Bells - Elder Statesmen but no revolution

[GregUMR]

So I had 5 cities all pumping out tons of soldiers/dragoons and started adding elder statesmen and printing press/newspaper around 1610. I had all the printing press and newspapers in all cities done around 1630. I then had all 3 statesmen in each city around 1640ish. Each city had 60-80% independence by 1690, however my overall percentage when I went to the revolution screen was only 19%. By 1789, I had 95-99% independence in each of my 5 fully developed cities, I had the king at -16 anger, and yet I had only reached 29% on the revolution. My founding fathers screen showed I had all slots filled.

What gives? Am I missing something here or is this yet another bug with this game ( I get the stuck popups one where you have to restart to get popups fairly often ). I started looking for independence in 1600, I think starting independence push around 1600 should be fine, what in the hell? At the rate I was going I'd have to start building bells as of the first turn.

What is the point of even having an individual city independence meter if it means dittily squat next to the over all revolution/independence meter. I've got to be missing something???

 

[ddd123]

the individual city meter is actually worth NOTHING (for the revolution, i guess it determines the single town production etc bonuses)
you can just move out few workers and boost istantly the %
what matters is the f3 status, i dunno exactly how it works but seems like its cumulative or something

 

[dalgo]

The overall independence % takes into account your enitire population, including all those in a colony garrison or on the map. i.e. scouts, dragoons, pioneers etc. These will be counted at 0% and so lower your overall rating.

 

[Gliese 581]

You need to settle your soldiers and convert them to rebels before you declare independence.
This is not a stupid feature since if soldiers didn't count it would easily be exploitable where you quickly could get to 50% rebel sentiment with a small population and a huge army before the king can react. I wonder if it's not easilly exploitable as it is since cannons don't count and you could get a small colony and produce/buy a ton of cannons then declare independence.

 

[Andvare]

It's a stupid feature that you have to settle them. But not that they count, it would be far to easy to exploit if they didn't.

 

[Kraftster]

Sounds like you're definitely encountering what I brought up in a post below 'Measuring Garrison Revolution Support.' Basically garrisoned units are unaffected by bells. Essentially you can't create a X unit size army or you will never go beyond the requisite percent support. Swapping people in and out of the city might work, but, I think its to cluttered to attempt. There is no way of knowing if an individual unit supports revolution or not, so, if you are trying to switch in and out dozens of colonists, it would be much too difficult to try to track who was once in your city and who wasn't, etc. That's not to mention the fact that you are probably being forced to replace experts with free colonists to convert them -- just seems silly. Basically what I had to do was store as many guns as I could in all of my cities and my ships, get support to 50%+ declare, and then arm everyone. This might be acceptable if a warehouse expansion in each city was sufficient to hold enough arms to defeat the REF, but, in some cases, I'm sure its not.
Some people have tried to suggest this is not a flaw, but, after another encounter with this last night, I am convinced that this needs fixed.

 

[Kraftster]

It's a stupid feature that you have to settle them. But not that they count, it would be far to easy to exploit if they didn't.

Right, I don't think anyone is looking for an exploit here, just a system that makes sense. One where shuffling people in and out when you can't keep track of an individual's status is not required. Sure, count the garrison in the percentage, but, please let bells affect them -- even if more slowly.

 

[Gliese 581]

It's a stupid feature that you have to settle them. But not that they count, it would be far to easy to exploit if they didn't.

That is true.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Yeah. If this system wasn't in place and garrison/map units didn't count, you could take most of your colonists out of their cities, leaving them with 1 population, raise the sentiment to 100% in 3 turns and declare independence.

 

[Kraftster]

Yeah. If this system wasn't in place and garrison/map units didn't count, you could take most of your colonists out of their cities, leaving them with 1 population, raise the sentiment to 100% in 3 turns and declare independence.

Sure, but there wouldn't be any exploit problem if bells could convert garrison/map units as well.

 

[Gliese 581]

There's an easy solution to this really, make garissoned troops get converted as well as citizens while units in the field stay tory/have their rebel sentiment decay just like units in cities.
Not that it's necessary with the weak military power of the AI colonies at the moment, you're usually better of having all soldiers work to increase production and trade until the last moment in most cases.

 

[GregUMR]

Wow. I had a itching that it was my fairly big garrisoned army. I had 40 soldiers, 25 dragoons, 20 cannons, 5 warships. The king had 80/13/50/12. I can't say I'm impress by the way the system works now. I actually only had 4 cities, and they were specialized and producing enough silver/coats/tools that I didn't need anything else. I had retrieved all the necessary specialist workers and my cities were working like well oiled machines producing tons of guns and horses.

I really think there needs to be a way for the bells to slowly effect the garrisoned units as well. It only makes sense, word of mouth gets to the army just not as fast as the regular working population. And if you get a free colonist due to a city growing, he ought to be born with the sentiment of the city, since he grew up there.

I guess until this is fixed or adjusted, I'm basically forced to put all my soldiers into my cities and let them get bells. The problem with that is when you put them in your cities, you stop growing, you need much more food to provide for the soldiers who are now working, and as such you will run out of food or at least stop growing. So the REF will get to keep building because he sees your big army, meaning he will always hugely out number you. And since 5 cities can only hold about 25 workers, of which maybe 12 or so are soldiers, it limits your army size unless you make more cities. Not sure I really like that.

 

[Gliese 581]

If the AI colonies are improved to actually pose a threat then you could have garrisoned troops gain rebel sentiment just like any other citizen since you're in effect nerfing your production and economy by keeping soldiers at all.

This is no different from CIV where building soldiers at all aside from a single city guard is bad for your economy in every way (except under HR) unless you're going to war. The tradeoff is you need to sacrifice those hammers (and in CIV potentially that upkeep gold) in order to defend your cities.

Since it seems you don't need defense at all until the WOI in col2 it's kind of moot to do anything about the tory soldiers feature since they are perfectly useless when not working.

Personally though I hope that the AI colonies are fixed to pose a real threat which would then require a fix of the garrisoned soldiers issue.

 

[GregUMR]

Yeah, but the thing is I didn't need more economy. I was already sending 150 silver to europe every turn (dutch, 50% reduction in time to europe ). I had no reason to worry about making more money. I just wanted to get to WOI ASAP and go to win since everything else was under control. I guess the best thing to do is to make cannon's and stock your cities to size 25+ and fill all buildings and then declare WOI.

Problem is, every new unit you get lowers your overall % for bells since its considered a fresh unit. So then you end up taking longer and longer the more people you add to your cities. Even if they are born in that city. Doesn't make sense to me ( I can understand the ones from europe lowering the bell progress ).

I also find it hard to convert troops anyway, the interface is clunky. You have to have them working in the city first, then drag them to the garrison. If you just change profession from outside the city you can only change 2 per turn. So then you end up not being able to store enough guns/horses per city to pump out the army size you want before the REF lands. Meh =/

 

[Gliese 581]

Yeah, but the thing is I didn't need more economy. I was already sending 150 silver to europe every turn (dutch, 50% reduction in time to europe ). I had no reason to worry about making more money. I just wanted to get to WOI ASAP and go to win since everything else was under control. I guess the best thing to do is to make cannon's and stock your cities to size 25+ and fill all buildings and then declare WOI.

Problem is, every new unit you get lowers your overall % for bells since its considered a fresh unit. So then you end up taking longer and longer the more people you add to your cities. Even if they are born in that city. Doesn't make sense to me ( I can understand the ones from europe lowering the bell progress ).

I also find it hard to convert troops anyway, the interface is clunky. You have to have them working in the city first, then drag them to the garrison. If you just change profession from outside the city you can only change 2 per turn. So then you end up not being able to store enough guns/horses per city to pump out the army size you want before the REF lands. Meh =/

There also need to be a tweak to new colonists not being born as 100% tories. The probabilities could be based on nationwide rebel sentiment to avoid exploiting transport of food to a small 100% rebel city to have everyone born there.
This way statistically rebel sentiment wouldn't go down at all by new colonists being born, though of course there would be slight variations up and down from the current level.