The loyalty system ... oh my God

[Horizons]

When they were designing the expansion, did they try play testing it?

So you basically cannot keep any city that you capture or build that's too far away and close to another civ. Seems like a big nerf to warmongering, but it actually just means warmongering is THE way to win now - you just raze to the ground (instantaneously, regardless of size) any city you capture. And don't bother building any new ones.

This is horrible.

 

[pietro1990]

You need to cordinate you're atacks. for example instead of beginning to atack the first city close to you move you're armies at a sneak atack at their capital and other core cities(their first 3)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

You just need to capture fast enough. If you can wipe out a Civ in 5 turns its cities will not have enough time to flip you.

 

[Eric Guimarães]

at least now the citizens aren't like sheep.
that's real life bro ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[pgm123]

You just need to capture fast enough. If you can wipe out a Civ in 5 turns its cities will not have enough time to flip you.

And for those of thus that don't play this way, you just need to juggle civics cards, amenities, unit occupation, etc. If all else fails, make peace.

What difficulty are you playing on, Horizon?

 

[Disgustipated]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/loyalty-and-taking-cities.628210/

See this thread. I'm only playing Prince which actually seems way easier with R & F, but I have seen Marbozir do it on Emperor, so I know it can be done at least up to that difficulty level. I don't know about Deity yet. Marbozir did a lot of his conquering in a golden age, that really helps a lot. Try to time your conquests for golden ages.

As for my game I own most of the cities in the entire world. I only stopped because my specific achievement is for cultural victory not conquest victory.

 

[Victoria]

Why warmonger

 

[leandrombraz]

Sadly I'm a goddamn pacifist, so I won't go for domination anytime soon but I have to say, I'm hyped. Each time I see people having trouble with loyalty I feel more eager to just go there and try it myself, seems like conquest is great again, I like a challenge and mindless steamroll isn't really fun. The only city I conquered so far was to liberate to Greece, who is my cultural ally, so they are holding it quite easily despite all the pressure coming from Georgia.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The best is just taking a city peacefully through flipping. I got 2 Spanish cities peacefully through flipping in my first game. With the new loyalty system, peacemongers can finally "conquer" without suffering any warmonger penalty.

 

[spfun]

I don't like how I can't send a settler half way across the map for a whole bunch of luxuries/resources or an awesome city location, that I have to stick to my initial area and expand out from there. This is just another limiting mechanic for someone whom already doesn't war and builds 4-6 cities only.

I didn't check to see if i could turn loyalty off but I would if i could.

 

[kaspergm]

So you basically cannot keep any city that you capture or build that's too far away and close to another civ. Seems like a big nerf to warmongering, but it actually just means warmongering is THE way to win now - you just raze to the ground (instantaneously, regardless of size) any city you capture. And don't bother building any new ones.

There might be some rough edges that need smoothing, but overall I don't find your description accurate. You can capture and hold enemy cities, but you'll need to have some influence pressure either from your own nearby cities or from govenors and policies. If you're in a golden age and/or opponent is in a dark age, you'll have a much easier time. Conversely, if you're in a dark age and/or opponent is in a golden age, you'll have a really hard time, which I think is fine. If you want to do it still, you may have to go the hard way and raze those cities. This actually mimics realism pretty well imo.

You can settle on different continents, but you need to find a place which is outside other civs sphere of influence. From the few games I've played so far, that has actually been doable, because (AI) civs tend to cluster up their cities much more now, which is a huge plus. No more days where AI will walk a settler right up to your borders and settle between your cities, which annoyed me to no end in vanilla.

 

[ZubieMaster]

No problems with loyalty so far in my first game. I'm Shaka and have steamrolled most of my continent with zero loyalty issues (and no improved AI defense). I did have a flip scare with an early founded city too close to India, but I put gov. Amani in there and hit a golden age the turn before it was supposed to revolt and soon it was back to full. Ever since I've been in perma-golden age which is probably keeping up the loyalty, plus Shaka gets a great general every other turn and two of them so far have +loyalty abilities. Biggest loyalty comedy I've noticed is an early emergency to liberate Toronto from Japan on the other continent, it flipped in 5 turns -- before I could get across the sea, which satisfied the emergency "success". I was the only participant so got all the free cash.

 

[Horizons]

I'll try it out for a bit more but it seems like this is some kind of paradigm shift and I really dislike it.

Dang, we all get old and set in our ways eventually I guess.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The best thing about the loyalty system is that it prevents civs from just plopping down cities anywhere on the map. It really encourages players to settle new cities close to existing ones and pushes civs towards having a coherent territory rather than a disjointed patch of spread out cities.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think it's great. Warmongering shouldn't be that profitable and you will have to spend resources on either putting loyalty in, moving fast, or razing cities.

Much better than the mindless no cost warmongering of vanilla. Honestly, I think it should be even harsher, but this is a good start. Warmongering is still the best way to go about things but at least you might have to think about how to do it as opposed to it being a given.

 

[pgm123]

I don't like how I can't send a settler half way across the map for a whole bunch of luxuries/resources or an awesome city location, that I have to stick to my initial area and expand out from there. This is just another limiting mechanic for someone whom already doesn't war and builds 4-6 cities only.

There's a policy card to boost loyalty of cities on other continents. Send a governor over there and then focus on food production and it'll probably stay loyal.

If you're only building 4-6 cities, you can have a governor in each spot. Throw in the Ancestral Hall building to boost population and amenities and all cities with a governor should be ok in most normal situations.

 

[Horizons]

I think it's great. Warmongering shouldn't be that profitable and you will have to spend resources on either putting loyalty in, moving fast, or razing cities.

Much better than the mindless no cost warmongering of vanilla. Honestly, I think it should be even harsher, but this is a good start.

But it doesn't detract from warmongering at all. If a captured city flips, you can just go and capture it again fairly easily and then raze it.

There's no incentive to build on other continents or near other civs if it's a lot easier just to invade and raze every enemy city to the ground? And wanton slaughter against free cities incurs no warmonger penalties ... lol.

I think this is a really badly thought out and poorly implemented feature and is the first time I've seen an expansion actually make the game worse rather than better

 

[Archon_Wing]

But it doesn't detract from warmongering at all. If a captured city flips, you can just go and capture it again fairly easily and then raze it.

Not being able to use a city is less profitable than capturing one and being able to have full yields the moment you make peace. That is a pretty huge difference. Unless you're trying to stop a rival, there seems to be little point to taking cities that you won't use.

If you have 8 cities and you conquered 8, you would have 16. If you have to raze 4 of them, that would be 12, about 25% less of an empire for you.

There's no incentive to build on other continents or near other civs if it's a lot easier just to invade and raze every enemy city to the ground? And wanton slaughter against free cities incurs no warmonger penalties ... lol.

All that means is you have to move faster. Sure you might have raze 2-3 cities but eventually you'll wear it down.

I think this is a really badly thought out and poorly implemented feature and is the first time I've seen an expansion actually make the game worse rather than better

Well, war should be destructive, after all especially when it's about conquest. You don't expect to shove a bunch of explosives and nules at the population and expect it to be nice and shiny after all that, do you?

 

[FractalAdvocate]

I didn't check to see if i could turn loyalty off but I would if i could.

I highly doubt Rise and Fall will ever have an option to turn off loyalty, outside of mods -- the designers called it 'the glue that holds the expansion together', IIRC.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Keep in mind that loyalty pressure comes from population. Go for the largest city you can realistically take and immediately assign a governor, use loyalty enhancing policies and build a Monument asap.