Public Opinion bugs?

[Heinage]

In my current game as Indonesia, I picked Autocracy to stay on friendly terms with my large and powerful neighbor Assyria. They had and still have:
- Largest tourism output in the world
- Tech lead
- Biggest military
- etc. etc.

The Maya picked freedom.
I immediately had Dissidents, causing -11 unhappy.
Maya were content.
Assyria were content.

The world had more Autocracy civs than freedom (3 vs. 1)
I had same tourism output as the Maya and then even increased so I was in second place.
Maya and I were both exotic towards each other and both had large amounts of culture defending against each other.
Assyria's influence on my culture was vastly greater than Maya's.
My public showed as being influenced by Maya but not Assyria, with my people clamoring for freedom ideology.
Maya were completely unswayed by me and Assyria (and also autocratic Zulu with 4th highest tourism output).

All in all it felt wrong. I was checking out the numbers from each side in the culture screens trying to figure it out because common sense and math told me that it should be the other way around. I should have been content (which is partly why I went with Autocracy) while the Maya should be dealing with dissidents. My public opinion should be more affected by Assyria that Maya.

So what could I possibly be missing? Or is it a bug and others have experienced the same thing?
In the end I kept increasing culture and tourism output and it has come right for now.

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

Congratulations you are the thousandth person to ask about this without searching for a similar thread. Your cheque is in the mail.

Edit: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503243

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503211

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503165

All from page two of the forum.

 

[Heinage]

Congratulations you are the thousandth person to ask about this without searching for a similar thread. Your cheque is in the mail.

Edit: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503243

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503211

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503165

All from page two of the forum.

That's an unnecessarily prejudiced and sarcastic response.

Nevertheless, thank you for those links. They confirm to me that you haven't read my post before leaping on your high horse and denouncing me.

Let me clarify: I feel that I have a reasonable grasp on the ideology and public opinion system. Those threads you linked to are created to explain the system to people who don't understand.
The thread I have created questions whether this system is perhaps not functioning the way it is intended to?

So I ask again, has anyone come across situations in which the public opinion of your civ doesn't seem right, even when you've checked the numbers?

 

[Tyrvos]

Congratulations you are the thousandth person to ask about this without searching for a similar thread. Your cheque is in the mail.

Edit: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503243

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503211

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503165

All from page two of the forum.

Those don't answer his predicament. Don't answer an innocent question that rudely.


Anyways, to the OP. The pressure should rely on famililar/unkown etc comparisons. Maybe open a trade route with Assyria or open borders? That might get their influence on you (not including the % increase as well) I'm not an expert with the new system but I'd imagine that would help.

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

I'm sorry for being rude.

I really do believe that you've just misunderstood the system though. Mouse over where it says your in dissidents and you'll get the pressure represented in symbols. The number of symbols represents the number of levels of influence other civs have against you.

For example if you are Unknown to the Maya but they are exotic to you that would result in one torch against you.

If there are more torches and hammers than there are spears you'll lose happiness.

 

[Heinage]

Yeah, checked all the torches and exotic vs. Exotic stuff etc.

I must have been looking at it all for a good ten minutes thinking "this can't be right"

What I'll do is, when I get home and have some time, is see if I still have an auto save from that time in the game and then post the facts here, with screen shots.
Might take a good 12 hours though before I get this.

Cheers and thanks for the apology.

 

[Heinage]

I found an autosave, loaded it up to check the facts again and, I have to admit, it turns out that A Rabid Dopsis was right because I missed something important.

I'm going to post the screenshots here with explanations so that if some other poor soul thinks he's found a bug, this may help clarify the public opinion system.


1. Here is the "Culture Victory" overview showing:
a) I have dissidents
b) Maya have 1 influence torch over me causing the dissidents

Spoiler :

2. Here is my influence over other civs showing:
a) My culture is "unknown" to The Maya
b) My culture is "exotic" to Assyria

Spoiler :

3. Here is The Maya's influence over other civs showing:
a) Their culture is "exotic" to me

Spoiler :

4. Here is Assyria's influence over other civs showing:
a) Their culture is "exotic" to me

Spoiler :

Summary:
a) Due to the fact that there is an imbalance between The Maya's cultural influence over me vs. My cultural influence over The Maya (I'm unknown to them whilst their exotic to me), this causes 1 freedom torch influencing my public opinion negatively.
b) Due to the fact that Assyria's cultural influence over me and My cultural influence over Assyria is exactly the same, there is no positive nor negative effect on my public opinion.
c) The result is 1 level of negative public opinion for me, hence the dissidents.

What happened a few turns later?:
Well, due to pushing through my religion as the World Religion at the World Congress, and due also to Assyria's growing influence over me, the influence levels flipped. Assyria became positively influential over me whilst The Maya's influence over me dropped away, resulting in Happy little content autocratic Indonesians


Hope this was useful to someone else and not only me!

 

[holywar]

It helped me. I was completely oblivious to culture effects until my happiness went from -1 to -20 when Spain adopted Order ideology. Really put a damper on my plans for world conquest.

 

[redwings1340]

Huh, this is interesting. On one hand it is definitely right in terms of game mechanics, on the other hand it's a little weird. You and Assyria are influencing each other a lot but equally, so a small Mayan freedom rebellion started. I suppose at this stage you want to sell open borders to Assyria so you can make sure they get more tourism to you, but you don't want to go to them, because otherwise it influences you for freedom.

Interesting. I really like the ideology system, but this feels a little messed up. Maybe your tourism on them shouldn't influence hammers on yourself, but then there wouldn't be a way to defend against other tourism. Hmm...

 

[Yzman]

Huh, this is interesting. On one hand it is definitely right in terms of game mechanics, on the other hand it's a little weird. You and Assyria are influencing each other a lot but equally, so a small Mayan freedom rebellion started. I suppose at this stage you want to sell open borders to Assyria so you can make sure they get more tourism to you, but you don't want to go to them, because otherwise it influences you for freedom.

Interesting. I really like the ideology system, but this feels a little messed up. Maybe your tourism on them shouldn't influence hammers on yourself, but then there wouldn't be a way to defend against other tourism. Hmm...

No, the ideal solution would be to increase his tourism towards the Maya so that they no longer influence him.

 

[Vidszhite]

In my current game as Indonesia, I picked Autocracy to stay on friendly terms with my large and powerful neighbor Assyria. They had and still have:
- Largest tourism output in the world
- Tech lead
- Biggest military
- etc. etc.

The Maya picked freedom.
I immediately had Dissidents, causing -11 unhappy.
Maya were content.
Assyria were content.

The world had more Autocracy civs than freedom (3 vs. 1)
I had same tourism output as the Maya and then even increased so I was in second place.
Maya and I were both exotic towards each other and both had large amounts of culture defending against each other.
Assyria's influence on my culture was vastly greater than Maya's.
My public showed as being influenced by Maya but not Assyria, with my people clamoring for freedom ideology.
Maya were completely unswayed by me and Assyria (and also autocratic Zulu with 4th highest tourism output).

All in all it felt wrong. I was checking out the numbers from each side in the culture screens trying to figure it out because common sense and math told me that it should be the other way around. I should have been content (which is partly why I went with Autocracy) while the Maya should be dealing with dissidents. My public opinion should be more affected by Assyria that Maya.

So what could I possibly be missing? Or is it a bug and others have experienced the same thing?
In the end I kept increasing culture and tourism output and it has come right for now.

Common question, actually! (As others have no doubt told you...) It took me a while to finally get down to the specifics of it, but here's probably what happened:

Ashurbanipal's tourism output is very high, but his tourism compared to yours is not the only factor -- your influence gap with the Maya is also a factor, since they are the civ that's pushing out Freedom. If they have influence over you, and the opposite is not true, they may still influence you enough to cause dissidents, but unless the gap is very wide, it usually never gets past dissidents (because stronger cultures do take precedence).

Dissidents are very difficult to prevent unless your culture and tourism are very high, because if there is a gap at all, Dissidents will happen. Not knowing where the Mayans are geographically makes it harder to say more. A screenshot would help.

 

[Maxym]

I think it is actually simpler than that. You have no influence on Maya , they are exotic to you. One torch. You and Assyria are both exotic to each other and pressures cancel out. So the only influence is from Maya right now hence dissidents for freedom. You are close on both counters : tourism and culture so you can either increase tourism and its modifiers and catch up to exotic over them, or boost your culture (GAge, GW burn, CS allies etc) and push him below exotic to you.

Subtler approach if Assyria is so close to familiar already is to help him increase his tourism over you, OB, ITR, faith etc. This will get you an influence point from them and negate the Mayan. This works well with your active defense with tourism against Maya but gets counteracted by passive defense of increasing your culture. I am sure you can figure out which way will work better for you.