City States - Puppeting or allies

Simple question really, what are the pros and cons of either puppeting (or outright annexation) a city state, vs keeping them as allies? (Not just friends; 60+ influence)

Ordinarily I keep them as allies, but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile making them puppets instead.

You get bonuses for being allied with them.

I'm talking BNW here: this will be significantly different than G+K or vanilla...
I think it is a matter of doing the math...
First of all, this choice is an all-or-nothing option : if you declare war to more than 2 city states you are considered a CityState agressor, and if you attack 4 all city states will rally together an be in a permanent war with you.
Hint: I haven't checked, but I think this doesn't hold true if you declare war to the civ the city state is allied with. So by attacking the major civ I think you can attack and annex/puppet the city state without this penalty.
Second: from the industrial era on, the city states you are allied with will make for votes in the world congress. Other civs may propose some very nasty rules, like ban a resource you rely on economically, or ban trade to city-states and you are at war with everyone, making your economy go to ashes...
Third: Some city-states bonuses may or may not be of importance strategically... For example, if you have a maritime city state as ally and you have 12 cities yourself, they will generate lots of food to keep your cities growing. At the beginning of the game, to ally a religious city state may allow you to choose your religion bonuses first. If you are striving for a cultural victory, the cathedrals are the only buildings besides the palace itself and world wonders that can hold Great Artist's works of art before architecture...
Fourth: There *are* situations where war with city states may be worth your while. One such situation is that, due to the city state placement, your empire may be literally cut in half by a city state with hostile personality: it get's too expensive to actually ally with them, or there are civs (like the greek, or siam, for example) that are competing for the favor of that same city-state...

Personally: I always strive to make them allies: I think the advantages greatly outweight the disadvantages of not doing so. However, that may not hold true if you are in an early conquest rampage. And, remember, one to three annexed city states are "free"...

In a neutral strategic situation, it's always better to make them your ally.

Situations where "annexing" them is a better option will inevitably arise, though. In my last game, I took custody of a neighboring CS because I had no aluminum and they were insistent on remaining loyal to somebody else. Their army was pathetic anyway, they needed my protection. In a past game, I had to install a puppet government in a CS who wouldn't be dissuaded from voting for another leader for World Leader. You may also need to head off the efforts of other leaders - Enrico Dandolo, Genghis Khan, and Maria Theresa, most famously, but other leaders will occasionally exhibit a wanton disregard for the sovereignty of neighboring CS.

Mostly Enrico Dandolo. As long as he is not in your games, you should be fine when it comes to city-states.

Lutzie said:

Simple question really, what are the pros and cons of either puppeting (or outright annexation) a city state, vs keeping them as allies? (Not just friends; 60+ influence)

Ordinarily I keep them as allies, but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile making them puppets instead.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about puppeting through buying them (with Venice or Austria) or capturing their capital through conquest?

I'm not qualified to answer the first question I'm curious about that myself. But I'd say absolutely no to waging war on CS unless they've declared war on you because they're on ally of a Civ that you're at war with, and they're getting in the way of an attack.

Don't conquer City States. They typically make better Allies than Cities. If you want their Natural Wonders, Strategic Resources, or Luxury Resources just steal them with a Great General Citadel.

Seems like it is too hard to keep them liking you. I'm playing Greece on Prince and I spent ~500 to raise my relation with one. Made it an ally. Next thing, one or two turns later, my relationship has already decayed enough that they are no longer my ally! And this is with a civ that has a city state relations perk.

This is still early game (2500 BC in a Marathon huge world with like 40 city states and 14 AI) but still.

What is the trick to keep friendly?

The best is to try and get someone else to puppet all the CS so you can DoW that guy and liberate them. Hello, Genghis, are you out there?

Lutzie said:

Simple question really, what are the pros and cons of either puppeting (or outright annexation) a city state, vs keeping them as allies? (Not just friends; 60+ influence)

Ordinarily I keep them as allies, but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile making them puppets instead.

Click to expand...

The major con for DOWing and conquering a city state is that you'll make most of the AIs very angry with you. (This is one reason that AI Mongols don't do well, the other AIs hate them for using their UA and gang up on them)

Allies are very useful, you get the resources and luxaries.

Austria & Venice have additional options to Marry (Austria) / Buy (Venice). In case of Austria it's mostly to pay 600 to 700 gold now to a city state ally that your about to lose control over, instead of reupping for 1000 gold every so often.

In case of Venice, it's mostly because that's one of the few ways they can get more cities. Food cargo ships will also provide more food to Venice than Maritime allies would.

In both the above cases the unique luxury to Merchile city states is lost, so that is avoided.

Anthropoid said:

Seems like it is too hard to keep them liking you. I'm playing Greece on Prince and I spent ~500 to raise my relation with one. Made it an ally. Next thing, one or two turns later, my relationship has already decayed enough that they are no longer my ally! And this is with a civ that has a city state relations perk.

This is still early game (2500 BC in a Marathon huge world with like 40 city states and 14 AI) but still.

What is the trick to keep friendly?

Click to expand...

You don't. City states bonuses are too small in the beginning of the game. You can't befriend every single of them. You pick some that are of strategic importance and cultivate those. At the start of the game, cultural city states are very interesting, because the culture they provide is proportional to the culture you may be producing, allowing social policies to keep flowing. Later in the game, that culture may not be so significant so you may probably disregard them. Religious city states may be the only way to get a religion in the early game (aside from simple plain luck or picking a religion-bonused civ).

Also, pay 1000 every time, not 500 or 250. Note that the bonuses in influence are much more bang for the buck with bigger contributions, so you can contribute significantly less frequently.

T ake a good look on the quests they are giving: some of them are fairly straightforward: kill a barbarian camp, find other civ, connect a resource to your empire. And some of them even have a cascade effect: for example, you look that there are 5 civs asking you for silver, and one of the city-states have it. If you ally with it you get the friendship of all those...

Diplomatic victory should be called "economical victory", as well: if you don't have a strong economy you can't win diplomatically, and you can't buy all those city states.

Good advice Albucc. Now that I've played a bit more I can see this is actually a very well designed game. Having at least as much fun as I did with IV, maybe even as much as my old fav Civ3 Conquests

One could think, that on an EXEREEEEMLY bad hair day, you could: 1) Build up lots of gold, 2) Kill off Ottowa's (the CS) ally, 3) Declare peace, and buy to ally!

I'm talking full version with BNW and G&K here BTW.

Hmm... well, the way I see it is this:

Allied; you only get the allied benefit, be that food, culture, free units, whatever.
Annexed; you get complete control of the city, lose the benefit as above, but ultimately (after courthouse) you have a "free" city and all that that entails; lots more culture, science, faith and gold in theory, but also a big increase in the amount of culture needed for new policies etc.
Annex; No increase in the culture needed, small increase in all types of income, but lose the City State benefit too.

Is that broadly right?

I think it is broadly right, except for a couple special cases and then some broad characteristics.

1. Religious and cultural civs give you faith and culture, at high rates. Maybe higher than you'd get if you controlled the city itself. Same with scientific and then maritime giving food. If it is a militaristic civ, then these benefits are not the issue and surely you could produce units faster than they gift them to you.

2. Courthouse costs 4 maintenance, so it is hardly like a "free city" if you have to put one in a settlment. Also city count adds to unhappiness, so you're getting a double whammy. They've designed it so it is best to accomplish your goals with as few cities as possible, and having allied city states is one of the ways to leverage that dynamic.

Sorry for the necro.
Just didn't want to start another thread on this.

I never was an adept of CS alliances. After some research, I did find out that there are clear benefits in those alliances, but from what I understand, you have to continuously "feed" the CS friendship.

Sounds like a bit of work and lots of requests to satisfy and/or offerings to give.
But I'll need the opinion of more versed players on this.

I find that CS naturally ally me throughout the game as long as I am staying ahead of the curve against the AI. Get units out early on to take out barbarian camps for CS quests, return workers the barbarians have taken from the CS (unless you need them yourself early on), and keep your science/culture/faith chugging along which you want to do anyway. By the middle game, CS start to be in awe of you and you can also complete quests for building wonders. Once you reach the Industrial Era, put your spies in key CS you want to ally because they will rig elections for you (your first spy in the Renaissance Era should generally be in your capital for defense). As was mentioned earlier, spies in CS also get you more WC votes. I only bribe CS with cash at 1,000 (anything less is a waste) and then only in the later stages of the game.

There is no point to conquer them, unless they are in strategic location. Being ally with them boost your civ's food, culture, faith or happiness. So, being ally with them is better.

Luis_Ah_Hoy said:

Sounds like a bit of work and lots of requests to satisfy and/or offerings to give.

Click to expand...

Depends on rate of decay. You can open up Patronage to reduce that. Also, if they share a religion with you, the rate of decay is less. If they are hostile, their rate of decay will be INCREASED. Keep this in mind if you choose to take Mesix's advice about rigging elections since doing it for a hostile CS for example is a net loss.

While not actually on the topic of city states, this video has a lot of dialog about CS choices:

https://youtu.be/HvgyqhmoRCw

Highlights include buying into a culture CS after Renaissance for the science boost, Maritime in the midgame for science boost, and religious in the late game for science boost. Also, you can buy CSs for the purpose of padding your congress votes or depriving others of the same. Sometimes you'll buy a CS because they have a luxury item that a city of yours or other CSs want, causing a chain reaction. CSs are a very flexible aspect of the game.

As I mentioned, I usually buy cultured CSs in the early game for the science boost. I was in a game recently where I messed up because I was following this "rule" and not paying closer attention to my surroundings. While I didn't need culture anymore for the science (post Secularism+Free Thought), I was laying off of them. Meanwhile, another civ was buying them up like crazy. Which lead not only to them resisting my tourism quite effectively, but also stopped me from being able to complete SEVERAL CS quests for amassing culture.

Thanks guys.
I'll try to vary my strategy regarding CS and see how it goes. I almost always want to conquer them, because I set the map to standard (and sometimes scarce) resources, so they always have some luxury or strategic resource that I want and need.