New question: Has anyone seen any indication of how city flipping will work/loyalty mechanic?

[Bate1999]

Does it look like the Civilization 6 city loyalty will be returning?

I will add, I kind of like how Civilization 4 did city flipping, with you having to actually spread your culture to that city and so on. I liked that your culture generation was directly tied to that in Civ4 but at the same time I also liked having it be its own separate thing as loyalty (I am not sure which was better). Like thematically I feel having it be based on culture feels better and looks better but from a game play view having loyalty works better maybe, especially since culture was used for other things in Civ 6.

Whatever the case, hopefully, city flipping returns as I like being able to aggressively conquer the world "peacefully". I will say, at times, in Civilization 6, that it was a bit too easy. Especially with the AIs.

 

[AntSou]

Does it look like the Civilization 6 city loyalty will be returning?

Loyalty in Civ 6 to me always came across like it started as a more ambitious idea which was reduced to a barebones mechanic at release.

I do not want to see that back. But I still like the idea of culturally flipping cities, and am looking forward to an appropriate implementation of that.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Inferring from what we have not seen, it's unlikely that Loyalty returns. I'd speculate a combination of Happiness (returning to replace Amenities) and Culture will trigger whatever "flipping" mechanics exist, if any.

As with so much, we're waiting until the marketing rollout gets around to this topic.

 

[pokiehl]

One thought I had is that maybe you can leverage the new Influence yield to encourage city flipping or reinforce your own loyalty…

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

All we know for sure is that Loyalty is not a mechanic in Antiquity.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

All we know for sure is that Loyalty is not a mechanic in Antiquity.

Good point. The differing rules per Era does complicate things in terms of extrapolation.

On the other hand, none of the leaders shown to date have had any bonuses to Loyalty. If later-Era leaders have bonuses for later-Era mechanics, the complexity of balance becomes even more challenging.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Good point. The differing rules per Era does complicate things in terms of extrapolation.

On the other hand, none of the leaders shown to date have had any bonuses to Loyalty. If later-Era leaders have bonuses for later-Era mechanics, the complexity of balance becomes even more challenging.

Given that leaders exist for the whole game, I doubt any leaders will have any abilities that affect only a single Age.

 

[AntSou]

On the other hand, none of the leaders shown to date have had any bonuses to Loyalty. If later-Era leaders have bonuses for later-Era mechanics, the complexity of balance becomes even more challenging.

I think that's exactly how they are going to design it.

Even though Leaders and Civilizations are decoupled, they'll still be designed in (mostly) pairs. This is the case so far for Rome/Augustus, Egypt/Hatshepsut and Maurya/Ashoka.

So, deciding between taking Augustus or Napoleon for the path Rome > Normans > France is also a decision between being at your strongest while playing as Rome, or being at your strongest while playing as France (theoretically, though earlier Leaders may have compound advantages).

 

[Zaarin]

So, deciding between taking Augustus or Napoleon for the path Rome > Normans > France is also a decision between being at your strongest while playing as Rome, or being at your strongest while playing as France (theoretically, though earlier Leaders may have compound advantages).

We've seen both Napoleons' abilities, and neither references anything age specific.

 

[Krikkit1]

We've seen both Napoleons' abilities, and neither references anything age specific.

However,
Augustus' abilities would be expected to have synergy with Rome's abilities that he might not have with France's abilities
and
Napoleon's abilities would be expected to have synergy with France's abilities that he might not have with Rome's abilities

 

[Zaarin]

However,
Augustus' abilities would be expected to have synergy with Rome's abilities that he might not have with France's abilities
and
Napoleon's abilities would be expected to have synergy with France's abilities that he might not have with Rome's abilities

I agree, but I was contradicting the idea that later-era leaders will have abilities tying into later-era mechanics. The two late-era leaders we've seen don't support that, nor does what we've been told about the game's design philosophy.

 

[Krikkit1]

I agree, but I was contradicting the idea that latera-era leaders will have abilities tying into later-era mechanics. The two late-era leaders we've seen don't support that, nor does what we've been told about the game's design philosophy.

True, although we know Amina has a trade based ability and that mechanic will vary from era to era.
However, I assume for any mechanic that is in one era, I would assume they have parts of it that are the same through all eras.
So if there is a Loyalty mechanic in the Third or Second Age, I would assume a Leader would give bonuses to happiness (something that is in all ages and would affect loyalty).
Just like I imagine Cities can get resources in all ages (Amina's bonus), but the Trade mechanism for getting resources may be different in those ages

 

[iammaxhailme]

I do hope something along the lines of loyalty returns. I want a way to deal with AIs aggressive forward settling that isn't warmongering.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Crisis. The Interim Period between Ages seems to me to be made to order for any City Flipping. You are, by design, supposed to be struggling and in many cases, losing ground during that time, what better way to show that than have the occasional City not only become a Town but also become Independent?

That would probably mean that the city would start the New Age as an independent Town or City State of some kind, which might give you a separate kind of problem to solve compared to other cities which 'merely' reduced to Towns but remained in your Empire.

Giving the gamer a range of problems to solve coming out of the Crisis seems to me to be better than a limited set of options and conditions, especially since they have indicated that the Crisis itself comes in a three-tiered structure getting progressively worse as it goes and requiring different choices by the player. There's a lot of room there to present the gamer with a variety of potentially increasingly-nasty problems, of which cities going Rogue could be one.

 

[Krikkit1]

Hopefully a Crisis isn’t the only time cities flip though. A badly managed empire should have Rebel units that attempt to liberate their settlements (for a former owner or independent)

 

[Thormodr]

I hope loyalty or a corresponding mechanic is in 7. I really do not like forward settling.

 

[Teutonic_Tirade]

My guess would be city flipping may be Age based. I think it would be neat if you do poorly enough in a "loyalty" exploration to modern crisis, some cities flip in the next era but one of the new Civs that shows up as the map expands controls a number of your lost cities and follows a path you didn't take. Such as becoming the US while you became Great Britain.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I do hope something along the lines of loyalty returns. I want a way to deal with AIs aggressive forward settling that isn't warmongering.

Yeah, mostly what I'm looking for is to avoid earlier games' annoyance where the computer would plop a city right in the middle if my civ's established territory for no good reason whatsoever.

 

[Leyrann]

Yeah, mostly what I'm looking for is to avoid earlier games' annoyance where the computer would plop a city right in the middle if my civ's established territory for no good reason whatsoever.

Honestly, I came up with a mechanic for this at some point that I still want to see implemented: land claims.

You basically draw a shape on the map and say "this isn't neutral territory anymore, it's my territory". These claims can overlap, in which case special casus belli are available, you get CBs if someone else settles 'your' territory, et cetera.

It basically creates a separation between what you say is your empire and what you can enforce as your empire, just like one sometimes existed historically, such as during the colonization of the New World (or, indeed, when an empire is beginning to fall apart).

 

[stealth_nsk]

City flipping has an interesting goal to prevent forward settling cities. But I'm not sure if it's the right goal, because, IMHO, forward settling is a valid strategy as you sacrifice your military security (temporary if you could fill the gap between your main empire and this remote city later) to gain more land and/or important resource. And other than that, the mechanics is quite crunchy. Civ 6 doesn't have enough means to decrease enemy city loyalty (and generally it's good, because that would compete with war). So, it mostly worked to further punish dark ages.

So, realistically, I don't see a good niche for this mechanics. If Firaxis found something interesting - that would be good.