On wich difficulty city states start to become difficult and strong

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apocalypse105

Deity
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This is actually A simple question on wich difficulty will citie state start getting a decent military they can actually can put up a fight ? And harder to capture and they are even a war ally

With military I mean like 6 units or more.. In my games (prince sometiems king they usally just have 2 or 3
 
Never really. Even on Deity they are still just one city and can't match the :c5production: power of an entire empire.

The real question usually isn't can I, but should I.

Taking over CSes can be a decent strategy in some cases but most players don't knock a bunch over because you get permanent war with them after taking a couple. This can lead to nasty side effects like their troops harassing (killing) yours, complete shut-off of any benefits of alliances, etc.

They are awesome as a war ally at most levels, because AI units will waste time on them and not you in a war. Ally your enemy's neighboring CSes and you are basically invincible to them.
 
fmlizard2 said:
Never really. Even on Deity they are still just one city and can't match the :c5production: power of an entire empire.

The real question usually isn't can I, but should I.

Taking over CSes can be a decent strategy in some cases but most players don't knock a bunch over because you get permanent war with them after taking a couple. This can lead to nasty side effects like their troops harassing (killing) yours, complete shut-off of any benefits of alliances, etc.

They are awesome as a war ally at most levels, because AI units will waste time on them and not you in a war. Ally your enemy's neighboring CSes and you are basically invincible to them.
Click to expand...

Yeah but I usally play on prince and I was wondering when the city states get more units like 6 to defend thereself and if they are at war next to a civ now they just have 2

And I dont believe that its only on deity...

Its good to know for hotseat if I play with some friends then I pick the difficult wich make city states better...
 
I play on King, and its not much better.
City states should never be too powerful, else the game will be thrown off balance.
If you want an interesting city-state experience, you might want to play as Greece, Siam, and Mongolia.:)
 
They get good army only if you gift it to them. Othrwise they have at most good unit in insufficient quantity (and throw them away).
 
I have seen city states have a (up to) 4-city empire on immortal. It usually happens when they're on the fringe of 1 civ with whom I'm at war, while also being at war with 1 or 2 others... I buy them out to ally and they will attack, and sometimes win conquered territory. Usually they stop at 3 or 4 tho. Might be a happiness issue with having no social policies.

I don't know exactly why some never develop a real military. Maybe they're allied early with someone, turning over resources, or maybe a "declaration to protect" them scales down the priority of building military... or maybe some are just coded that way.
 
I think they do respond to their environment.

A CS close to the fault lines of various empires tend to have a lot more military than a CS in the backwater of a large empire.

They also will naturally have more units if they're not constantly at war.

Also - not always a good idea to ally a CS next to a Civ you are warring. You're liable to get them killed, unless there is a terrain issue that you think will help save them.
 
Well, I use the more units mod, and they generally put up quite a good fight. Plus, its a lot of fun getting a tech lead, gifting an allied CS into war, then getting an unpleasant empire to fight them. I've managed to get a CS into a permanent war where they took out the core cities of one of the most powerful empires, as soon as they got 3 slightly more advanced units (proof combat AI is improving). They couldn't take the capital, but, for no diplo hit, you can't really complain about that. Just a note, though, you'll need to play at at least emperor with that mod, or the AI's economy and science get destroyed.
 
on deity i find city states generally build massive armies once they get factories up and assuming they haven't been forced into numerous wars early on and have some decent land. it's like, they run out of things to build so just start building more and more units, until they can't even fit all their units in their own territory and have them spilling out into neutral territory or the ocean. one deity game i had two city states sweep at me from either direction with 20+ unit modern armies EACH, while my army was on the other side of the continent fighting the AI who couped those city states from me.. needless to say, the few troops I had around my capital didn't stand a chance.. and the city states took my capital from me.. made me value the mongol 30% combat vs city state bonus since then though.
 
I find it ok that CS's can't withstand the power of military, but why on earth do they have to just waste whatever units they have instead of defending properly? I all but rage-quit every time my citystates DoW someone who attacks me and then rush in with their army of two Pikemen and Crosbowmen or whatever units they have and get slaughtered by the closest AI city at which point the AI mawns them over and takes the city - when they could have just sitten tight and fortified and probably have held out if not forever then for a very good while.

Oh well, at least I get a lot of free influence with them when I liberate them later. :dubious:
 
City States will never be able to war effectively by themselves against a human civilization. They just can't produce units in quantities enough to be threatening.

However, City States rarely go to war against a civilization by themselves...usually, they do so in support of an allied civilization. I HAVE seen a City State conquer one or two cities from an enemy civ, but it's because my ranged and siege units softened city defenses so that a CS unit could walk in and conquer the city.

City State territory serves as a convenient safe harbor to build up military forces before an invasion.

Conversely, they serve as inconvenient speed bumps when taking out another civilization.

City States just aren't worth the effort to take, because the penalties for doing so far outweigh any potential benefits.
 
From what I've seen the difficulty level doesn't really dictate how many units a city state will have. In Prince games I seen a city state have up to 7 land units, but In deity LP I've seen city states have only 2 or 3. The only real difference between levels I've is whether or not they have the money to upgrade their units, in higher levels they often have much more contemporary units compared to King or Prince. (I could be completely wrong on the upgrade part though).
 
Guys, I was the last post in this thread before it came back up... that was over a year ago.
 
I don't think that city-states get production/growth bonuses like AI civs
correct me if I'm wrong
 
Not sure what everyone is talking about... but on deity the tech rate is such that the CS will usually have fully upgraded units and lots of them.

Its not uncommon for me to have strategically placed CS's that are capable of holding off a ten city empire by themselves. They will commonly have 10+ units of modern tech. Very powerful allies.
 
dexters said:
Also - not always a good idea to ally a CS next to a Civ you are warring. You're liable to get them killed, unless there is a terrain issue that you think will help save them.
Click to expand...

I disagree, especially if this CS is on a hostile border I'm not invading through.

An unsupported CS that is allied with me is going to distract an enemy civ's military away from my forces, which means that my military is going to have an easier time invading.

Even if the CS in question is conquered by the enemy in the worst case, it isn't THAT much of a problem...it just means that I get huge amounts of Influence with them when I liberate them. :D
 
Emperor they build up decent sized armies. Big enough to get over there and defend them in time.

Immortal they build large enough armies they can take cities from AI.

Deity - god they can be annoying as heck for you and your opponents. in GK I have had city states send random armadas of ships (2 city states warred me, both were in the middle of the ocean somewhere and sent a navy of 12 Privateers, 4 frigates, and a few musketmen for an amphibious assault. ON land they'll just send all of their units to your cities and can make a mess if you are busying fighting multiple AIs on deity.

On deity, playing as Austria is one of the reasons Austria's UA is being changed. Buying a city state and its unit in deity gives you a huge army which the player can use much more effectively than the city state to conquer entire nearby empires if used properly
 
I had a game that I lost (or rather, didn't feel like playing anymore and quit) because I was fighting Russia and the USA to my south, and then Russia, in a single turn, bought out all three city states near my northern, lightly defended cities. They sent actual armies toward my cities and razed two of them, even before my armies could retreat from the south to back up my city defenders.

It was Emperor difficulty.
 
I think the idea of City states makes no sense at all. They are useless to themselves which is illogical. I know they are there as a gimmick for the Player, but that`s exactly what I hate about them. Why would anyone even live in such a useless type of city?

City state: `What to do today? Shall we grow and send out settlers to expand and increase our security and safety?"

"No, let`s just sit around, ask for dumb things and get bullied by everyone 24\7 until a Civ ultimately owns or destroys us!"

"Shall we increase our influence and maybe get another city join us?"

"No."

"Shall we join in a war and hope to share the fruits of another Civ`s victory becoming powerful ourselves?"

"Join in all their wars, yes. Enjoy their conquests? Nah!"

"Let`s just kill ourselves."

"Ok"



Even when the City state asks a Civ for a favour, it doesn`t really do the state much good since they don`t expand or try to become a major nation themselves. It just makes no sense and isn`t immersive since I can`t see their point. It goes against Man`s natural desire to grow.:rolleyes:

Either have them develope over time and get strong like normal Civs or don`t have them at all.
 
Usually militaristic CS are the ones building more units then the other type ones. And since they keep up in tech with the most advanced civ, it's a smart move to use them in wars when You're ahead in tech to other AI's (works effectively on emperor and below). Then You can conquer enemy cities and even destroy an AI completely with the use of only CS units (had an Emperor game - 4 players - where I got a Conquest victory without producing a single unit the whole game, just been teching up and declared war while being 30 techs ahead in the late game, the CS conquered all my enemies cities with Rocket Artilleries and Mech Infantry)
 
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