[R&F] tall vs wide

[EditorRex]

On a city you tap on the left side and get a little loyalty bar up, but if you tap on that you get a better detail screen up including for enemy cities. You can see 4 sections for a city, pressure, governors, amenities and other. Only pressure counts against other cities, things like governors do not.
The best defence against external pressure is increasing your population, one or two extra pop can be the same value as a governor. It just depends on the numbers so a 2 pop city 5 tiles away only exerts 50% of each so is equal to one of your pop.
Low loyalty cities will not grow easily is an issue and as a taken city only starts at 50% loyalty it can be tricky. The point is if there is 3 enemy cities in front of you if you take 1 it’s going to rebel in 5 turns so you have roughly that long to take the next city, if you think it’s going to take 7 turns maybe you add a governor or let it flip... but letting it flip will in about another 5 turns flip back to the original owner as it’s based on accumulated loyalty. Once you have 2 cities they may still be pulsing but will exert some pressure on each other so should give more time to take the third. Normally 3 cities should help each other enough as long as there is not a huge city very close.

I experimented with using this information in an Emperor game yesterday, but faced some problems. Playing as Trajan, I had a 6-pop capital and 5-pop second city. Egypt's 7-pop capital was about 10 hexes to the north, with a 2-pop and 3-pop city settled in a band to the southwest. Egypt's 2-pop city was about 7 hexes from my 5-pop city. I started a surprise Ancient era war with Egypt and targeted this unwalled city with 3 archers and a warrior. I alternated between pillaging and attacking the city and external units. Without much trouble, took the city in a few turns. I immediately ended the war with Cleopatra and she ceded the city I had conquered to me. Initially it was set to rebel in 10 turns. I repaired a damaged monument and this went up to about 30 years. But as units belonging to Cleopatra and other AI moved nearby (Genghis and Cyrus were to my southwest and southeast respectively), my time to rebel kept fluctuating, dropping to 17 and then counting down. At one point, the city was gaining loyalty to me, but then it began losing quickly again without me doing anything that I know of. I worked to get my original city populations up, with the 5-pop rising to 7 and the capital also getting to 7. I repaired pillaged squares, especially two amenities. No matter what I did, the city's turns to rebellion count kept suddenly dropping back to an ever lower number after I thought I had it stabilized. I recognize one circumstance may have affected things: I went into a Dark Classical Era just before taking the city. Other than that, I wondered about whether I was incorrect to make peace so quickly. Also, one thing I pillaged before taking the city was its Holy Site, which I was never able to repair before the city was on the verge of flipping.

What could I have done differently to use Loyalty more effectively in this situation? Based on other posts I had read, I was hoping all that pillaging would deflate Loyalty to Cleopatra before I took the city but that didn't seem to happen, so I must have misunderstood how to use pillaging to influence Loyalty. Would I have been better not to accept peace so quickly with other Egyptian cities close by? (My military was in good shape, but I wouldn't have been able to continue my attack to the next city and leave a garrison in the one I just captured without quickly paying for a new unit.) I never moved a governor into the captured city and didn't select the garrison-Loyalty bonus card. Was pillaging the Holy Site a major problem? Since I couldn't make the city I eventually captured budge on its Loyalty, much less flip it, would I have been better to target the Egyptian capital with my military first?

Thanks for any further insights.

 

[Victoria]

was hoping all that pillaging would deflate Loyalty to Cleopatra before I took the city but that didn't seem to happen,

So the loyalty box shows 4 columns, and the pressure is worked out first then the other 3 columns are applied. The amenity column is naturally happiness and pillaging luxuries may reduce happiness but will naturally reduce happiness when you take it, especially if it had a lux you wanted.
Pillaging the farms causes starvation and reduces population, these are things that will also affect you when you take it over.

When you want to flip a city without attacking it, pillage it. When you want to take a city, do not pillage farms or luxuries you do not have, this may also be some of your problem.

The variance, a dark age is not good and will cause massive fluctuations as other cities around it grow, especially the enemies. Think about it. Normally both side have equal pop pressure per population but in a dark age it is 0.5 not 1 per pop. These heavily affect loyalty in this way and it was the combination of dark age and their cities growing. Best counters are more cards that help loyalty (probably tried)... get a higher pop fast through chopping... works ok.... take another enemy city.... huge benefit.