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Shogun Gunner

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Potomac Falls, Virginia
Oct 2000 time: 00:32
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I've read the pros and cons about flipping in the forums.
One impression I have observed is that players seemed ticked off when they capture an enemy city, park their troops it for one or two turns, but when they go to move their military on to the next objective, the reduction of troop presence is enough to cause a flip. I would argue that is a nice check, both for playability and realism, on military campaigns.
In one of the other threads we are discussing "cold war" or "low intensity conflict" type warfare. (in fact many of the folks posting in this thread have posted on that thread as well) The discussion has been centered around what units would work, what capabilities would be present, and the level of user control (units versus abstraction). Additionally, the ideas presented regarding demographics in this forum are very interesting and I hope they are adopted. Both sets of ideas would work well together.
Lacking those in the current civ, leaves us with a higher level, perhaps clunky, implementation of partisan resistance or cultural conflict within a civ. There has to be some representation of resistance fighting, civil unrest and occupation.
Yes, perhaps clunky, but if some of these new ideas are not adopted, I would hope the developers would not remove culture flipping from the game.
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wrylachlan
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I think culture and nationality should be separate things. Nationality is which Civ a person belongs to. Culture is the cultural subgroup which can exist only in one civ, or cross boundaries and exist in 2 or more civs. For this to work, culture must be dissociated from borders.
There should be a different mechanism for borders - "Power" maybe? that expands until it hits another civ, then goes on further. The idea of your nations borders moving is... odd.
But back on topic, how would cultures work. At the beginning there would be hundreds of cultures which are each tied to a geographic area. The culture where you start your first city will be your Civ's main culture. When you branch out and build a city in a region of a different culture, the first population point is your main culture, but any population points after that have a chance to be the "native" culture. That chance goes up the farther away from your original city you are.
Eventually you will have a Civ with 1 main culture, and many subcultures, some of which will cross Civ borders into other Civs. If you treat a culture better than your neighbor does, his cities that have a lot of that culture's citizens will want to be part of your civ.
Any city that doesn't want to be a part of it's Civ, can do a couple of things. One - it can crank unhappiness untill the Civ is willing to trade it away. Two - it can create guerilla troops which are of it's own Civ, and try to take the city. Three - it's population can emigrate across to another Civ's city that has a large population of the same culture.
If it does the guerilla thing and manages to take the city, it then becomes a unique 1 city civ (unless this happens to a few cities at once...) It then has the choice, based on the potential future happiness of it's citizens whether to continue as an independant civ, or to subsume itself into the other larger Civ that has the rest of it's culture.
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POTUS
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How could I possibly not have a Mozambican flag, I mean, what other country has an AK-47 on their flag?
Jul 2003 time: 21:32
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quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan
I think culture and nationality should be separate things. Nationality is which Civ a person belongs to. Culture is the cultural subgroup which can exist only in one civ, or cross boundaries and exist in 2 or more civs. For this to work, culture must be dissociated from borders.
There should be a different mechanism for borders - "Power" maybe? that expands until it hits another civ, then goes on further. The idea of your nations borders moving is... odd.
But back on topic, how would cultures work. At the beginning there would be hundreds of cultures which are each tied to a geographic area. The culture where you start your first city will be your Civ's main culture. When you branch out and build a city in a region of a different culture, the first population point is your main culture, but any population points after that have a chance to be the "native" culture. That chance goes up the farther away from your original city you are.
Eventually you will have a Civ with 1 main culture, and many subcultures, some of which will cross Civ borders into other Civs. If you treat a culture better than your neighbor does, his cities that have a lot of that culture's citizens will want to be part of your civ.
Any city that doesn't want to be a part of it's Civ, can do a couple of things. One - it can crank unhappiness untill the Civ is willing to trade it away. Two - it can create guerilla troops which are of it's own Civ, and try to take the city. Three - it's population can emigrate across to another Civ's city that has a large population of the same culture.
If it does the guerilla thing and manages to take the city, it then becomes a unique 1 city civ (unless this happens to a few cities at once...) It then has the choice, based on the potential future happiness of it's citizens whether to continue as an independant civ, or to subsume itself into the other larger Civ that has the rest of it's culture. |

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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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How do you propose we "treat" a culture one way or another? In current Civ terms, the only way you can treat a culture poorly or well is to either have them in your civ, or go to war with another civ that has them.
The idea might very well be sound, but it needs some reworking as it is such a departure from current Civ that it won't fit without some other adjustments.
However, let's just assume that my question was already answered: I like the idea of unhappy regions having several methods of expressing that, leading to potential rebellions and so forth. I'd like to see those new "one city civs" be able to build and expand as a civ in their own right, and seek to become major players in the game.
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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Well, true. But a similar argument would be:
Once I got used to placing a unit on every single tile of a borderland that I shared with my neighboring Civ, then the AI stopped tresspassing.
I know that culture flipping can be slowed in Civ 3... but it is still a system that is very clunky, and could be improved upon greatly in Civ 4, and possibly with some of the suggestions in this thread.
And for the record, I am not one who likes to conquer the world with swords... I just find the system to be inadequate. You need absurdly high numbers of units to avoid flippings in many situations, those units vanish with nary a trace when a flip does occur, and there is no warning or way to stave it off except rush temples and hope you aren't already too late. It might not be random, but if definatly feels that way, and it isn't fun.
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Shogun Gunner

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Potomac Falls, Virginia
Oct 2000 time: 00:32
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quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan
I think culture and nationality should be separate things. Nationality is which Civ a person belongs to. Culture is the cultural subgroup which can exist only in one civ, or cross boundaries and exist in 2 or more civs. For this to work, culture must be dissociated from borders.
There should be a different mechanism for borders - "Power" maybe? that expands until it hits another civ, then goes on further. The idea of your nations borders moving is... odd.
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It seems you are calling nationality = citizenship and culture = ethnicity.
Let's take an example that's been in the news a lot recently = Iraq. By your example, Everyone living in Iraq has the Iraqi nationality. The culture subgroups are: Arabs and Kurds (in the north, near Turkey). Since Turkey, your neighbor, has a lot of Kurds in it's population, whichever country (civ) treats the Kurds citizens better in their own cities will have the opportunity to flip a city of the neighbor that have Kurds.
What is different than the current model? It seems you don't like the terms that's all. I think the idea is to interpert "culture" to be an amalgamation of military power, diplomatic power, economic power...perhaps even religious power, propaganda and nation-state rivalary.
Regarding the idea that a city could break away from the main country (civ, again), that I think I could be for this kind of kida...perhaps a little bit more detail about "the how".
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Shogun Gunner

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Potomac Falls, Virginia
Oct 2000 time: 00:32
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quote: Originally posted by Fosse
And for the record, I am not one who likes to conquer the world with swords... I just find the system to be inadequate. You need absurdly high numbers of units to avoid flippings in many situations, those units vanish with nary a trace when a flip does occur, and there is no warning or way to stave it off except rush temples and hope you aren't already too late. It might not be random, but if definatly feels that way, and it isn't fun. |
Use the "tried and true" method of putting every citizen to entertainer, let the city die off one pop point at a time, start to build temple, cathedral, etc. When the city becomes smaller, which by then, you would have pacified the resistance, you got an empty city ready for your population.

Shogun Gunner's Ethnic CleansingTM
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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quote: Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Use the "tried and true" method of putting every citizen to entertainer, let the city die off one pop point at a time, start to build temple, cathedral, etc. When the city becomes smaller, which by then, you would have pacified the resistance, you got an empty city ready for your population.

Shogun Gunner's Ethnic CleansingTM |
Well, yes. But I'll go out on a limb here and say that this approach isn't actually fun gaming, even if one does glean a certain demonic pleasure from it.
It's true that there are workarounds to the current system, but we shouldn't have to "work around" game models to avoid their negative results... we should work with them to get the results we want.
Besides.. the all entertainer approach is just a touch unrealistic...
IRAQIS: Please leave our country, invader.
BUSH: Dance!
IRAQIS: Hooray! We love the President Day!

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wrylachlan
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quote: Originally posted by Fosse
How do you propose we "treat" a culture one way or another? In current Civ terms, the only way you can treat a culture poorly or well is to either have them in your civ, or go to war with another civ that has them.
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Since you can control happiness on a city by city basis, you do have control over the relative happiness of a culture's people vis a vis people of that culture in another civ. If your border cities are happier than theirs, they want to joing you.
You could also do an absolute happiness mechanism, where if your civ and your neighbors are both treating the culture poorly, the people want to break away from both of you and form their own civ.
Another mechanism might be to do some sort of return of the city - connected military unit from civ2. Maybe each government type allows you a certain amount of free units, and every unit after that is attached to a certain city, thus causing war weariness. This would represent your regular army being fully deployed and you calling in the National Guard or Reserves. With that mechanism in place, you would get to pick and choose which cities experience the war weariness, by choosing which cities produce the Reserves.
quote: Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
It seems you are calling nationality = citizenship and culture = ethnicity. | Not really so much as cultural subgroup. To my thinking the culture is more attached to regional subgroups, so for instance you would have in the US. a New England culture, that has some overlap into Canada. A Southwest culture that overlaps into Mexico a bit, and a California culture that is totally unique to the US, among others. They don't necessarily break down by ethnic lines. They could also develop along the course of the game. So for instance the Southern Culture might develop in the US, with a dislike of the Northern Culture and cause a civil war. This would allow the same mechanism to be reused for both city flipping and civ wars.quote:
Let's take an example that's been in the news a lot recently = Iraq. By your example, Everyone living in Iraq has the Iraqi nationality. The culture subgroups are: Arabs and Kurds (in the north, near Turkey). Since Turkey, your neighbor, has a lot of Kurds in it's population, whichever country (civ) treats the Kurds citizens better in their own cities will have the opportunity to flip a city of the neighbor that have Kurds. | Yup, that's it in a nutshellquote:
What is different than the current model? It seems you don't like the terms that's all. |
What's different is that cities don't really "flip" any more. They emigrate and or revolt. Having the revolt create a new civ allows the creationg of guerilla units that don't create war problems between civs. In the Iraq example, if a Kurdish Iraqi city created a Guerrilla, it's nationality would be Kurdish. Iraq could try to quell the rebellion without pissing off Turkey. The Kurdish Guerrilla, since its part of its own sovereign civ(as long as it stays alive), could try to make a deal for help with another civ.
Essentially it makes the mechanism of flipping more realistic, and strategic. Why does putting military units in a city prevent flipping? Because if the Guerrilla attacks the city, you have some defense. If I am Iran and I hate Iraq, I can send a hidden nationality unit to help out the Guerillas and attack the city. Iraq will think its Turkey, etc. etc. There are a lot of interesting permutations of using this.
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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quote: Originally posted by wrylachlan
Since you can control happiness on a city by city basis, you do have control over the relative happiness of a culture's people vis a vis people of that culture in another civ. If your border cities are happier than theirs, they want to joing you.
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But how often would this matter then? We never see situations when a player has every city as happy except for that one, which happens to be of an oppossing nationality.
The way the current happiness works is, every city has exactly whatever number of happy people it needs to either not riot, or celebrat WLT?D. You would have to rework how happiness works to make your idea viable.
(Incidentally, I am all for redoing happiness, but in a way that may or may not be compatible with your ideas. I've posted about it before, but am at work so can't take the time to hunt them all down.)
quote: Another mechanism might be to do some sort of return of the city - connected military unit from civ2. Maybe each government type allows you a certain amount of free units, and every unit after that is attached to a certain city, thus causing war weariness.
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Ughhhh... Wasn't this one of the most universally loved changes from Civ 2 to Civ 3?
quote:
What's different is that cities don't really "flip" any more. They emigrate and or revolt. |
Well... I like that sentiment!
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wrylachlan
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quote: Originally posted by Fosse
But how often would this matter then? We never see situations when a player has every city as happy except for that one, which happens to be of an oppossing nationality.
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its not happiness vis a vis other cities in your civ, it's happiness vis a vis other cities of the same cultural subgroup in another civ.
quote:
Ughhhh... Wasn't this one of the most universally loved changes from Civ 2 to Civ 3?
| Yes, but the difference is that in civ2 EVERY unit was connected to a city, which caused a micromanagement hell. I'm talking about having a pool of "National Soldiers" which are not connected to a city. And then every unit above a certain number is connected to a city. Someone who plays a defensive game would never pass the limit, while a warmonger might have to deal with 25% of his troops being connected. The more you want to be a warmonger, the more micro you have to deal with with. As it currently stands this is represented by war weariness, but my suggestion would do away with a civ-wide percentage war weariness, and instead for every connected unit, that city gets some weariness. You'd mearly be trading the one micromanagement for another.
Note, this isn't an idea I'm totally attached to, so much as another way a specific cities happiness might effect their desire to rebel which was the point of my earlier post.
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Shogun Gunner

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Potomac Falls, Virginia
Oct 2000 time: 00:32
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quote: Originally posted by Fosse
It's true that there are workarounds to the current system, but we shouldn't have to "work around" game models to avoid their negative results... we should work with them to get the results we want.
Besides.. the all entertainer approach is just a touch unrealistic...
IRAQIS: Please leave our country, invader.
BUSH: Dance!
IRAQIS: Hooray! We love the President Day!
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Okay, first I'll admit to laughing when reading the "Iraqi-Bush" dialogue. But really, it would be a little different...
Iraqis: Please leave our country, you infidel invader.
Bush: Okay...I see ten of you rioting...rioter number 2, you are a comedian now; rioter number 3 you are a mime; rioter number 4 you are an elvis impersonator (and so on through the remainder of the rioters)
Iraqis: Hey, this guy is alright. Here's my gun, Mr. Bush, I've got a gig!
Bush: Good, everyone is happy now. Damn, I hate the micromanagement required to run America.... I thought Cheney was going to give me a slider or something... 
Iraqis: Yay! I'm so happy...We love the Foreign Infidel Leader...ummm.. Mr. Bush, why did Abdul croak from a lack of food? and Mohammed croaked yesterday...gosh, I'm a little hungry now.
Okay, back to the game....
I think maybe it's taking "entertainer" a little to literally. I don't consider the method used in Civ to pacify a city in resistance "a workaround." I think of it as anything a government/military can do to pacify the populous. That could be free food/water distribution; bribes; literally be entertainment (provided for the population - not making rioters entertainers ); work programs, etc. Really, thinking about it this makes sense. It's a financial push. The city is still functioning, but money/capital/effort is expended pacifying the city that it washes away any income from the city.
Does that makes sense? Better yet, did you enjoy Part 2 of the dialog?
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Peter Triggs
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Gone Fishin, Canada
Jan 2000 time: 05:32
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quote:
did you enjoy Part 2 of the dialog?
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I enjoyed both parts. Some of the discussion around here is really rather good.
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KingSquanto
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I agree with most of the ideas stated, and it would be good to be able to send citzens to workcamps or something instead. But heres an idea I concuted that would solve it in another way:
One way to fix the realism of an entire city juggling until they starve would be to give citizens more influence and to make them more independently thinking. For currently, you have complete autonomous control of you citizens, regardless of government or military. They should respond not only to you military conquests and your building choices, but more or less every decision you make.
For example, say you started making everybody in the town entertainers. They would be fine with this at first, but once people started starving, that would create immediate unhappiness. If they became suitably discontent, they would become insubordinates, and you would not be able to use them. But insubordinates wouldn't starve either, for they would sustain themselves, but without any surplus for growth, production, or matinence. If the insubordinates became even more upset (from something worse than starvation, presumably), they would turn into resistors. The resistors, unlike insubordinates, would produce growth, matinence, and shields, but only for their own maniacal vigilante purposes , such as producing guerrilla and new resistors. So as you can see, if they are a whole lot of resistors, you'll end up with a boatload of guerrilla, who will eventually mount an attack from the city. If they take it, they would have the choice between becoming a new nation or join a bordering one with similar culture.
To moderate resistor numbers, resistors could only be created under special circumstances. There would have to be a certain number of insubordinates (40% of city population or something) for one to turn into resistors. But their would be a 'bandwagon' effect, in that the more insubordinates or resistors produced, the more discontent other citizens would become, multiplied by the number of existing in-subs. The discontentment of the citizens (which leads to the above symptoms) would obviously be heavily impacted by culture as well. Maybe the regional sub-culture groups (an idea I like) would respond in different ways. For example, in the US, The northerners would be ecstatic when you abolished slavery, yet the southerners would start producing resistors faster than you can count. But would this be too much micromanagement? (and how did this post get so long?) Of course, you can kill resistors with military units, but you may have to fight them and the rest of the city may rally behind them. Communist/Monarchies would have a lot of an easier time handling resistors, but their would probably be more of them, and democratic resistors would be more inclined to non-violent protests. (like currently existing rebellions)
Sort of unrelated to this idea, I was thinking that every sub-culture type could have their own civ-types, say southerners are agricultural/militaristic and northerners are industrious/commercial. Possible effects of this would be southern cities would be happier the more farms and barracks you built, but may become discontent if you industrialize to much. Either this, or southern cities would get cheaper granaries and produce more food but would produce less shields or something. The whole nation would be effected by the ruling civ civ-type, which is the same civ type as that nations capital culture.
(p.s. thank you shogun, as you can see I did post, i hope you don't regret it )
Last edited by KingSquanto on 20-12-2003 at 08:02
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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Definatly liked part 2 of the dialogue.
quote: hat could be free food/water distribution |
Well... since they starve... 
But yes, I realize that it could represent other things like bribery or free cable modems for everyone, since it costs gold and shields.
Rasputin... your question is a good one. We'll get nowhere if we are all talking about different things without realizing it.
I, for one, am in support of removing culture as the basis of borders, and of city flipping as a result of "cultural influence."
Borders should be decided by politics, and should be rigid unless war or diplomacy change it. In the current system, if the USA builds a new city right against the Canadian border, then Canada looses some of their land, even if thier people were already "working" it. Tell me how that makes sense.
Culture can and should help to determine the likliehood of cities revolting, either to join other Civs or (most likely) create their own.
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okblacke
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I like the culture mechanism. I like city flipping. But I think it's time we gave it decent burial and moved on.
Borders are agreed upon between nations. Culture doesn't "radiate out" from cities very far or very much. It travels with people, with trade, with philosophy, with books, with music, with plays, with tourism.
It's generated geographically as a consequence of local conditions (including imported influences).
This can be abstracted as follows: Each pop unit has a culture comprising all of its influences. Iniitial pop units are 100% Babylonian, Thebian, Athenian, whatever the starting city is. When your first settler pops off your capital, it develops its own individuality. Now it's 99% Washingtonian and 1% New York.
With each turn, it becomes more New York and less Washington, starting with its creation, continuing with each move to its destination, and on from its founding as a city.
From the time of its creation, it individuates based on what happens to it. Breaking off from a city is a hugely defining event, as is wandering through the desert for 40 years, and finally settling a homeland. Non-representative governments, high taxes from a central government, fighting wars, and building local culture--these all cause the city to individuate.
At some threshhold, your new city--even your settler--could decide it was its own identity. Send your settlers halfway across the map for 150 years and they might break free.
What keeps cities connected to the motherland? The same thing that keeps them connected now: proximity, roads, rails, harbors. Say your New York settler steps east on a road you've made:
+Individuation for time
+Washington influence for proximity
+Washington influence for roads
+Washington influence, say, it's a worked tile.
A tile with a settler could produce extra trade, as a footnote (remember for later). The next step east takes them off the road:
+Individuation for time
+Washington influence for proximity
+Washington influence, say, it's a worked tile.
You could give a plus to proximity to roads, too. A city surrounded by roads but not actually connected to them would still get a lot of the influence.
The next step takes them out of the city radius:
+Individuation for time
+Influence for proximity (touching city radius).
You can see how Washginton's influence is less and less, while New York's individuation is greater and greater. Besides mirroring real life, tihs presents some good responses to some classic Civ problems. Your capital's ability to generate culture--and to pass that culture along with trade--constrains your ability to expand effectively. On the flip side, just let your enemies try to send a settler through your country to park on that little piece of land at the other side.
Now, as your settler steps toward its destination it's getting closer to Iriquois country:
+Individuation for time
+Influence (For the Iriquois) for proximity
Say you now found New York at the opposite edge of a desert, and you're slowly building a connecting road. The resultant city pop is a mixture of Washington, New York and Iriquois. Subsequent pop points are going to identify as "New Yorkers", so +individuation for that.
Should the Iriquois complete their roads, that will increase their influence over time. This may not result in a flip, but it may push the city toward complete individuation. While connection to Salamanca (or other Iriquois cities) represents a danger (to both sides), New York's value to the "country" as a whole is greatly increased: New York both absorbs and generates more culture, increasing trade and science to boot. (Border towns and crossroad towns are
By the way, "flipping" could still work in this model, because it can represent a city folding after token resistance to a small attack. (The Romans did this all the time.) Cataclysmic events could be induce flipping, too: revolution, certain wonders like Universal Suffrage, etc.
Is New York lost? No, "America" completes its research into Mysticism: "+Washington". "America" founds Philadelphia: +"Washington". "America" conquers an "Aztec" city: +"Washington" (or maybe -"Washington" in the wrong culture/time period). America completes the road between Washington and New York +++. If the Iriquois should declare war, all cities in the same country immediately boost their affiliation with the capital and decrease with the enemy. (Meaning the Iriquois could get very ticked at the Aztecs for starting a war while they were wooing New York.)
Even if New York flips, Washington can conquer it pretty easily, if done quickly enough.
Nationalism reduces individuation drastically. That is the point at which the cities become American, German, French as a whole. At this point, the identity could be reduced into a national score, like: 50% French, 49% German, 1% Flemish. Or the underlying city affiliations could be kept alive and recalculated turn-by-turn (so if one city flips, it could increase the odds of others flipping).
But even into modern times, cities might have enough of a mix of identities to be pretty comfortable regardless of who rules them. (Certain border towns between France and Germany flip every few decades, don't they? )
Anyway, apologies for the length. I was going for clarity here and kept answering the "but what abouts?" in my head.
The only thing I'm torn about is how to represent this in the game. Perhaps not at all, keeping it all behind the scenes. You'll end up with people screaming mad because they don't know WHY a city flipped, I suppose. Not putting in the details allows you to simply say: culture + connection + proximity + nationalism = good. Absence of those things = bad.
[ok]
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002 time: 23:32
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quote: Originally posted by Rasputin
Flipping might need tinkering with, but i still beleive you need to have something in game that represents a citys desire to kick out the conquerer once the army moves on. |
Remember Civ 2's partisan units? I sure liked those a lot more than flipping.
I also support representing a city wanting to kick out a bad ruler or conquerer... but flipping doesn't hack it. Paris didn't suddenly become French again during Nazi occupation, but in Civ 3 rules it would have been virtually guaranteed.
Unhappiness should occasionaly generate rebel or partisan units within the afflicted cities, which would then do battle with the garrison in the city.
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