Managing Loyalty During Wars - Early wars specifically (Need Help)

[WTFspaghetti]

Hiya!

I am sure that this has been discussed at nauseum but I found myself in a specific situation. So I wanted to share and get any opinions on how you would have handled it.

I am aware of (I think) all the ways to gain loyalty in the early game (Ancient / Classical Eras) - Garrison unit, Policy card, governor.

When I found Teddy as Nubia I immediately beelined to him with 3-4 Nubian Archers and 3 warriors. They had no walls and I easily took the the first two cities of his 4 city empire. However, I could not keep the cities due to loyalty. It would turn within 5 turns and bought enough time to slowly twiddle me down.

I ended up reforcing my troops but I did not play this war right at all. I ended up losing troops due to mismanaged micro and macro. This mostly was because I did not know what I should do in the situation. Go straight to the highest pop city and start there? There wasn't any walls this early so I'm thinking that should have been my play....but I don't know, it's just a guess.

Any insight or information you can point me to to help in this situation would be appreciated. I attached a screenshot of Teddy's layout so you can see exactly what I was dealing it. For reference I took out New York > Charleston > Washington. They all rebelled in 3-5 turns with a garrison unit and a gov. I tried to just deal with the rebel units and leave the cities, but yeah....mistakes were made on my part.

It was a fun though and hopefully I can learn from it which is why I'm making this post. I'm not a civ noob but I normally stayed around prince / king difficulty. Recently I have been trying to get better at the game and playing on higher difficultly. I believe this game was on Emperor difficult.

Thanks all

 

[WTFspaghetti]

After reading the pinned loyalty guide it made things more clear. I think I should have went for the cap first, then the highest pop next. Thoughts?

 

[Buktu]

I dont know alot about the map since you cut off the minimap but since you had no cities near Teddy yourself to generate pressure for you I would just try to wipe teddy out as fast as possible. You can always retake the cities once Teddy is out and you wont have any problems with loyalty afterwards so let them be free for a while and keep your focus on teddy.
Your army was already pretty sizeable to start the war with but a few troops more didnt hurt either (for example bought in a captured city or just send as reinforcements asap) to finish him faster.

 

[Planktonic]

1. Yes, if possible it is better to go for a higher population city first. But often these will be further away from your own cities, so then you lose out on the population support from your own cities. You'll have to make that call on a case by case basis.

2. You already have Magnus as a governor, but in domination mode Victor is a better choice for securing loyalty, especially if you can get him to the Garrison Commander promotion, whereby he not only provides +8 to the city he is in but extends +4 to surrounding cities for 9 tiles. I suspect in this case it is too early and you don't have the governor titles available for that, though.

3. Sometimes it is better to raze a lower value city so that population pressure on the more valuable cities is less when you do conquer them. Better to capture and retain two cities than conquer all four only to lose them all to loyalty pressure.

4. Again, obviously too early for this game but I will often try to conquer a city with an entertainment complex first, and won't pillage it beforehand, so that after taking possession you can immediately run the Bread and Circuses project to greatly mitigate loyalty pressure not only in that city but in others surrounding as well. In one game I took over a city that had not yet built the maximum number of districts it was allowed, and was able to buy a builder and chop out an EC which helped me retain it.

 

[WTFspaghetti]

I dont know alot about the map since you cut off the minimap but since you had no cities near Teddy yourself to generate pressure for you I would just try to wipe teddy out as fast as possible. You can always retake the cities once Teddy is out and you wont have any problems with loyalty afterwards so let them be free for a while and keep your focus on teddy..

Well said and makes alot of sense. Its what I should have done once I realized that the city would revolt in 3-5 turns.

1. Yes, if possible it is better to go for a higher population city first. But often these will be further away from your own cities, so then you lose out on the population support from your own cities. You'll have to make that call on a case by case basis.

2. You already have Magnus as a governor, but in domination mode Victor is a better choice for securing loyalty, especially if you can get him to the Garrison Commander promotion, whereby he not only provides +8 to the city he is in but extends +4 to surrounding cities for 9 tiles. I suspect in this case it is too early and you don't have the governor titles available for that, though.

3. Sometimes it is better to raze a lower value city so that population pressure on the more valuable cities is less when you do conquer them. Better to capture and retain two cities than conquer all four only to lose them all to loyalty pressure.

4. Again, obviously too early for this game but I will often try to conquer a city with an entertainment complex first, and won't pillage it beforehand, so that after taking possession you can immediately run the Bread and Circuses project to greatly mitigate loyalty pressure not only in that city but in others surrounding as well. In one game I took over a city that had not yet built the maximum number of districts it was allowed, and was able to buy a builder and chop out an EC which helped me retain it.

Great food for thought. The chopping of a EC is pretty smart and something I never considered.

I appreciate both of you taking time out to help me understand the mechanics better. Thanks for helping a fellow civ player make better choices.

 

[Vargas1]

Adding on to what others have said, if you have a strong military presence it's not the end of the world if a city or two rebels while you're in the midst of conquering another civ. It's easy enough to just take them back when you feel like it. Sometimes it can be helpful to conquer a city so you have a few rounds to rest/upgrade troops/buy more troops, move everyone onto the next city, and let that one flip and hang out as a free city for a bit while you take out the next city.

 

[Bibor]

Did many of these early wars recently. Here are my thoughts.

The easy way: don't plan on keeping (pre)classical era conquered cities. Treat these wars as making room for your own cities in the future.

The hard way:
1. Scout out the cities of your enemy. If you have scouts, they are an essential part of your invasion force. They will serve for sniping enemy settlers and workers, fast pillaging and as a garrison for conquered cities when you have no other units to spare.


2. The best early invasion force consists of three swordsmen and a battering ram, fueled by two sources of iron and plentiful early gold income from luxury camps and the like. (Rome needs 1 patch of iron but more gold). You'll need around 800 gold: 450 for the ram, and 330 for the swordsmen upgrades. This is because...


3. The speed of your conquests is primarily determined by the HP of your units. Ranged units have low defense and enemy units will slow you down if you take a lot of damage. Swordsmen have strong base strenght and can easily get 3 movement, not only to reach cities quiciker, but primarily for positioning onto enemy tile improvements. You still need archers, especially unique archers, because they can pick off enemy units really quickly and also lure enemy units into unfavorable terrain. Since HP is the primary resource of early wars, prefer planting your units on farms and other HP-pillageable tiles and plug in the +50% from pillaging policy as soon as possible.


4. Plan out your path for all enemy cities. Take the worst-case scenario into account - that you have 5 turns from capturing one city to capturing the next. Each enemy city has four important components in this planning:

a) proximity and distance of other enemy cities. If the target city has two or more adjacent cities that provide enemy loyalty, you'll probably need to raze. In your screenshot, New York has to go first, before you can even hope to keep Charleston. Ideally, you'd raze NY and LA before keeping Charleston and Washington.

b) whether a city can be attacked by 3 or more ranged units from 2 tiles away. On your screenshot, you were in luck - all american cities were surrounded by flat terrain. But more often than not, coastal cities and rought terrain means you'll have to limit your conquest or simply switch to an all-melee-unit war.

c) whether you can crawl your units between the current target city and the next target, without losing turns. Ideally, by the time you are ready to capture a city, your units would be positioned close to the next one. This is usually limited by enemy walls and units, more often than by terrain.

d) enemy city resouces. How many farms and mines they have. Can these be pillaged without risking your units or slowing you down too much? Can these provide enough healing and gold to keep the momentum going? Take the most profitable cities first and then raze if needed, since the AI will throw all its units defending the first city. If you can choose, pick the city with most farms first, and then the city with most mines.


5. Making it profitable.
Ideally while the war is raging, your economy back home should be in a mint position, and the war would pay for itself. Any detours in science (to masonry, apprenticeship) or at least unit upgrade costs and upkeep being paid for by pillaging the enemy. Then there's also the question of barbarians - your units might be needed elsewhere, really. A cleared camp might be worth more for the era score than a crappy-not-on-fresh-water AI city. You can always come back with trebuchets and a great general to finish the job.

 

[Minou]

I see some Marshes, and one of my major ways for dealing with Loyalty in captured cities is to clear Marshes or harvest food resources like Cow or Wheat. Often you can grow 2 pop points this way and that will make a big difference on the population pressure part of the equation. You will probably still need to take a second city, but this (along with a Governor and garrison unit) should buy enough time.

 

[eatsleepciv6]

I play at deity level with science/domination victories on. Some tips I've learnt, in addition to the excellent ones above:

1. Sometimes there is value in capturing cities you know will loyalty flip. Reason is for pillaging. They become a gold (and XP) mine When the city flips, pillage the mines. Recapture, and use workers to repair the mines. Let it flip again, then pillage and recapture.

2. As Tomyris, look at the units spawning around flipped cities as free +30 health

3. Raze cities that are problematic or not profitable as (1) above. In a science/domination victory game there is limited use for a city with a holy district. And with Corporations really you want as many great merchants as possible, including the lousy ones. Which means as many commercial districts as possible.

4. Sometimes I leave the cities as neutral/flipped cities after I kill off the spawned units, while I continue my conquest, and leave a small guard there to kill any other spawning unit. So that when I capture the next city, I can capture cities both at once. Obviously this doesn't work with Eleanor. Loyalty pressure from her cities makes her the #1 enemy if she ever spawns next to me.

 

[Sherlock]

Loyalty is perhaps the single worst game mechanic I have ever seen.

I turn it off at all times.

 

[Victoria]

After reading the pinned loyalty guide it made things more clear.

I will try to rewrite at some stage, something it does not make 100% clear is if you just ignore the flipping cities behind you, eventually they will flip back, especially once you have taken big cities. Taking the capital is not a simple answer because another capital pops up (typically the next largest city) and the additional loyalty pressure comes from the current capital. So it helps if the next largest city is further away perhaps on the outskirts but not if it is next door. Taking the biggest cities is really the key, with a Governor they rarely flip purely due to internal pressure but if you take a lot of little cities before the big ones there is additional loyalty loss.
As mentioned in above posts, and take it from another seasoned loyalty player, speed of conquest is the best approach, especially if you are in a dark age.

Loyalty is perhaps the single worst game mechanic I have ever seen.

We all have a mechanic we do not like. Loyalty in some form I think is here to stay. In Humankind it is stability and people like it, it does not flip cities but causes them to produce rebels, so is similar but the flipping mechanic used by some civs is a bit cheesy in a way however a lot of people like it because of the additional dimension and difference it provides some civs.

 

[Buktu]

a lot of people like it

Personally I like it because the AI is not able to settle a single unselttled/unclaimed tile inside my territory like it did in Vanilla. Well technically they can but the city will flip to me soon enough.
Also it makes war at least a little bit more challenging if you have to deal with some sort of partisans if you are too slow.

 

[Victoria]

if you have to deal with some sort of partisans

And that’s what they are really. It makes sense to me. No invader, we are still strong and will rise up and smite thee.

 

[PiR]

I am aware of (I think) all the ways to gain loyalty in the early game (Ancient / Classical Eras) - Garrison unit, Policy card, governor.

+ chop for pop

& raze half

 

[aieeegrunt]

Loyalty is perhaps the single worst game mechanic I have ever seen.

I turn it off at all times.

I mean I get the concept, but the implementation is terrible, and frankly if the problem it is solving is “I didn’t have proper border controls and random settling happened” this is very much a “blowtorch to the face to fix my acne” situation.

When MUH CULTURE is the best defense against invasion your game model is flat out bad; muh culture didn’t save Greece from the Romans any more than it saved France from the Germans in 1870 or 1940