Currently, the type of each City-State is determined randomly using an uneven distribution. There are 8 Militaristic and 8 Religious City-States, and 14 of the other three types. If custom City-States are added via mods, they can further imbalance the pool of City-States.
Until recently, it was not known how to override the random selection of civs and City-States within the DLL. Thanks to IanE9, a solution was discovered that makes this possible.
Now that it is possible, I propose that we balance the types of City-States evenly in VP games, following a 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 ratio. For example, 15 City-States would result in 3 of each kind. 16 City-States would result in 3 of each kind, except for one random kind which would have 4. This would make games where you never encounter a given type of City-State not a thing anymore, except on the tiniest of maps, and provide for more consistent strategic options.
The placement of the chosen City-States on the map remains the same. You could spawn next to 4 religious City-States if you're very lucky, or you could spawn next to 3 Maritime City-States and 1 Mercantile City-State, or 1 of each kind.
Note that if there isn't enough room on the map for all City-States to spawn, the ratio could be uneven.
Also, with the addition of the MajorBlocksMinor table (with which this option is compatible), it is now possible to add civs' cities as City-States when they are not present. Attila's Court could be a City-State if the Huns are not ingame. Someone such as @Hinin or @adan_eslavo might be interested in making a proposal for that, and increasing the pool/variety of City-States. With this proposal passing, it doesn't matter how many additional City-States are added, or whether a few of them are blocked, the ratio will still be maintained.
I have already coded, tested, and implemented this feature for the next version (as of writing this), so it's a matter of changing BALANCE_CITY_STATE_TRAITS from a 0 to a 1.
Until recently, it was not known how to override the random selection of civs and City-States within the DLL. Thanks to IanE9, a solution was discovered that makes this possible.
Now that it is possible, I propose that we balance the types of City-States evenly in VP games, following a 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 ratio. For example, 15 City-States would result in 3 of each kind. 16 City-States would result in 3 of each kind, except for one random kind which would have 4. This would make games where you never encounter a given type of City-State not a thing anymore, except on the tiniest of maps, and provide for more consistent strategic options.
The placement of the chosen City-States on the map remains the same. You could spawn next to 4 religious City-States if you're very lucky, or you could spawn next to 3 Maritime City-States and 1 Mercantile City-State, or 1 of each kind.
Note that if there isn't enough room on the map for all City-States to spawn, the ratio could be uneven.
Also, with the addition of the MajorBlocksMinor table (with which this option is compatible), it is now possible to add civs' cities as City-States when they are not present. Attila's Court could be a City-State if the Huns are not ingame. Someone such as @Hinin or @adan_eslavo might be interested in making a proposal for that, and increasing the pool/variety of City-States. With this proposal passing, it doesn't matter how many additional City-States are added, or whether a few of them are blocked, the ratio will still be maintained.
I have already coded, tested, and implemented this feature for the next version (as of writing this), so it's a matter of changing BALANCE_CITY_STATE_TRAITS from a 0 to a 1.
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