Loyalty not making sense

[Rogred]

I liked the loyalty addition to the game until I started a game as Scotland in "True Start Europe" map (or whatever it's called). After establishing two cities I wanted to establish a third one in lower Britannia. After I did that the loyalty was on the floor because France had a city (Berlin) on the other side of the canal. Why would her city be influencing my city (which eventually took it over after a rebellion) if my city is almost the same distance but on the same island of Britannia?
Were all my citizens half-French?

[Maya-Neko]

It doesn't matter, if there's water between cities to spread the loyalty effects.

And it can have some reasons:
- you might be in a dark age, while they're in a normal or golden age
- the might have more citizens in their nearby cities, then you've in your nearby cities
- you amenities might be to low

I don't have all needed informations about it, so i can't really tell you, why this happens.

[Rogred]

Originally posted by Maya:

It doesn't matter, if there's water between cities to spread the loyalty effects.

And it can have some reasons:
- you might be in a dark age, while they're in a normal or golden age
- the might have more citizens in their nearby cities, then you've in your nearby cities
- you amenities might be to low

I don't have all needed informations about it, so i can't really tell you, why this happens.

Thanks for that. I just find it ridiculous when I'm on the same island as the city I'm establishing and someone in another continent like 10 spots away is influencing my city so quickly.

[Maya-Neko]

The influence of a city is actually 100% in the city itself, while it degrades over distance with 10% per tile. So 9 tiles away it's just 10% and on the 10th tile it's already at 0% influence. The influence however stacks when having 2 or more cities nearby. This also affects your cities when calculating positive influence effects.

[leandrombraz]

Loyalty doesn't work well with true start because capitals start too close to each other, which cause cities to rebel often in early game, mostly in Europe. You gonna need to learn how the loyalty math works and be extra careful with your city placement.

This guy did a good explanation of how loyalty works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXcwwOeobJ0

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Loyalty doesn't work well with true start because capitals start too close to each other, which cause cities to rebel often in early game, mostly in Europe.

Which is almost certainly the reason France had Berlin in OP's case.

[alnur]

loyalty is based on distance and not on people actually going from one city to the other. (aka trade route).

that is why you can get cities that you dont know existed, or had no interaction with, through loyalty.

but as there is no geopolitic in this game and we can trade luxury ressource through teleporter rather than needing an active trade route (that could be pillaged by an enemy).

and as the internal trade is better than internationnal trade, who actually need to trade outside his own border. who actually need to ponder if trading with your neighbour could be a good thing or a bad thing. (also the devs said "if your neighbour send you a trade route, they are preparing to invade you" so trading is considered offensive by the AI made by those devs.)

so "loyalty dont make sense". not just loyalty, many other things dont make sense including trade.

[therealjohnconnor]

Historically France did influence Scotland through the Auld Alliance (against England) despite the Channel. In terms of game mechanics, population is key - a new, small city can easily be influenced by a larger foreign one nearby - there's even a Loyalty overlay to tell you exactly how much. Plenty you can do about it though inc governors, monuments and policy cards to up your loyalty input until your city grows.

[alnur]

so broken mechanic is fine as long as you win. same thing over again. cheat is bad unless you benefit from it, then you turn a blind eye.

the loyalty system like i said is not based on people moving and telling how great their civ is, it is based on a radio-like bonus that affect people on the other side of the channel even when both side dont have sailing yet. (and therefore could not contact each other).

mister therealjohnconnor, are you implying that no french messenger were sent to scotland to influence them? that no boat were sent to scotland? what did the messenger used for transportation? yep they used the trade route to send messenger and influence other people.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by alnur:

and as the internal trade is better than internationnal trade, who actually need to trade outside his own border. who actually need to ponder if trading with your neighbour could be a good thing or a bad thing.

In R&F International Trade is way better than internal. In early game internal is better, it's a good source of food and production while international only give a bit of gold, you also need to build roads in your territory. Later international is way stronger, you can get tons of gold, some science/culture/faith and still get food and production. Alliances, the Wisselbanken policy (later Arsenal of Democracy), the Reform the coinage dedication, all adds up to create some OP routes. By mid game I'm usually getting around +3 food, +4 production, +25 gold, plus some variety of other yields, while internal might give a bit more food and production but nothing that justify missing on tons of gold and other yields. The amount of gold I make of it without sacrificing much food and production is just ridiculous. It also improve alliances and is important for cultural victory (you want to create trading posts so you can reach as much Civs as possible to boost tourism).

I always start with internal then shift to international when I unlock Wisselbanken.

[Despiser]

Size DOES matter with cities. Grow population as fast as possible. There are civics, trade, leaders, distance too. I prefer to annex cities this way by taking a city by conquest and using it to annex nearby cities.

[Rogred]

By reading all these replies, I hope that the devs make the loyalty system more "realistic" when the new expansion comes out. It's bothering me a lot to lose cities to civilizations that haven't even been to my land or sent anything to the cities. It's completely ridiculous and turning me off from trying the other stuff on the Rise & Fall expansion.