City in unrest

[PatrickSWarner]

HI - if I have a city that has fallen into unrest is there anything I can do to try and stop it becoming a free city?

I sent a governor there but the city had already fallen into unrest when the governor arrived - from what I can see now, I can’t see any way to prevent it declaring independence?

 

[tedhebert]

What you have to monitor for this is LOYALTY… click on your city, then go to the fourth tab if I remember correctly… the one that has an icon looking like a ball with wings… It will show you what the loyalty level is for that city.

So LOYALTY is a 1 to 100 value. You want to get to 100. Then you will see a loyalty factor on that same screen…That will tell you the impact on your loyalty score at each turn. You want that to be Positive ( green ) rather than negative ( red ). I think the max negative is -20.

If the city loyalty score gets to 0, the city will flip to a free city.

What impact loyalty the most if citied around it, more specifically the population number in those cities… So if you have a lot of enemy cities with high population close to your city ( less than 10 hex I think ) your will have difficulty keeping it.

What helps ? a Governor will give you +8… flipping the city to your religion will give it a +3 or 4… Making YOUR close cities more populous will help counter the other civs influence. Finally, there are civic card that boost your loyalty, either when having a governor in, or by having a military unit be stationed in the city center. Finally, there is a promotion for governor VICTOR that gives your cities within 9 hexes of where he is a +4 loyalty bonus… remember, that +4 does NOT apply to the city where Victor is…

Hope this all helps

check this for much more info: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Loyalty_(Civ6)

 

[PatrickSWarner]

Thanks this is helpful - however maybe I just placed the city wrongly - I am getting -20 and the city is already unrest with a governor in place, so I don’t see how that could be recovered even if I had all the bonuses mentioned….

 

[pokiehl]

Settling a -20 Loyalty spot can be challenging, but do the following and you can generally keep the city:

- Move a Governor there immediately
- Move a military unit there immediately to garrison the city center
- Slot in the Limitanei and Praetorium policy cards for additional Loyalty
- Have a nearby city start the Bread and Circuses project if possible
- Buy a Granary, Monument, and Water Mill in the city immediately
- Have the city send a Trade Route to one of your other developed cities for additional Food, if possible

The goal is to stop the Loyalty bleed with the first 3 or 4 steps while you get the city's population up as fast as possible .

 

[vorlon_mi]

Small cities (and new cities are by definition small) are the most vulnerable to loyalty pressure. Thus, @pokiehl 's recommendations to get the population up as quickly as you can. Over in the strategy forum they have a guide https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-vi-loyalty-guide.641581/ that goes into some additional detail, if you want to learn more.

 

[AntSou]

The game does a bad job at explaining how Loyalty works. Here are some additional notes:

- Governors require 5 turns to establish (other than Victor). However, this delay does not apply to the +8 Loyalty bonus, which happens immediately (I'm not sure if the value actually updates instantly or after you click "next turn"). That's why p0kiehl suggested you move a Governor there asap;
- Population is the strongest defense against loyalty pressure. The faster you grow your newly settled cities, the better it will fend off incoming pressure from foreign civs (hence why a granary is important, as it provides both housing and food);

Loyalty pressure from population is the most important thing to keep in mind. The maximum pressure from population is +/- 20. Distance also plays an important role. The further away your city is from your other cities, the less positive pressure it will receive. The closest it is to foreign cities, the stronger the penalty pressure from enemy cities it will suffer.

Although there's no graphical difference, there's offensive and defensive loyalty, so to speak. Most manners of accruing loyalty are defensive, in that, they increase loyalty in your city without that actually increasing the loyalty pressure over foreign cities. The +8 loyalty from Governors is defensive, for instance. So is the extra loyalty from positive amenities. It is "defensive" because the +8 from your Governor is not actually increasing negative loyalty pressure in nearby enemy cities.

Population pressure is both defensive and offensive, but capped at +/-20, as I explained above. Meaning that if your city has a +20 Loyalty from Population, that +20 is not only having a positive effect in your city, it is also having a positive effect in your nearby cities and a detrimental effect in nearby enemy cities.

Amani's "Emissary" ability is exclusively offensive. It will not provide you a loyalty bonus in your own cities, but it will apply a negative -2 in all enemy cities within 9 tiles. The negative pressure is cumulative with other Amanis with the Emissary promotion from other Civs (I think? It should be).

So if you see a -2 Loyalty in "Other Effects" in your city, it's probably from an enemy's Amani. Yeah, "Other effects" just sucks and the game will often leave you confused by not providing detailed information.

 

[DeckerdJames]

It is easier to react to -20 loyalty further into the game because some of the things you can do to help hold a city are not available at the beginning of the game.

 

[Deadly Dog]

Don't forget you can chop for pop!

Marsh tiles, rainforest, and numerous bonus resources yield a one time food boost when harvested/cleared by a worker.

 

[PatrickSWarner]

Thanks for the replies - I got a better handle on it after playing some more today.

The other thing I learned the hard way is not to end the war too early - as soon as I end the war, if the opponent cedes the city to me I lost the garrison points and then I was way down on loyalty - better to invade a few more cities and get an economy of scale on that continent I guess.