Ideological Dissatsfaction and City Flipping Details

[Seek]

There is a new mechanic called Public Opinion that reflects your civ's people's Ideological satisfaction. It will determine whether cities flip to a "preferred Ideology", which is based on the amount of Tourism coming from civs with different Ideologies. There are four levels of Ideological satisfaction: Content, Dissidents, Civil Resistance and Revolutionary Wave; these seem to be tied to Global Happiness (below you can see that Revolutionary Wave occurs at -20 happiness). A civ cannot change Ideologies at Content, only below. "Some level of Unhappiness will be generated if this satisfaction level is anything other than Content", so dissatisfaction levels equate to more unhappiness, which can lead to higher dissatisfaction levels, etc. It appears to be a downward spiral, what fun!

From Rev3Games video:



From the IGN video:





From Q&A #3:

At what level of discontent do cities start flipping to a rival civ?

When your happiness gets down to -20, then your Cities will start abandoning your empire.

Those contentedness levels appear to reflect empire-wide discontent. How is the city to be flipped chosen?

If your people are this unhappy, they will have a Preferred Ideology they’d like to switch to. We look at all your cities to see how close they are to the capital cities of the civs following that Ideology (and how much pressure you are receiving from each of those civ’s cultures). Based on those factors we can pick the city that will flip (and which civ it will defect to).

You can have a dominant culture from a different continent. Can you flip a city from far away or does it have to be adjacent?

It’s certainly possible, especially if the other civs exerting pressure are also distant.

If anyone has more information or has a different interpretation please share! My obvious worry is that the AI on higher difficulties will be able to ignore this.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

'Lose cities to revolt' ?
That's what I hoped for !
I can't wait for the downtrodden masses to rise up against their decadent, burgeois oppressors and join my glorious worker's paradise.

 

[Colmar]

I can't wait to tread on my downtrodden workers as soon as I get a whiff of revolution!

 

[anandus]

I love the smell of Bourgeois oppression in the morning

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But I wonder how this works, actually. It's tied to global happiness, not local happiness(?), so it isn't city flipping per se? It's more like civ flipping?

 

[DudewiththeFood]

When you lose cities, do they become a new civ or city-states?

 

[ImperialChaos]

Nice. I was hoping for more information about this. It's hardly covered by the media or 2k.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

When you lose cities, do they become a new civ or city-states?

They flip to the civ that has the biggest ideology, no new civs or city states.

 

[Seek]

I love the smell of Bourgeois oppression in the morning
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But I wonder how this works, actually. It's tied to global happiness, not local happiness, so it isn't city flipping per se? It's more like civ flipping?

That's a good point - perhaps the unhappiness from dissatisfaction is local unhappiness based on proximity to the offending civ's borders. City flipping is definitely in.

 

[Homusubi]

"We have been unfairly given a free government! Let us protest so that we can get the autocracy which is rightfully ours!"

 

[CommunistCookie]

"We have been unfairly given a free government! Let us protest so that we can get the autocracy which is rightfully ours!"

Just imagine Greece's Golden Dawn on steroids. Going from a free state to some form of autocracy isn't unheard of.

 

[anandus]

"We have been unfairly given a free government! Let us protest so that we can get the autocracy which is rightfully ours!"

Well, especially in the late twenties, early thirties a lot of people started to lose faith in democracy, because they found it weak and powerless, as you can tell by the growth of fascism and communism in elections in many countries in those times.
/slightlyofftopic

 

[whyidie]

This doesn't explicitly state the city will go to another civ. It seems to indicate they will revolt with the potential to switch ideologies. Does revolt mean barb spawns and production/science loss or does it necessarily mean they will change Civs ?

 

[AriochIV]

Unfortunately, it's still not clear what "revolt" means specifically.

 

[Tsar NicholasII]

Can you send in troops to put down revolts?

 

[Gamewizard]

Nowhere did I read that cities in revolt will flip to another civ. I read it as cities will begin to turn unproductive, much like when a city is captured.

 

[Giskler]

The Kotaku article mentions rebellion turning into civil war and troops switching sides. Not sure if the author was embellishing it, but it sounds very interesting. Civil war is something I miss from the original civ.

 

[Schalke 04]

Nowhere did I read that cities in revolt will flip to another civ. I read it as cities will begin to turn unproductive, much like when a city is captured.

there are actually a lot of possibilites:
- Rebel units appear near the city (contamporary barbarian units)
- City is in revolt and therefore no output at all
- City is ideologically divided. Half the yields are transferred to the civ's capital that is dominant in that ideology.

I would prefer the third option, but other options are possible as well

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Well, especially in the late twenties, early thirties a lot of people started to lose faith in democracy, because they found it weak and powerless, as you can tell by the growth of fascism and communism in elections in many countries in those times.
/slightlyofftopic

There was even a failed coup organised in 'murica in the thirties to try and put up a fascist regime!

I guess border-cities would flip to either the closest Civ with the desired Ideology or the Civ dominant in that Ideology. Hoping for the former. Can you imagine the hassle of trying to run a 2 or 3-pop city in revolt next to a hostile Police State on the other side of the world?

 

[ImperialChaos]

There was even a failed coup organised in 'murica in the thirties to try and put up a fascist regime!

I guess border-cities would flip to either the closest Civ with the desired Ideology or the Civ dominant in that Ideology. Hoping for the former. Can you imagine the hassle of trying to run a 2 or 3-pop city in revolt next to a hostile Police State on the other side of the world?

Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

I still have no idea why this hasn't been covered in the previews yet. Cultural flipping or any thing remotely similar is a huge update for the game. Bigger, in my opinion, then an archeologist looking for ancient ruins.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

I still have no idea why this hasn't been covered in the previews yet. Cultural flipping or any thing remotely similar is a huge update for the game. Bigger, in my opinion, then an archeologist looking for ancient ruins.

Agreed. The GW system wouldn't be broken without archeological digs, (still GA,GMu,GWr) but having Ideologies and Ideological revolt without any classic city-flipping just might cause a revolt around here itself!