Loyalty

[Fix]

I seriously think loyalty broke Civilization 6. Like its just not fun anymore. Expansion is so geared towards the AI.

I started a random continents epic game on king. Landed Poland. I started up and below me was a robust area of desert hills and rivers. Ideal expansion. I build a scout, and monument. Then follow into Settler, over Holy site. India is 5 tiles away from my capital. Roughly 40 turns in I capture a lonely settler out, 4 turns from mine completing. Now all the tiles around me are loyalty hits. There wasn't a locale for me to spawn a second city, as I was next to mountains and tundra to my north. Rome farther South.


I found the city, keep my warrior garrisoned - but the city revolts within 8 turns. I hadn't even got my first governor. Which was 25 turns away on Epic.

I dunno I feel like it truly damages the game in some contrast, even the idea of late game amassesing some settlers and a fleet to go establish settlements on a new found continent - because once you meet the Civs on the new continent the land already has loyalty. So you know, your Englishmen are all of a sudden more fond of Trajan then their Queen. I don't know, I feel it kind of breaks the game. (Also, it could be that the AI has tremendously more loyalty points? Like they get more units the harder you up the difficulty etc, I'm not sure though)


Edit: To add --- Honestly I think the best solution would be to maybe have loyalty come in affect like 100 turns in (on epic) 50 turns in(on standard), or at 2000BC. At the start, Civilizations were tribes. Before fire and the wheel. That would at least allow players a chance to breathe when it comes to choosing land. Some players don't want to rush a settler, but with Rise & Fall its almost necessary the way the AI plays so expansive.

[leandrombraz]

You can safely settle any tile that have up to -9 loyalty since your city start with 10 loyalty from its own 1 population. Up to that you will lose loyalty if you don't have other friendly cities influencing it or another source of loyalty. Garrisoned soldier does nothing to a settled city, Garrison merely counters occupation in a city you conquered while you're at war. Garrison will only help you if you'ure using a policy that give loyalty to Garrison (Limitanei) or are playing a Civ that give does that (Zulu, Persia).

To settle a tile losing -10 or more you can:

- Settle two cities in reach of each other at the same time or in time to stop them from revolting. Loyalty have a 9 tile radius and lose strength the furthest it is. If you settle two cities with a distance of 6 tiles, each city will get +4 from each other.

- Invest on growth on the city you settled and on cities that have influence over it. Another pop on your cities will give you another +10 loyalty. Grow a second citizen and you will be fine. If you settled that two cities with a 6 tile distance and they both grow, now it's +8 influence coming from each other. Send a builder, use a trade route, buy a granary/Water mill.

- Build a monument for +1 loyalty, which is nice but growth is better.

- Amenities. Improve luxuries or trade for one. +1 to +2 amenities give +3 loyaty, +3 or more amenities give +6.

- Governor once you unlock it but usually you don't really need it.

[Despiser]

You can use loyalty to expand your borders. People complain it doesn’t work tend to not bother with how it works.

[Kurnn]

Funny, Loyalty made civ alot better.

[leandrombraz]

It's really a matter of learning the system, it's not a system that play by itself and can just be ignored. If you know how it works, it's definitely an improvement, though it could be better. If you don't know, well, it will do things that look like BS and you will have a bad time.

[sercera]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

You can safely settle any tile that have up to -9 loyalty since your city start with 10 loyalty from its own 1 population. Up to that you will lose loyalty if you don't have other frieldy cities influencing it or another source of loyalty.

I'm 99% sure this is not true. Only surrounding cities, governors, policies, and garrisoned units during occupation (or as you correctly point out - any garrison with the limitanei policy) can supply loyalty pressure.

Everything else you said in your post is correct - except for any part that pushes growth in the city that is losing loyalty. In fact, growth in the unloyal city can hurt your loyalty even more if it grows and loses net amenities. You should soley focus on increasing growth in the surrounding cities (within 9 tiles) and try to use the other means detailed above for influencing loyalty in the area.


To delve into this discussion a little deeper - I don't think loyalty is to fault for "breaking" the game. It has made the problem worse though.
The problem that makes this game so frustrating (to me) is the distance AI spawns from the human player. That, in addition to the AI being coded to search for the human player and settle in their direction as often as possible (all else being equal - of course sometimes they won't do this, but usually they will.)
I played this game for almost a year becoming increasingly annoyed at the cramped starting locations. Finally I modified the appropriate files ("AssignStartingPlots.lua" and "GlobalParameters.xml") to give a base distance of "20" for major civs and "10" for city states (from 9 and 7) and so far in the last week since I've changed it, I've only noticed 1 out of the 20 or so games I've tested to have unacceptably cramped starting locations (1/20 as opposed to at least 1/2 before the change)

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by sercera:

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

You can safely settle any tile that have up to -9 loyalty since your city start with 10 loyalty from its own 1 population. Up to that you will lose loyalty if you don't have other frieldy cities influencing it or another source of loyalty.

I'm 99% sure this is not true. Only surrounding cities, governors, policies, and garrisoned units during occupation (or as you correctly point out - any garrison with the limitanei policy) can supply loyalty pressure.

Everything else you said in your post is correct - except for any part that pushes growth in the city that is losing loyalty. In fact, growth in the unloyal city can hurt your loyalty even more if it grows and loses net amenities. You should soley focus on increasing growth in the surrounding cities (within 9 tiles) and try to use the other means detailed above for influencing loyalty in the area.

Any population exert loyalty, including the city own population. Since the city is at a 0 distance from itself, the loyalty you get from it is the highest you can get from a population.

The formula for loyalty influence per city is L=C*E*P*(10-D), where:

C = Negative if the city is foreign, positive if it's yours. 1 for normal city, 2 for capital;

E = Era boost (1 for normal);

P= Population

D= Distance

So a 1 pop city exert 1*1*1*(10-0) on itself, aka 10, at two pop it will be 20 and so on. Growth on the city that is losing loyalty is by far the best way to keep a city, mostly when you're expanding in early game. Sure, you need to keep an eye on amenities but the benefit of growth outweigh the amenity penalty.

[Fix]

Originally posted by sercera:

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

You can safely settle any tile that have up to -9 loyalty since your city start with 10 loyalty from its own 1 population. Up to that you will lose loyalty if you don't have other frieldy cities influencing it or another source of loyalty.

I'm 99% sure this is not true. Only surrounding cities, governors, policies, and garrisoned units during occupation (or as you correctly point out - any garrison with the limitanei policy) can supply loyalty pressure.

Everything else you said in your post is correct - except for any part that pushes growth in the city that is losing loyalty. In fact, growth in the unloyal city can hurt your loyalty even more if it grows and loses net amenities. You should soley focus on increasing growth in the surrounding cities (within 9 tiles) and try to use the other means detailed above for influencing loyalty in the area.


To delve into this discussion a little deeper - I don't think loyalty is to fault for "breaking" the game. It has made the problem worse though.
The problem that makes this game so frustrating (to me) is the distance AI spawns from the human player. That, in addition to the AI being coded to search for the human player and settle in their direction as often as possible (all else being equal - of course sometimes they won't do this, but usually they will.)
I played this game for almost a year becoming increasingly annoyed at the cramped starting locations. Finally I modified the appropriate files ("AssignStartingPlots.lua" and "GlobalParameters.xml") to give a base distance of "20" for major civs and "10" for city states (from 9 and 7) and so far in the last week since I've changed it, I've only noticed 1 out of the 20 or so games I've tested to have unacceptably cramped starting locations (1/20 as opposed to at least 1/2 before the change)

Very well said. This is exactly what I mean so many cramped starts and the AI rushes towards the player - on higher difficulties it really limits what the player can do now, with loyalty.

[sercera]

leandrombraz - I stand corrected - your description of the loyalty pressure is correct. Anyone reading this thread, my post is incorrect. Use the formula given by leandrombraz if you want to double check (I just did.)

This is yet another example of how my idea of core rules of the game differ just slightly from the game makers. I guess I just assumed since the term "pressure" is used that loyalty (at least the loyalty from population) was only generated by nearby cities only - not including the city in question.

Linguist experts (any out there?) --- wouldn't that be the correct assumption if you're going with a pure definition of the word "pressure"?

Regardless - I am wrong once again.
The sky is blue. Water is wet.
Carry on.

Fix88 - you should look into editing those two files. You can find the first one in the
Steam/SteamApps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Base/Assets/Maps/Utility folder
The file name AssignStartingPlots.lua - you can modify line 860 and line 877 to your liking
and the second one is in the
Steam/SteamApps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Base/Assets/Gameplay/Data folder
The file name GlobalParameters.xml - you can modify line 497 and line 503

Well, you can modify any line you want of course, but those are the ones to change if you don't want to start too close to AI and/or City States.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by sercera:

Linguist experts (any out there?) --- wouldn't that be the correct assumption if you're going with a pure definition of the word "pressure"?

It's pressure from population. A group of people will influence itself with its own ideas (nationalism, in this case).

[SamBC]

Trying to understand the term "pressure" as if in its physical sense would lead to very little sense being made in this context.

[sercera]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Trying to understand the term "pressure" as if in its physical sense would lead to very little sense being made in this context.

SamBC are you replying to me?
If so, I would argue, the way the loyalty lens portrays pressure (and the religion lens portraying religious pressure) seems to indicate otherwise as it shows waves of pressure from nearby cities. And if you have those waves of pressure emanating from your own city, it would seem to counteract the incoming waves.

[Burgundy]

It's better when you understand the mechanics of it.

[Kurnn]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Trying to understand the term "pressure" as if in its physical sense would lead to very little sense being made in this context.

Very true! Important to understand this.

Also, the detailed view of each city gives alot of good info. I dont think most players use that tab though :p.

[Kurnn]

Originally posted by sercera:

Originally posted by SamBC:

Trying to understand the term "pressure" as if in its physical sense would lead to very little sense being made in this context.

SamBC are you replying to me?
If so, I would argue, the way the loyalty lens portrays pressure (and the religion lens portraying religious pressure) seems to indicate otherwise as it shows waves of pressure from nearby cities. And if you have those waves of pressure emanating from your own city, it would seem to counteract the incoming waves.

You can see the details in the city view tab. The advisor tells you what you can do, and you see the numbers for each city.

A lot of loyalty is fixed by

A) Increase the population of that city
B) Increase the population of nearby cities
C) New: Have your religion in the city as the main one
D) A govonor adds tons to loyalty in a city, even before they are installed
E) Loyalty effects from religion beliefs, policies, goverments and unqiue buildings/Districts that has a loyalty effect
F) Trade agreements and alliances.
G) Having a military unit in the city, lowers loyalty penalty, but doesnt add loyalty bonus unless you have a goverment, policy or civ skill effect for it.

One very big thing anyone can do to increase loyalty in any city, is to conqure or raze any city close to you, that you do not own.

Loyalty isnt very hard to understand if a player simply looks into it. Looks at the info tab per city and looks at everything that effects loyalty.

A detail that I think alot of players miss regarding loyalty, is that it works the same way for you, as your enemies! If you loose a city to loyalty, you have learned how. If you gain a city by loyalty, you have learned how.

------>When a city becomes a "FREE CITY STATE", there are no warmonger penalies for ether taking it, or razing it. <--------

For players who dont give a damn and just click click click click, fast, fast, fast. They miss the whole thing and goes to forums to complain. =)

[AikenAidan]

Better System Information would be a great help. The Limited Microsoft like info doesn't really get the point across.