City States

[Warspite2]

I am starting to REALLY like these! Some people say just conquer them and get the resources but that is certainly NOT always the best thing to do. In fact not at all especially the ones furthest from you unless you really want the city or desperately need the resources right now. In my current game, what I decided to do is go down the Patronage Socials. Once you get some of these policies, you start getting all kinds of bonuses while dealing with the city states. I was getting great people, units, and I was giving units to them. For example, Japan was on another continent with about 8 (or more) different city states. Then they started to conquer them, one after another. After a few turns, they took 2 of them over and the other 6 formed an alliance and declared war against Japan. A message came up and said something like do to Japanese aggressive nature, they all formed up and declared war. This was too cool because not long after that the Japanese capital fell to another world power (forgot who the clown was I am tired and its going on 3am... I think it was augusta) from being weakened from the war with the states. That same "clown" as I called him is now just going crazy, taking over everyone. So I started giving units over to some of those overseas states. Doing this, I don't have to actually go to war with a major power. I can just hand over units to the city states so they can hold off the giant and keep him from getting too strong. I been doing this for several turns, giving units to all sorts of states. Some I even signed a protection pact with and that helped to keep others off their back. So I give a unit here and there to slow them down from taking them all over, stay out the wars overseas and keep cranking the techs and gold. There was even a state on the other side from america who was my neighbor. America decided to get greedy and I did not want to see them with that state and become bigger and stronger. So I gave that state like 6 elepants and that held off america and weakened them. Since I done that, I may actually be able to conquer them now. Nevertheless, this was indeed a lot of fun. I think city states made an awesome addition to the game, play for a while and see what I mean. At first I was not sure, they seemed ok but now I think they are awesome and add a lot of options to the game. I think some people should play around with these a little more and see what fun they really offer. Certainly makes the world more interesting.

[Pragmatic]

Some people are suggesting skipping all the social policies until Patronage. (You don't HAVE to choose a social policy; you can just save up the points). Make a beeline for Medieval, and by that time you should have enough culture points to pick up the unlock and two or three policies right off the bat.

Then work on building up your empire, with occasional gifts to a growing number of city-states.

Worked for me, until it turned out that my empire was a little too weak. But I fought a war using only the units gifted to me by militaristic cities, and that's AFTER I had gifted a half-dozen to one city-state to help them in a war against my enemy.

I especially liked the Great People I was gifted by the city-states.

[Mivo]

Thanks for sharing! I didn't know that the city states could form an alliance if they get attacked by a (mutual) enemy. That's pretty awesome!

I still have mixed feelings about them (they clutter the map ), but in my second (and current) game I have a fairly good cash flow, so those 250g every few turns for the extra food and the resources come in handy. Less troublesome than having to conquer them.

[Callonia]

Yeah -.- stockholm getting attacked = siam/ottoman getting pwnt by arabia and me stuck in eternal war against arabia.

Gotta say the city states is reasonable addition to the game. I think if I remember correctly every other city states except for geneva and oslo declared war on arabia those two is still in a war against me cuz they were ally of arabia when war started dunno why ally status hasn't gone yet.

[Auncien]

I love 'em. Best thing to happen to the series ever in my opinion. They do so much for what would otherwise be a boring game. Despite my earlier misgivings about the no-razing rule, liberating them has helped me out in a lot of ways during the games that I've played so far.

[Warspite2]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Some people are suggesting skipping all the social policies until Patronage. (You don't HAVE to choose a social policy; you can just save up the points). Make a beeline for Medieval, and by that time you should have enough culture points to pick up the unlock and two or three policies right off the bat.

Then work on building up your empire, with occasional gifts to a growing number of city-states.

Worked for me, until it turned out that my empire was a little too weak. But I fought a war using only the units gifted to me by militaristic cities, and that's AFTER I had gifted a half-dozen to one city-state to help them in a war against my enemy.

I especially liked the Great People I was gifted by the city-states.

Right on! I never even realized you can save up the points and use them later. Guess I been too busy and never even noticed this. This opens up even more options because you can choose to bypass instead of adopting, giving up earlier benefits for a large section of a policy branch later.

[BjoernLars]

They make a great addition to the game. When I first saw these on the previews I thought that they were cute little buggers that I was just going to have to conquer. The benefits are usually way better than just taking the city.

I was trying to do a Cultural Victory and was forming an alliance with three of them to get the food and culture benefits. My neighbors the Songhai and the Japanese decided to go war with them and the screwed over my for a cultural victory.

I usually don't conquer them unless they are in a key strategic spot, like the only good place to build a port.