Too fast CS allies?

In my last game, I had a long and pointless war against the Autocratic Siam. I was going for a diplomatic victory so this war in itself was a huge setback (I wanted his five CS allies as my own, of course). During the war, my influences with each CS were locked to very negative, while Siam (presumably using Gunboat Diplomacy) was making tons of influence. When the war ended, he had influence of whopping 600's and 700's in the cities. So basically he was doing exactly what I've been done for most of my BNW games - excluding others from the CS game.

I did eventually manage to win two of those CS's over using Arsenal of Democracy spam, 5000 gold and treaty organization, but I think this is a bit excessive anyway. Especially as I was closing in on Siam's influence, I started thinking about the cruel consequences of Siam declaring war on me during all this - hundreds of influence points wasted. It seems the devs weren't really considering the implications of the CS system when creating these new abilities that allow influence amounts far beyond what we're used to.

I think this could be amended in a few ways:

1) Hard cap: limit CS influence gains from Treaty Organization or Gunship Diplomacy so they can't raise the influence past a certain threshold

2) Stepdown: reduced influence gains from gold gifts when influence is high enough, no more CS quests for allies when influence is already high, increased influence degrading for the ally when influence is high enough

3) Secondary alliances: Make CS's not declare war with their allies against targets they're sufficiently friendly with

4) Buff election rigging: Make it erode the ally's influence much more (perhaps a percentage?)

5) Military option: When conquering CS's during wars against their allies, give the option of releasing the city immediately on the condition of the alliance being cancelled (get the old regime replaced by a new, neutral one)



Thoughts on the issue?

I especially think they should look at the influence for gold thing. They lowered it in G&K and that made it at least more balanced. In BNW you have a lot more gold (especially late game) with the effect that the CS influence is a little bit back to pre-G&K, sadly.

I also agree that a CS should automatically DoW anyone they are friends with. Even if it is allowed for normal civs to break friendship pacts, I don't think it is appropriate for CS, since do not suffer any diplo-hit for it. Or perhaps late at least CSs with "friendly" behaviour not do this (and irrational one sometimes).

VainoValkea said:

1) Hard cap: limit CS influence gains from Treaty Organization or Gunship Diplomacy so they can't raise the influence past a certain threshold

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Um... How does Treaty Organization work exactly? I tried it in one game and pledged to all CSs on the map. Still it said my ifluence would degrade and rest at 30. I thought the idea was for me to get 4 more influence every turn after pledging. What am I missing?

livsbrand said:

Um... How does Treaty Organization work exactly? I tried it in one game and pledged to all CSs on the map. Still it said my ifluence would degrade and rest at 30. I thought the idea was for me to get 4 more influence every turn after pledging. What am I missing?

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Didn't you read the description? "Gain 4 more Influence per turn (at Standard speed) with City-States you have a trade route with."

I think it was a Pledge at some point of development but was changed some time before release.

VainoValkea said:

Didn't you read the description? "Gain 4 more Influence per turn (at Standard speed) with City-States you have a trade route with."

I think it was a Pledge at some point of development but was changed some time before release.

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No. I didn't read the description. I must have read it and memorized it earlier and then they changed it. You're right.

- Treaty Organization; Gain 4 more influence per turn (standard speed) with CSs you have pledged to protect.

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This is actually from the What We Know thread.

Heh, that thread wouldn't stay up-to-date very well. It has other reported errors as well, such as the Embargo City-States resolution affecting only one CS instead of all of them. But no one's bothering to fix it, which is a darn shame as many little things are missing in the official docs.