[GS] I hate loyalty more than any other mechanic.

[aieeegrunt]

I liked the way superior culture in early civ games would end up with you “stealing” hexes from uncouth neighbours. It was an elegant way of showing immigration and demographic replacement

The way the loyalty mechanic works in Civ6 is the #2 reason I have gone back to the basic game

 

[kaspergm]

While not perfect, I overall think the loyalty system is one of the (new) game elements of Civ6 that works best. Of course it's not perfect (is there ever any game element that's perfect for anybody), but overall it does what it's intended to do, and it provides a situational challenge, yet it can be overcome in most situations. There are things I would tweak - I think military presence should have a much bigger effect on suppressing rebellion, and I think negative happiness should have a much bigger impact in causing rebellion in your own cities, to name a few - but the gains from the AI not just randomly settling in the midst of your empire are huge imo.

 

[steveg700]

Seriously, I hate loyalty. What is fun about taking a city and 5-10 turns later it rebels with the MOST ADVANCED UNITS of the time? It's not fun to me. In the early game there's literally no counter. You put a governor in there, select all the policies, nope still rebel.

It's just an awful game mechanic.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if rebels didn't spawn units that require iron with no iron in sight. Yet as the player I need Iron to have iron units.

I did all this work to take a city and you punish me? Just unfun garbage mechanic. I did the work to take the city let me keep it. Loyalty is just a boring stupid mechanic; just another thing the game can do to punish you for being better than the AI.

The loyalty system gets under my skin.

However,, the thing is, you're probably being way too easy on yourself. "I did all this work"? You didn't do the work of planning the attack strategy to take loyalty into account. If you are taking all the steps, with governors, policies (not just those that grant raw loyalty, but also amenities) then it was just an ill-considered attack. Sometimes it's timing. Prey on civ's in a dark age. Or wait until you're in a golden age. Or both. OR, just be ready to do a proper blitzkrieg. And be cognizant of the impact of pillaging tiles.

HAVING SAID THAT, I do agree there are issues with loyalty. Loyalty pressure should scale with era to some degree. I'd be fine if it didn't exist AT ALL in the ancient era. and just came in at half-power in the classical era. The tools of mitigation we are talking about barely exist in the ancient era. Meanwhile, if you're playing at Emperor or above, the AI is getting free settlers and has more cities than they player. If you are playing Sumeria or Aztecs, just rush in and gank. But if that's not how you want every game to go, then it's a big obstacle to fun because civ's are packed WAY too close to each on most civ's.

I abandon too too TOO many games because I can't get past three cities without war. And then the classical era comes and whoopsy-daisy, some civ's wound up in dark ages and others golden. That's all she wrote.

 

[Zegangani]

I agree on the Point that Loyalty as a Concept is a really good mechanic, and it worked pretty well so far in the Game, from the gameplay perspective so to say. Because, other than the small Issues like Free Cities getting more advanced Units than they should or AI not knowing how to use Governors to sustain Loyalty in a City or some balance Issues, Loyalty brought more good than do harm to the Game. It, to a degree, fixes the AI Issue of forward settling, makes conquest a challenging task that requires a strategic plan beforehand...etc. But even then, I yet don't know whether I like it or not, bc I have 2 big Issues with it, that sometimes totally ruin my games:

1) Immersion: I still can't figure out what Loyalty represents. Like, is it a Stability System or does it display Cultural Identity and diffusion? a version of both? bc, the term "Loyalty", to me, portrays "Stability" and the mechanics like revolt and Free-Cities certainly imply that to me, but the City flipping side of it and Citizen Identity pressure, portray nothing but Cultural Pressure and Diffusion. I mean, it's totally fine if Loyalty is a combination of both, but the way it works in the Game, most of the things affecting it, hint more towards "Stability" than "Cultural Pressure/Diffusion". Because, the only thing that would speak for the latter is the Identity Pressure, which is the major component of Loyalty, but it doesn't derive from the Culture in a City, in fact, its major sources are Citizens (just the raw number of Population), Governors, and Policy Cards, which, to me, represent Stability. And that causes confusion on what "Loyalty" actually represents, and not having a clear answer to that leads the Player to portray it as a representation of either "Stability", which the name "Loyalty" implies, or "Cultural Idenenity/Diffusion", or a combination of both. That alone isn't an issue, after all many players enjoy roleplaying stuff in the game, but problem is, picking any of these 3 options causes more issues/confusion. Just to name a few; a non-stable Free City flipping to another Player bc he has lots of cities with loyal but unhappy Citizens nearby doesn't make any sense to me where even a Barbarian Clan can become an independent City-State, and a happy City with good amount of Culture output suddenly flipping to another Player is contradictory to how Cultural pressure/influence should work, and trying to see it as a combination of both instead of one thing or the other also has its own contradictories (mostly from the lack of clarification on what Loyalty actualy is), and all of that totally breaks immersion to me.

2) Colonialism: with Loyalty, Colonies are very, very hard to settle and keep. The mechanic doesn't allow for that, bc when you settle a City too far from your other Cities but near other Player's Cities, you practically gifting a City to them, for free. And the only ways to settle Colonies are to either settle as many as possible and close to each other as quick as possible before any city flips, or settle somewhere where there is no foreign City (the AI will follow you everywhere, so, forget about that - tho, most of those places aren't profitable in the first place). That's totally unnecessary if you ask me. I mean, sure, it's a challenge, and would have been as good as the challenge you get from conquest with loyalty in play if there was some feature that would help with that, like spending a Governor Title to make a City Immune to Identity Pressure for X amount of turns or something, but the way how loyalty is implemented doesn't allow for Colonialism, in fact, it punishes it, and there is no fun in that. It's clear that Loyalty isn't designed with Colonialism under consideration, and that certainly comes at the price of a Gameplay approach/style that is part of not just History that players love to roleplay, but also Civilization and the 4X Gameplay in general.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Those are my 2 main Problems with Loyalty, and I'm sure if they would be adressed, many of the Issues of Loyalty would be settled, which doesn't mean that Loyalty doesn't have other Issues that need to be fixed/balanced. In fact, there is always room for improvement for anything in the Game, and @steveg700's Idea of Loyalty scaling with Eras is one of those Ideas that could really improve it.

 

[Bibor]

I hate loyalty more than any other mechanic.

Hate is such a strong word. I suggest using the word tornado as replacement. Bears more weight, more despair.

"I tornado loyalty more than any other mechanic." – much better

P.s. Loyalty is the best mechanic so far for city flipping in any civ iteration, with the exception of SMAC mind control. I'm not saying its perfect, but it truly could be much worse. At least it's predictable, counterable and boostable.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

1) Immersion: I still can't figure out what Loyalty represents. Like, is it a Stability System or does it display Cultural Identity and diffusion? a version of both? bc, the term "Loyalty", to me, portrays "Stability" and the mechanics like revolt and Free-Cities certainly imply that to me, but the City flipping side of it and Citizen Identity pressure, portray nothing but Cultural Pressure and Diffusion. I mean, it's totally fine if Loyalty is a combination of both, but the way it works in the Game, most of the things affecting it, hint more towards "Stability" than "Cultural Pressure/Diffusion". Because, the only thing that would speak for the latter is the Identity Pressure, which is the major component of Loyalty, but it doesn't derive from the Culture in a City, in fact, its major sources are Citizens (just the raw number of Population), Governors, and Policy Cards, which, to me, represent Stability. And that causes confusion on what "Loyalty" actually represents, and not having a clear answer to that leads the Player to portray it as a representation of either "Stability", which the name "Loyalty" implies, or "Cultural Idenenity/Diffusion", or a combination of both. That alone isn't an issue, after all many players enjoy roleplaying stuff in the game, but problem is, picking any of these 3 options causes more issues/confusion. Just to name a few; a non-stable Free City flipping to another Player bc he has lots of cities with loyal but unhappy Citizens nearby doesn't make any sense to me where even a Barbarian Clan can become an independent City-State, and a happy City with good amount of Culture output suddenly flipping to another Player is contradictory to how Cultural pressure/influence should work, and trying to see it as a combination of both instead of one thing or the other also has its own contradictories (mostly from the lack of clarification on what Loyalty actualy is), and all of that totally breaks immersion to me.

I think loyalty is probably the wrong name for the mechanic. I think it is both identity pressure and stability. It seems to work like identity pressure. It represents that influence you are exerting on nearby cities to join your civilization. We see this by how cities feel a certain "loyalty" number from other nearby cities and flip when the "loyalty" from other cities is too strong. But if your city has low loyalty, it will be more susceptible to flipping which is like a stability measure.

 

[Leyrann]

I abandon too too TOO many games because I can't get past three cities without war.

I'm sorry, what?

Either you're playing maps with very low amounts of land (Archipelago and such) and have more civs than usual, or you're doing something wrong.

I play exclusively on Deity these days, and usually I can get at least like 8 cities in on maps like Pangaea, and more (10+, sometimes as many as 20) on maps with a lot of land such as Highlands, Seven Seas or Lakes. Just regular standard-size maps with 8 players, 12 city-states and normal sea level. The only exceptions to this that I can remember are... yup, games where I put more than the regular amount of civs on a map.

 

[aieeegrunt]

The loyalty system gets under my skin.

However,, the thing is, you're probably being way too easy on yourself. "I did all this work"? You didn't do the work of planning the attack strategy to take loyalty into account. If you are taking all the steps, with governors, policies (not just those that grant raw loyalty, but also amenities) then it was just an ill-considered attack. Sometimes it's timing. Prey on civ's in a dark age. Or wait until you're in a golden age. Or both. OR, just be ready to do a proper blitzkrieg. And be cognizant of the impact of pillaging tiles.

HAVING SAID THAT, I do agree there are issues with loyalty. Loyalty pressure should scale with era to some degree. I'd be fine if it didn't exist AT ALL in the ancient era. and just came in at half-power in the classical era. The tools of mitigation we are talking about barely exist in the ancient era. Meanwhile, if you're playing at Emperor or above, the AI is getting free settlers and has more cities than they player. If you are playing Sumeria or Aztecs, just rush in and gank. But if that's not how you want every game to go, then it's a big obstacle to fun because civ's are packed WAY too close to each on most civ's.

I abandon too too TOO many games because I can't get past three cities without war. And then the classical era comes and whoopsy-daisy, some civ's wound up in dark ages and others golden. That's all she wrote.

I wonder if loyalty should be effected by certain civics, governments, and/or policies

Like developing the concept of Nationalism, it makes your cities very resistant to being flipped and difficult for an invader to hold, but it also makes it tough for you to hold on to cities you capture

 

[SupremacyKing2]

In the early game there's literally no counter. You put a governor in there, select all the policies, nope still rebel.

Not true. That is because the foreign loyalty is still stronger than your loyalty so the governor and policies are not enough to keep the city. For example, if you try to take a city that is far from your cities but close to the foreign civ, your pressure won't be enough to counter the pressure from the other foreign cities. If the imbalance is strong enough, like -20 loyalty, adding a governor or policies won't be enough, the city will still flip back no matter what. That's because the loyalty pressure is too strong against you. But if you take an enemy city that is close to your empire where your cities can exert some pressure on the city, then you will be fine. You might have a little loyalty loss like -5 loyalty but adding a governor or policies will help and you will keep the city just fine. I have no problem with conquering cities in the early age but I am careful to settle some cities close to the target to make sure I have some friendly loyalty pressure. I get some loyalty loss but placing a governor and policies helps and I am fine.

It is all about whether you are trying to take a city with a huge negative loyalty or just a city with a small negative loyalty. I think you need to just understand the loyalty mechanic better. You are trying to take cities that have too much loyalty pressure against you to start with. So naturally, you are not able to hold them. But that is normal. The whole point of the loyalty mechanic is to prevent an unrealistic strategy of forward settling far from your empire, close to an enemy civ or conquering a enemy city in the middle of their empire, far from your empire.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Hate is such a strong word. I suggest using the word tornado as replacement. Bears more weight, more despair.

"I tornado loyalty more than any other mechanic." – much better

P.s. Loyalty is the best mechanic so far for city flipping in any civ iteration, with the exception of SMAC mind control. I'm not saying its perfect, but it truly could be much worse. At least it's predictable, counterable and boostable.

I know how it could be worse!

Civ 5's City Flipping!

Here, have this random city in the middle of another civ's empire because the refuse to change their ideology while you are crushing them with yours.

 

[steveg700]

I'm sorry, what?

Either you're playing maps with very low amounts of land (Archipelago and such) and have more civs than usual, or you're doing something wrong..

I play huge shuffle maps, and subtract two cities and cut the number of CS's from 18 to 14 or 12.

Don't know what there is in any of that to be "doing something wrong". Or right for that matter--it simply is common to meet 2-4 AI civ's right away, spawning right at 10 hexes. With their extra cities they can encroach on available space plenty fast.

AFAICT, changing the # of cities doesn't really create more space overall. The map is generated the same congestion, then two civ's are removed. If the player is lackey, he's one of the civ's that benefits from the gap.

 

[Leyrann]

I play huge shuffle maps, and subtract two cities and cut the number of CS's from 18 to 14 or 12.

Don't know what there is in any of that to be "doing something wrong". Or right for that matter--it simply is common to meet 2-4 AI civ's right away, spawning right at 10 hexes. With their extra cities they can encroach on available space plenty fast.

AFAICT, changing the # of cities doesn't really create more space overall. The map is generated the same congestion, then two civ's are removed. If the player is lackey, he's one of the civ's that benefits from the gap.

Is shuffle it's own map script, or does it take a random map script?

Either way, continents/pangea and any map script that has less land than it can give you unlucky spawns with barely any space to expand, but it's not the rule unless you play true water maps, and it's practically absent if you play land maps. And even then, when I played an archipelago game a while back I still had space for seven or so cities - and I might've (and could've) settled more if I hadn't gone into it with a domination mindset.

Again: I usually play peaceful games, and I have no issues getting to 10 cities in every game. No wars needed. I do forward settle AIs when I can get away with it, though. Usually I plan out at least seven or eight cities around the time I get my first Settler out (turn 15-20) and if no AI is nearby I settle in the best spot, if an AI is nearby I settle in the spot most likely to otherwise be taken by the AI.

 

[steveg700]

IAgain: I usually play peaceful games, and I have no issues getting to 10 cities in every game. No wars needed. I do forward settle AIs when I can get away with it, though. Usually I plan out at least seven or eight cities around the time I get my first Settler out (turn 15-20) and if no AI is nearby I settle in the best spot, if an AI is nearby I settle in the spot most likely to otherwise be taken by the AI.

Room for a ten city empire ? Nope. Not a given. Not on a huge map at least. Ai civ's start ten hexes apart.

 

[Leyrann]

Room for a ten city empire ? Nope. Not a given. Not on a huge map at least. Ai civ's start ten hexes apart.

I'm currently playing on a normal-sized map with a normal amount of civs, where I'd expect less room per civ than on a huge map, and I'm playing the lakes map script, which has a lot of land and very little water.

I have (turn 68) 7 cities built right now, and 12 pins of planned cities, and based on the distance of the AIs and positioning of city states, I'd be surprised if I lost even a single one of those pins to an AI city. That's 19 cities, with possibly more that I don't currently have planned out. The closest AI capital to my capital is about 25 tiles away.

If you don't have room, play a different map script.

...In fact, you know what, I'm checking my recent games.

In my Australia game, I'm in the Industrial Era, and I'm playing a Highlands map. Again, standard map size, standard number of civs. Note that this game I was using the Better Balanced Starts mod, which adjusts the mechanics a bit. I have 15 cities, with 7 more planned and no wars fought (except against the Barbarians, lmao). The closest AI capital is 16 tiles away from my capital, but it should be noted that in one direction I have more like 25 tiles room to exapnd.

In my Babylon game, I'm in the Future Era in my last save. Standard map size, standard number of civs, Seven Seas map script. I have 15 cities, though admittedly 5 of those were flipped. One of those five flips happened because the AI forward settled me, and if it hadn't flipped I would have conquered it because it was easy pickings, and then possibly razed it because that way I could've fit in another city that now didn't fit. It should be noted that this game I was extremely slow with expanding; I only got my second city down in like turn 42 or something. Notably, the closest capital to mine was only 11 tiles away, though the next closest was 16 tiles away. For all accounts and purposes, I was playing a tall game, and had I wanted to, I could've probably settled two or three more cities before the AI got to certain locations.

In my One-City Challenge Babylon game, I won't bother counting the cities, obviously. I was playing standard map size, standard number of civs, and a pangea map. The closest capital to mine was 11 tiles away, the next 16 tiles. This game would've been rather cramped if I hadn't been playing OCC, I think, and I'd still have been able to get about 8 cities in.

In my Phoenicia game, again standard map size and number of civs, I was playing an archipilago map - the lowest land area possible. This is a domination game, which of course changes things a bit, however I peacefully settled 9 cities that I'd have gotten no matter what, there are another 3 that I might have lost to AI expansion if I hadn't fought that AI (they declared war on me by the way) and there are another 4 city locations that I'd have settled before the AI got there if I hadn't been focused on war, for a total of at least 13 cities without war. The closest AI capital is 13 tiles away from mine.

In my Cree game, I was again using the Seven Seas script and Better Balanced Starts mod. In the last save, I'm in the Industrial Era (I had a very early diplo victory), with zero wars fought all game, and I have 16 cities. Three of these were flipped, however, one was an absolutely braindead settle by the AI, and would have been three cities had I had the opportunity to settle the area myself. There are also still three good spots for cities left that I never bothered to settle, and two or three spots where an AI has settled that I could have gotten myself had I wanted to. The closest AI capital is 16 tiles away from mine.

In my Vietnam game, which I kind of abandoned, I'm in the early Industrial Era. I'm not entirely sure of the map script because it's too long ago, but I suspect it's Continents and Islands based on what I'm seeing. I peacefully settled 14 cities, with room for 1 more, and that's while I got forward settled by the AI, losing me 3-4 cities I was planning on settling. The closest AI capital is 15 tiles away.

How many more examples do you want?

EDIT: For completeness' sake, these 7 games were my last seven games that I have at least one save of, with the exception of:
-Two games where I played with a mod that unlocks every single unique ability in the game, making me incredibly overpowered.
-One game where I played with more than the default number of civs, which I abandoned relatively early on, in part because of how crowded it was with that many civs, but I also cannot use it for this post because I don't know where the AI capitals are.
-Two starts I saved because they looked interesting when I was rolling starts, but I haven't played with these yet so I don't know how far the AI is.

 

[steveg700]

I wonder if loyalty should be effected by certain civics, governments, and/or policies

Like developing the concept of Nationalism, it makes your cities very resistant to being flipped and difficult for an invader to hold, but it also makes it tough for you to hold on to cities you capture

Well, to this point perhaps the thing that gets problematic is having localized city pop be the basis for loyalty, allowing it to drive itself rather than being the product of choices made along the way.

I don't have tons of sympathy for the OP's notion that that it's wrong for cities to rebel after being invaded. Seems like rebellion is a reasonable risk of taking a city.

"Why did I go to all the effort to take that city only to lose it to loyalty?" Well, his victim can as easily ask why they went to the effort of building a city only to have it taken from them. In both cases, The answer is there's a risk, and it needs to be mitigated.

On the other hand, It vexes me to think that simply farming for high pop can draw cities to an empire. Or for that matter, a city with a singe district and nothing else but farms. That farm-only city should be drawn to another city that services commerce, entertainment, safety, faith, etc. District diversity, boosted with or perhaps harmed by policy choices, becomes the driving factors.

Thing is, it necessitates the game being very different from what it is. The game is not designed to drive players to make give-and-take decisions where choosing oppressive regime tools (e.g. taxation, slavery, police state) provides benefits yet also open a civ to losing loyalty. And the AI needs to make different choices in city design.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Well, to this point perhaps the thing that gets problematic is having localized city pop be the basis for loyalty, allowing it to drive itself rather than being the product of choices made along the way.

I don't have tons of sympathy for the OP's notion that that it's wrong for cities to rebel after being invaded. Seems like rebellion is a reasonable risk of taking a city.

"Why did I go to all the effort to take that city only to lose it to loyalty?" Well, his victim can as easily ask why they went to the effort of building a city only to have it taken from them. In both cases, The answer is there's a risk, and it needs to be mitigated.

On the other hand, It vexes me to think that simply farming for high pop can draw cities to an empire. Or for that matter, a city with a singe district and nothing else but farms. That farm-only city should be drawn to another city that services commerce, entertainment, safety, faith, etc. District diversity, boosted with or perhaps harmed by policy choices, becomes the driving factors.

Thing is, it necessitates the game being very different from what it is. The game is not designed to drive players to make give-and-take decisions where choosing oppressive regime tools (e.g. taxation, slavery, police state) provides benefits yet also open a civ to losing loyalty. And the AI needs to make different choices in city design.

I think abstraction of gameplay concepts in relation to "realism" is your issue here. The whole population thing isn't "Realistic" but serves as a balancing act. If city size had no impact on loyalty then you could easily start exploiting that by settling sattelitte cities to flip your neighbours all of a sudden. Population often represents urban/cultural development, so there's something to it.

 

[steveg700]

How many more examples do you want?

Oh, I don't want or need your examples. I play the game and am speaking from experience and that incorporates all the different map types--seven seas, continents, whatever. Not sure how one can one think their examples can somehow tramp another's experience.

Sometimes I do get a map with a goodly allotment of distance from rival civ's--I wouldn't play the game if I couldn't of course. Although that's often from removing civ's and randomly being the civ blessed with an opportune "hole" where another civ would have been.

Having sixteen tiles of space between capitals is not the norm in Ci VI.

Here's one of those seven seas map scripts with all that land to offer. Three different civ's on the doorstep with capitals, two with capitals ten tiles away. No ten-city empire happening here with breezy lack of contention. All too typical.

 

[steveg700]

I think abstraction of gameplay concepts in relation to "realism" is your issue here. The whole population thing isn't "Realistic" but serves as a balancing act. If city size had no impact on loyalty then you could easily start exploiting that by settling sattelitte cities to flip your neighbours all of a sudden. Population often represents urban/cultural development, so there's something to it.

Missed my point, in a big way I think.

Satellite cities now are able to flip cities with loyalty, by simply overwhelming neighbors with sheer pop.

If district diversity was a driving factor, it is not something to easily exploit "all of a sudden" by settling satellite cities with one district and lots of farms.

Pop doesn't represent urban development in Civ VI. Districts do! And districts are, as we know, enabled by pop. Pop is still a factor, indirectly so.

 

[Ordnael]

My gripe with loyalty is making a defeated AI come back impossible...you liberate a city from for that AI and it quickly flips back...I miss simpler days from CIV 1...you took capital city from a large conqueror civ and suddenly their empire broke in half. I also miss when the game would reward you with some backwater ai's city because your empire was so good!

 

[Chekko]

Like many have said I like the concept but also think it should be more than this linear thing.