Do you Bully city states? How?

I'm a little confused on the mechanics of bullying city states. I know it can be done if you (1) have a "strong" military, or (2) have a "strong military presence" near a city state. What does that mean?

In my last game, one CS asked me to bully another. I sent 2 warriors, a spearman and 3 CBs to my "victim" CS just outside its borders. The bully option did not appear (remained red). I then moved them all inside its borders. All that did was give me trespassing penalties.

In another game, I crushed everyone on my continent and was able to bully a CS even though I had no military within the view of the CS.

Do do you bully? If so, how does it work?

I just walk to the borders. All you have to do is hover over the city and it will say 'They fear your military and will give tribute' or 'They don't fear your military and will resist tribute'.

Couple of Xbows, a treb and a musketman got me a worker, recently.

I thought it was go to the CS diplomacy screen and ask for tribute.

I just meant you don't have to keep going to that screen to know if tribute is even available, you just have to hover.

Units with more promotions are 'stronger' and make it easier to bully states. Aztec jaguars, any American unit, etc. will have an easier time bullying

Gunboat Diplomacy at its finest

I have been able to do it one time, I dont like to do it as I like to ally the city states for there bonuses. The time I did it I was a warmonger and just clicked them on the diplo screen and bullyed them.

Simply that have a strong army near them.

Best way to do this is like smallfish showed - have a roaming fleet roam from city state to city state collecting cash - or in multiplayer with an early army to collect tribute from every city state near you to build an even bigger army to attack your neighbors.

I will do it early and often to city-states if I can, as long as they don't have quest objectives I am likely to do. I never drop less than 1,000 gold on a city-state anymore when I intend to ally, so I would much rather take 100 or so gold from various CSs here and there and let the negative hit wear off. Unfortunately I tend to have small armies that don't often reach bully status due to the AI players having much larger 'Soldier' ratings.

Yea while Tabarnak's luxury selling strategy works in singleplayer - without AI doesn't work there

But building a few cheap units and using the gold to buy settlers with tradition works just as well often if there are quite a few city states near you.

Its how sometimes I outsettle other players in multi who go liberty with 4 early tradition cities

Yes, I bully
Thats how I get 1500g in the first 40 turns every game, enough to build the infrastructure of my game

Sometimes a single unit is all it takes to make a city state afraid, well.. to be fair, that battleship i have could shoot like twice a turn <.<

And i one had my cataphract taking a short cut through a city state's lands which was under protection of greece, yet, it became afraid, so i took the opporunity to bully it xD cuz screw greece mocking me.

I love bullying a city-state before blowing them apart with my battering rams.
________________________________
Stupid truth always resisting simplicity.
-John Green

ive tried once. i didnt have the biggest army in the game so i put my units at the border and then in their border. i had 3 gatling guns, 2 knights and a GG and it wasnt afraid of me. i decided to not try that mechanic again.

I've had good success with Sea Beggars if you get them early enough and enough of them to surround I've not yet had a CS that didn't give into tribute

Resipsa said:

I've had good success with Sea Beggars if you get them early enough and enough of them to surround I've not yet had a CS that didn't give into tribute

Click to expand...

sea beggers are so nice for the era

Hammer Rabbi said:

ive tried once. i didnt have the biggest army in the game so i put my units at the border and then in their border. i had 3 gatling guns, 2 knights and a GG and it wasnt afraid of me. i decided to not try that mechanic again.

Click to expand...

Ditto. I wiped a couple city states off the map in half a turn and they never became afraid of me :/ This is with G&K latest version.

I guess they loved their patron so much they happily would and did die for him... go figure.

I think CS' frightening from siege units, because in my campaign (Huns) I just trespassed a CS with 2 units of Battering Ram and CS status changed to "afraid". when they afraid you can bully them.

Bullying is hit or miss for me. I struggle to bully early, but once I've got a sizeable midgame army I'll be able to bully any non-allied nearby states no problem. I'll often take the worker instead of the cash if I've got a big upgrade around the corner (trade posts, iron, coal, railroads, oil, etc.)

ive been playing pure honour ( just to see how it plays) alot, and i have been useing my armys to bully CS to run my early economy, once u know the "rules" to it u can do it pretty reliably. heres a few things i have found.

unique units ( even great generals), the amount of promotions on units, tech level ( u generally wont be able to demand tributes if u are a age behind the other civs), your soldier ranking on the demographics page (try to be at least 4th) and proximity to the CS all are things ive noticed that will affect whether or not they will give u tribute.

eg. here is something ive had happen alot.u come across a city state with ur axeman sit it on the boarders, wait a few turns, they still wont give u tribute. u find ruins with axe man and he becomes a spear man . the CS will now give u tribute.

or

eg. u have a a large ammount of aztec jaguars but unable to demand tribute. usualy because the other civs have gone to another age. jaguars are not as much of a threat now. and/or another civ has declared protection for said CS

if another civ declares they are protecting a CS, said CS will be much harder to bully.
in general u want to move some troops to there boarder for tribute demands. sometimes if ur soldier ranking is high enough u will only need a scout or no unit at all.

it is a great way to get cash for honour as u will have alot of units and a general early on.