07-09-2004 05:13									#1
	Discussion on Culture (newb generated) Inflate your Upload Space

Just a couple of questions on strategy. I've spent about 10hrs today just reading and reading on strategy. All of you that play on Emperor/Diety I envy the Stephen Hawking in all of you.

After reading for a few hours yesterday I went home and booted up a game right away. I was ready for something better than Warlord (which I can't beat) and went right to Regent. I also have a penchant for playing the Earth scenario. No random map for me, no sir! I kept getting stuck on Australia. That really honked. Here's what I haven't been able to address really...

How do you culture flip someone elses cities?

Also, people keep saying that the best way to get techs is to extort them but the AI I am finding is too slow, or am I too fast?

I still have trouble establishing embassies. Do I need do have line of sight on their capital ie. a unit right beside it so that it isn't greyed out by fog of war? I haven't been able to establish anything beyond peace agreements thus far.

Oh, and is part of the problem that I am playing on the Earth scenario? Do random maps not have this problem as much?

Other than that this is a great resource and thank you one and all for your submissions...

Last edited by gotham on 09-09-2004 at 00:17

	07-09-2004 05:21									#2
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Culture Flip: Have more culture than your opponent and pray to the RNG gods

On the embassy, have you tried shift-E to try and build one?

	07-09-2004 05:21									#3
	Re: Help, eyes about to implode...(newb questions) Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by gotham How do you culture flip someone elses cities?

Three things:

1. Build a city (or cities) as close to the target city as possible.
2. Build a lot of cultural improvements in that city.
3. Make sure that your empire-wide cultural value is also high.

quote: Also, people keep saying that the best way to get techs is to extort them but the AI I am finding is too slow, or am I too fast?

This is not such a great strategy on Warlord where you can research faster than the AI anyway. In any case, trading for techs is the best way to get techs, with extortion not far behind. You use extortion to get yourself to parity, then propel yourself into a lead by doing your own research.

quote: I still have trouble establishing embassies. Do I need do have line of sight on their capital ie. a unit right beside it so that it isn't greyed out by fog of war? I haven't been able to establish anything beyond peace agreements thus far.

You need to have Writing to establish Embassies. The way to do it is sort of confusing, since it's not through the normal diplomacy screen: you have to click on the star icon next to your capital's name on the main screen, which will get you into the Espionage screen. From there you can pay a sum of Gold to establish Embassies with those civs you've contacted.

	07-09-2004 11:06									#4
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I would add that culture flipping cities is not all that common. You can see cities surrounded by your cities and have no direct contact with its capitol and still not flip.

More likely is to take the city by force at some point.

Last edited by vmxa1 on 08-09-2004 at 10:15

	08-09-2004 08:38									#5
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Culture flipping, even more specifically, is caused by the following factors (and probably some I don't remember), more or less in decreasing order (ie biggest effect first):
(Each effect is calculated seperately for EACH civ vs. the civ that owns the city, i believe. Correct me if i'm wrong.

1. Proportion of your vs. their citizens
1a. Resisting foreign citizens
2. Number of unhappy citizens (vs happy ones)
2a. WLTKD/Rioting city
3. Distance from the capital of each civ
4. Number of squares in the 21 square radius that have enemy military units on them
4a. Military units inside the city (prevents flipping)
5. Number of squares in the 21 square radius under that civ's control
6. "Culture" (global, and pretty much impossible to calculate directly) proportion, your civ vs theirs.
6a. "Local Culture". I haven't a clue what this means, but it's a supposed cause.

In order to have ANY chance of flipping, a city must have either (1) or (5) as "negatives" -- ie, either foreign citizens, or squares under other civs control in its 21 square radius (ie maximum city tiles).

But, i'll put it to you this way. According to FlipCalc (which you can download here on apolyton somewhere), which is fairly accurate (though not perfect by any means), a of yours city with 3 foreign non-resisting citizens belonging to a particular enemy, with that enemy's local culture greater and with 1.5:1 ratio of enemy:your culture, being 2x as close to the enemy capital as your own, rioting, and only 1 unit inside, has a whopping

1.70%

chance of flipping this turn, and 16% chance of flipping after ten turns. And that's a pretty lousy city in the flip sense. A non-captured city (ie all native citizens) with 2 garrison units and equidistant between capitals would have to both be rioting and have SEVEN squares under your influence to give you even a 2.00% chance of flipping in any given turn -- meaning you're going to wait 30 to 40 turns for it to flip on average... so don't count on it. Any AI that's going to let you steal 7 of its squares and not go to war is a pretty lousy AI.

	08-09-2004 08:42									#6
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As a postscript... City flipping is pretty unclear, still, even with a gazillion super-intelligent stat geeks on Apolyton trying to figure it out. The basic rule of thumb is that city flipping is mostly a pain in the rear, and almost always takes effect only after you took a city from an opponent and didn't garrison it properly and/or starve its citizens properly.

Yes, you heard me. A common (and good) strategy to prevent these flips is to starve citizens thoroughly, down to 3 or so, before speed-building citizens back. It decreases flip chance, and then gives you a chance to build up your own citizens easily (with the best food squares).

Flips to gain cities at peace are a thing of the past (ie Civ1). Civ3 basically you have to go to war to be able to gain citys, since it costs you more in the short and long term to flip them than it does to go to war, no matter what the situation.

	08-09-2004 14:02									#7
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quote: Originally posted by snoopy369 1. Proportion of your vs. their citizens 1a. Resisting foreign citizens 2. Number of unhappy citizens (vs happy ones) 2a. WLTKD/Rioting city 3. Distance from the capital of each civ 4. Number of squares in the 21 square radius that have enemy military units on them 4a. Military units inside the city (prevents flipping) 5. Number of squares in the 21 square radius under that civ's control 6. "Culture" (global, and pretty much impossible to calculate directly) proportion, your civ vs theirs. 6a. "Local Culture". I haven't a clue what this means, but it's a supposed cause.

I don't believe point 2 is relevant to the calculation. I think "Local Culture" refers to the culture that a former AI town possessed before you captured it (though I'm not sure).

quote: Flips to gain cities at peace are a thing of the past (ie Civ1). Civ3 basically you have to go to war to be able to gain citys, since it costs you more in the short and long term to flip them than it does to go to war, no matter what the situation.

Not true. I just had 2 AI cities flip to me within 2 turns in AU601, and I was at peace with the AI civ.

	08-09-2004 15:35									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Aqualung71 I don't believe point 2 is relevant to the calculation. I think "Local Culture" refers to the culture that a former AI town possessed before you captured it (though I'm not sure).

I've seen it argued that unhappy citizens helped cause flips, and i've seen it argued (and included in FlipCalc) that rioting and/or WLTKD affected the chances of a flip. I'm not sure about either, but both make sense so i mention both.

quote: Not true. I just had 2 AI cities flip to me within 2 turns in AU601, and I was at peace with the AI civ.

I don't argue that you can't get cities -- just that it's not reliable and not very cost-effective on a consistent basis.

	08-09-2004 16:47									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae In any case, trading for techs is the best way to get techs, with extortion not far behind.

Also don't forget to sell the tech you just traded for to other civs, and use the cash to keep research at maximum (with a deficit).

	08-09-2004 21:06									#10
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Rioting increases the chance of a flip, I am quite certain.

And to add to snoopy's point about starving down: Starve to 3 pop??!! NO WAY... 1 pop or bust!!

	08-09-2004 21:24									#11
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quote: Originally posted by snoopy369 I don't argue that you can't get cities -- just that it's not reliable and not very cost-effective on a consistent basis.

I have to agree that flipping is not reliable way to gain cities. I just finsihed a game where I never flipped a city and I played out till I had every tile.

At one point I had all but one city and it was an island one tile city of Russia's and I had one of my captured cities flip back.

	08-09-2004 21:32									#12
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 At one point I had all but one city and it was an island one tile city of Russia's and I had one of my captured cities flip back.

That would make me... angry.

	08-09-2004 21:33									#13
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In all the Civ3 games I've played, I've had exactly 2 AI cities flip while at peace. Both were crap cities built on that one coastal square I didn't control, across the ocean from the AI, undoubtably producing a whopping 1 shield, 1 commerce. In other words, useless cities that would have fallen immediately as soon as war was declared. Since then, I line the unclaimed beach squares with units once the AI has Magnetism.

I've had a captured city flip back to the AI at peace. It was the former capital and had Sistine Chapel and a couple other wonders. The AI had been reduced to a distant 2 square island. Too far away so I left it alone. Big mistake. It took about 30 turns, but when it flipped, my whole empire went into revolt. Since then, I never leave 1 or 2 city civs alive anymore, especially if they had built wonders that I really need. It seems that the flip calculations don't take into effect the realities of a civ's current power.

	08-09-2004 21:57									#14
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The simple heuristic to getting a lot of flips in your favor is to build up a lot of Culture. Sounds simple, but it's usually not.

Try this for your next game: play a Religious civ, and build a Temple before anything else in each of your new cities (including your capital!). Then set aside one city early on and build as many cheap Wonders as you can there (Colossus, Oracle, Statue of Zeus, etc.). With this strategy you can easily keep up with the AI in Culture on your favorite difficulty level (I've done it up to Demigod). The only problem is that you're sacrificing some economic efficiency, meaning that while you'll be ahead in Culture, you might be behind in research and military. That's okay because it's easier to catch up in those things than it is in Culture.

It's an fun/different way to play, and will give you insight as to what you can really do with Culture.

And remember: a watched city never flips.

	08-09-2004 22:15									#15
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While all of this discussion has been great, I am still quite a beginner player. What I was trying to get at is I think is how do I get a culture victory?

	08-09-2004 22:41									#16
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Follow Dom's prescription and simply build lots of culture. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that in addition to the 100,000 total culture threshold, you have to double the next highest civ's culture. If you leave them alone, this makes a cultural victory somewhat unreliable. If your empire is producing more culture than #2, as it should be, you'll get the victory eventually, but it may take a while.

The bottom line to a cultural win is lots of cities with cultural buildings, an early start on culture-building and snagging as many wonders as possible. Remember that everybody can build temples, libraries, etc., but only one civ can build each wonder, and each one is 2-8 points per turn that none of your enemies can match. Over several wonders and a couple hundred turns, that adds up.

	08-09-2004 23:24									#17
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quote: Originally posted by gotham While all of this discussion has been great, I am still quite a beginner player. What I was trying to get at is I think is how do I get a culture victory?

Two ways to get a culture win:

1- 20K in any city
2-culture level required for the map settings and at least twice the amount of the 2nd place civs culture.

This could mean 160K while the next have less than 80k on some maps. IIRC std size is 100K.

Culture wins are very hard to come by above emperor level.

To T and Dom, you are correct it was my fault and I was not angry as I was just lazy. I figured I had nothing to worry about on culture at that point, but I had lots of armies that could have been in the city to ensure no flips.

OTOH, it was a snap to take back. I was just a bit surprised to see it at that point. It was size 7 after growing back, but I had put in a temple and a cath and market. I did that because I had lots of units to disband and it had a hospital.

	08-09-2004 23:34									#18
	Inflate your Upload Space

Winning by 100k Culture is actually really fun, because there's usually at least one civ with 50k or more Culture keeping you away from it. So the end-game becomes exciting: instead of watching your Culture grow as you do in the mid-game, you have to develop a strike force to take out the civ's top cultural cities. Razing is never more fun!

	11-09-2004 05:16									#19
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The best way to improve your play is to better your economic skills. That and military, if you end up fighting a lot.

Economically, there are a few important things to keep in mind, most of which I've summarized in the article in my sig, "Case for Food." A lot of n00bz have a few problems when they start (for example, not building Granaries, building cities too far apart and building far too few Workers) and simply don't know any better until they get more experience. Hopefully that article should help out some though, let me know if it does.

Getting a culture victory is much easier once you learn to play the rest of the game better. You realize what to emphasize and when to build the cultural improvements.

Everything comes with practice, as they say.

	12-09-2004 01:27									#20
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On going for a cultural victory:

Play as either a Relgious or Scientific civ. (Or even better, both like the Babs.) Those half price structures are so useful getting culture build up that much sooner.

On a map smaller than standard, go for One City CV ith the back up plan being some other mode of victory (usually spaceship.)

On a map larger than standard, go for Empire Wide CV ith a backup plan of one city CV, and check ratios again in when the industrial era comes around to see if you should really be going for the one city version.

The empire wide version often involves military expansion to place that many more half price Temples and/or Libaries, along with building multiple wonders at once for that much more total empire wide culture.

The one city version involves building all your wonders in the same city for that much more single city culture and if your religious. This city is usually either the Palace or Forbiden Palace.

Last edited by joncnunn on 15-09-2004 at 01:02

	12-09-2004 04:21									#21
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I would not recommend doing an OCC on a large map for someone that posed a question as a new player.

	13-09-2004 22:32									#22
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I've confused, where did OCC come up?

Triguring the one city 20K version cultural victory isn't OCC. In fact it's much easier to have a single city reach 20K culture if there are several towns in your empire to aquire the luxaries to keep that town happy, provide the research to get so far ahead in techs that the AI doesn't beat you to other wonders while waiting for the current project to complete, and provide the military units to protect your city.

quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 I would not recommend doing an OCC on a large map for someone that posed a question as a new player.

	14-09-2004 01:06									#23
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quote: Originally posted by joncnunn I've confused, where did OCC come up? Triguring the one city 20K version cultural victory isn't OCC. In fact it's much easier to have a single city reach 20K culture if there are several towns in your empire to aquire the luxaries to keep that town happy, provide the research to get so far ahead in techs that the AI doesn't beat you to other wonders while waiting for the current project to complete, and provide the military units to protect your city.

"On a map smaller than standard, go for One City with the back up plan being some other mode of victory (usually spaceship.)"

	14-09-2004 19:38									#24
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I've done some experimenting on high-culture games on Monarch. In one game I got a 20K culture win with the following 4000BC build queue :

Warrior
Warrior
Worker
Pyramids

Crazy, but it worked. I actually built the GLib but got a SGL on dicovering Philosophy and built the Pyramids next turn. I then squeezed about four or five cities, stuffed them with culture and got about four cities in flips.

	14-09-2004 19:41									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus Starve to 3 pop??!! NO WAY... 1 pop or bust!!

Absolutely - and make them work as scientists or taxmen while they starve. It's the only way...

	14-09-2004 22:06									#26
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Or, if you're rich (I play commercial civs a lot), you can rushbuy workers (every other turn, so you're paying 36 gold per slave). I'm doing that in my current game, since I've done what I always end up doing: I turned off my worker pump, added workers to cities and am now short of workers.

Either way, definitely go down to 1 pop.

-Arrian

	14-09-2004 22:10									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian ...I turned off my worker pump, added workers to cities and am now short of workers.

Worker pumps 4 EVER!!

	14-09-2004 22:13									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus I've done some experimenting on high-culture games on Monarch. In one game I got a 20K culture win with the following 4000BC build queue : Warrior Warrior Worker Pyramids Crazy, but it worked. I actually built the GLib but got a SGL on dicovering Philosophy and built the Pyramids next turn. I then squeezed about four or five cities, stuffed them with culture and got about four cities in flips.

Wow. I've done something like that, but typically it's more like warrior, warrior, settler, pyramids.

I think the best city I've had in a while, and one that would have hit 20k if I'd played the game out, had the Pyramids, Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Sistine, Bach and a couple of others in it, plus the normal improvements. Pyramids & GL both SGL rushed early as all hell

One pretty solid way to go for a 20k victory is to pick a religious civ and make the first build a temple, forest-chop assisted if possible. That sucker will double absurdly fast and be pumping 4 cp/turn for the entire game. Add a library ASAP, and you're in great shape. The Babs, of course, rock at that.

-Arrian

	14-09-2004 22:17									#29
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Dominae Worker pumps 4 EVER!!

I know, I know. But in my defense:

The city in question was directly next to my capital (hence, low-corruption "core" city). It had nothing but a granary. It was pumping workers. All was well. But then it came time to trigger my GA. I wanted to use the GA to get the basic improvements built in that city. I actually squeezed in a harbor just prior to the GA, and then built an aqueduct, marketplace, library, temple, university and am finishing up a cathedral... the city is now size 9. The Cathedral was probably a mistake. Once the GA ended, I should've taken it back down to size 6 and kept pumping workers. I may do that still.

The real problem is that my empire could really use a second worker pump. But now almost all of my cities are maxxed out and I'm loathe to "build down" any of them.

-Arrian

	14-09-2004 22:27									#30
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Would you also be loathe to build a new temp city in between your maxxed out ones (I assume you're using 4-tile city placement)? By stealing a couple of Food resources that your other cities do not need, it could easily be a 2-turn pump (I assume, without having seeing the exact geography). This would mess up your Corruption a bit, but the "free" two Workers a turn will really come in handy come the Industrial era, where otherwise you would have to build Workers in your maxxed out cities for RRs.

In my first ever Emperor game way back, when I still disliked anything closer than OCP, I bit the bullet and put two temp cities down in the middle of a nice patch of Flood Plains and Hills. To this I attribute my victory (and to Samurai - hey, that's pretty historical: the feudal Japanese peasant/serf and samurai classes).