I’m going to share a tactic for 4X strategy games that you’ll see whispered about on forums and debated in late-night gaming sessions. It’s a method that walks the line between a clever use of game mechanics and an outright exploit, so powerful it feels like you’re breaking the game’s rules. This isn’t about a simple unit rush or building a wonder at the perfect time. It’s about manipulating city loyalty, not for conquest, but for a nearly endless extraction of resources. I’m talking about the most controversial strategy in Civilization’s history: loyalty flipping and perpetual pillaging.
I’ll break down this powerful and ethically questionable strategy with a detailed, step-by-step guide. We’ll look at the core mechanics, the best civilizations and leaders for the job, and the exact steps to turn a city into a renewable source of science, culture, faith, and gold. Just a heads-up: using this might make your opponents angry and leave you with a wickedly satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Understanding the Core Idea
Before I get into the “how,” you need to understand the “why.” This strategy isn’t about traditional conquest. You’re not trying to expand your borders or keep a city. Instead, you’re creating a resource farm. Here’s the basic principle:
- Set up a disposable city: This can be one you settle yourself or a city-state you capture. The most important thing is its location relative to your main empire.
- Force a loyalty crisis: You’ll take specific steps to make the city’s loyalty drop.
- Let it flip to a Free City: When loyalty hits zero, the city rebels and becomes a “Free City,” not aligned with anyone.
- Pillage everything: Now that the city is neutral and its defenses are reset, you move in with specialized units and pillage its districts and improvements for resources. This is the whole point.
- Recapture and repeat: After you’ve drained the city of its resources, you easily recapture it. Then, you deliberately let its loyalty fall again to start the next cycle of flipping and pillaging.
This cycle turns a city from a part of an empire into something you can harvest over and over. It’s controversial because it twists the loyalty system, which was meant to make empires more realistic, into a way to generate infinite resources.
Picking Your Civilization: The Architect of Anarchy
Any civilization can technically use this strategy, but some are built for it, with abilities that boost pillaging gains and make the whole thing much easier.
Norway: The Undisputed King of the Pillage
When it comes to profiting from others’ misfortune, Harald Hardrada’s Norway is the best. Their unique abilities make them the masters of this strategy.
- Thunderbolt of the North: This is the key. All your naval melee units can perform coastal raids, and pillaging gives you 50% of the science, culture, or faith from the tile. It’s a massive bonus that makes any coastal city a potential goldmine.
- Viking Longship: You get this unique naval unit in the Ancient Era, so you can start raiding and pillaging very early. It can also heal in neutral territory, making it very tough.
As Norway, you can set up a coastal city, flip it, and then use a fleet of Longships to constantly raid its coast, getting huge rewards each time. The city doesn’t even have to be on another continent; any coastal city will do.
Macedon: The Engine of Endless War
Alexander the Great’s Macedon is another great choice, but for land-based pillaging.
- To the World’s End: Cities you conquer have no war weariness. This is a huge advantage when you’re constantly recapturing your “farm” city. Your main empire stays happy while you’re busy with your questionable activities.
- Hypaspist and Hetairoi: Macedon’s unique units are strong early on, making it easy to capture and recapture your target city.
Macedon’s advantage is its ability to handle the constant conflict this strategy requires without the usual problems at home.
Scythia: The Swift and Sustainable Pillager
Tomyris of Scythia offers a different approach, focused on the speed and sustainability of your raiding parties.
- Killer of Cyrus: All your units get a +5 combat strength bonus when attacking wounded units, and they heal up to 50 HP after defeating a unit. This makes your forces great at clearing out Free City defenders and staying healthy.
- Saka Horse Archer: This early unique unit is perfect for quick, hit-and-run pillaging.
With Scythia, you can build a mobile, self-sufficient force that can cycle through pillaging and recapturing with very little downtime.
How to Execute a Flip: A Step-by-Step Guide
Now, let’s get practical. Here’s a detailed breakdown of how to pull off the loyalty flipping and perpetual pillaging strategy.
Phase 1: The Setup – Location is Everything
First, you need to pick or create the city you’ll be farming. You have two main options:
- Settle it yourself: Settle a new city in a spot that’s bad for loyalty. This means far from your capital but close to the borders of other civilizations. The more foreign pressure, the better. A city on a small island, far from your mainland but reachable by your navy, is perfect for Norway.
- Capture a city-state: This is usually more efficient. City-states are often already developed with districts ready to be pillaged. When you capture it, you’ll get a big loyalty penalty right away, which helps start the process.
Pro-Tip: Look for a city-state with several districts, especially Campuses, Theater Squares, and Holy Sites, as they give the best resources when pillaged.
Phase 2: Engineering the Collapse – The Art of Disloyalty
Once you have your city, you need to crush its loyalty. Here’s how:
- No Governor: Don’t assign a governor. They provide a big loyalty boost, so you don’t want one here.
- Starve the People: Make the city’s citizens work on low-food tiles. A shrinking population has less loyalty.
- Invite Foreign Influence: Let other civilizations settle cities near your target. Their population pressure will hurt its loyalty. If you captured a city-state, grievances from other civs will also help.
- Use Policies: Some policy cards hurt loyalty. You can use them temporarily to speed up the flip.
- War Weariness: If you’re not playing as Macedon, long wars create war weariness, which also lowers loyalty.
You can check a city’s loyalty by clicking on it. You want to get the “Loyalty per turn” to a large negative number.
Phase 3: The Harvest – Reaping the Rewards
When the city’s loyalty hits zero, it becomes a Free City. Now the fun starts.
- The Pillaging Force: Before the flip, have a group of units ready to go. For Norway, this means a fleet of Viking Longships. For land-based civs, a mix of light cavalry (for speed) and melee units (for capturing the city) is best.
- Prioritize Your Targets: Pillage the districts that give you the resources you need most.
- Campus: Pillaging a Campus and its buildings gives you a burst of Science.
- Theater Square: Pillaging a Theater Square and its buildings gives you a surge of Culture.
- Holy Site: Pillaging a Holy Site and its buildings gives you a lot of Faith.
- Encampment: Pillaging an Encampment and its buildings provides Gold and can heal your units.
- Improvements: Don’t forget the surrounding tiles. Mines, farms, and quarries all give resources when pillaged.
- The Pillage-Recapture Cycle: Your units should move in, pillage everything, and then recapture the city. You need to do this before the Free City can build up its defenses.
Example: Let’s say you’re playing as Norway. You’ve captured the coastal city-state of Hattusa, which has a Campus and a Holy Site. You cause a loyalty flip. The turn it becomes a Free City, your Viking Longships swarm its coast. You pillage the Campus for a tech boost, the Holy Site for a burst of faith, and the fishing boats for gold. Then, one of your Longships recaptures the city. The whole thing only takes a few turns.
Phase 4: The Reset – Do It Again
Once you’ve recaptured the city, you don’t want it to become stable. You want it to flip again.
- Stay Disloyal: Immediately remove any garrisoned units. Don’t assign a governor. Keep the population low.
- The Cycle Continues: The city’s loyalty will start to drop again, and the cycle of flipping, pillaging, and recapturing can begin all over.
By repeating this, you can generate a steady stream of resources that can put you way ahead of your rivals. A few hundred science here and a few hundred culture there, and you’ll be researching future technologies while everyone else is still working on archery.
The Moral and Strategic Implications: Why It’s So Controversial
This strategy isn’t just a clever use of game mechanics; it’s a subversion of the game’s design. It’s controversial for a few reasons:
- It’s an Exploit, Not a Strategy: Many players feel this is an exploit of the loyalty system, not a real strategy. The developers meant for loyalty to slow down rapid expansion, not to be a resource generator.
- It’s Unrealistic and Breaks Immersion: The idea of a civilization repeatedly farming its own rebellious city doesn’t fit the historical narrative of the game and can break the immersion for many players.
- It Can Be Overpowered: In the hands of a good player, this strategy can be incredibly powerful and create a snowball effect that’s hard for others to counter, especially in multiplayer games.
However, those who support the strategy argue that if it’s in the game, it’s fair to use. They say it requires a deep understanding of the game’s mechanics and is a valid, if unusual, way to win.
Countering the Flip: What to Do When It Happens to You
If you’re in a multiplayer game and someone is using this strategy against you, you’re not helpless. Here are some ways to counter it:
- Military Intervention: The most direct way is to declare war and liberate the “farm” city. If you liberate it, you’ll gain the city-state’s loyalty and take away your opponent’s resource farm.
- Loyalty Pressure: If the farm city is near your borders, try to exert your own loyalty pressure. Settle cities nearby, assign a governor with loyalty-boosting promotions, and use policies to increase your influence. Your goal is to make the city flip to you.
- Diplomatic Pressure: In a multiplayer game, you can try to turn the other players against the one using this strategy. Call it an unfair exploit that’s ruining the game. A united front can often be enough to make a player stop.
A Legacy of Ingenuity and Infamy
The loyalty flipping and perpetual pillaging strategy is in a gray area of strategic gaming. It shows the creativity of the Civilization community, which is always pushing the limits of what’s possible in the game. Whether you see it as a brilliant move or a cheap exploit, there’s no denying its power and its place as the most controversial strategy in the history of Civilization.
To master this strategy, you have to walk a fine line between genius and tyranny. It takes careful planning, a deep understanding of the game, and a willingness to ignore the usual ways of building an empire. So, go ahead, and may your pillages be many and your loyalty flips be quick. Just don’t be surprised if you become the villain of your own story.