I made some comments about loyalty which I’d like to expand on (assuming there is anyone left who is still interested in this topic).
I think loyalty is probably the best thing that’s come out of R&F. FXS have been very clever in linking loyalty to the map. This further drives the design principle that the map is the most important part of the game. It makes where cities are, and how big they are etc., more important, and creates new vectors for tactical and strategic conflict.
But I also think there is still a gap here. The gap is that this “loyalty” map doesn’t really shift much. Once borders are in place, the boundaries of loyalty seem to mostly stay the same unless the AI or player actually resorts to military or something goes very wrong.
You can see that problem writ large with the Ancestral Hall. Right at the start of the game you’re given a choice: wide or tall. If you choose tall, you can choose the Ancestral Hall. Now your Civ has a tight core of loyal cities, and anything beyond that is vulnerable to flipping. Once you make that choice, you can’t change it. That’s it.
So, if you planned to go wide, and didn’t build the AH, but then you get blocked in or lose all your outer cities, then you don’t really have anyway to pivot to a tall empire / cut your losses. Likewise, if you build the AH, and then see an opportunity to expand, then bad luck. All your cities without Governors are just disadvantaged.
For example, you cant really play the British Empire, pouring resources into its Empire to keep it together through military and governors - you can’t, because military doesn’t impact loyalty much (basically just the limitanei card) and you really just have the governors you have through the civics tree (and even then, they all just provide the same +4 regardless of who they are or how experienced they are). If you have lots of gold, all you can do is buy a monument and maybe a grainary. Equally, you can’t play Post Colonial Britain, allowing its control over its colonies to wane, but creating out of that a Commonwealth and a unique place in the world.
Loyalty is just a sort of “hit points”. You can’t really manipulate it in a strategic way, all you can do is just “get more of it”, by forcing growth, using some cards, building an Entertainment Complex or placing Governors. There is some strategy around opportunity cost, but that’s it.
And even when there is flipping, it’s very binary. The original civ loses the city and you either take it or you don’t. If the city remains a free city, it doesn’t really have any implications for anyone (except the civ that now has one less city). Free cities, for example, don’t trade with anyone, can’t interact with anyone, or provide any yields. They’re just “there”.
The result is that the “loyalty” map really doesn’t add much to the already existing map created by city borders. You don’t, for example, really have unruly border areas that you’re forced to spend resources holding onto. You place a governor, slot limitanei, and hope for the best. If it holds, great. If it flips, well, bad luck. Or you can capture / destroy the cities causing the opposing pressure or raze them, or maybe force growth, but then the problem is just gone (hazzah) and there’s nothing further that happens strategically. Sorted. Now focus on your spaceport again.
Like I said, I think loyalty is a big step forward. It maybe doesn’t totally get rid of the “late game malaise” (not my term), but it does make the map more meaningful, and extend competition over the map a little.
Linking loyalty to religion is very positive. I’m not sure about FXS’s decision to limit this link to only Civs who have founded a religion, rather than just basing it on majority religion. I would have thought the second option would allow for more tactical play, but perhaps it would have created too many balance problems. But fundamentally any link between religion and loyalty is great because it links three different maps together - the base map, loyalty map, and religious map. And it allows for those maps to change.
