Cities Category
These are checked for each city:
Citizens moods --
Foreign Culture -
Happiness ++
Buildings +/-- P
Religion - P
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Citizens moods --
In the city screen, mouse over the unhappy faces to see the citizens moods:
Angry population. -
A city religion is the same as your opponents state religion during war. -
Hurry (whipping) Anger. -
Anger from lack of military units in the city. -
War weariness anger. -
These city penalties aren't applied directly, they are accumulated for each city. Each city is checked until a cap is reached -
A total value for all cities is also capped. --
Note: The above does not apply if you are at war and have occupied the city and you are running the Occupation civic.
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Foreign Culture -
If there is foreign culture in the city:
Your culture is zero. -
You have culture and any foreign culture that exceeds about 15% of your culture -
You have culture and the civic nationhood, any foreign culture that exceeds about 5% of your culture -
Note: The check on their culture is relative to yours, NOT to the total.
Example: You have 16% culture in a city. CivA has 80% total culture and CivB has 4% total culture.
Both trigger a penalty because:
CivA has 500% of your culture.
CivB has 25% of your culture.
The percentage is lower for nationhood because of the nationalistic feelings that trigger unrest.
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Happiness ++
Average happiness from all cities +/-
If your approval rate (from the demographics page) is more than 70, you get a bonus, if less than 60 you get a penalty.
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Buildings +/-- P
Building a courthouse. +
Building a jail. +
Building a jail while running the civic police state. +
Building a wonder. +
Building a great project (other than spaceship parts) +
Building another palace. ++
Corporation founded - (BtS only)
Moving the original palace. --
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Religion -
If you are using theocracy or organized religion, each religion other than the state religion in a city results in a penalty. -
Founding a religion. - P
If a religion which isn't your state religion spreads to a city and you are at war with a civ whose state religion is that religion. - P
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Economy Category
The economy rating, regardless of the type of economy you create, is heavily influenced by growth. The more GNP and production grows, the more stability improves. When you stop or shrink, it decreases.
Economics, Agriculture and Population ++/--
GNP changes +/- P
Great Depression --
Techs researched and Civics being used --
Golden Age ++
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Economics, Agriculture and Population ++/--
Amount of food per population. +/-
The more people you have relative to agriculture the worse the penalty.
Amount of gold (Economy) per population. +/-
The more people you have relative to gold the worse the penalty.
Running the Commonwealth civic, No penalty from low gold per population. Equivalent to +.
Imports/Exports are your trade with other nations:
High level of imports/exports. +/++
Low level imports/exports. -
No imports/exports. -
Running the Commonwealth civic, No penalty from low imports/exports. Equivalent to +.
Note. Economy is the GNP(gold) on the demographs page.
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Adjusted GNP changes +/- P
The GNP (Gross National Product) in Civ4 just deals with the commerce side of the game. In RFC commerce, industry and agriculture are taken into account. Each is given a weighting added together then the average value calculated. This is the GNP used for stability purposes. It is checked every 3 turns and capped.
if the GNP drops. -
Any GNP loss greater than 20 will get the same penalty.
if the GNP rises above a preset value. +
Any GNP gain greater than 35 will get the same bonus.
Note: To balance the gameplay, GNP has to rise above a preset value before gaining any stability bonuses. To avoid these permanent penalties - you need to keep your GNP growing.
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Great Depression --
Running the civic free market can cause a Great Depression in certain situations.
A Great Depression is triggered when industrial output is far greater than your economy and your GNP is increasing. It also takes into account the population size. So the larger the population the larger the differance can be before a depression is triggered.
Example:
If a differance of 10 triggered a depression with a population of 1 million. You would need a difference of 20 for 2 million population, but only 5 differance for 1/2 million population. Remember you must be running the free market civic.
A Great Depression can not occur during a golden age.
Suffering a Great Depression. -- (for a number of turns)
You have open borders with a civ suffering from a great depression. --
(that turn only) The penalty is only applied for the first civ and only if you are not in a Great Depression.
After a number of turns you can break out of a great depression, if the industrial difference decreases and your GNP has not increased, or you have switched away from the free market civic.
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Techs researched and Civics being used --
If you have researched the tech communism and switch from state property, you suffer a penalty for a number of turns. --
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Golden Age ++
Having a Golden Age. ++
Note: A Great Depression can not occur during a golden age.
BtS only. There is no anarchy when changing civics or religion in a golden age.
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Expansion Category
You can expand your empire either peacefully, by building cities on unclaimed land or by force of arms. But becareful expand to quickly and you will pay the price.
The stability modifiers effecting expansion are:
Historic Civ Size --
Number of cities -/--
Cities built,occupied, traded,razed or lost +/- P
Current combat results -/+ or --/++ (all the battles this turn)
There is also a brand new civic column Expansion, that only affects stability. A few other civics effect expansion too. So you have a chance to plan the strengthening of your empire by choosing the appropriate civics.
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Historic Civ Size
There are checks based on historic expansion. So a civ that never became large in real life will get penalties if it expands to much. Also a civ that was historicaly large will get penalties if it does not expand enough.
It works by counting:
- how many other civ's cities are in your core area.
- how many plots you have outside of the area of historical maximum expansion (colonies included).
These values are used in some formulas to add a negative base modifier to expansion. It balances out the (usually positive) modifiers you get founding and conquering cities.
An important part of keeping stability is taking care not to over-expand. If you try to do a large fast land-grab conquest, or a settler spam, you'll find yourself with an empire larger than your government is capable of handling. You don't want to expand too fast, but you don't want other civs to grab all the good land either, so it's important to find a good balance.
Note: This does not stop civ's expanding outside their historic areas - you just have to plan your expansion carefully taking into account your stability. If you are Shakey or worse you are liable to lose some of those cities to sessesion or a civ re-spawning.
If you want a big empire choose a civ that did: Russia, America, Germany, France, Spain, England, China,...
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Number of cities
The number of cities you own effects your stability rating. The bigger your empire the more unstable it becomes. There is no penalty for the first 7 cities. After that, every additional city has a negative stability impact. This initially only cancels out the bonus for building cities and only becomes a real penalty when you get near 20 cities.
The thing to be careful about is that the stability penalty per city increases when certain limits are reached. These limits are approximately every 10 cities.
Examples of the stability effect that the number of cities have are:
7 cities = no impact.
10 cities = - small impact.
15 cities = - the total effect is equivalent to half a stability level drop.
20 cities = -- the total effect is equivalent to one stability level drop.
25 cities = -- the total effect is equivalent to two stability level drops.
30 cities = -- the total effect is equivalent to three stability level drops.
35 cities = -- the total effect is equivalent to four stability level drops.
40 cities = -- the total effect is equivalent to six stability level drops.
The above example just shows the total effect of a lot of cities. It is calculated on the actual number of cities you have.
There is also a research penalty for giga empires. This way there won’t be one leader with 30+ cities and far far ahead in technology.
Some Civics are linked to the number of cities.
Representation: Less than 3 cities (+ per city, capped) +
Representation: More than 3 cities (- per city, capped) -
Bureaucracy: 5 or less cities +
Bureaucracy: 6 or more cities (- per city, capped) -
Bureaucracy and Representation combined +
Police State: For every 5 cities + (capped at 50 cities) ++
Note: these civics do not effect the Expansion category.
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Cities built,occupied, traded,razed or lost P
These are permanent modifiers:
For every city you build +
With Resettlement civic, for every city built 15 or more tiles from the Capitol. +
For every city acquired through trade, congress or conquest. +
With Occupation civic on capturing and not razing a city. +
On aquiring a Capitol city. +
For every city lost through a civ birth or reserrection. -
When you lose a city other than through civ birth or reserrection, you get two penalties/bonuses. One based on the number of cities and one on the way it was lost.
If less than 15 cities: (the fewer cities, the higher the penalty) -
With a smaller empire the loss of a city is more traumatic to the people.
If more than 15 cities you get a bonus (the more cities the higher the bonus) +/++
The bonus reflects the fact that larger empires are more difficult to control and losing cities is not so traumatic to the population. Some may not even know where that city was located. Also fewer cities over time make administration easier.
The above is then adjusted by:
For every city lost through trade, or conquest. -
If city is razed. -
Granting Independence - (BtS only)
Losing the capitol. --
Note: When you capture a city, you might find that much of the impact on your stability comes from having lots of unhappiness due to citizens anger, religion or foreign culture - except when running the Occupation civic.
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Current combat results
Every victory gives a bonus and every loss twice that as a penalty. These are added together for each turn. The total which is capped, effects the Expansion category. To many losses and your expansion capability is lowered.
Total combat Victory/losses. ++/-- (half is added to next turn)
If the total is more 4 points +/-, it is halfed and carried over to the next turn. So losing a lot of units will effect stability for a number of turns. No more mass suicide attacks to take that hill city. Well not if you want to remain stable.
Note: The foreign category also suffers a small permanent penalty due to high combat losses.
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Foreign Category
This covers everything regarding foreign affairs..... mainly diplomatic agreements, plus other less important factors.
Defensive pacts ++
Open borders +
Unstable neighbour when your stable -
Having a vassal -/+
Number of civ contacts +/-
high combat loss - P
Cities traded +/- P
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Defensive pacts ++
Every defensive pact signed. ++
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Open borders +
Every Open Border agreement. +
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Unstable neighbour when your stable -
If a neighboring civ's stability is unstable or collapsing and yours is stable or better. -
This penalty will only be applied once regardless of how many neighboring civs are unstable.
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Having a vassal -/+
For each vassal the civ has. +/-
The value depends on the Vassal's stability.
The civic viceroyalty gives a bonus for every vassal. +
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Number of civ contacts +/-
When you have gained a high number of contacts, with other civs you start to incur a penalty. -
This penalty increases as the number of contacts increase.
Note: This helps East Asian civs, who having less contacts, tend to develop less trade and get a lower Economy rating.
Remember having Embassies allows you to maintain contact. Otherwise over time you will lose contacts with other civs.
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high combat loss - P
Suffering just above negative combat stability this turn. You suffer a small permanent penalty. -
This will happen even if you have lost fewer units than the enemy. Your troops losses are valued twice that of the enemy. So if you kill 8 enemy units, but lose 6 of your own. This is considered high combat loss.
Note: The Expansion category suffers a greater temporary penalty due to combat losses.
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Cities traded - P
If the city is traded away. -
Granting Independence - (BtS only)
Final Note.
Some penalties or bonuses may seem to be odd choices to the human player. The thing to remember is that some are there to help the AI civs in the game. So that you can play a more realistic and enjoyable game.
