A general look at CS quests

[Stalker0]

Figured it was a good time to walk through the various quests. I'll give me thoughts on which ones I think are fun and interesting, which ones are dull and I forget they exist. Aka less about pre balance and more the design of the quest itself. I'll use a simple scale:

A - This quest is very well designed, I really enjoy.
C - Solid quest, I use it, not my favorite but its good.
F - Either I think its badly designed or its so boring I forget it exists.

• Acquire City X (A) - I think this one is just overtuned in terms of the XP (especially for multiple hits of this quest). But the city it chooses is usually reasonable, and the bonus makes even the peacenik in my want to throw hands.
• Acquire Resource X (C) - A nice generic quest that can encourage a bit of trading, but nothing fancy.
• Ally Both / Conquer one (A) - This one is interesting and is a really good bonus if you can pull it off, can definitely shake up some strats.
• Barbarian Camp (C) - Solid gives you good incentive to go out and kill whether your authority or not. My only beef is sometimes the camp are really far away, like impractically far.
• Barbarian Horde (A) - While sometimes I tear my hair out when this one hits, I think it does a good job of shaking up the game, create some immediate short term strategic changes you have to consider, which is always good in a strategy game.
• Build a road to CS X (C) - So on communitas with standard cities, this mission almost doesn't exist, it is so incredibly rare to see. I can literally go 15 games and not see it once. When it does come up its solid I like doing it.
• Build X buildings (C) - this one is highly variable. Sometimes its a low number and a decent building, and your in. Sometimes its 11 constabularies, and your like "riiiiiiiight". It is a fun one to time with a wonder build in the capital, you can often set up your satelitte cities to give your capital that key prod boost at a critical time.
• Building Wonder X (A) - Sometimes its a gimme, but often it lets me consider a wonder I wouldn't have planned for otherwise.
• Circumnavigate the globe (??) - This quest still exist? Its been so long since I've seen it I'm honesty not sure.
• Conduct Intel missions against Civ X (F) - This quest is fine conceptually....but with the spy system where it is at this needs to be 1 mission and 1 mission only....period no exceptions. Missions take way too long for this quest to require multiples of them. At 1 mission, this quest can be cool. At 2+....a waste of my time.
• Convert to my religion (C) - A very good quest early on, gives good incentive, encourages a different spread pattern then you might have considered. However, has really really poor scaling in the late game, like god aweful.
• Convert the most followers (A) - Can be a fun one making me push for conversions when I wasn't planning on it, with a benefit that is solid enough to really encourage the rush.
• Defeat Barbs invading their territory (F) - Snooze fest, its often just graffiti on my quest wall.
• Demand Tribute (F) - Mainly because tribute right now is god aweful, but yeah I very often forget this quest exists.
• Denounce Civ X (A) - Love this, the bonuses are meaty enough that I will consider denouncing someone I was not planning on denouncing, shaking up the diplomacy game.
• Diplomatic Missions more Effective (A) - Can often shake up a CS, creates a fun little mini-race, especially early on will make me consider expensive diplo units when normally they would be out of my price range.
• Explore Area X (F) - I find this one really impractical most of the time. It eitehr covers terrain I can't reach, the area is just too large, etc.
• Find Civ X (F) - I think this is both insanely OP, but also has an anti-synergy with exploration. Deity players often don't bother exploring the map so that they can milk this quest. That's a problem, as exploration is literally the first X in 4X.
• Get GP X (C) - Its rare I will truly pivot my GP to get this quest, but it does have a good benefit for GP focus.
• Get most Culture (C) - its somewhat competitive but often its just the culture leader gets more bonus, without too much you can do about it.
• Get most Techs (A) - Its one of the best races, as techs are concrete enough that you can pull shenanigans to squeak this out over your neighbors, even if you aren't the science master at the time.
• Get most Tourism per turn (F) - This isn't a quest....its just a benefit of being the tourism leader you get periodically. I can't remember a time I was able to win this quest when I wasn't already on top in tourism, tourism is just not flexible enough for that to work.
• Gift a CS Units (F) - The yields are just way too low and its just generic. Now that Send CS Unit X exists....I honestly feel this quest is obsolete.
• Liberate CS (C) - My problem with this one is sometimes the liberation is VERY far away, and its just too impractical to do, so a lot of the time I wind up ignoring this one.
• Send CS Unit X (A) - Probably my favorite quest in the game, I especially like that I get another use for my UUs (which are commonly requested). Its also not that it beefs up CS security, making them more fo a threat when wars start.
• Stage a Coup in CS X (A) - I think coups are now difficult enough that this has become a well balanced quest. The rewards are awesome but the work is difficult.
• This Cs is revolting against its master (?) - I actually have no clue how this quest works.
• Trade Route to CS X (C) - The bonuses could use a touch up especially later in the game, or maybe it should scale with your trade bonuses or something (this is a difficulty issue because higher difficulty ETRs tend to be a lot more lucrative). Sometimes its good, others I just can't justify giving up 30 turns worth of good trade yields, that's a LOOOOONG time in the early game.
• War with Civ X (A) - Another great one, really nice bonus, often makes it very tempting to war someone I wasn't planning to fight.

I'm probably missing some so help me fill in the gaps.

 

[Stalker0]

Also I'll list out a few new quests that I think could be cool.

• Settle a new city: If this started in the renaissance it would be good. you wouldn't want this early, but as a mid game quest helps encourage more expansion.
• Produce X specific military units. So like produce 5 tercios or 4 knights, etc.
• Maintain X% happiness for 10 turns. The idea is you have to get and hold that happiness level for 10 consecutive turns to get teh bonus.
• Chop X forest or jungles: encourage some clear cutting strats.

 

[azum4roll]

This Cs is revolting against its master (?) - I actually have no clue how this quest works.

I think this is like a barbarian horde, except if a barbarian still survives when the time's up, the CS now hates the current ally (and the 2nd place becomes its ally).

EDIT (actual effects):
1. The current ally's influence is set to -60, and all (personal) quests are revoked (ouch).
2. All players not following the current ally's ideology gain 65 influence with the CS.
3. Kill all barbarians within working range of the CS Capital.
4. CS Capital enters resistance for 5 turns.

 

[azum4roll]

Build a road to CS X (C) - So on communitas with standard cities, this mission almost doesn't exist, it is so incredibly rare to see. I can literally go 15 games and not see it once. When it does come up its solid I like doing it.

Criteria:
1. Player must not have bullied the CS
2. Player must have been friends with the CS before
3. CS must not be coastal (because it's so easy to connect with Lighthouse)
4. CS must not be already connected to the player
5. Player has not completed this quest with the CS before (cheese potential by removing just one road)
6. CS Capital must be less than 12 tiles away from the player's nearest city

Non-coastal CS are almost always polar and very far away from major civs, so the quest is rare.

Gift a CS Units (F) - The yields are just way too low and its just generic. Now that Send CS Unit X exists....I honestly feel this quest is obsolete.

Don't think the quest still exists?

 

[Stalker0]

I think this is like a barbarian horde, except if a barbarian still survives when the time's up, the CS now hates the current ally (and the 2nd place becomes its ally).

EDIT (actual effects):
1. The current ally's influence is set to -60, and all (personal) quests are revoked (ouch).
2. All players not following the current ally's ideology gain 65 influence with the CS (boosted by Statecraft since this is a quest, not boosted by Austria since that's a separate thing).
3. Kill all barbarians within working range of the CS Capital.
4. CS Capital enters resistance for 5 turns.

So its not really a quest then, right its more like an "event". All that stuff happens, and people just passively get influence. What a weird quest!

 

[azum4roll]

So its not really a quest then, right its more like an "event". All that stuff happens, and people just passively get influence. What a weird quest!

Well, same with "barbarian horde", "diplo missions more effective" and "help kill barbs in our territory".

 

[Stalker0]

Well, same with "barbarian horde", "diplo missions more effective" and "help kill barbs in our territory".

Yeah except those I actually do stuff, my understand of this quest was certain ideologies got influence, and the CS went into rebellion. There’s isn’t actually any player actions to do, is that right?

 

[Anarcomu]

There is actual action from player, the one who's the actual ally from the city state.

 

[Chinag]

I think the "Build X buildings" sets the number to be a % of your cities, so going wide makes the number higher. Interestingly a quest that gets harder the more cities you have.

A thing you might've missed with the Most Culture quest is that the Great Writer pops counts for the quest, as its simply looking for the total accumulation of culture. Don't think Great Musicians pops count though, because it simply changes the tourism modifier with other civs than the tourism number directly.

Also I think you're missing the "Most followers converted to your religion" quest on your list.

I do love your ideas for new City State quests. Might need more "global and competetive" quests to balance it out.

Other ideas for quests could be personal versions of the global quests, like "Generate a total of X Culture/Science/Tourism/Gold in Y turns."

Kinda want a "Invest X Gold in buildings" but dunno if thats trackable.

"Use the X process in a total of Y turns across all your cities."

 

[Stalker0]

Kinda want a "Invest X Gold in buildings" but dunno if thats trackable.

When I think about new quests, I'm generally looking at things that could "shake up" the gameplay. Gifting a unit vs keeping it for defense, building a wonder I wasn't really planning to go for, denounceing a player I wasn't planning to, etc.

Personally I invest in building all the time, I don't need "more incentive" to do that.

 

[Stalker0]

Added in the convert most followers quest, thanks @Chinag

 

[Stalker0]

There is actual action from player, the one who's the actual ally from the city state.

Again I think I'm confused, so what does the actual ally "do" for that quest?

 

[Solic]

Probably quite niche, but there could be a new city state quest that asks you to repeal or vote no on spheres of influence. It makes sense that they want to stay sovereign and it makes it more of a risk to whoever would propose that resolution, because if it fails, quite some diplomatic adversaries would gain influence.

 

[Stalker0]

Probably quite niche, but there could be a new city state quest that asks you to repeal or vote no on spheres of influence. It makes sense that they want to stay sovereign and it makes it more of a risk to whoever would propose that resolution, because if it fails, quite some diplomatic adversaries would gain influence.

the idea of a "vote this way on a WC proposal" is interesting

 

[stii]

You missed the find a CS quest.

 

[pineappledan]

Maintain X% happiness for 10 turns. The idea is you have to get and hold that happiness level for 10 consecutive turns to get teh bonus.

Sounds weird.
I'd prefer something like this:
Global CS quest: Pursuit of Happiness
- City State will reward the Happiest Civ in 30 turns (determined by most Happiness in excess of unhappiness on empire)

 

[Solic]

the idea of a "vote this way on a WC proposal" is interesting

Yeah you could do a lot of things with this like:
- CS asks you to vote no on sanctioning its ally.
- CS asks you to vote yes on sanctioning whoever is warring/tributing them (can probably use same logic as denouncement/war quest)
- Religious CS that carries a candidate for world religion asks you to vote yes on passing it.
- Religious CS that carry different religions than the candidate for world religion asks you to vote no on it.
- Military CS ask you to vote yes on casus belli.
- Non-military CS asks you to vote no on casus belli
- CS asks you to vote no on banning a luxury it has
- CS asks you to vote no on CS sanctions

Invert all the votes for a repeal effort
For more neutral proposals like Treasure Fleet they should mimic the attitude that the AI calculates for their ally towards a specific proposal (I think WC AI already does something like this?). If they don't have an ally it should be randomly yes/no.
It's kind of a tradeoff here if we want the city state to represent their own interests or their ally's interests. They are aligned, but don't have to be. Most clear example is probably asking to get a sphere of influence on themselves from their current ally.

Only one such World Congress quest is active at any time to prevent overcrowding.
From every World Congress, it should be randomly determined what proposal gets a quest. Then it should randomly be assigned to one of the explored city states, maybe with some priority like religious city states if it's a world religion vote.
You would only get benefits if the vote passes like the CS wants, you use at least 1 vote on it and you use more votes to pass it than oppose it (you can vote on both options at once if you get bribed for votes).
Benefits could be something like influence + Great Diplomat Points or just plain old gold or maybe even cooler, the type of yield of the city state that has the quest. Faith for religious CS, Culture for cultural CS etc.
World Congress AI would probably need to be slightly recalibrated to give a small bonus for whatever CS quest option you have.

Making it a voting quest instead of propose x resolution quest is probably better, so every civ gets to participate instead of only whoever has enough votes to propose something.

Now I spitballed a lot. Maybe it's something for next congress to propose if people are interested.

 

[Amask]

Disagree on build wonder quest.
I don't think it has ever influenced my decision on whether to pursue a wonder or not.
The reward is too small, and the cost can be enormous.
Imagine missing a crucial wonder by one turn because you increased your wonder cost penalty.
Even ignoring that possibility it's still a very high cost that will stay for three eras.

Denounce civ.
In multiplayer this is just free influence until open borders and research agreements become available.
If the target is an enemy with whom you'll never sign those agreements, then this is just free influence, period.
The same issue can exist in single player. There are often some civs that I can denounce and have it not matter a single bit.

Get GP.
My only complaint about this one is when they ask you for an admiral and you have no means whatsoever of getting one.

 

[Little Billy]

I like getting the Acquire City quest so much that I will take statecraft as a warmonger for the sole purpose of getting more XP from it. The mass of blue popup text makes it worth it every time

 

[CppMaster]

Denounce civ.
In multiplayer this is just free influence until open borders and research agreements become available.
If the target is an enemy with whom you'll never sign those agreements, then this is just free influence, period.
The same issue can exist in single player. There are often some civs that I can denounce and have it not matter a single bit.

Yeah, this is a problem with MP players who treats it more like a chess game and less like a diplomacy game. For roleplaying sessions it makes sense, though.