Olleus
Deity
I've been thinking a lot about Civ5 recently, rather unsurprisingly considering that I'm a member of this forum, and about its potential pit falls and what has annoyed people on this forum the most. Two of this issues are, in my mind, the impossibility of flipping tiles over to you using anything other than a great artist (and this doesn't allow you to flip cities) and how captured cities become fully integrated into your civilization by the simple and trivial act of building a courthouse.
The Idea:
Every city has a certain loyalty (from 0 to 100%) for every civ discovered. What is the loyalty of a city?
The base loyalty for the civ which built the city is 100%, and the loyalty to every other civ is x% (closeish to 0). If a civ is unhappy/very unhappy, the loyalty of every city towards that civ drops slowly. If a city has a courthouse, its loyalty towards the civ who owns it goes up slightly every turn. The loyalty of a foreign city towards a civ A is also higher the more social policies the original owner of that city and Civ B share.
If you capture a city, its loyalty towards you is what it was just before you capture it. Thus loyalty represents just that - how willing the population of a city are to work for a given civ.
What does loyalty do?
Loyalty does two things, depending on whether its the loyalty towards the civ owning it, or towards another foreign civ. If a city has x% loyalty towards the civ owning it, then it only has x% of the production, and only x% of the cities cultural output goes into the bucket used to buy new social policies. If a city has y% loyalty towards a foreign civ, then it makes it easier for that civ to flip tiles of that city towards its own empire.
Flip tiles? How does that work?
First of all there is a new civilian unit called a Diplomat available some time in the classical era. This unit can do two things. Firstly you can send it to a foreign city where it can sit there visible to everyone slowly increasing the loyalty of your civ in that city (the rate at which it does so depending on your culture and theirs). The other thing it can do is go to a tile of a foreign civ neighbouring one of yours and it can try to flip it.
Are you going to tell me how flipping works or not?
To flip a tile your diplomat have to fill up a pot of culture. The size of that pot depends on how much that tile would cost to buy with gold if it was a neutral tile. Your closest city pumps all of its culture output into that tile (so it doesn't contribute towards making it gain neutral tiles or Social Policies) and the foreign city which owns that tile takes culture away from the pot based on how much culture it is generating and how loyal it is to you. When the pot is filled, the tile flips?
Hmm, okay, but what's the point?
The point of the loyalty system is to make the transition from "occupied" to "core city" a gradual one that takes work and effort. Not only does it improve gameplay by requiring more player participation but it is also more realistic and imersive. The diplomats are there to allow you to prepare your war effort more thoroughly. If you want to invade another civ, send diplomats over to sit in their cities and bring the population around to the possibility of liking you. Likewise, you may want to chose SPs which are suboptimal for you but your target has in order to make the post invasion recovery easier. Is it worth it or not? Thats a good question and up to the player to decide. The second function of diplomats is more obvious, to put something back that was in Civ4, but in a more controlled way so that the player does not feel arbitrarily punished for it.
tl;dr:
Cities can be more a less loyal towards different civs. Unloyal cities aren't as productive and are more likely to have tiles stolen from them. You can make foreign cities more loyal by various means to make them more productive when you invade them.
Thoughts?
The Idea:
Every city has a certain loyalty (from 0 to 100%) for every civ discovered. What is the loyalty of a city?
The base loyalty for the civ which built the city is 100%, and the loyalty to every other civ is x% (closeish to 0). If a civ is unhappy/very unhappy, the loyalty of every city towards that civ drops slowly. If a city has a courthouse, its loyalty towards the civ who owns it goes up slightly every turn. The loyalty of a foreign city towards a civ A is also higher the more social policies the original owner of that city and Civ B share.
If you capture a city, its loyalty towards you is what it was just before you capture it. Thus loyalty represents just that - how willing the population of a city are to work for a given civ.
What does loyalty do?
Loyalty does two things, depending on whether its the loyalty towards the civ owning it, or towards another foreign civ. If a city has x% loyalty towards the civ owning it, then it only has x% of the production, and only x% of the cities cultural output goes into the bucket used to buy new social policies. If a city has y% loyalty towards a foreign civ, then it makes it easier for that civ to flip tiles of that city towards its own empire.
Flip tiles? How does that work?
First of all there is a new civilian unit called a Diplomat available some time in the classical era. This unit can do two things. Firstly you can send it to a foreign city where it can sit there visible to everyone slowly increasing the loyalty of your civ in that city (the rate at which it does so depending on your culture and theirs). The other thing it can do is go to a tile of a foreign civ neighbouring one of yours and it can try to flip it.
Are you going to tell me how flipping works or not?
To flip a tile your diplomat have to fill up a pot of culture. The size of that pot depends on how much that tile would cost to buy with gold if it was a neutral tile. Your closest city pumps all of its culture output into that tile (so it doesn't contribute towards making it gain neutral tiles or Social Policies) and the foreign city which owns that tile takes culture away from the pot based on how much culture it is generating and how loyal it is to you. When the pot is filled, the tile flips?
Hmm, okay, but what's the point?
The point of the loyalty system is to make the transition from "occupied" to "core city" a gradual one that takes work and effort. Not only does it improve gameplay by requiring more player participation but it is also more realistic and imersive. The diplomats are there to allow you to prepare your war effort more thoroughly. If you want to invade another civ, send diplomats over to sit in their cities and bring the population around to the possibility of liking you. Likewise, you may want to chose SPs which are suboptimal for you but your target has in order to make the post invasion recovery easier. Is it worth it or not? Thats a good question and up to the player to decide. The second function of diplomats is more obvious, to put something back that was in Civ4, but in a more controlled way so that the player does not feel arbitrarily punished for it.
tl;dr:
Cities can be more a less loyal towards different civs. Unloyal cities aren't as productive and are more likely to have tiles stolen from them. You can make foreign cities more loyal by various means to make them more productive when you invade them.
Thoughts?
