A little look at how a CS works

[Victoria]

Someone was asking questions on when a CS builds a district and how it techs so I did a little look.

It seems it techs and civics as per a normal civ but with a one city limit of course. This seems to get a jump when a new era is hit but not looked into quantity in any depth.

It also looks like it builds its district once it has the tech/civic which it seems to beeline and starts building it once its previous build has finished.

Investigative information here, just thought I would post a reference here as many do not look at the guide chats

City States Guide

 

[Japper007]

Ah this would explain why it takes forever for Industrial CS to get an IZ up.

I suspected it worked this way, basically how it works in Civ 5 too.

 

[Ichabod]

Thanks, Victoria. That's very useful info.

To perhaps help in further investigations, I've seen a certain behaviour with City States regarding the number of envoys they have. It seems a CS expand its borders when a player invests 2 envoys on it. So, perhaps the technology boosts you discovered are also tied to number of envoys invested (it's just a guess, I have no evidence supporting it).

Or perhaps the tech boosts are connected to technologies that the players already acquired.

 

[Victoria]

I will check this out right now, I think I can give myself loads of envoys in firetuner. My understanding was 1 tile per envoy but only from what I had read in this forum.

 

[Victoria]

OK so I have 1 envoy at La Venta in Turn 2 because I did a reveal all... the borders are not expanded
So i give myself 5 envoys and place them at La Venta and the border expands by 5 tiles
I leave it a few turns to see if techs kick in and they do not

Before

After - Note the expansions are onto valuable tiles rather than random

 

[Lily_Lancer]

It seems that they only grow when the CIV who has the most envoys gives it an envoy.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It seems that they only grow when the CIV who has the most envoys gives it an envoy.

Interesting. It's incentive not to go overboard with envoys in city-states that are close to you, lest they expand into tiles that might be of value later. Conversely, you could do that to a city-state that's adjacent to a rival and possibly deny them a resource.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Interesting. It's incentive not to go overboard with envoys in city-states that are close to you, lest they expand into tiles that might be of value later. Conversely, you could do that to a city-state that's adjacent to a rival and possibly deny them a resource.

I often give an envoy to a militaristic Civ to make it build an encampment so that I can capture.

 

[shaglio]

2 takeaways off the top of my head:

1) Don't invest heavily into neighboring CS's until you have the money to purchase the good tiles that they might expand into.
2) Maybe invest in another Civ's neighboring CS to deprive that Civ of valuable tiles that the CS will expand into.

Edit: Damn, ninja'd by EP while my boss was yakking to me about budgets

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

Interesting. Only noticed in passing that city states, in general, are pretty weak (weaker than in Civ 5) and that they seem to not do much then <pop> something big happens. They will suddenly get 2-4 new units when they have the ability. I think they act more like barbarian outposts when it comes to units.

I think they need better coding/be made tougher. They are so weak that the AI usually gobbles many of them up effortlessly and as a player you can take all nearby ones anytime you feel like it. We don't because many have nice benefits when you are suze but it is also annoying that you have to save them so often from aggressors in fairly lame ways (protective wall of units, typically).

 

[Browd]

OK so I have 1 envoy at La Venta in Turn 2 because I did a reveal all... the borders are not expanded
So i give myself 5 envoys and place them at La Venta and the border expands by 5 tiles
I leave it a few turns to see if techs kick in and they do not

Before
After - Note the expansions are onto valuable tiles rather than random

If I recall correctly, CS's start with their city-center tile and 5 surrounding tiles, and get the 6th surrounding tile (to complete Ring 1) when someone first meets them and earns the "first to meet" envoy. So the first envoy does provide the CS with an additional tile, but you won't usually see it because the act of revealing the CS insta-grants the first envoy and CS's 6th Ring 1 tile.

It seems that they only grow when the CIV who has the most envoys gives it an envoy.

Yes, but more precisely stated: the number of tiles the CS has will equal the initial 6 (center city plus 5 tiles in Ring 1) + number of tiles equal to the "high water mark" of envoys the CS has received.

 

[Victoria]

If I recall correctly, CS's start with their city-center tile and 5 surrounding tiles, and get the 6th surrounding tile (to complete Ring 1) when someone first meets them and earns the "first to meet" envoy.

I thought... makes sense so I just checked it out

Kumasi is civ 17 In this list we see that Kjumasi only starts with 6 tiles not 7 so it sort of makes sense.... however I know I was the first to meet Kumasi when playing and it was not in turn 3 so lets look at some other logs

So in the Game_influence.csv we can see me discovering Kumasi on turn 22 (I am civ 0)

So to double check lets look at Civ 18 which recieves a free envoy from civ 2 in player stats.csv over a period of turns and it seems like it grows the turn after... so lets look at civ 10 La Venta

So La Venta grows on turn 16... the same turn

What @Browd is saying seems it may be right but is sooo inconsistent.

 

[Victoria]

Just checked 4 more and they all match

Kandy (15) grew on turn 6 - matches
Geneva (14) grew on turn 8 - matches
Seoul (12) grew on turn 13 - Matches
Vilnius (11) grew on turn 13 - matches

So I went back and double checked Kumasi... the trouble with the logs is they keep all games played since you opened and I was looking at the fiurst game played. In the second. Kumasi grew at the right turn
So apologies @Browd at least validation paid off

 

[agonistes]

Edit: Damn, ninja'd by EP while my boss was yakking to me about budgets

"Hang on a sec, boss, I gotta respond to this civ post!"

I note that coastal cs's will also build a harbor in addition to their normal district.

 

[Victoria]

Non coastal build a commercial? I cannot remember
I have never seen more than 2 districts though.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Non coastal build a commercial? I cannot remember
I have never seen more than 2 districts though.

City States build their specialized district and the harbor with 500% production, but only 50% for other districts. That may be the reason.

 

[agonistes]

Hmmm... I don't believe I've even seen a 2nd non-harbor under construction.

Has anyone?

 

[Ichabod]

I made a bit of code-diving myself, and it seems it confirms the theory that City States start with 5 tiles, not 6. This line is avaiable in the Civilizations file, in the game data:

<Row CivilizationLevelType="CIVILIZATION_LEVEL_CITY_STATE" CanFoundCities="false" CanAnnexTilesWithCulture="false" CanAnnexTilesWithGold="false" CanAnnexTilesWithReceivedInfluence="true" CanEarnGreatPeople="false" CanGiveInfluence="false" CanReceiveInfluence="true" CanBuildWonders="false" StartingTilesForCity="5" IgnoresUnitStrategicResourceRequirements="true"/>

Starting tiles for cities = 5. The same line for a "full civ" has a 6.

Also, notice the line where it says the CSs annex tiles with received influence.

 

[stinkubus]

"Hang on a sec, boss, I gotta respond to this civ post!"

I note that coastal cs's will also build a harbor in addition to their normal district.

That harbor gives a nice gold buff to any trade route.

@Victoria - If you don't mind, is there anyway to find out what turn, on average, a military CS will get its encampment up?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

That harbor gives a nice gold buff to any trade route.

@Victoria - If you don't mind, is there anyway to find out what turn, on average, a military CS will get its encampment up?

First it has to find a suitable location for that district. Then it need 50% civs to research bronze working.