Getting a foothold on another continent

[pretorian]

I started on Prince as Scythia with a very unfavorable starting location. I was basically isolated on a small island with not very many resources. I managed however to build a fairly strong army but now I can't keep any cities I conquer on other continents. I really went out of my way to take cities on the frontier of other civs and still they rebel after like three turns. Even assigning a governor doesn't help.

How do you keep cities on other continents?

[Diyavol]

There are some policy cards (yellow color I think) about distance/other continent cities. Use them.

[Literally Me]

Unfortunately you really can't, especially in the early game. Your best option is to settle as far away from the other civs as possible. However, as the game progresses there are some civics, as well as Era Score dedications that can help with loyalty on other continents. The first city to get out is always the hardest. Governors, Monuments, Population, and Golden Age will all help boost your loyalty in addition to bread and circuses project.

When conquering other civs, you should focus on the largest pop cities as they will exert the most loyalty pressure. Or, try to capture multiple cities quickly while maybe settling your own city nearby. 2 promotion Victor will help with loyalty as he grants cities within 9 tiles +4 loyalty per turn if i remember correctly.

[pretorian]

Originally posted by Vevut:

Unfortunately you really can't, especially in the early game. Your best option is to settle as far away from the other civs as possible. However, as the game progresses there are some civics, as well as Era Score dedications that can help with loyalty on other continents. The first city to get out is always the hardest. Governors, Monuments, Population, and Golden Age will all help boost your loyalty in addition to bread and circuses project.

When conquering other civs, you should focus on the largest pop cities as they will exert the most loyalty pressure. Or, try to capture multiple cities quickly while maybe settling your own city nearby. 2 promotion Victor will help with loyalty as he grants cities within 9 tiles +4 loyalty per turn if i remember correctly.

That basically means that you can have a situation where it's basically impossible to breake away from your own continent if you are unlucky.

I have loaded up every loyalty boosting bonus I have just to try it out and the longest I can keep any city on the other continent is six turns.

[Lemurian1972]

It's definitely possible, but takes some practice. Here are some nonstandard tools you can make use of, but they require making your invasion prepared to take some added steps-

Religion- if you have your own religion, converting a captured city as fast as possible helps.

Monument- Buy or repair the Monument in a captured city ASAP

Diplomacy- If you can make an alliance with one civ that is right next to your target civ, make sure it is a Culture Alliance. This will negate their pressure on any cities you capture and since you're on your target's border, it will be easier to blunt is pop pressure

Great General/Admiral- Some of them have a Retire bonus of added Loyalty to a specific city. If you can get one and bring it along, it can be a difference maker.

Buffer zones- it pays to look at the population numbers of your enemy before you attack. Try to get a city with higher population than those around it, and be ready to knock out a couple other cities next to your target. Even if they flip, or you need to hand them back in a peace deal, cutting off their population pressure for several turns will make it easier to keep the city you want.

Era differential- Invade a new continent when you are in a Golden Age and your target is in a Normal or Dark Age.

Food!- this is the big one, one of the best tools I've found to keep cities in addition to governors and policy bonuses. When dealing with Population pressure, the best way to do that is to keep your new citizens fed and add to their numbers. When you invade, try to keep a Trader on standby so you can move it to a captured city and start a supply run back to the home empire so you can provide food relief. Use a builder to repair and add to Food tiles ASAP. Shift the city to Food production as well. Don't stop after rebuilding pop to pre-invasion levels, you want to boost it so your new city is bigger than its neigbors.

Each city has an info tab with a Loyalty window that will tell you exactly what is adding or subtracting from the cities Loyalty. Make use of this until the city is stabilized and try to counter every penalty you can.

[gimmethegepgun]

Also, very importantly for occupied cities (that is, you haven't annexed them in a peace deal or by completely killing the civilization yet), they have a large loyalty penalty that is negated if there's a garrison in the city.

[Synavix]

The three biggest factors (or maybe 4 if you count governors) are population size, proximity, and your era status.

Every population puts out 1 loyalty towards its owner, so larger cities = more loyal. They also pressure surrounding cities by the same amount but reduced by 10% each tile out (so a city that's 4 tiles away is receiving only 60% of that loyalty pressure). So a city that's 10 tiles out receives no pressure, and even at 8 or 9 tiles out a size 1 or 2 city will have enough loyalty towards itself to negate a size 10 or smaller enemy city.

And in a golden age that pressure is 150% (so 1.5 for each population), and in a dark age it's only 50% (.5 per population).

Ideally you want to be in a better age than your enemy (if you're in a golden age and they're in a dark age its basically insta-win for loyalty). And you want to try to capture large cities on the edge of their border. If you can capture 2 or 3 neighboring cities at the same time they'll all reinforce your loyalty to each other. Sometimes if there is room to settle one of your own cities nearby at the same time that can actually help a lot, because it'll grow faster and start adding its pressure too. Always keep a unit garrisoned in the city until its loyal (or you make peace), even if you don't have the +2 loyalty for garrisoned governemnt card. Having a unit garrisoned will negate the loyalty penalty for having a city "occupied" during war. Sometimes having a builder "harvest" or "chop" food resources can help because it will give an instant population growth to the city (which means more loyalty).

If a captured city says it's going to flip in 3-5 turns you're never going to be able to hold on to it, no matter how many bonuses you stack. It means you need to change your strategy. But if it says it'll flip in ~10+ turns it means you just need to figure out a way to slow it down long enough to capture another city or let the city grow a few times.

And some AI are harder than others to capture cities from. Eleanor in a golden age is very difficult, for example. In my last game I had to reconquer her cities 2-3 times each until I could time it right just because she had too many large cities too close together.