Are crises impactful enough?

[Black Gate]

I struggled holding my empire together in the Antiquity happiness crisis; I barely noticed the Exploration revolt crisis.

Same thing here. I lost a settlement to the antiquity crisis (my army would correct the issue in the next age) but the religious tolerance crisis was barely noticeable since I hadn't put a lot of effort into spreading my religion.

 

[Elhoim]

Same thing here. I lost a settlement to the antiquity crisis (my army would correct the issue in the next age) but the religious tolerance crisis was barely noticeable since I hadn't put a lot of effort into spreading my religion.

Yes, the antiquity one felt good as far as crisis goes, I overextended myself over the cap by 2 and didn't have enough happiness, ended up losing 2 cities but got them right after in the next age. In exploration, I had the revolution one, but I think it was kinda bugged as I only ended up with two crisis slots, which made it quite negligible.

 

[Chuy1530]

In my second game I got the plague crises and to be honest it didn't have much impact, especially compared to the happiness one. And I was playing one difficulty up from the game where I got the happiness one. So there probably is a chance to do some tuning there.

 

[Ornen]

the game just took my city - that was in the positive in happiness - and gave it to the AI with zero explanation. none. you look around one turn, and some other guy has it.

genuinely I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for the age to end because I've already finished science legacy. Napoleon keeps trying to come at me but I have whooped him up & down the street, two wars in a row. you give me crisis events to impinge my happiness, you know what? I will take care of it. my city is now happy again.

then you just take it away, give it to Napoleon without so much as a notification? what is going on with this game

 

[stealth_nsk]

the game just took my city - that was in the positive in happiness - and gave it to the AI with zero explanation. none. you look around one turn, and some other guy has it.

genuinely I am twiddling my thumbs waiting for the age to end because I've already finished science legacy. Napoleon keeps trying to come at me but I have whooped him up & down the street, two wars in a row. you give me crisis events to impinge my happiness, you know what? I will take care of it. my city is now happy again.

then you just take it away, give it to Napoleon without so much as a notification? what is going on with this game

Your total happiness was positive or in this particular city? There are a lot of sources for empire-wide happiness, so pretty often some particular city could be deeply unhappy while overall empire looks fine. That's reflected by unhappy icon on the city banner or in reports / city info.

 

[Unaha-Closp]

To me, they are useless. If they had consequences, I might like them more. No units died during the plague? Get a reward in the next age - extra unit or +1 combat strength, or something. Lost Units - Fewer units to start the next age or -1 strength...something. No cities lost to happiness? Plus one settlement limit next age, lose one or more, you see what I am getting at. Otherwise, they come, fudge with you to greater or lesser degrees, then the age ends, no one remembers the great plague or the mass riots etc, and you go about your day. I played 3 games with them on, turned them off for my 4th. Don't think I'll play with them unless they actually do something but annoy.

 

[doolar]

On my first round I had some issues with the first crises, on my second I had everything in much better order and control, and almost nothing happened. First round on Governor, second on Viceroy.

 

[Kulko]

I had big problems with my first Antiquity crisis, because I accidently killed a player and therefore triggered it before I was remotely ready for it. Me and the AI both lost cities too each other, and it was major pain in the ass. Since then the other Instances have been mostly tame.

I would like to see the crisis hit a bit harder, but from my experience this is a fine line. if you are losing cities to a crises, this interferes with almost all your legacy paths, and thats a major funkiller I can tell sitting at you. 11 Military VP and then losing 2 settlements to flipping before you can conquer the last one, or having to start a war against an friendly opponent, because he got your Ressouce hub flipped to is not the kind of Action you need in the last few turns of an age.

 

[Ornen]

Your total happiness was positive or in this particular city? There are a lot of sources for empire-wide happiness, so pretty often some particular city could be deeply unhappy while overall empire looks fine. That's reflected by unhappy icon on the city banner or in reports / city info.

both empire and city happiness were positive. game just took a city with no justification or even a notification

 

[sonicmyst]

I just chuckled when I built an Oracle during a plague crisis.

 

[marius_kaparius]

Antiquity age plague was a nightmare for me - lost a number of units including 2 Military Commanders as well as a lot of production!

Yes, it was rough for me too. I suggest they model around this one if they want them to be impactful.

 

[evonannoredars]

Finished another game with an antiquity plague and exploration gold crisis thing. I'm not sure how the plagues are meant to spread, if they happen randomly or are driven by units/trading? Either way I only ever saw four cities infected, two of which were mine and lasting only for a couple turns. If anyone knows how I can make that crisis hit me harder please lmk lol
The gold crisis barely affected me because I was getting an insane amount of gold anyway so a flat decrease barely affected me, imo they ought to switch crises cards to being percentage-based more or make them somehow scale with how well you're doing. I think it'd be realistic too, if I'm raking in hundreds of gold per turn, the people aren't going to ask for a mere 5 extra gold per turn or whatever

 

[Siptah]

Just got the Bourgeoisie crisis in exploration for the first time. This is really... nothing? I make ~1000 gold per turn, why would I care if I have to spend and extra 30 per turn on unit maintenance or relics? The lamest of all crises yet, 0 impact.

 

[UWHabs]

Just got the Bourgeoisie crisis in exploration for the first time. This is really... nothing? I make ~1000 gold per turn, why would I care if I have to spend and extra 30 per turn on unit maintenance or relics? The lamest of all crises yet, 0 impact.

Yeah, on the 2nd or 3rd tier of the crisis a few improvements get pillaged in a revolt at worst case, and it maybe costs you a couple hundred gold per turn with some of the later policy cards. It's barely worse than a random flood. Definitely feels like they could make it a lot more impactful - have some of your army desert and turn against you, have one city per turn per city pillaged, etc... Could even have it bad enough where they actually fully burn down some of your buildings, rendering the tiles back to empty urban tiles.

 

[reyaik]

I would say the impact depends on the context. For instance, just now I had a situation that gave me quite a few chills. In antiquity, all of a sudden Trunc, Augustus, and Ibn declared a surprise war on me. That killed all my trade routes, leading to a steep drop from the 20 resources I stacked in my cities (essentially a setback to my economic victory). I took one city from Ibn that was poorly defended, which made me go two cities above the cap. Then the plague crisis hit and put my capital into some limbo, plus killed a few units I needed to defend my cities. Fighting of these Khmer elephants, trying to get happiness back up, and dealing with the plague gave me quite something to manage.

 

[Siptah]

I would say the impact depends on the context. For instance, just now I had a situation that gave me quite a few chills. In antiquity, all of a sudden Trunc, Augustus, and Ibn declared a surprise war on me. That killed all my trade routes, leading to a steep drop from the 20 resources I stacked in my cities (essentially a setback to my economic victory). I took one city from Ibn that was poorly defended, which made me go two cities above the cap. Then the plague crisis hit and put my capital into some limbo, plus killed a few units I needed to defend my cities. Fighting of these Khmer elephants, trying to get happiness back up, and dealing with the plague gave me quite something to manage.

And honestly, that's what I'd like to see every time. I want to see my empire getting problems and dwindling. And then it's also fine that I don't have to play out the whole downfall (which is no fun) but skip to the next era. Currently, I think that crises should be dynamic per civ to always make it a struggle of some sort.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

@ these hidden rules

I would say the impact depends on the context. For instance, just now I had a situation that gave me quite a few chills. In antiquity, all of a sudden Trunc, Augustus, and Ibn declared a surprise war on me. That killed all my trade routes, leading to a steep drop from the 20 resources I stacked in my cities (essentially a setback to my economic victory). I took one city from Ibn that was poorly defended, which made me go two cities above the cap. Then the plague crisis hit and put my capital into some limbo, plus killed a few units I needed to defend my cities. Fighting of these Khmer elephants, trying to get happiness back up, and dealing with the plague gave me quite something to manage.

Trade elephants for hordes of infantry and cavalry and you managed to recreate the Roman Empire circa 3rd - 5th centuries CE: two major plagues that may have killed off over 1/3 of the population, Germanics moving into the now-vacant lands (tiles), foreign wars with the likes of Persia, Huns, Goths, et al, and major political instability as a result of all of the above.

Of course, note that most of the IRL Roman Empire Crisis Period was much, much worse than anything the game throws at you: multiple declarations of war combined with losing 1/3 of your population and the recruiting base for your army would be a hard sell to all but the most masochistically-inclined gamers!

 

[Siptah]

Trade elephants for hordes of infantry and cavalry and you managed to recreate the Roman Empire circa 3rd - 5th centuries CE: two major plagues that may have killed off over 1/3 of the population, Germanics moving into the now-vacant lands (tiles), foreign wars with the likes of Persia, Huns, Goths, et al, and major political instability as a result of all of the above.

Of course, note that most of the IRL Roman Empire Crisis Period was much, much worse than anything the game throws at you: multiple declarations of war combined with losing 1/3 of your population and the recruiting base for your army would be a hard sell to all but the most masochistically-inclined gamers!

I‘ve seen the AI trying to deal with happiness and barbarian crises… this amounted to losing 1/3…

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I‘ve seen the AI trying to deal with happiness and barbarian crises… this amounted to losing 1/3…

It may be because I haven't tried the highest difficulty yet, but I have not seen the AI get into serious trouble during the Crisis Period.

BUT I have seen at least a dozen AIs in 8 playthroughs lose settlements to 'flipping' (including 3 to Me) in Antiquity or Exploration during the regular Ages. I suspect, as much as anything else, this is a consequence of the AI's forward settling and placing isolated settlements in the middle of other Civs: they are all ripe for conversion unless you take extraordinary steps to secure them, which the AI (at least up to the mid difficulty) does not do well.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Still not enough data for me to fully judge, but the happiness crisis in Antiquity has certainly caused me a ton of problems; it may just be a lack of knowledge on how to deal with it, but I'll usually lose at least one settlement. I don't mind that at all, the only thing I find strange is that they immediately flip to another leader, so you sometimes end up with these really weird maps and no contiguous borders. I can't buy into the roleplay of that either, I'd much rather they introduce something similar to loyalty flipping in VI, where the flipped city becomes a hostile independent power.