Loyalty system already doesn't seem right

[Brian LeClaire]

So, you conquered a city, put a governor and a garrison in that city and it still flipped in 5 turns?

Yes exactly

 

[Brian LeClaire]

Never take cities near the capital of another civ if you do you might as well take the capital or else you have loyalty problems

So how exactly do you get a domination victory if you never take a city near someones capital?

 

[pgm123]

I concur and I had a similar experience with my first game as the Mapuche. I got Mongolia and Spain declare a surprise war on me, took cities from both and then agreed to peace (both cities were ceded).

Do you find ceding does anything different than making peace without ceding? I tried having two cities ceded and one not and it didn't seem to matter. The non-ceded city recovered loyalty without a governor. Maybe if it was on the border it would have mattered? There are so many variables, it was hard to check.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

So you have to remember that civs can be quite spread out now. I checked a few standard maps and they averaged 12 tiles with quite a few at 15. Now if a warmonger wants to play a 15 tile map, wandering over with a few archers and warriors to take a city will just be a fail.

Not sure if that's the case. On a large map

 

[Brian LeClaire]

Make sure there are governors in nearby cities so that the loyalty pressure is higher.

I was playing as Korea and I managed to capture 3 Egyptian cities that flipped. I was in a golden age so I think that helped. Also, the more citizens you have the more loyalty.

I think I got lucky on my second R&F game around. Now, I’m cruising to a science victory.

Seems like not everyone is reading all of what I'm saying..

 

[Victoria]

Not sure if that's the case. On a large map

welll I did say a standard map and we know they are evenly spread now. I'll take a look sometime but I never play large maps so did not bother too much

So how exactly do you get a domination victory if you never take a city near someones capital?

Seems like not everyone is reading all of what I'm saying..

Well I am. Look the capital exerts huge loyalty and so you really have to take it out fast or they will flip. Its that simple. If you are in a golden age and have a bit of population in the city and nearby that different and things can be done... if you want to throw out all your other cards to get in loyalty cards that will help but bottom line is get cavalry or knights or something fast and just get to that cap and take it, the rest is then easy.
I guess we should make a loyalty chart

 

[Magil]

As suspected, Shaka is seriously OP. In my first game at King level on a Tiny map, he rolled through the Scots, Dutch and Georgians like a hot knife through butter. And I never had any problems with loyalty in spite of my warmongering. I had Full Loyalty in all but one city, and that was quickly taken care of by placing an impi corps and a governor in that city.

Even at Deity, I don't see how the AI will stand a chance against the Zulu in the hands of a human player. Definitely needs some serious nerfing.

I'm not sure this really means Shaka needs a nerf. The AI is most obviously weak in the 1UPT wargame, and that's one place where its big %-based difficulty bonuses don't help it as much. So of course a Civ with a military focus has an easier time rolling the AI than other strategies, because that's where the AI is weakest.

With that said, I agree Shaka is very strong and I'm not sure if he really needed +5 Corps/Army strength on top of everything else.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'm not sure this really means Shaka needs a nerf. The AI is most obviously weak in the 1UPT wargame, and that's one place where its big %-based difficulty bonuses don't help it as much. So of course a Civ with a military focus has an easier time rolling the AI than other strategies, because that's where the AI is weakest.

With that said, I agree Shaka is very strong and I'm not sure if he really needed +5 Corps/Army strength on top of everything else.

One of the things I've missed with Civ 6 is that even on deity, no neighbours really scare me the way Shaka used to in Civ 5. Fighting through his waves of impis was brutal, whether I was attacking or defending. Gilga and Tomyris should be scary, at least early, but in single player they just aren't. If it makes Shaka someone you actually have to worry about, I say the more OP the better.

 

[UWHabs]

I found the loyalty system added a little mini-game. I archer-rushed Catherine in my game, and when I took their first city, I did have to do a little work to parachute in a governor to make sure that it left me enough time to capture Paris. I think I was fine, but certainly this is a case where if I did take a few archer losses, I might have considered taking peace with them and coming back later to finish them off. But I knew that I couldn't do that since I would likely lose the city, so had to steamroll them (although given that I went to a golden age and they went to a dark age, I wonder if I could have used loyalty to even flip Paris - I was seriously swimming in it).

 

[Topaazy]

I'm thinking that the new expansion will really help balance the wide v. tall play-style. The loyalty system seems to reward having fewer cities, and especially punish forward settling. The governor system seems to lean more toward tall since there's only 7 governors you can get in total, in addition with being able to upgrade them instead of getting additional ones. I doubt it'll be enough to make tall as good as wide, but it seems to be going in the right direction at least.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

welll I did say a standard map and we know they are evenly spread now. I'll take a look sometime but I never play large maps so did not bother too much





Well I am. Look the capital exerts huge loyalty and so you really have to take it out fast or they will flip. Its that simple. If you are in a golden age and have a bit of population in the city and nearby that different and things can be done... if you want to throw out all your other cards to get in loyalty cards that will help but bottom line is get cavalry or knights or something fast and just get to that cap and take it, the rest is then easy.
I guess we should make a loyalty chart

Thanks for your conversation. I'm in no way trying to be argumentative, it's just that when reading on a forum it's easy to take things out of context. That being said, I wasn't talking about attacking a capitol at all. The only time I talked about a capitol was when pietro1990 said never take a city near a capitol. My response was to ask him how to achieve a domination victory without taking a city near their capitol. In my original post the situation was that I was in a heroic age, not just a golden age. I had the cards to add loyalty already in place, and I had the diplo governor with the promotion to exert loyalty to my cities up to 9 tiles away (at first in the city next to them which was 5 tiles away and then IN the actual city that was flipping). The city in question was a Chinese city, which was nowhere near the Chinese capitol. It was closer to mine in fact. Americas capitol was close as well, so I was getting pressure from them for sure. But with everything being done to add loyalty in place, it still flipped every 5 turns. The population was down to 1 by the second flip so maybe that had something to do with it? I don't think we need a chart, the system isn't overly complicated. I would literally retake the city the turn it flipped, then 5 turns later it would flip back to free.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

Thanks for your conversation. I'm in no way trying to be argumentative, it's just that when reading on a forum it's easy to take things out of context. That being said, I wasn't talking about attacking a capitol at all. The only time I talked about a capitol was when pietro1990 said never take a city near a capitol. My response was to ask him how to achieve a domination victory without taking a city near their capitol. In my original post the situation was that I was in a heroic age, not just a golden age. I had the cards to add loyalty already in place, and I had the diplo governor with the promotion to exert loyalty to my cities up to 9 tiles away (at first in the city next to them which was 5 tiles away and then IN the actual city that was flipping). The city in question was a Chinese city, which was nowhere near the Chinese capitol. It was closer to mine in fact. Americas capitol was close as well, so I was getting pressure from them for sure. But with everything being done to add loyalty in place, it still flipped every 5 turns. The population was down to 1 by the second flip so maybe that had something to do with it? I don't think we need a chart, the system isn't overly complicated. I would literally retake the city the turn it flipped, then 5 turns later it would flip back to free.

Here's an example of loyalty I noticed. This is on King difficulty on a standard map. Babylon and the Zulu. Babylon settles the city Ur at the location shown. Ur is closer to the capitol of Zulu by ONE tile. Ur went to a free state because of loyalty and went over to the Zulu from loyalty pressure. Now, I don't know what governor situation either civ had but my question is this. What's Babylon supposed to do? Settle farther away from their capitol? The area NW of Ur is nice but has some nasty loyalty penalties. They are literally bottled in where they're at. They could declare on the Zulu to try and expand their empire but their only option is Ulundi, the Zulu capitol. They could try to take that city state to the west but are they ever going to be able to keep it so far from any loyalty bonuses they have? In this situation, as in my original situation, there's nothing they can do assuming the AI knows how to handle the loyalty system, which is kind of asking a lot of the Civ 6 AI. Oh and also notice that Ur, just flipping over to Zulu is FULLY loyal.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

Here's an example of loyalty I noticed. This is on King difficulty on a standard map. Babylon and the Zulu. Babylon settles the city Ur at the location shown. Ur is closer to the capitol of Zulu by ONE tile. Ur went to a free state because of loyalty and went over to the Zulu from loyalty pressure. Now, I don't know what governor situation either civ had but my question is this. What's Babylon supposed to do? Settle farther away from their capitol? The area NW of Ur is nice but has some nasty loyalty penalties. They are literally bottled in where they're at. They could declare on the Zulu to try and expand their empire but their only option is Ulundi, the Zulu capitol. They could try to take that city state to the west but are they ever going to be able to keep it so far from any loyalty bonuses they have? In this situation, as in my original situation, there's nothing they can do assuming the AI knows how to handle the loyalty system, which is kind of asking a lot of the Civ 6 AI.

View attachment 487656

You'll also notice that there are 5 civs on one continent and two on the other...

 

[Iberian]

I think it may be worth mentioning what difficulty you are playing on when sharing your experiences. I haven't looked yet but are there any % modifiers on how loyalty is calculated that scale with difficulty?

 

[Magil]

Here's an example of loyalty I noticed. This is on King difficulty on a standard map. Babylon and the Zulu. Babylon settles the city Ur at the location shown. Ur is closer to the capitol of Zulu by ONE tile. Ur went to a free state because of loyalty and went over to the Zulu from loyalty pressure. Now, I don't know what governor situation either civ had but my question is this. What's Babylon supposed to do? Settle farther away from their capitol? The area NW of Ur is nice but has some nasty loyalty penalties. They are literally bottled in where they're at. They could declare on the Zulu to try and expand their empire but their only option is Ulundi, the Zulu capitol. They could try to take that city state to the west but are they ever going to be able to keep it so far from any loyalty bonuses they have? In this situation, as in my original situation, there's nothing they can do assuming the AI knows how to handle the loyalty system, which is kind of asking a lot of the Civ 6 AI. Oh and also notice that Ur, just flipping over to Zulu is FULLY loyal.

The Zulu capital has 13 pop. Uruk has 5. Remember, loyalty pressure is per-pop. Frankly what Sumeria should do there is conquer the Zulu capital, their other cities don't have as much pop and won't exert as much pressure.

 

[Victoria]

Oh and also notice that Ur, just flipping over to Zulu is FULLY loyal.

Interesting, its in the fog of war, could the zulu's have taken the city?
I ask because it should go to 0 then become free and try and stay free for a while before going to Zulu. Also Zulu's have loyalty bonus. So maybe what you are seeing is not what you are assuming?
Did you know starvation in a city gives -4 loyalty? I did not until I started playtesting, so I'm going to look at it all and write it up if no-one else has as I suspect it will be useful.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

I think it may be worth mentioning what difficulty you are playing on when sharing your experiences. I haven't looked yet but are there any % modifiers on how loyalty is calculated that scale with difficulty?

I did actually, King but that's a good point about modifiers based on difficulty.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

Interesting, its in the fog of war, could the zulu's have taken the city?
I ask because it should go to 0 then become free and try and stay free for a while before going to Zulu. Also Zulu's have loyalty bonus. So maybe what you are seeing is not what you are assuming?
Did you know starvation in a city gives -4 loyalty? I did not until I started playtesting, so I'm going to look at it all and write it up if no-one else has as I suspect it will be useful.

No the city flipped because of loyalty. I even got a popup message telling me that. It did stay free and then went to Zulu so your exactly right there and no I didn't realize that Zulu had a loyalty bonus. Also I didn't know that starvation gave a loyalty hit, that's good information to know. They shouldn't have been starving because they settled right next to a wheat source so unless the AI mismanaged it's citizens it should be fine on food. Especially with only 1 pop. It's in fog of war now because my scout was out of range at that point but the city went free state not long after Babylon settled it. Zulu could've had the diplo governor in Ulundi also, not sure about that. I think though that my point persists, Babylon is backed into a corner with no real options on what to do. Because of the way the loyalty system is working, they're basically screwed.

 

[Brian LeClaire]

The Zulu capital has 13 pop. Uruk has 5. Remember, loyalty pressure is per-pop. Frankly what Sumeria should do there is conquer the Zulu capital, their other cities don't have as much pop and won't exert as much pressure.

yeah I agree that's their only option but how likely is that? How likely will they be able to hold it even if they somehow manage to capture it? Does the AI even know how to deal with loyalty? That's a question that I guess more testing will tell. I know that they still can barely take a city with any walls in it.

 

[pgm123]

Sumer probably should have settled near the tobacco. Not sure why they didn't.