How does Loki's disrupt spell work in RiFE?

[Cyrusfan]

Yes, I tried to search first, but most of what I saw for Loki was from FFH, before he got channeling (and those descriptions of the effect don't seem to quite match what it does here). And the result here that seemed applicable was an old thread about the Bannor's Crusade civic where this question came up at the end and was shot down for being off topic. So I figure I;d just ask in a way that hopefully will show up the next time someone tries a search.

Under the AI, I see Loki merrily grabbing cities in war time and occasionally new ones as well. A friend of mine tried to play the Balseraphs today and got pretty frustrated trying to disrupt a new city dumped behind his forts (he got a great commander from a lair) by a Creative leader. He had Loki and a puppet casting and some turns he appeared to come out ahead, but the frequent 0 results killed his interest.

So what I'd like to know is what mechanically happens when Loki casts Disrupt, what's the range of culture he can wipe out, what's the unhappiness/unrest effect, and does the puppet really help at all? And does any of this get easier at higher levels or is the AI just really opportunistic with him when I see him later in the game?

 

[Sjru]

As I saw, disrupt captures automatically any city with 0 culture, or 1 culture, each disrupt eat 1 culture point, so it would be impossible trying to capture a city with a culture gain of 2 or more. (10 culture would mean about 10 disrupt, assuming that city doesn't generate more than 1 culture per turn).

 

[Cyrusfan]

That's not what I saw happening, though. Some castings of Disrupt did nothing, some reduced a point, and some two. And I thought one added unhappiness, but I'm not sure. Further adding to the frustration was when he moved Loki off to try it elsewhere, but kept the puppet in place, the puppet miscast.

 

[Valkrionn]

Disrupt removes anything from 0 to 2 culture; It's random.

It will be autocastable in 1.3 thanks to Snarko, so it's not nearly as micro intensive.

 

[Cyrusfan]

So whether it's a bell curve or linear, it's an expectation of 1, 2 with the puppet casting, so on average you can tread water in a city getting +2 culture either from a monument or from creative, but you're not going to take the city if it's had a few turns to build up a buffer. Thanks, Valk, that's what I was wondering.