I'm producing over 3000 influence per turn, all my territories are under my sphere of influence, most of the AI's ones are as well. Yet the AI is able to force me to revoke or adopt new civics. What is going on? Shouldn't my influence be forcing them to convert to my ideology instead?

Do you have a save file? I'll try to look at it

I have seen that happen with cities I have annexed from the other players, it seems like maybe a bug with old cities somehow retaining their old sphere of influence even after they convert.

Cristata wrote:

Do you have a save file? I'll try to look at it

Germans Turn 235 Civic Backlash.ctr

I have attached the file, you can take a look at the city Memphis where the civic backlash is occurring.

Goodluck wrote:

I have seen that happen with cities I have annexed from the other players, it seems like maybe a bug with old cities somehow retaining their old sphere of influence even after they convert.

Hmm it is happening to my capital city though, also I did not annex any cities that game, only ransacked and replaced with my own outposts.

LupinIII wrote:

I have a similar situation that just started happening. I also have over 3k influence and the AI that is causing this civic osmosis is almost completely under my influence. Both the cities now suddenly being affected are different. One I created myself (the last one I made) by turning a territory into a city and the other is a former independent people I assimilated a long time ago. I've not annexed any cities in this game, only assimilated independent ones.

One thing I've noted, but could be irrelevant, is two of the last territories that are apparently under this AI's influence are about to convert to mine. But, these were unclaimed territories that I have just claimed and attached to my cities. Might be a coincidence that these are the cities being affected by the civics osmosis.

I've attached some images to show what I described above.

That's all it takes for a civics backlash, you only need one territory (even the distant boonies) to be under the influence of another culture and it can trigger civics backlashes in that city.  It can be frustrating when it's just one territory way away from the city centre.

Might be interesting if the strength of Defiant (-50 Stability) were instead affected by the number of territories under another empire's culture.  Make the Defiance -10 per territory influenced by the other empire, and make the Main Plaza's territory worth -20 or -30.   That way if it's a single border territory you can be more willing to ignore it than if it were your city's heartlands.