Diplomacy Enemy Capital Loyalty Problem

[Bojmir]

So I was just in a Victoria game where I was just going for a casual tall build for a Diplomacy win. My neighbors were Amanator and Alexander. Well after Alex got about 4 cities out, Ama just beat the Hell out of him and took him out of the game. So things are progressing along but Ama didn't quite keep up her good sense and dropped to a Dark and then a Normal age causing my tall cities' pressure to cause all 4 of the former Macedonian cities to fall to me including the capital. I didn't care at first because I had so many ameneties but then too late I realized that when the capital fell, I would not be able to release it back to Alex since I didn't technically conquer it. So suddenly I'm left with the holding a foreign capital diplomatic penalty. Outside of perpetually holding a Cultural Alliance (I don't even think we had Alliances when the capital was falling) or straight going to war with Ama, could i have done anything else to prevent this?

 

[CoconutTank]

I think it's possible to trade away cities, could you maybe trade the Macedonian capital to Ama?

Edit: For the record, leandrombraz is correct; capitals cannot be traded away. Which is kind of a bummer but maybe this prevents further shenanigans.

 

[Linklite]

If you trade them, think carefully, or it will just fall back to you.
One thing you could have done was conquer the cities while they were free cities, and you would have had the opportunity to restore them to their founder (Alexander).
Another is when they asked you to join, you could have refused, and then your pressure would not affect them anymore (although you now have possibly perpetual free cities on your border, with the attendant frustrations, unless they flip back to Amanator).
On second thoughts, if you do trade them away, even if they flip back, you could do one of those two options.

 

[leandrombraz]

I think it's possible to trade away cities, could you maybe trade the Macedonian capital to Ama?

You can't trade capitals.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

In my opinion, the diplomatic favor penalty should only apply if you are the one to take that capital city by force. Capitals gained via loyalty flipping or conquered from a third party shouldn't count.

 

[leandrombraz]

In my opinion, the diplomatic favor penalty should only apply if you are the one to take that capital city by force. Capitals gained via loyalty flipping or conquered from a third party shouldn't count.

The main reason they added this penalty was to stop people from exploiting the diplo victory by eliminating everyone to win in the congress. If the penalty wasn't applied when you loyalty flip a capital, then people would be able to just loyalty flip capitals and avoid the penalty. The penalty has to be applied regardless of how you get the city or it won't do what it's supposed to do.

 

[Galvatron]

The main reason they added this penalty was to stop people from exploiting the diplo victory by eliminating everyone to win in the congress. If the penalty wasn't applied when you loyalty flip a capital, then people would be able to just loyalty flip capitals and avoid the penalty. The penalty has to be applied regardless of how you get the city or it won't do what it's supposed to do.

Except in this case he didnt eliminate then so the solution isnt working.

And besides even if that were true he's here because he lacks the options in game to do what the dev's want him to do according to this theory.

 

[Tech Osen]

Without seeing the map it's just theory but if the capital is close to Aminator's border and the other cities in between your cities and the capital, you could give the non capital cities to Aminator and hope they give enough pressure that the capital flips.

 

[Datian]

It makes me think of poor Eleanor, everybody loves her and wants to join her enlightened rule yet no one will vote for her in the world congress.

 

[Linklite]

Except in this case he didnt eliminate then so the solution isnt working.

And besides even if that were true he's here because he lacks the options in game to do what the dev's want him to do according to this theory.

He could have restored the capital back to Alexander rather than let his former empire sit in anarchy and then try to absorb it for himself (btw I'm not criticising him as a person, only the RP element).

But like most games, the fixes aren't perfect but I'm not sure there is any feasible and reasonable way to foresee and adapt for every possible outcome. The OP couod have either rejected the Capital, or attacked it while it was free and restored Alexander's empire. Either way, it's part of the game.

 

[leandrombraz]

Except in this case he didnt eliminate then so the solution isnt working.

And besides even if that were true he's here because he lacks the options in game to do what the dev's want him to do according to this theory.

It's working, it's just causing side effects for people that aren't exploiting. If anything, it's working too well. I don't think this penalty is a good fix to the exploit and OP's case is something the devs should consider, but the solution isn't as simple as not applying the penalty when the capital is loyalty flipped. Firaxis will need to get more creative than that.

 

[Datian]

Frankly if there was to be a modifier, it should be a positive one.
Your neighbour wasn't even able to keep its capital, it defected to you : who's to blame among the world congress ? The one who welcomed a whole city ?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

If I were you, I'd rollback to an earlier save just before the city fell to you, when you get the option, simply refuse the city.

1. It'll prevent your Loyalty from EVER flipping to you, so oyou can only get that city by conciously conquering it.

2. Will actully most likely flip it to Amanitore back again.

 

[Galvatron]

It's working, it's just causing side effects for people that aren't exploiting.

We're taking about one of those people right now though, not the intended target. Maybe it's working on the intended target but its hiring someone else, and hence not working for them.

If a gun misfires ands hits your friend the gun isn't 'working' because it hit someone, it's malfunctioning.

 

[Bojmir]

If I were you, I'd rollback to an earlier save just before the city fell to you, when you get the option, simply refuse the city.

1. It'll prevent your Loyalty from EVER flipping to you, so oyou can only get that city by conciously conquering it.

2. Will actully most likely flip it to Amanitore back again.

Wait, this happens? I tried refusing a free city once and it went straight back into losing loyalty as a free city to me again and had a large decrease in population. I didn't want to deal with having to keep flipping it into a perpetual 1 person city so I had to reload quickly and take it at the higher population.

 

[oSiyeza]

The main reason they added this penalty was to stop people from exploiting the diplo victory by eliminating everyone to win in the congress. If the penalty wasn't applied when you loyalty flip a capital, then people would be able to just loyalty flip capitals and avoid the penalty. The penalty has to be applied regardless of how you get the city or it won't do what it's supposed to do.

Honestly this does not make sense.

In order to avoid a convoluted way of winning diplomatically when you already won the game. They created a penalty that completely breaks diplomacy...

 

[AntSou]

The main reason they added this penalty was to stop people from exploiting the diplo victory by eliminating everyone to win in the congress.

No, they eliminated it because people complained about it not making sense that world conquerors get diplomatic benefits.

The argument never included loyalty. It was always about war needing diplomatic negatives rather than benefits.

If the penalty wasn't applied when you loyalty flip a capital, then people would be able to just loyalty flip capitals and avoid the penalty.

Yes and that would be perfectly acceptable.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Future civic provides 50 diplo favors each time you research it. Research future civic every turn you won't worry too much on these little subtractions.

 

[Josephias]

Except in this case he didnt eliminate then so the solution isnt working.

And besides even if that were true he's here because he lacks the options in game to do what the dev's want him to do according to this theory.

As commented by others, he could have rejected the city (if it works like @TheMarshmallowBear said, that I would say it is, altough @Bojmir stated he has a different experience and I'm not running a test to confirm), or, he could have conquered the rebel city and re-instated Alexander in the game (altough probably city would have rebelled again).

Yes and that would be perfectly acceptable.

No, it would not be acceptable due to two reasons:
- Warmongers will have a quite easy way around the penalty (just conquer everything and let the capitol fall by itself).
- Role Playing, it does not make sense either, when you are "annexing" a recognized homeland. Not to bring a real-world discussion here, but just to show an example: Russia has got a pretty important "diplomatic favor" loss by "peacefully" annexing Crimea, and it would have been greater if they annexed the entire Ukraine. And it would be not difficult to find much more other cases of "puppet governments" being elected wich have resulted in diplomatic backlash to the "pupeteer" nation. No matter the means used, if the diplomatic community sees you taking something that "doesn't belong" to you, there would be consequences. (it being limited to the capitol its a bit strange, but I gess the game assumes everything out of your starting location is "contested land").

 

[leandrombraz]

No, they eliminated it because people complained about it not making sense that world conquerors get diplomatic benefits.

The argument never included loyalty. It was always about war needing diplomatic negatives rather than benefits.

They directly reference the diplo victory here, while explaining their reasons to add the penalty, which is part of a major fix to this victory that included other changes to favors penalty and the world congress. They clearly want the diplo victory to be winnable only diplomatically. Sure, it also took diplo benefits from conquerors, which was likely intended, but I think it's fair to say that the main reason they added this penalty is the one they took the time to reference in their video update.

Yes and that would be perfectly acceptable.

Then you would be able to conquer every city and let the capital loyalty flip to avoid the penalty. For the penalty to achieve the objective they mentioned in the video, it has to apply regardless of how you get the city. Again, I don't think this is a good solution, I'm not defending it, I don't think what happened to OP should happen, I'm just explaining why it works the way it works and why they can't just make an exception for loyalty.