How to get conquered cities loyal to your civ? Trying to win a Deity domination win on a huge map.

[Matamor]

I hate the Loyalty system they implemented in the last expansion and I don't understand it. I am trying to win a domination victory on a huge map with Korea and Deity difficulty. Give me your tricks!

[leandrombraz]

Watch this to get a better grasp of how the system works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXcwwOeobJ0

Basically you need to conquer fast and invest on growth. The main source of loyalty is influence from population, from the city itself and other cities in a 9 tiles range. Each city you conquer reduced the other Civ influence and increase yours. Try to conquer high population cities first if you can and be sure you are strong enough to take at least two cities without much delay, so they can influence each other.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

A big thing is to take out the capital.. then it's a lot easier (usually) to take out the rest.

It also depends a lot on loyalty levels and what civ you are.

If you love conquering but hate dealing with loyalty Ottomans are great, as are Zulu.

[Dray Prescot]

You also need to know how to finish off conquering another Civ without getting the penalty for destroying it.

It all depends on the LAST City not yet conquered: If it is a former City State or a City taken from another Civ, then conquer it and LIBERATE it when you are asked Keep City? This will kill off that Civ with NO Penalty to YOU for killing it, and ALL Grievances that Civ had against YOU DISAPPEAR (are set to zero), so other Civs do not give, for example a -40 to Relations with YOU due to Grievances against other Civs. Any Grievances that other Civs have against you will still remain effective. If you do NOT KILL off that Civ, then ALL of their Grievances against YOU will remain in effect to poison relations with other Civs in the game.

IF you liberate a Former City State, it will return to life with it's old territory and abilities, plus YOU will have 6 Envoys in that restored City State to ZERO Envoys from ALL other Civs, i.e. you will be sovereign over it.

IF You KEEP that LAST City of that Civ, then you get the LONG term penalty to diplomatic relations for killing another Civ.

If you can NOT Liberate the Last City (because it is not a former City State or a conquered City), then you must get it to Revolt to a Free City by putting enough Loyalty pressure on it from neighboring Cities, most of them probably conquered from that Civ. This can take time, sometimes 10 to 20 turns, and sometimes that City can come up with enough Loyalty to keep from revolting, but a change to Golden Age for you and a Dark/Normal Age for them can help make that City Revolt to a Free City. In one game, I ended up having an Allied Civ (Cleopatra) take care of the problem for me by Declaring War on it and conquering that City that would not revolt.

So picking what City to leave to LAST when conquering another Civ is an important and sometimes tricky problem. Ideally, you want that Last City to have many of your Cities mostly surrounding it, so it will go into Revolt quickly. The best case, is to leave a conquered City State as the Last City conquered.

If you do this properly, you can maintain reasonably friendly relations with at least some of the other Civs in the game, and NOT end up At WAR with ALL of them. I have had games where I had killed 3 or 4 Civs, and yet I was able to keep Alliances with several (up to 4 or 5) of the other Civs in the same game.

added: As has been pointed out in another thread, you will still get the -10 to Loyalty in the Captured Cities for a very long time, but you can live with that problem, once all of the local Cities belong to you. (I never noticed that as a problem after I could get their Loyalties back up to +100).

[Doom monkey]

As soon as you take a city, pop in a governor as fast as you can. The defense gov moves in 3 turns which can be helpful.

Also a garrisoned unit will increase loyalty as does a monument. Focus on that. Otherwise, the best way to do it is just to keep the cities falling. Also note that if it does flip to rebellion, you can sack it again and destroy it without penalty (as well as pillaging anything that you missed)