. All cities still defect as normal to civs you are not at war with.

This way you still need garrisons for conquered cities, but they don't have to be ridiculous 12 or even 20 unit ones. Best of all, your gigantic 30 Tank + 30 Artillery legion will never just vanish.

A cool option would be to be able to enforce this no-convert-due-to-3-troops thing even to civs at peace, but eventually suffer huge happiness penalties ... this would simulate martial law. However that is just a little side idea, not really important.

Anyone like this idea? I think it would be effective, still slow down conquest, and not be impossible to program.

Thanks for reading.

[nato]

I myself am not fanatical about this sort of thing, but I just remembered that someone posted something similar to this in the thread presenting my original idea.

This is a partial quote from Andy:

IMHO the answer is to simply not allow cultural defections during times of active war.

I had forgotten about his post, but after making mine I remembered it, and felt I better credit him with the no defection while at war part.

Thanks Andy!

[GodSpawn]

I'm not convinced. You could then just stay at war with other Civs to prevent cultural assimilation. That's a huge advantage to staying at war. I suppose it depends on how easy you want to make the game.

It'd certainly make it feasible to blitzkrieg an entire civilisation - if you knew the cities wouldn't revert, you'd just keep the minimum number of units in each city that you took, and keep going until the entire civ was eradicated.

You certainly wouldn't want to stop the war after taking 20 or 30 enemy civs - they'd start reverting wholesale! Your only option would be to keep going. Fine, if that's what you'd want to do (but I wouldn't).

[Grumbold]

[double]

[Grumbold]

I think the limit should be the same irrespective of the war situation, but there needs to be a fixed AF or DF strength that will hold a city under rigid military law (so tanks or infantry work better than spearmen). Beyond that point the city might go into rebellion for a turn but absolutely cannot revert to their mother country and take all your troops with it. Personally I would set that limit at around 3 DF per pop point. So city with six foreign heads would need eighteen warriors, five muskets or two infantry to ensure it could not revolt.

On the point o seizing 20 cities, reversion chance is based partly on relative distance to capital so you could sue for peace provided you moved your capital up close. Might lose a few but certainly not all. Even better, wait until you've forced their capital onto a different island

[Soapyfrog]

My solution is to save at the end of every turn, and then if a city defects I return to the end of the last turn and move all the units out of that city.

Technically this is cheating, however I use it as a mechanism to patch what I see is a fairly serious flaw in the game. In any case, I can count the number of times a city of mine has defected on the fingers of one hand after hundreds of hours of play.

[player1]

Originally posted by Soapyfrog
My solution is to save at the end of every turn, and then if a city defects I return to the end of the last turn and move all the units out of that city.

In that case:
I usually put several units more, so city doesn't defect.
It worked always for me.

[Zachriel]

When Rome sent Marc Antony to the eastern Empire to firm up Roman control, Antony and his legions changed sides to Egypt. Then, Antony took lands from Israel and added them to Egyptian control.

When it looked like the Taliban was going to lose, many tribes changed sides to the U.S., taking their armed forces with them.

A decade ago, the Soviet Union disappeared and the original countries from which it was formed reappeared. The Soviet military is currently looking for employment in the private sector.

Once you understand how culture works in the game, it is largely preventable, and can even be used to advantage. Basically, old cities have culture, new or newly-conquered cities do not. Here is an example:
http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/Culture.htm

[Satis5d]

It seems to me that a simple and effective solution to the problem of losing troops to cultural conversion is to have all foreign troops (yours) either expelled to your capital (as spies were in civ2) or expelled to the exterior of the new civ's cultural border (as regularly happens in Civ3 while exploring).

I think this discussion has focused too much on cultural flipping when the real gripe is losing the armies. I think that realistically this is better all around. Sure, a conquered city could revert, and could do it rather quickly after being conquered. However, if the civ that previously dominated that city still has a strong army, they are likely to attack that city again.

Personally, I'd like to see my units expelled to the cultural border but make it easier for the cities to overthrow my rule. It's sort of like the partisans in Civ2; they were annoying, but they didn't completely prevent you from marching on.

Losing your military to a cultural flip is a bad gameplay feature. Even if a percentage of my military defected I would accept that, but not armies and not all of my troops!

[FNBrown]

Just raze the enemy cities as you conquer them, if you don't have the cultural rating or military force to keep them.

[cutlerd]

I just put a single military unit in a city and then station 2-3 outside of it. If it defects...who cares? You lose 1 unit (usually a wounded one) and then you retake the city with those stationed outside of it. I do this every game and it works just fine. As your front expands eventually they stop revolting.

Devin

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Satis5d
Losing your military to a cultural flip is a bad gameplay feature.

No one responded to the cultural flip of the eastern Roman Empire. Marc Antony prefered becoming an Egyptian God and partying with Cleopatra, than staying a loyal and dutiful Roman.

He took the territory and the armies with him when he defected. To recover those lost assets, Rome had to send in the Legions.

It is an irritating development, but certainly not "bad gameplay." This is Civilization, not PanzerBlitz.

[GeneralTacticus]

Antony didn't 'defect' to anyone. He fell in love with Cleopatra and since his troops were loyal to him they joined her. That is nothing to do with the idea of losing all your troops because the people they were occupying revolted. I think that in a *SUCCESFUL* revolt, you men should be either killed and/or booted out, but they should get a chance to fight first. And I like the idea of a certain amount of force preventing defection, but I think they need to give a value to the city. Maybe every two citizens is the equivalent to the second most recent draft unit, with conscript morale, and if the city revolts or you try to raze it, you have to fight them.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
Antony didn't 'defect' to anyone. He fell in love with Cleopatra and since his troops were loyal to him they joined her. That is nothing to do with the idea of losing all your troops because the people they were occupying revolted. I think that in a *SUCCESFUL* revolt, you men should be either killed and/or booted out, but they should get a chance to fight first. And I like the idea of a certain amount of force preventing defection, but I think they need to give a value to the city. Maybe every two citizens is the equivalent to the second most recent draft unit, with conscript morale, and if the city revolts or you try to raze it, you have to fight them.

And yet it's true. Rome lost Egypt and the Legions there. There is no doubt that Antony was seduced by Egyptian culture -- they were to make him a god. He would be immortal. Antony and Cleopatra made a play for power and lost.

[nato]

Grumbold - Thats a neat idea, using the defence factors. Hard to tell if it would be easier to conquer early or later, since both defence values and populations rise. Cool idea although probably too hard to program.

Cutlerd - That is not a bad work around, however it has problems. Any rush built temples or such are destroyed. The enemy gets a free defense unit that has to be killed. Finally, if your cities are so weakly held, they can be easily retaken.

satis5d - What you're describing was my original solution. I was real happy with it since that kick out function already existed, so it shouldn't be super hard to program.

When I posted the idea, a lot of people supported it, and a lot said I just didn't know how to play Civ3, kind of like this thread I guess.

I agree though, that would be my preferred solution.

The issue seems to be that a lot of people don't see the current situation as a problem, and so feel no need for a solution. Unfortunately its probably impossible to get a good idea of how many people agree or disagree.

Zachriel - Cool website, thanks for the link!

There may be few historical examples that can be contrived to fit the current model of defection. However I think those will be the exceptions rather than the rule. I can think of few situations that really match it, since in the game large armies vanish, and that just doesn't happen in rl.

In any event, realism only matters so much. Most of history is boring minutia but I don't want to simulate that.

I want to have a harder time conquering than in Civ2, and I really really want to have to have a garrison to hold conquered land. However, once the defending army has been defeated, you should not need a force LARGER than the army it took to do that to occupy the civilians. That is silly.

Garrisoning generally falls to lower quality troops and smaller concentrations of them. The big main army is busy on the front line fighting other armies, not occupying. There are a lot more examples of that than Marc Antonys.

I think my idea of requiring 3-6 units to garrison each city is LOTS better than requiring "City Population + 1" units.

In sum, I want to have to garrison my conquests. However, I want the relation between my garrison and my conquering army to make sense, and I don't want my units to just vanish.

Thanks everyone for reading and responding.

[RobC]

I don't think that time of war should be the determining factor. After all, should the citizens you recently conquered in bloody, fiery battles suddenly love you just because you sued for peace? I think a better idea is to reduce the necessary garrison to prevent defections by half (or 1/3?) when you specify that a city is under MARSHAL LAW. Cities under marshal law cannot produce or hurry anything (with severe restrictions on freedom, production is slowed to a halt) but can still grow pop, much like a city that still has resisting citizens. This solves the problem of armies getting easily gobbled up by a mob of citizens with pitchforks (if they are so powerful, why didn't they help defend the city from takeover in the first place?) but doesn't make it too easy, since you still need to add more military units if the population grows (and you have to import those military units, since you can't produce anything under marshal law).

[Venger]

To make sure this isn't glossed over, cities "reverting" after 3 turns and transporting your army to the border is asinine. Cultural defection is ludicrous when an army is present, transporting it to the border doesn't make cultural defection suddenly okay. Personally, the whole concept is weak kneed and utterly devoid of any historical or logical context. Even worse how it is done within the game.

Venger

[Skanky Burns]

I think that cities should only be able to defect the turn after they are rioting. I mean, if they arent upset, why would they bother revolting and risk their lives??

Also, i would much prefer armies transported back to my civ (retreating) rather than being nullified, just disappearing into a black hole. I wouldnt mind if my other garrison units were transported back to my nearest city, or even the capital. Even with only 1 hp left, to prevent rapid re-capture with the same units. I wouldnt even mind if 50% of my units didnt make it back, but losing the entire bunch is just plain silly.

That said, ive very rarely lost units to cultural flipping. However, when a size 2 city suddenly gobbles up 20+ modern armour units, you have to wonder.

[matso]

I was intrigued by the "no defection while at war idea"... however, I agree that it would cause too great an advantage for simply staying at war. And realistically, it doesn't really represent the possibility of a population rising up against their occupiers.

However, what about this:

If, while at war, the conditions which would now induce a cultural defection instead triggered, say, a massive underground resistance or the like...basically an offshoot of what happens when you take conquer a city now, except it lasts for a specific period of time based on population size. Rather than permanently losing all your units because of defection, they simply become preoccupied with quelling this massive uprising, and you cannot use them. That is, you cannot move them out of the city or attack units adjacent to your city. They still retain their defensive functions. Additionally, all the other factors that come with a city in revolt are present, but perhaps to an even greater degree. The length of time the uprising takes is dependent upon the city population size, and also the number and type of units you have within the city. Moving more units into the city can reduce the number of turns this lasts, but not below a certain minimum.

If by some chance you do not address the anger of the people you are oppresssing and you negotiate peace with their mother land, the city may now be ready for cultural defection... now, say goodbye to your units. Years of being stationed in a war-torn city with victimized citizenry has swayed their emotions... you failed them as a leader!

hahahaha... any thoughts on this???

matso

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by matso
If, while at war, the conditions which would now induce a cultural defection instead triggered, say, a massive underground resistance or the like

Doesn't resistance already emulate that by forcing you to station units as a garrison, or risk a flip?

But cultural reversion is different. That is like Marc Antony throwing in with Cleopatra and breaking from Rome, or like East Germany joining back with West Germany, or like Texas declaring independence from Mexico, then joining the U.S., or like a medieval lord switching sides.

The city and the armies defect.

[Dry]

Since I let them starve until they are size 1 or 2, I never had any city defecting - they may even produce some free foreign worker in the meanwhile.

Corrupted 2-size cities are much more easy to manage than corrupted 12-size cities.
And they produce the same 1-shield and the same 1 trade.

They are not corrupted? Ok, re-populate them with your own national workers/settlers

[Venger]

Originally posted by Dry
Since I let them starve until they are size 1 or 2, I never had any city defecting - they may even produce some free foreign worker in the meanwhile.

You'll never make that claim stick. If you take a size 24 city on an enemy continent, you can't starve it right away, because resisters apparently don't eat. As they are quieted, the computer automatically puts them to work the first turn, and they put food in the granary you have to burn through. Now by turn three, this city will have a high chance to revert unless you have 24 units in it. If you think for a minute you can leave 5 units in that city and starve it until it is size 2 without it reverting, you are playing some easy level or a highly modified ruleset, which I would want...

Venger

[Zachriel]

I have played many games of conquest, I rarely lose cities while they are in resistance. I only garrison one unit for each resistor -- not for each resident. Also, I run a very happy empire, would never starve the people on purpose, and sometimes there are no resistors whatsoever.

[cutlerd]

Cutlerd - That is not a bad work around, however it has problems. Any rush built temples or such are destroyed. The enemy gets a free defense unit that has to be killed. Finally, if your cities are so weakly held, they can be easily retaken.

I don't build temples until the city is stabilized. As far as enemies taking them, you position your units outside the city to block access.

Devin

[DilithiumDad]

When your rule is overthrown, all your occupying forces are killed. That is the only thing that makes sense. The revolutionaries don't politely request that your forces take a hike and they say "Oh, OK, bye!"

Losing your forces on reversion is designed to make conquest slower and more painful and difficult. At best you can take one ring of cities close to your capital then sign a peace treaty and build cultural improvements. I always max out culture on my front-line bases before a war. This helps.

[Spatzimaus]

The solution I liked was suggested earlier on these boards:

Bring back Partisans!
That is, add a "militia" type of unit, a cheap unit to build that requires no resource. This would be what you'd get if John Doe decided to get out his trusty hunting rifle, hop in his pickup truck, and go kill some of them Commie invaders. Recreational/Hunting weapons, maybe some random gear from an Army Surplus store (flak jacket, camo gear, and some night-vision goggles), and a knowledge of your home terrain can make for a pretty effective defender. Add to that a number of Vietnam vets who "misplaced" their M16s...

In the Ancient era it'd be the Warrior; in the Medeival era it'd be the Peasant (2/2/1); in the Industrial era it'd be the Farmer (3/4/1); in the Modern era it'd be the Redneck (4/6/2, gotta love them pickup trucks). By putting Warrior in this chain, it solves the upgrade problem the Romans and Persians have, where their starting warriors can't ever upgrade. Add that any of these units built automatically start off at Conscript level, and they become balanced.
Besides, tell me you wouldn't love to see Rednecks in a game.

Now, the solution for revolting cities was like this. If a city decides to revolt, assign a percentage chance of "uprising", based on relative culture values, city size, technology, etc.
Roll that percentage for each non-resisting population of the appropriate nationality in the city, count the number of successes, and then add the number of resisting population (all of whom would, of course, join the uprising, regardless of nationality). For each successful roll, or for each resisting citizen, the city loses one population point, and spawns two Partisans (of the best type available to their original owner), which immediately (still on the other person's turn) attack whatever units are in the city, but any defense bonus the defenders WOULD have received is turned into an attack bonus for the Partisans. They're using the normally defensible nature of a city to their advantage, sneaking up on the invaders and hitting them while they're weak.
If the uprising is successful, all surviving Partisans are destroyed and replaced with one high-quality defender, as before, except that the size loss stays.
(You could say that surviving Partisans turn back into population, but I think it's more balanced this way)

Example: In a surprise attack, the German army of Panzers has just invaded New York (size 20, all American), overwhelming the two American Mechanized Infantry batallions stationed there. Three turns later, it is determined that an uprising happens; thanks to the American high culture and technology (they're in the modern era) the game gives a 25% uprising rate. The Germans have defended the city with one Infantry, two damaged Panzer units under repair, and two fresh Panzers.
17 rolls at 25% later, it's determined that 4 population revolted (average would be 4), plus the 3 resisting citizens, gives 7 population revolting. 14 Rednecks are spawned, attacking with a 100% bonus (for a city) making them 8/6/2 (2 hit points each) versus the 8 defense of the German armor and 10 of the infantry (all with 3-4 hit points, except the damaged units). The Germans are eventually destroyed, but the city drops to size 13 in the process.

What do you think?

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
Bring back Partisans! . . .
What do you think?

That's what is so cool about this game. It stimulates a great deal of imagination and creativity. (Personally, I have no problem with the "reversion" problem. I mean Octavius had to deal with it, so I will too.) I too liked the partisan units.

[GeneralTacticus]

I still don't think that Antony really has anything to with this. The situation in Civ 3 defections is that the citizens that you are occupying have grown sick of your rule and are overthrowing it, rather than a leader deciding to join another Civ. Why therefore should all of the garrison go with it?? I agree that if the revolt succeeds, then the garrison should be mostly gone, but it should have a chance to fight first. In Civ 3 the situation in e.g. Israel couldn't be represented, because of defection. By that rule, the West Bank and Gaza would have defected to Jordan and Egypt respectively by almost immediately! Why haven't they? Because the Israeli army is too strong.

I like the idea about having partisans come out of the city, however I think the garrison should just get no defensive bonuses. And regardless of whether the revolt succeeds, there should be a LOT of collateral dmamage in Modern/Industrial times, representing tanks blowing up houses, arty and missiles missing, and generally the transformation of the city into a battle zone. I also think there should be the possibility for partisan units to spring up behind the battle lines and harass the invaders. They shouldn't be all that effective, but they should be good enough that you cannot just ignore them.

[Quokka]

The no flipping while at war option sounds the best to me. Makes sense too. Think of WWII, no matter how much culture the French had they couldn't turf the Germans out of Paris until a bigger army came along, and I don't think anyone will argue that Paris doesn't have a strong culture.
As for saying that you could just stay at war forever to prevent flips, that seems like a very expensive and unsafe road to travel. Firstly you can never trade with a country you are at war with. The AI will keep attacking you whenever it gets the chance and could sign Alliances against you. You have to keep a much larger military on hand to combat this slowing everything else down and it leaves you open to attack from other quarters, suddenly you are in a 3 front war all to hold a city.
Culture is a peace time pursuit not wartime. The Marines in Afghanistan are not there for the culture and you can bet the Taliban aren't going to get that airbase back because they want to play soccer there either, however it may revert back after the dust has settled and the Marines want to come home, not before no matter how nice the Afghani's ask.
Now if its a nice honest revolt I think there should be some sort of battle for control of the city and if the revolters win then the city goes back to the original owner. Not exactly sure how this will work but the sliding scale militia sounds like a good place to start. So resistors become revolters and if they lose they are dead, anyone left after the revolt should become your nationality the same way the pop does when you get a city in peace talks.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
I still don't think that Antony really has anything to with this. The situation in Civ 3 defections is that the citizens that you are occupying have grown sick of your rule and are overthrowing it, rather than a leader deciding to join another Civ. Why therefore should all of the garrison go with it?? I agree that if the revolt succeeds, then the garrison should be mostly gone, but it should have a chance to fight first.

Who or what says that reversion is revolt? Certainly with civilian resistance, it would be a revolt. Most reversions would be the local lord changing sides, ganging up with the perceived eventual winner. This happened recently in Afghanistan. Troops controlled by the Taliban suddenly joined with the Americans.

Antony -- and his men -- were seduced by the allure of a very wealthy, high culture civilization. The Romans thought they were just getting soft, self-indulgent and greedy. So, the Romans declared war to retrieve their lost provinces. With a slightly different result of the randomizer, Antony may have succeeded. This is very much like Civ3, where a newly conquered province reverts with the lands and the army. If you want them back, you may have to take them back.

Indeed, this may very well be one of the (numerious) historical instances of reversion that guided the game creators.