Dramatic Ages - Free cities loyalty pressure - how to change it?

[Panzeri]

I don't know if it has ever been asked here, but...
Can anyone out there tell me how to change loyalty pressure from free cities to other civs? I like the dramatic ages mode, but I think if the value were cut in half, maybe we wouldn't run the risk of seeing the AI sink itself... huge free cities blobs are really frustrating...

 

[Melkus]

It's a parameter called FREE_CITY_INFLUENCE in the database. If you want to test values, just edit
Sid Meier's Civilization VI\DLC\Byzantium_Gaul\Data\Byzantium_Gaul_DramaticAges_MODE.xml
It's right at the end of the file (which will obviously be overwritten if Firaxis ever updates this - bad modding practice!).

Also, this is my self-made Dramatic Ages mod/fix DA Weaker Free Cities.zip - you can just put it in your mod folder, it wasn't intended for distribution (not a modding expert) but it works. It also slightly lowers the amount of lost cities in a dark age and removes the bugged Culture Industry policy (and Samoderzhaviye, which makes the AI loyalty problems worse) from the game.

The relevant lines are in Influence.xml.
The free city pressure rises with difficulty, but this normalizes it for all levels (it was up to 5 - five times normal pressure - on Deity, I've reduced it to 2)
Even 2 is still a relatively high value (like a normal city in a Golden Age) and can flip badly placed cities.