Wait... how DO you practically keep a City State happy?

[Zhahz]

You do have to pay to maintain CS. I wouldn't bother with patronage unless you plan to juggle a bunch of them and even then, I often end up with a large number of CS and end up paying full price, which isn't a problem usually. Kinda depends for me. If I'm warmongering or REXing and won't have a lot of SPs when patronage becomes availabe I usually skip it. For smaller empires who are going to have a tighter budget anyways, it can be a lot more handy. Going deep patronage and getting the flood of extra GP is nice too.

One way to gain massive favor with a CS is to librate them. The AIs often go nuts conquering CS either for personal gain or to satisfy the "X wants Y eliminated" quests. As long as you don't mind a little war, liberating a CS puts them super high above ally status such that you won't have to pay them for a long, long time.

There's also a SP in Order tree that causes your CS to decay faster. The AI can and will use this in the later game. There's a notification for it and it's very noticeable.

 

[Craftsman]

There's also a SP in Order tree that causes your CS to decay faster. The AI can and will use this in the later game. There's a notification for it and it's very noticeable.

The above is very important. If I remember, your influence will decay 33% faster if another civ adopts this Social Policy.

Also, don't be a bully to the City States if you plan to use some of their advantages, because, even if they don't like each other, they talk with each other.

 

[pazmacats]

All game is based on AI or city state exploit. For me it is feel like games we played when PC's were just invented. For god sake, moving dots around and killing everything with 3 supper strong units are not fun anymore.

That's precisely what I think about the game. The base mechanics are just not interesting enough to play with... The took away production and they took away the whip. So ... what is the player supposed to do...? And with what...?

Oh right, the player can upgrade his trebuchets to lvl 28 and one shot everything walking his direction... Space invaders, here we come.

 

[MasterGreek]

The current game I'm playing on King as Greece I've got more gpt then I've known what to do with. Everyone says ignore food but I disagree. This is the first time I've ran the game getting as much food as possible and putting all my cash into every maritime I've met. Im at around 1000 AD right now and making 200gpt in golden ages and around 50-70 gpt out of a GA. The CS'es make the game alot easier if you ally them I think. I've actually had them help in a few wars with bordering countries and take over their citys. The last time I played on King I got dominated by Germany. This time I'm beating everyone by over 200 score wiped 2 nations off the map. Happiness is my limiting factor right now since I've puppeted so many citiys.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Greeks are great, since they effectively need to pay twice less to keep their alliances with city states. That's a lot of extra food and culture.

 

[Dorkhan]

A good way to get city states providing their bonuses is to liberate them from other factions. They'll go VERY happy with you if you give them their sovereignity(spelling?) back.

Other than that, I rarely see any of the missions they provide worthwhile. Usually just give them the 250 gold every 30 turns(so that you'll stay allied with them all the time) I remember seeing a post in which someone calculated, that city states bonuses are way better than the other things you could do with the 250 gold, so I suggest that you'll just pay them to keep them content with you.

At least for me, my empire tactic relies on being allied with all of the maritime city states to get the huge amounts of food they provide for my WHOLE empire. When I do so, I'm able to focus only on gold with my tile improvements, leaving farms and such food improvements for the AI to worry about. I'll just make trading posts on every hex without a resource. Works like a charm.