Rebellion/Loyalty is broken. Completely broken.

[Sherlock]

I took a city, put in a governor, left in troops, had a 'almost loyal' city (rebellion in 55 turns) four tiles away.

IT FLIPPED THREE TIMES. KEEP FLIPPING. Rebellion in 3 turns. Rebellion in 2 turns. Rebellion in 1 turn.

Then... wait for it, I had a great person that gave you extra loyalty. For some reason he would not move to this city EVEN THOUGH IT WAS MY CITY. So I moved it to the 'almost loyal' city and activiated it for the extra loyalty. NEXT TURN THAT CITY REBELLED.

Look, this is broken. And I'm done with this game. I wasted all of tonight and half of last night on a game that doesn't work according to its own rules. I'm outa here till the next big patch.

 

[DWilson]

It works for most, and seems your experience is the exception, not the rule. Subsequently, I don't think broken is the correct description.

 

[XplosiveLun]

I'm curious to know the loyalty value breakdown of the city.

 

[RealHuhn]

As with most things in Civ6 you need to put in some time and read forums to understand how the mechanics work, in this case loyalty. But the rules are actually quite simple and they work just fine in my opinion. Your biggest mistake was recapturing the city which rebelled so often because each time you did that, it lost more population making your previously save city rebel as well. It's all about population. You should have waited a couple of turns and bring a builder to harvest a food tile to make sure that first city didn't flip so often. Or more military to speed up the conquest. It's often better to capture big cities first as well.

 

[XplosiveLun]

But the thing is population pressure only contribute -20 loyalty at max. Adding other factors, cities at most have 3~5 turns buffer to rebellion. There must be some quirks.

 

[Tech Osen]

For some reason he would not move to this city EVEN THOUGH IT WAS MY CITY.

Can't move a great admiral to a landlocked city, also can't move great persons to a city that has another civilian in it, like a builder or other great persons.

 

[leandrombraz]

One thing I noticed is that the UI have that annoying problem where some stuff only update when you pass turn, so even though the city was showing 55 turns, what possibly happened is that something changed and the UI didn't update, so next turn you saw that the situation was actually worse. War Weariness is likely at fault here.

I did a quick search here, seems like every Great People that add loyalty will add loyalty per turn. How much loyalty per turn was your city losing and how much the great people added? If it wasn't enough to leave you on positive, it will rebel regardless. If it was, it's possible the loyalty added doesn't affect the turn you activated it and since it was one turn from rebelling, it rebelled anyway. I still didn't use this great people ability so idk how it works though I would assume it affect the same turn even if the UI don't update properly, so probably the loyalty just wasn't enough.

Aside from the sometimes misleading UI, I didn't have any problems with loyalty so far. You need to pay attention though, know how it works and be fast and surgical on your strategy. If the city is rebelling over and over you shouldn't have taken it in the first place, at least not alone, you need to take another city to reduce the pressure and increase yours. You also shouldn't keep reconquering it, either do it once or don't do it at all. Governors and garrison alone won't do much if the pressure is too high, your influence is too low, your happiness is non-existent and so on. Governors add +8 and Garrison counter occupation, they don't do magic.

 

[PeterChu]

A simple rule of thumb: for Civ 6 after R&F, try to think and cope with the loyalty problem on the 'regional' level, rather than on the 'city' level. You need to build up a viable cluster of cities in carefully planed and swift moves to counter the negative loyalty pressure resulting from Domino Effect. That's one of rare 'grand strategy' moments of CIv 6 game.

 

[kryat]

From the sounds of it the “almost loyal” city was a different one nearby, four tiles away? The loyalty of that proximal city only matters a little bit, the fact that it is yours. What matters more is the population of that city, the population and distances of other nearby cities, and the era you and your neighbors were in. If you were in a dark era and your neighbors were in a golden era, and your neighbors’ cities were much more pupulous than your own, it is not surprising that it would flip, even with your best efforts.

Remember there is a difference between “loyalty” and “loyalty pressure”. Governors, garrisons, and great people all give “loyalty”, which only affect the single city they are in and do not increase the radiant pressure. Conversely, citizens exert “loyalty pressure” based on the owner’s current era, and regardless of the current loyalty standing of a given city, that does radiate to nearby cities. The only ways to increase this radiating pressure from a given city is to make the city more populous or to increase the era you are in (on a scale from dark to golden).

 

[blackbutterfly]

To combat loyalty you need more cities, more population, more amenities.

Basically you need to snowball harder and faster...which isn't rubber-banding at all. So I agree with the OP it needs to be fixed esp. considering TSL maps. (On TSL maps the interior civs are at a disadvantage and likely to fall to loyalty, while civs on the edge of the maps do better like Scotland, Spain & Russia and almost all non-European civs!)

I really like the concept and I think it's ingenious and the best part of R&F but Firaxis should've focused on this instead of pimping out Governors, Emergencies and Era score & Ages

Also it would make sense for civs to return to the game if its cap becomes "free" after being vanquished.
E.g:

London (England) -> London (Free City) -> London (Civ X) -> London (England).

 

[eleven11]

There are some weird things going on with Loyalty since the Spring patch. In my last Deity game, Rome was advancing units towards my borders. But they kept on going. And going. Halfway across the map they finally attacked La Venta which was right next to Japan in the West and Aztecs in the South. They sacked La Venta and, predictably, it was going to flip in 3 turns. Then I get an Emergency and I thought why not because that sucker is going to flip fast... and Japan joined me. The very next turn, the city said "Full Loyalty in 4 turns". It went from -20 to +11 or so in one turn on the 2nd turn after the city was sacked. I have no idea how he pulled off this magic trick, but sure enough, that city went fully loyal... halfway across a Pangaea map on Standard with no Rome city within 25 tiles but probably about 30 population of pressure between Japan and Aztecs. I had to march my army over to liberate it.

 

[AlannaT]

There are some weird things going on with Loyalty since the Spring patch. In my last Deity game, Rome was advancing units towards my borders. But they kept on going. And going. Halfway across the map they finally attacked La Venta which was right next to Japan in the West and Aztecs in the South. They sacked La Venta and, predictably, it was going to flip in 3 turns. Then I get an Emergency and I thought why not because that sucker is going to flip fast... and Japan joined me. The very next turn, the city said "Full Loyalty in 4 turns". It went from -20 to +11 or so in one turn on the 2nd turn after the city was sacked. I have no idea how he pulled off this magic trick, but sure enough, that city went fully loyal... halfway across a Pangaea map on Standard with no Rome city within 25 tiles but probably about 30 population of pressure between Japan and Aztecs. I had to march my army over to liberate it.

I believe it was the March Patch that they changed the behaviour to what you experienced last game. Before the patch there were a lot of complaints about easy emergencies where you just wait 3-10 turns for a city flip and bag the money. So they changed it that every city targeted by an emergency (for city state emergencies, betrayal emergencies etc.) gets a +20 loyalty boost IIRC.

This fixes the problem but I find it a rather crude solution which causes other problems. In my last game I captured a capital and was prepared to have it flip in a few turns. Instead I get targetted by an emergency and can suddenly keep the city which I could have never done otherwise.

I would have preferred if they had a look at the emergency conditions because they I guess they could have fixed it that way. So if the emergency is about a city state the target should be to liberate it - thus capturing and keeping or having it flip to a free city by itself or whatever should not resolve the emergency. Or if the emergency is about capturing a capital it should only succeed when you capture it and not when it flips.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I've only seen "Rebells in 3, 4, 5" turns in cities that are Occupied.

It sounds like his cities were occupied and had more disloyalty that were going to flip.

I've had no issues with loyalties ever, everything works well.

 

[eleven11]

@AlannaT Ty for that info. I think a better option would have been a pressure check. If pressure is negative past a certain threshold (say -10) on capture then no Emergency can trigger. To balance, nudge the overall chance of Emergencies higher

 

[Disgustipated]

I wouldn't say it's broken, that implies the game or mechanic doesn't work at all. It does work. Just not always like you want it to.

I have noticed that loyalty of newly conquered cities can really jump around from turn to turn and I haven't figured out why that is. One turn I could be gaining loyalty, but next turn it will rebel in 8 turns. Then next turn it rebels in 4 turn. Then soon after that I'm gaining loyalty again.

 

[AlannaT]

I have noticed that loyalty of newly conquered cities can really jump around from turn to turn and I haven't figured out why that is. One turn I could be gaining loyalty, but next turn it will rebel in 8 turns. Then next turn it rebels in 4 turn. Then soon after that I'm gaining loyalty again.

If I see sudden jumps it's usually either an enemy Amani placed nearby or my happiness level rising / dropping. Both effects are stated clearly in the loyalty city screen. And don't forget the +5 for garrison in occupied cities. +5 is quite a bit and if you move your army away to the next city without leaving 1 unit behind as garrison this is can make loyalty drop rapidly. Loyalty pressure from nearby citizen changes so gradually that you should not see any sudden jumps.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I took a city, put in a governor, left in troops, had a 'almost loyal' city (rebellion in 55 turns) four tiles away.

IT FLIPPED THREE TIMES. KEEP FLIPPING. Rebellion in 3 turns. Rebellion in 2 turns. Rebellion in 1 turn.

Then... wait for it, I had a great person that gave you extra loyalty. For some reason he would not move to this city EVEN THOUGH IT WAS MY CITY. So I moved it to the 'almost loyal' city and activiated it for the extra loyalty. NEXT TURN THAT CITY REBELLED.

Look, this is broken. And I'm done with this game. I wasted all of tonight and half of last night on a game that doesn't work according to its own rules. I'm outa here till the next big patch.

As for the city that was about flip, I think I may have a quasi-rational explanation for you. There seems to be a 1 turn lag between you taking an action, such as activating your +++loyalty great person, and the effect. Like the cultural victory screen. You can see more than the necessary tourists in a game that is still active. Then the victory screen will flash the next turn.

As for why he wouldn't move to the 1st city you mention, who knows.

Do you have the save? I'm curious.

 

[liv]

I have been wondering about that 1 turn to flip too. Even if you put something in to prevent that it seems to flip no matter what. So it maybe related to this lag thing.
Except for that I think loyalty works fine but it is a PITA some times for sure.

 

[AlannaT]

So you are saying, that if I have for example a city with only 5 loyalty left and it currently get -6 loyalty per turn and I move a governor in for +8, this effect will trigger one round too late? That it will still get -6 when I click Next instead of +2 and will thus flip?
If that's true, that's really bad.

I always thought it was just a UI thingy where some information immediately updates, some updates only if you close/reopen menus and some only updates the next turn.

 

[shaglio]

Look, this is broken. And I'm done with this game. I wasted all of tonight and half of last night on a game that doesn't work according to its own rules. I'm outa here till the next big patch.

If I had a dollar for every time you declared you were "done with this game," I could purchase the rights to Civ 6 from Firaxis and hire all the modders on Civfanatics to make the game absolutely perfect.