Perpetual loyalty loop

[SupremacyKing2]

I got into an interesting situation with loyalty in my current game where a city seems to be caught in a perpetual loop of flipping back and forth.

It's the industrial age and Australia (AI) for some bizarre reason decides to settle a lone, isolated city up in the tundra on the edge of the north pole ice tiles. The city is closer to my empire than Australia so naturally it feels a lot of loyalty pressure from my empire. So of course, the city immediately rebels and becomes a free city. A few turns later, the free city flips to me. I don't want the city because of it's super crappy location. So I refuse the city. The city goes back to Australia but because of loyalty pressure, immediately rebels a few turns later and becomes a free city again. But since I refused, this time, it flips back to Australia. But because of my loyalty pressure, it declares independence again and becomes a free city. Basically, the city cannot stay Australian so it constantly flips back to being a free city. So this time, I capture the free city and liberate it back to Australia. The text says that the city won't feel any loyalty pressure from me anymore so I think the city will stay part of Australia for good this time. I don't care if Australia has the city since it is crappy, plus I get a diplo bonus with Australia for returning the city which can't hurt. But no, the city flips back to being a free city. And it will soon flip back to Australia but as soon as it does, it flips back to being a free city. A perpetual loop again.

It seems the only way to break the loop is to either raze the city or keep the crappy city.

 

[Rosty K]

In my current game I have a city flipping between Kongo and Russia on the other continent almost from the start.

Well, actually it seems like it breaks from Kongo (initially it was a Russian city) who immediately conquer it back, and it flips again in 10 turns

Oh, and while we are at it, the idea of a capital flipping seems bad to me. And it happens all the time...

 

[Forster]

Can we raze our own cities? If so, the next time if flips to you, raze. I have never tried to do that, so I can't say for sure.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Can we raze our own cities? If so, the next time if flips to you, raze. I have never tried to do that, so I can't say for sure.

I don't think you can raze once you accept the city but you do get the option to raze at the moment when you first capture a free city. When your unit first takes the free city, you get the option to raze, keep, refuse or liberate.

 

[historix69]

This example shows that development of loyalty mechanics is not finished yet.
After you refused to accept the city, it should either become a permanent free city or should stay with Australia. It cannot be intended to have a loop between revolting and joining unless other factors like lack of food, unhappiness, etc. change and cause the revolt.

 

[Rosty K]

They should probably just get some huge loyalty bonus towards staying a free city for X turns after someone rejected them. Well, and for that matter they shouldn't be in a perma-war with everyone else.

Though it might well be some mechanic intended for the expansion where they go about the diplomacy and world congress stuff. Something like the ability to recognize the independence of a free city or something.

 

[Rosty K]

... or even simpler, they could just become city-states if surviving for X turns. The mechanism is actually quite obvious. Random type (maybe influenced by present districts), and a suzerain bonus again randomly chosen from the CS of the same type not in the game.

 

[historix69]

... or even simpler, they could just become city-states if surviving for X turns. The mechanism is actually quite obvious. Random type (maybe influenced by present districts), and a suzerain bonus again randomly chosen from the CS of the same type not in the game.

Technically there are only 64 slots for player and AI factions at the moment,
e.g. on a map with 31 AI civs and 30 CS :
0 : human player
1-31 : AI civs
32-61 : CS
62 : free cities
63 : barbarians
or so.

To be able to transform single free cities into a new Civ or a new CS on bigger maps, you would need to lift the limit of 64 factions, e.g. make it 256 or 1024.
Normal Civs have the limitation that you cannot raze their capital and that their capitals count to Domination VC. So a transformation into a normal Civ would cause lots of problems.
A transformation into a CS would require a free CS slot. Type of CS could be decided on base on nearby terrain and resources, e.g. luxxury -> trade, iron, coal -> production, etc.

I would like to see a diplomacy option for single free cities like a Mayor you can contact and trade with, maybe even bribe him to join your empire ...

 

[blackbutterfly]

If you play a TSL Earth map you will find there are many such cities.

Honestly IDK what is best for such situations...if you find solution let me know

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is a pretty 100% clear-cut bug if OP description of the text is accurate.

 

[unpossible251]

Its a good opportunity to slash away at your warmonger penalties. Liberating a free city a couple of times after it swaps back will get a -100 warmonger reputation down to zero in an era.

Handy trick, especially if there are no Darwinists playing.

 

[Equilin]

This example shows that development of loyalty mechanics is not finished yet.
After you refused to accept the city, it should either become a permanent free city or should stay with Australia. It cannot be intended to have a loop between revolting and joining unless other factors like lack of food, unhappiness, etc. change and cause the revolt.

I'd rather just have it not affected by your loyalty (but takes from everyone else normally) unless you conquered it later. Considering how time passed between turns it's not too unrealistic that a city revolts then yield back to a nation after a gen then revolt again in the next gen.

 

[The_Quasar]

I, too, would like to see some mechanism to turn revolting cities into CSs after a set number of turns. However, it would annoy me if I was after that city, having tried to flip it, and it turned into a CS. I don't think it's practical to flip a CS, so you'd lose any chance at flipping it in future (so perhaps not such a good idea!).
I like the revolting cities mechanism, that has made some interesting tactics available, not just to the player, but for the AI too. I think the mechanism is likely to improve/evolve over time, as it's fresh and new now.
Will be interesting to see what happens!

 

[Karpius]

I am sure it is an unforeseen consequence. Quite likely, the situation that could create such a "loop" never occurred during testing. If it did, developers probably never expected that some players might elect refuse such a city, thus keeping it lost in such a loop. Also, there remains the possibility that as Australia grows, enough loyalty pressure might come to bear on that lonely city and lock into John Curtain's orbit. Or perhaps another civ (if there were one nearby) might conquer it while it was in free city phase and raze it, or keep it, or whatever. I wouldn't classify it as a bug. Just one of the many possible outcomes.

There is alot of complexity in a system so packed with features and probabilities, and such complexity can breed very odd results in extreme circumstances.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I am sure it is an unforeseen consequence. Quite likely, the situation that could create such a "loop" never occurred during testing. If it did, developers probably never expected that some players might elect refuse such a city, thus keeping it lost in such a loop. Also, there remains the possibility that as Australia grows, enough loyalty pressure might come to bear on that lonely city and lock into John Curtain's orbit. Or perhaps another civ (if there were one nearby) might conquer it while it was in free city phase and raze it, or keep it, or whatever. I wouldn't classify it as a bug. Just one of the many possible outcomes.

There is alot of complexity in a system so packed with features and probabilities, and such complexity can breed very odd results in extreme circumstances.

No, I don't consider the loop itself to be a bug. Although, if the text describing how the city won't feel my loyalty pressure anymore if I refuse it, is not working, that would be a bug. But I do think the system needs to be tweaked to prevent the loop from happening if you refuse the city and I would love to see free cities become permanent semi city-states under the right conditions.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am sure it is an unforeseen consequence. Quite likely, the situation that could create such a "loop" never occurred during testing. If it did, developers probably never expected that some players might elect refuse such a city, thus keeping it lost in such a loop.

If OP's story is accurate, it would be a strange thing to never expect a scenario where the player would release the city given they wrote a tooltip where said city wouldn't receive loyalty pressure and took the time to put it into the UI during this interaction!

 

[agonistes]

In a current game (as Russia), marathon ++, the US has been converting french cities. France is in a dark age, US golden. But due to the tech pace, France has 0 luxuries hooked up. Paris is size 3, about 7 tiles from a larger Washington. I notice Paris will flip in 19 turns, leaving France with two cities, split by Paris.

I don't want that to happen.

So, its a similar situation. How to stop the flipping.

I gifted France all 5 of my luxuries, and rushed two settlers. I settled 2 cities within loyalty range of Paris and gifted them. And I keep regifting the luxuries. Hopefully Paris hooks up some luxuries soon, or grows, or exits the dark age.

So to kill the loop, I would either settle some cities and gift them, or conquer the free city, rush a monument and granary, make some farms, get its size up, then gift it back.