I'm Starting to Really hate Loyalty

[Sostratus]

By the way, has anyone actually used any of the dark age cards?

I find that the later game dark age cards are absurdly strong, namely Robber barons [+25% prod in cities with a factory and +50% gold in cities w a stock exchange, BUT -2 amenities in all cities] and Collectivism [+1 food from farms, +2 housing to call cities, +100% IZ adj, BUT -50% Great people points.] If you slot both of those at once it's just gamebreaking levels of gold and production. You don't realize how crazy % modifer are until you're making 50% more gold. The production is even crazier since +100% IZ adjacency on top of craftsmen and coal plants means that 1 point of IZ adjacency is now 6 production. So if you're using the new IZ rules (see my signature linked guides!) and you've got a +10 IZ, that's going from +40 to +60 production. PLUS you get 25% more from robber barons. It's outrageous. Even sans resources, it's not like anyone is going to stop the flood of AT Crew Armies you can just throw away at the enemy.

 

[steveg700]

I have to wonder what the AI is calculating sometimes. Walata is a city from Mali that had no hope of existing where it is without flipping. its capital is about fifteen tiles down.

I have to imagine that the game does some kind of check against loyalty pressure, otherwise it would've picked a river spot. But it was still way too close. Remember, it's Mali, so all the desert to the south is actually not all that bad, especially with all them hills. Then again, looking at its cities, it has pretty much given up on the very generous amount of desert that fills most of that fifteen tile gap in favor of plains and grasslands.

I wondered if it was a play just to grab marble, but that's already available three tiles from the capital. Dumb dumb dumb. And it's in such an inadvantageous spot I'm going to have to wipe it.

Spoiler :

 

[Abaxial]

Loyalty was a bit of a shock when it was first introduced - suddenly it seemed so much harder to roll up and enemy civ. But now that I'm used to it, I really like it, and I wouldn't really want any changes. It's interesting to note that a lot of recent changes seem to be designed to encourage amicable co-existence rather than instant warring.

 

[Isengardtom]

For me it’s the best mechanic in the game and links well with the ages mechanic and the governors.

At least there’s no more absurd settling in the middle of someone else’s empire.

 

[Icicle]

By the way, has anyone actually used any of the dark age cards?

Just a won a game in an information dark age with flower power.

 

[iammaxhailme]

My biggest problem with loyalty is that when a free city that used to be a city state flips to you, you can't liberate it. You can only add it to your empire or decline it

 

[S1AL]

If you're in a Dark Age in the first place it means you CAN'T get the military to conquer faster.

This is one of the craziest examples of non sequitur that I've ever seen. Those two things are completely unrelated. Spamming military is, in fact, one of the easiest things to do while still getting a dark age.

 

[Icicle]

My biggest problem with loyalty is that when a free city that used to be a city state flips to you, you can't liberate it. You can only add it to your empire or decline it

I get the rationale behind this for major civs, but it should absolutely be an option for city states. Don't make me roll through the streets with tanks to do it.

 

[bengalryan9]

The only problem with the loyalty mechanic is that the AI is pretty bad about dealing with it - seems like they settle places they have no chance of holding every game.

Hopefully Firaxis just adds the instant win button OP needs in order to avoid having to exert himself doing anything outside of the one specific strategy he's comfortable with.

Classical dark ages, when the game gives you +4 for discovering a new continent (usually easy), +3 for destroying nearby barbarian camps (and you can do it multiple times), +3 for stumbling upon a natural wonder, +2 for building/buying one ship (easy if you just make the slightest effort), and lots of +1 for such easy things as meeting another civilization, founding a pantheon, or even for settling in certain terrains (like near floodplains), and you only need what, 11-12 points? Come on...

Citing one specific example of a terrible start doesn't mean the mechanic is broken, it means you had bad luck.

 

[Kurnn]

Loyalty is fantastic!
It works really well. And it has lots of ways to boost it, or lower it for other civs.

Just to mention one thing. No more, will you get an AI, planting a city close by you, when they have lots of land closer to their own boarders.
The few RARE who does that, stand a big risk of loosing it. Then, when its a free city....you attack it, and Raze it! No negative effects from anyone to you!

 

[Xmonger]

Don't think I've ever had a problem with loyalty. Probably because it's in the back of my mind and shapes how I send cities out. Forces me to cluster them and grow outwards, which is usually limited because pretty quickly I'll bump against another civ. I also keep an eye out for the triple cluster of City States which is a great Loyalty shield. I'll frequently send a couple cities over to that.

Doing this it never has become an issue. The only thing it accomplishes is to shape my civ (and the others) into contained blobs. Which if you think of it has a nice historical angle, as that's how countries form. Seems like most countries follow geographic borders (ocean, river or mountain) and are more a blob shape then anything else. You don't see disconnected regions forming a country, with the exception that some have outliers, like the US Alaska & Hawaii, or the British Overseas Territories (they still have a few like Pitcairn Islands).

Anyhow it seems a great mechanic for veracity which I like. Just like the geography and other mechanics it helps make your Civ more real by placing limitations on you, rather than necessarily creating a problem to be solved.

 

[kryat]

I really like the loyalty mechanic, but with that it was a bit more aggressive. I’d like to see some kind of baseline negative value added everywhere on the map so that you would be forced to invest in any distant settlements quickly, or risk your colonies revolting (seems historically accurate). It would make settling remote islands a bit more complicated though, but I think that’s how it should be.

 

[MooFreaky]

The issue with many problems that people run into if they land an early Dark Age seems to be lack of preparedness. If you are scouting early (even with just your original warrior) you will quickly notice any situation where you are at risk of an early DA. As SteveG (i think) said earlier there are a few conditions where it can happen, but they should be pretty obvious.
So if you quickly encounter a couple Civs, then you can assume there is a high possibility that room will be tight and Era Points will be limited. So start doing a few key things:
- don't beeline any tech that is focused on helping later in the game. Get what you need for the immediate.
- prioritise settlers and your defensive army. Even if this means skipping monuments (which is a big thing to skip, but again it is less important to the immediate situation).
- settle your at minimum distance, and settle them on top of any resource that will improve your city's location output.
- now start thinking about getting an army to expand. Even if it means razing an enemy city closer to their territory, which then allows you room to place a city closer to yours. Unless you are planning on capturing the whole empire (which will probably depend on your difficulty) it's better to get a city close in to your heartland. You might be able to hold this new city, but by having your cities close you are better able to defend all of them. Having one further away can drain everything if you are suddenly attacked by another of those close neighbours.
- don't worry about builders until later. The production spent on a builder won't recoup itself quickly enough if you are in a tight spot, instead focus on production tiles (largely ignore food, again it won't recoup itself in this situation).