Patronage -> Consulates broken?

There's a good chance that this thread exists somewhere and I just missed it trying to search for it...

But the social policy Consulates seems insanely powerful in BNW. If you "pledge to protect" along with using consulates, you will remain "Friends" with all the City states without having to spend any gold(except for war/election rigs/anything that lowers your standing with them).

This is extremely useful, as in most of my games, once I discover astronomy and meet all City states, by culture is essentially doubled for just 2 policies. Not to mention all of the other perks of being friends with city states, all of them being quite useful.

It's also useful given that in BNW it's harder to rush rationalism, meaning you normally have around 2 extra policies to take if you plan on rushing rationalism.

I believe (and it's possible I was wrong), that in G+K, if you "pledged to protect" with "consulates" (previously kown as "Aesthetics" in G+K), you wouldn't get both bonuses (10 + 20 = 30 influence = friends), the "Aesthetics" bonus would override the pledge to protect, leaving you at 20 influence.

In summary: Consulates + pledge to protect is probably too strong.

Nope, it was the same in G&K. It is a very good policy, worth grabbing early especially. On Emperor+ it isnt game breaking, though. Friendly city states will still declare war on you.

You act as though there is no downside or opportunity cost to picking consolates - in single player the AI will often bully your city states, and if you chose to protect them you risk an escalation to war.

And don't get me started on multiplayer, where CS abuse is commonplace.

Plus, the Aesthetics tree has some good opening policies, like adding happiness to culture and boosting GWAM output by 25%, which may actually be better for your strategy than consolates.

I agree that it is slightly overpowered in it's current state, I think some policies in Patronage should be switched around, maybe switch it with the policy that gives +1 gold from trade routes to city states. But then again, maybe it is the only policy that makes Patronage worthwhile...

However, most of the diplomacy problems root back to the fact that the AI doesn't try to stop you - only warmongers will actually target CS's, and even then they aren't very strategic about it. If the AI was smart enough to see that "oh, this guy is pledging to protect EVERY single city state, and he has 2 policies in Patronage...I should probably follow suit or take away his advantage."

In my games city states get bullied quite a bit, so you're forced to denounce people or suffer a penalty. The best way is to rush to Papal Primacy and spread your religion and then take consulates. You get 35 with all city states you share a religion with, and if they get bullied you don't have to denounce civs for the diplo penalty.

I agree that constant 30 influence is pretty strong (makes it easier to ally with bribes, too). I don't think it is broken though. The AI seems to demand tribute from city-states often enough that protecting them all can be risky for diplomacy. If you keep taking diplo hits telling AIs "You will pay for this", it adds up, so I think there is enough of a balance.

Papal Primacy + Consulates is diplomatically safer, gives 5 more influence but it can be difficult to keep the CSes to your religion. There's a balance there too, I think.

OmniPotent42 said:

You act as though there is no downside or opportunity cost to picking consolates - in single player the AI will often bully your city states, and if you chose to protect them you risk an escalation to war.

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Some good points. In regards to this specific point, I always just risk the escalation of war (on Immortal difficulty). I'm not convinced that this actually carries a significance diplomatic hit. Maybe I've been getting lucky that my escalations haven't caused wars...

Johnpecan said:

Some good points. In regards to this specific point, I always just risk the escalation of war (on Immortal difficulty). I'm not convinced that this actually carries a significance diplomatic hit. Maybe I've been getting lucky that my escalations haven't caused wars...

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From my experiences, if you are Friendly with the Civ that is bullying your CS, the diplomatic hit isn't going to cause much damage. However, if you are Neutral or below, the diplomatic hit can potentially put the AI into Hostile, and thus may lead to war.

Theruss said:

From my experiences, if you are Friendly with the Civ that is bullying your CS, the diplomatic hit isn't going to cause much damage. However, if you are Neutral or below, the diplomatic hit can potentially put the AI into Hostile, and thus may lead to war.

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Yes, and considering how much the AI loves research agreements with other AI now, being neutral is as bad as being hated. Being friendly is essential to keeping up in tech.

Theruss said:

From my experiences, if you are Friendly with the Civ that is bullying your CS, the diplomatic hit isn't going to cause much damage. However, if you are Neutral or below, the diplomatic hit can potentially put the AI into Hostile, and thus may lead to war.

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I'll have to play some more and check this out. But with my 3 or so games I've played in BNW, I haven't noticed any diplomatic penalty for escalating, regardless of my status with the civ I was escalating. Perhaps I was lucky or just missed it though. Thanks for the feedback.

The thing is civ that bully a lot generally are not well liked. Angering them does carry a bit of risk, but if you have friends, you'll probably get the bully universally hated much faster.

The diplomatic hit for standing your ground is actually very small. I've had games with 41 city states where I pledge every single one of them. Shaka was in the game and pretty much bully every chance he can. I've never seen the diplomatic hit modifier go bright red even though I stand my ground every time.

no, it's sounds OP, but it really isn't. It takes a very long time in order to even get those policies, then you have to MEET them (unless you're doing pangea), then wait for the pledge of protection to increase the influence. It also requires 2 policies and if you're going patronage, then you'll most likely just ally everyone so the friendship status doesn't matter much

Poland can choose consulates for 'free' at medieval. I don't think you need it much before then.

MadHaxxor said:

no, it's sounds OP, but it really isn't. It takes a very long time in order to even get those policies, then you have to MEET them (unless you're doing pangea), then wait for the pledge of protection to increase the influence. It also requires 2 policies and if you're going patronage, then you'll most likely just ally everyone so the friendship status doesn't matter much

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Consulate isn't about ally, it's about free friendship and the huge benefit that comes with it. Also, You only need classics to get Patronage. It's totally possible for Consulate to be your 3/4th policy.

Scanning the thread:

It's not the consulate that is over powered; it's instead the pledge to protect bonus in which there's little reason NOT to sign with every single state on the map. (Unless there is a city state that you actually want to bully yourself.)

Yes; a popup appears from AI bullying; but while the "You will pay" results in red negative text, it has no impact on trade values. (If it's a civ that you have a DOF with doing, they will still continue to pay 240 gold for a spare luxury. If it's not a friend, they'll still trade one of their spare luxuries for one of yours.)

There's no need to actually denounce the major AI following telling them "you will pay"; you just really ignore it.

And if you are using this policy, you just ignore all city state requests to bully some other city state. There is a separate city state request to denouce a major civ as well; if you already don't like that civ and were planning on either denouncing them already (or going to war with them), you may as well get the free influence, but if you like that major civ, just ignore.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a spot in the XML defining the pledge to protect bonus value. (If there was, I would mod it down to 0.)

Free friendship with every civ in the map is very powerful especially with the default 2:1 city state to major civ ratio. That is 3 happiness for every Mercantile city state on the map along with a massive food bonus to the capital, and some cultural & religious bonuses. That's ignoring the side effect that this may make you a shoe in to have the most cultural and/or faith in the next competition and become a temporary ally.

joelzhl said:

Consulate isn't about ally, it's about free friendship and the huge benefit that comes with it. Also, You only need classics to get Patronage. It's totally possible for Consulate to be your 3/4th policy.

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I know that, but the benefit is NOT huge unless you're playing on a HUGE map. Most games are small maps, which means 12 city states. It sounds OP, but if you've ever PLAYED WITH IT then you would know that it isn't op. Like I said, it takes forever to actually start the perma-friendship and remember, if the ally of that city state declares war on you, you're no longer friends. Another thing to note, when you go patronage, you are very likely to ally most city states anyway, which is why I said the perma-friendship isn't that effective. You will be allied with most nayway, so at most it's only about 4 city states that are perma friends

It's not briliant modding, but... in xml policies you can find consulates and change value from 20 to 19 With papal primacy it does the same, but just consulates and pledge are too short alone. :-( Still good if you ocassionally do something nice for a city.

It's what makes patronage worthwhile and only way to have friends on deity. But it got stronger now as AI don't rig and coup as much before with 20 CS at least 3-4 were not at friend status due to rigging. And of course as someone mentioned they will still DoW you when their allies do.

Science bonus was awesome in patro before but since it got nerfed all we got is consulates.

I spend entire games of civs telling civs to stop bullying my city-states and as far as I can tell that never really leads to any "serious" diplomatic penalty. Definitely the bonus outweighs this joke of a diplomatic penalty

I don't know about broken, but it's very good, probably the best vale for a 2 policy dip into a policy tree.

I play on King, and unless I'm hurting for happiness, I generally don't take Consulates until after I've gotten the 25% science policy. If I'm shooting for a diplo victory, being friends with CSs isn't worth anything when I want to be allies.