Culture flipping in elimination games?

[CiverDan]

Does anyone know if culture flipping will be turned off by default in elimation games? If not would someone lose if a city of yours was culture flipped, or would it have to be taken by force?

[Cyclotron]

Well, if it is an option in the noraml game, it will probably be an option in mp. I don't quite follow your second question.

[Coracle]

His second question is simple and so is the answer: YES, you would likely lose a game if a key city suddenly flipped and your large garrison disappeared magically into thin air. (See Alexman's "It Finally Happened!" thread for a particularly outrageous example of CF that ruined an entire game).

CF thus adds an ABSURD RANDOM ELEMENT to the game. If I wanted to roll dice and play craps I would, but unless CF can be turned OFF I won't play Civ 3. And since I can't turn this CF nonsense off without buying PTW, I won't play Civ 3 as Firaxis is getting no more of my money.

And I will be happier.

[ixnay]

Coracle complains about culture flipping for so long, and when they finally offer a fix for it he refuses to take it. Presumably so he can continue complaining.

[Blue Moose]

Originally posted by ixnay37


Coracle complains about culture flipping for so long, and when they finally offer a fix for it he refuses to take it. Presumably so he can continue complaining.

The hell? He has a right to complain if the fix costs money. At least look at it from his perspective. I don't think anyone can disagree that when CivIII came out it had major problems. I don't think anyone disagrees that the subsequent patches fix at least some of those problems. Coracle feels that culture flipping was one of those major problems that wasn't fixed. Would you be happy if you had to pay for all the patches up until now? It's the same principle, and I think it is a good one.

Admittedly I do sympathize with Coracle's position, since I feel there are too many things in Civ3 that are too given to chance (like combat compared to Civ2). It does detract from how much I want to play the game.

[Myrddin]

I do disagree.

On release Civ 3 had a couple of significant bugs - air interception didn't work and sinking ships with a civ's last settler could crash the game.

Compare this with the bug lists on EU2, the way that CTP2 saved games crashed or the delay in releasing MOO3 and Firaxis's record is not that bad.

Most of the other complaints are mattters of opinion on what Civ 3 should have been. Everyone can have an opinion but repeating it ad nauseum is not going to change the game. If you don't like the game, take it off your machine and move on.

[LionQ]

I was so happy with CivIII, that the bugs didn't irritate me. Although, when the first patch showed up, I downloaded it as soon as possible.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Compare this with the bug lists on EU2, the way that CTP2 saved games crashed or the delay in releasing MOO3 and Firaxis's record is not that bad.

EU2 had a few bugs, yes. And do you know what? The game has a huge fanbase(and I'm one of them). I could only wish Civ3 had the same fans as EU... But luckily, it's getting better here!

[Caliban]

Originally posted by Nikolai But luckily, it's getting better here!

Are you sure?

Well, I LIKE culture flipping and I hereby state that I will keep it turned on in all my games (except in historical scenarios, where it sometimes produces strange results... ever heard of a Greek city that joined the Turks by free will??)

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Blue Moose
The hell? He has a right to complain if the fix costs money.

It's not a fix. It's not costing him money; he doesn't have to buy it.

At least look at it from his perspective. I don't think anyone can disagree that when CivIII came out it had major problems.

Haven't played a game yet that hasn't.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the subsequent patches fix at least some of those problems. Coracle feels that culture flipping was one of those major problems that wasn't fixed.

Wrong. Coracle feels that everything should be his way because all other ways are stupid. CF is not a problem or bug; it is just a feature that some don't like.

Would you be happy if you had to pay for all the patches up until now? It's the same principle, and I think it is a good one.

And I think your comparisions are ludicrous. Nobody has had to pay for anything. Nobody. If you don't want the change, don't pay for it.

Admittedly I do sympathize with Coracle's position, since I feel there are too many things in Civ3 that are too given to chance (like combat compared to Civ2). It does detract from how much I want to play the game.

Making a game is a tradeoff. Civ3 combat has more chance, but Civ2 was one of the easiest games I've ever played. Any civ that was even one iteration of unit behind would be easily crushed.

All in all, it doesn't matter. Firaxis has made its choice. But please, don't convince yourself that

a) You have been forced to buy or do anything, and
b) That CF is some kind of bug or "problem" just because you don't like it.

[statusperfect]

Cyclotron7> I wonder what is worst. Coracles trolling or your Counter-Trolling.

[Cyclotron]

I wonder. Except that I don't insult people with childish names, I haven't been banned twice for insults...

Please note that my so-called "troll" wasn't even in response to Coracle. Please also note that that's not even a troll.

[statusperfect]

I guess Counter-Trolling was a bad word. No offense. How about Anti-Trolling? Still we have heard these complains a million times. Why care?

[metalhead]

Originally posted by Coracle
His second question is simple and so is the answer: YES, you would likely lose a game if a key city suddenly flipped and your large garrison disappeared magically into thin air. (See Alexman's "It Finally Happened!" thread for a particularly outrageous example of CF that ruined an entire game).

Coracle, please try to read the original thread question before ranting - your thoughts on CF are not relevant to the question of whether in a MP game, while playing ELIMINATION, a city flip will eliminate the Civ that loses it.

To actually answer the question instead of offering a repetetive rant that everyone has read ten times over, I would assume that losing a city to a CF in elimination would, in fact, eliminate you, at least according to the current description of the mode. I guess it remains to be seen if they will allow for CF to be disabled, although Firaxis seems to be pretty insistent on CF as an intrinsic property of the game, and I would deem it highly unlikely that it will become selectable, even in PtW.

[WarpStorm]

Jeff Morris has said that Culture Flipping will be an option in PTW.

[JonahFalcon]

I already wrote in my preview that cultural conversions can be toggled on and off - I prefer it on, by the way.

One of my screenshots shows the toggle.

[ruby_maser]

admittedly the option to turn off CF would be a nice feature to add for those who aren't micromanagers. Whats the big deal though? All this I'm not gonna play or I'm not gonna pay stuff is a crock... everyone in here is gonna buy or, sadly, steal that expansion pack. As for me, I never lost a city I didn't want to lose to CF... (barring those conquered territories that reverted back to their original nationality). It isn't some X factor that takes control out of your hands if you take the time to invest in the cites on the border of your civilization; however, if you don't want to do that... beware. It only marginally discourages warmongering too because you can always raze enemy cities and establish your own with an infrastructure already in place and the slave labor to exploit it.

[Cyclotron]

Yes, it is definitly confirmed that the CF toggle is in. As for elimination games, I really don't pretend to know.

Originally posted by statusperfect
I guess Counter-Trolling was a bad word. No offense. How about Anti-Trolling? Still we have heard these complains a million times. Why care?

You're probably right... I shouldn't care. That's why I don't respond to Coracle anymore... he's on my ignore list. I just saw an erroneous statement and tried to set it straight. With a little opinion, of course.

[XarXo]

Answer: P2P program

[CiverDan]

I was just thinking, culture flipping will not be that great of an issue on regicide game (except on small maps maybe) because no one is going to build a city in a location where an opponent can mass a few dozen mounted units in their own territory and reach your city in the same turn.

BTW culture WILL be important even if culture flip is off because it will be critical to know where units may be massing beyond your borders (true everyone will have tons of units roaming...but 1000+ culture cities do help (and they force armies of units to expose themselves to attack before they reach your city).

[Zero]

CiverDan has a point in that someone would have to be suicidal to travel all the way to your border to settle near it, since maps will generally spread you out and give you large space to work around yourself. If he does this, his city will be sucked away by your militray of cultural advantage so fast... and if he actually has empire that reaches to your border, he's either really good or spread himself too far for regicide games.

[Randolph]

I know this is a bit off topic but I wanted to note something on combat:
I like civ3 combat better than civ2, in fact I liked civ1 combat better than civ2. The almost sure thing nature of civ2 combat allowed for poor strategy, one could safely bet the game on the outcome of a single combat. Although this ‘sure thing’ combat may be appealing for those who like to win every game with the same strategy, for those of us who like more of a challenge there is something appealing about the randomness: So your tank just lost to a musketman, what are you going to do? Are you going to sit there and whine or are you going adapt your strategy to the new conditions. Do you set your self up for a situation that if you lose one or two combats that you “should” win, that you’ll be screw up your attack plans, or do you have plans for “what if” scenarios.
In regard to culture flipping you said that someone had a random city flipping screw a whole game for him? I can’t say I wouldn’t be pissed if an important city suddenly flipped on me, but if I couldn’t deal with it I’d be more upset with myself for putting all my eggs in one basket.
I have a feeling that people who have a problem with the more random combat (but lets face it, its not like it’s completely random, e.g. I’ve never seen 10 tanks lose to 10 muskets) are probably people who do a lot of restarting when their situation ‘wasn’t fair’, and re-load old saves when battle outcomes ‘weren’t fair’.
Maybe their scared of PTW because they know that their ‘eggs in one basket’ strategies will generally fail in multi-player to strategies that can better adapt to situations. Perhaps they just can’t except that they might lose games as well as win them. Personally I look forward to game I lose as much as ones I win.

[brianshapiro]

caliban, civs/govts aversion to other govts makes resistance stronger , also greece is small and tight with much culture; even in a scenario culture flipping shpuldnt cause problems
and also remember culture flipping doesn't just cover citizens of one culture opting to join another; but also covers mass migrations that displace cultures and ethnically different provinces revolting.
i suspect someone making a greek-turk scenario will set the culture points of each city VERY high

[brianshapiro]

note: high culture will also ensure large greek resistance to turks---better than setting culture flipping off. please drop the anti culture flipping nonsense of coracle, and the bs that its not historically accurate

[Caliban]

I don't by Coracle's "nonsense", as you call it. I just like to "rebuild" history in my scenarios. And if Athens joins Turkey just because I put one rifleman there instead of two I am somehow... surprised. And this happened in a scenario where I conquered Athens with Germany... Do the Greeks rather want to be ruled by Turks than by Germans?

But I did NOT say, that culture flipping was historically inaccurate, there are enough examples in the past...

[gsmoove23]

I love culture flipping. Their is nothing more enjoyable to me than setting my cities close to an enemy border investing tons in temples and other cultural propaganda just so a few centuries down the road one of their cities flips. I love cultural flipping until it works against me of course.

Ok, you have a large army, just conquered an enemy city and you think if you just sit all your hordes and military hardware down in the middle of the city their is no way these pesky little civilians are going to revolt. Think again. This happened to me 3 times in the same city, same game. Now I never claimed to be too bright but I was amazed, I kept on sending in larger and larger armies to see if it would happen again. It doesn't seem to matter how large your army is! Is there a fix for this? It seems to me that if you're willing to garrison a city with a large enough army you should be relatively safe from this!?!?

[WarpStorm]

You can reduce the chance of culture flipping to zero with enough forces. You just weren't putting enough in. If global cultural levels are equal, I think you need twice the foreign population and foreign worked tiles in units to prevent it.

[gsmoove23]

I'm sorry I think 10 tanks should be enough to quell any city

[Nyl]

I dunno. If Canada invaded New York City with 10 tank battalions, I think the citizens might be able to put up a good fight. I mean, all you'd have to do is drop some molotov cocktails out windows onto the tanks.

[Tassadar500]

I really like when i have CF on. It shows historicall accuracy as well. Its also a great way to secretly start a war. Even if in history no one has culture flipped they most probably didnt try that hard to defend it from the civ with glorious culture.