[R&F] AI city state murder

[criZp]

I don't really see this as necessarily being a problem - it's good strategy to conquer a City State whose bonus is irrelevant or uninteresting to you.

give us a break man, you know what the AI is doing isn't "good strategy". you know they just conquer everyone regardless of the suzerain bonuses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Liberating CS is also part of a major mechanic. That could use some touching up in terms of reward.

 

[Guandao]

Is the AI conquering City-states early on more common on difficulties above King?
Quill18 was playing his games on Immortal Difficulty. In those, pretty much all of the CSs were conquered.
I'm not sure what difficulty Marbozir was playing on, but in at least one of his games, a lot of the City-States survived.

 

[Disgustipated]

Marbozir was on Emperor I believe.

 

[Goliht]

At higher diffs the ai always wipes the cs out, even now in my last game there were only about 5 cs left out of 12 by the industrial era. Even pedro and monte got wiped out.. but in some ways it's a good thing, because given you now seem to spawn like 6 tiles from another civs capital most of the time, you need to take them down or can't expand.. which makes you a warmonger and hated forever.. however, liberating a few cs is a nice way of getting back into favour with the other ai's. In RF they've expanded the cs captures with emergencies and liberation wars so really, it's all good.

Certainly seems from the patron games that this particular spawn bug has now been fixed. But even so.. you can still go around liberating them if you want to. The problem is, when you liberate them you can't give them units like in civ 5, and the ai civs then usually wipe them out soon after.

 

[Very Mad Max]

Well, if you go to Marbozir's 6th upload of Mongolia on youtube, he clearly states and goes on for about two minutes on how the AI had barely even improved, if not, it didn't improve at all.

 

[nzcamel]

The problem i have with civ 6 AI that there aren't any personalities it seems every single AI loves to attack city states while in civ 5 only ghenghis khan montezuma harald atack city states. I did not see these flavor's back in civ 6

If Ai is you're neighbour expect a surprise war in the ancient era or sometimes classical era.
In civ 5 only certain Ai would be aggressive towards you others you are able to keep friendly at even if they are close.

A big example of no flavor or personalities is the warmonger hate every single Ai hates you for being a warmonger. While in civ 5 atilla napoleon and some other leaders will overlook modest warmongering while other leaders will hate you even if you do the slightest thing wrong like ghandi. Others are mediocre And will only denounce you if you start a conquering lots of cities.

it seems every single Ai behaves the same way except when it comes to their agenda.

I would love to see some more diversity like for example if montezuma is you're neighbour prepare for war now you allways prepare far war if you have a neighbor.

Where are the backstabbers and the peace mongers who love peace and hate person who attack city states where are the city state conquerers like atilla.. And so on.

That's what Civ VI diplomacy miss the most, Civ V leaders had a Iot more personality. Things like likeliness to declare war on a CS or how much they tolerate warmongering are great ways to give each leader a personality. If everyone declare war on CS in the same way, it feels too automatic, like "hey, don't mind me capturing this CS, I was programmed to do it". It throw suspension of disbelief out of the window, it's hard to see a leader as a character when he act so much like a robot.

The issue I see with what you are both saying, is that you want 20th century values being represented by Civ's in the Ancient and Classical world, and so on. Civ V's barrage of scorn towards war mongers pretty much pre modern times was utterly unimmersive. I get that there is a balance here - from a game POV having leaders hate on war mongers (rather than fearing them and appeasing them as was more common is history) can reign in a war monger if enough leaders gang up on them. So I'm fine that V introduced it as a more solid part of the game; but as with many things...V took it too far. VI has the balance right I think.

Yes that does mean that in the early game everyone can feel like a war monger. But their attitudes shift in a way that is more tolerable to immersion. I think they could tweak a couple of leaders to be more defined as you would like...but it's a fine line, and I think they shouldn't take it too far.

 

[Uberfrog]

give us a break man, you know what the AI is doing isn't "good strategy". you know they just conquer everyone regardless of the suzerain bonuses.

I’m not saying they are doing good strategy, just that conquering a ton of city states in the early game for whatever reason is indistinguishable from good strategy .

 

[Kyro]

Didn't find a threat regarding this in r&f, but mods, feel free to merge if so.

When watching quills and marbozirs LPs, it seemed that the AI was extremely happy killing all the CS's again. Wasn't this a major problem of the summer update from last year? And did anybody else notice this when watching the LPs?

Personally I don't like the AI killing al the CS's because it's a major mechanic in Civ6 to use CS's for envoys, bonusses etc. I hope Firaxis will fix this before the XP is released

My guess is they couldn't buff city states to produce and upgrade their military units properly or stop AI from devouring them endlessly; so they decided to justify AI's aggression towards them by forming Civ's unique abilities for liberating them. Very sad that people have to resort to meat shields to protect their city state allies while the AI dances around them. Very Sloppy.

 

[nzcamel]

My guess is they couldn't buff city states to produce and upgrade their military units properly or stop AI from devouring them endlessly; so they decided to justify AI's aggression towards them by forming Civ's unique abilities for liberating them. Very sad that people have to resort to meat shields to protect their city state allies while the AI dances around them. Very Sloppy,

Well if that's the case they could at least give us a notification on when any CS we are Suzerain of is attacked; and have the ability to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities from the aggressor!

 

[Kyro]

Well if that's the case they could at least give us a notification on when any CS we are Suzerain of is attacked; and have the ability to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities from the aggressor!

I've always wondered why AI can just declare War on your City State allies and you can't even threaten them to stop. The fact is that the AI doesn't even seem to consider who the Suzerain is at that time, If I could just liberate them right after it would not be so bad, but I lose so many envoys that way. Not cool.

 

[Prester John 2]

A problem is also that once I liberate a CS they are backwards in science, city defense and have no units to defend themselves. That makes them easy targets for reconquest by another civ. Upon liberation a CS should get the same techs as its liberator and I should be able to gift units to it.

 

[lqwertyp]

Well if that's the case they could at least give us a notification on when any CS we are Suzerain of is attacked; and have the ability to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities from the aggressor!

Yeah, it's really weird that there isnt a posibility for diplomacy on this matter. The AI doesnt seem to care what relationships a cs has with other civs. And you can't tell them to stop

 

[Ever Adrift]

I get this, but my point was that an AI that is too aggressive towards cs's, kills an important game mechanic. In quill's LP with the cree, there were No cs left after 80 turns

Exactly, I was playing an Epic speed game as Pericles once... had 8 civs, 16 city-states... Trajan and Saladin had reduced that to only 10 city-states before the classical era even ended... There were virtually no city-states by the Renaissance.

Not a fun game.

So I got a mod that makes city-states start with several extra units (a heavy chariot, a couple archers, a couple warriors) which makes them much more difficult to war with in the early eras.

 

[Goliht]

In general the ai seems to attack cs's with a purpose, either to remove an ally of another civ from the game or to access a resource they need. It doesn't seem like they are doing it out of wanton apathy, it could be the city is in an ideal location for one of their own cities as well, they just feel it would do better in their empire. It's important also to understand that the Ai does not raze cs's.. like it will nearly always do with other civs' cities.

It's kinda funny, that people object to the ai capturing city states.. then complain the ai sucks.. it's one or the other.. not both.

 

[lqwertyp]

In general the ai seems to attack cs's with a purpose, either to remove an ally of another civ from the game or to access a resource they need. It doesn't seem like they are doing it out of wanton apathy, it could be the city is in an ideal location for one of their own cities as well, they just feel it would do better in their empire. It's important also to understand that the Ai does not raze cs's.. like it will nearly always do with other civs' cities.

It's kinda funny, that people object to the ai capturing city states.. then complain the ai sucks.. it's one or the other.. not both.

I think you are overestaming the AI greatly here. To me it seems that the AI in the LPs tries to kill all the cs No matter what. Then again, I wasn't complaining about the AI, I am worried about a totally imbalanced game mechanic

 

[Disgustipated]

I am worried about a totally imbalanced game mechanic

Inbalanced? For who? The human player or the AI? Why are we complaining when the AI does things to make itself stronger?

 

[Kyro]

Inbalanced? For who? The human player or the AI? Why are we complaining when the AI does things to make itself stronger?

Because the method by which it is growing stronger is very frustrating and illogical. It puts the player in a position where there's just about nothing he/she can do to prevent a definite loss of envoys because liberating the city state only gives you 3 envoys and it is very difficult to reach them on time when they're on the opposite side of the map. Why should I be happy that the AI can simply conquer my city state with impunity? How is that fair to me who took the time and effort to invest envoys in that city state? Why should a declaration of war be the only solution to protecting city states and why should the AI ignore the consequences of doing so?

Which part of this "challenge" seems well-designed or fair to you?

On a side note the brutality of AI towards city states is going to make Scotland so overpowerd...

It's very possible to save envoys, become suzerain of an uncontested city state right before it gets captured and declare those wars with impunity without liberating them. Do these for multiple city states that are being captured and repeatedly declare free wars against multiple Civs every 10 turns and make peace thereafter. Do this for enough city states and one might just maintain 100% production for the entirety of the game.

This is one case when you actually want your city state allies murdered.

 

[Goliht]

If you have envoys you protect the city state with your own units. Just stick envoys in and then leaving it alone is suicide, the ai will definiately try to kill it off if it's making you more powerful. Nothing wrong with the ai doing this.

The main complain seems to be the ai attacking city states willy nilly at the very start of the game and imo it isn't actually willy nilly, it's with purpose. They don't wipe out all city states.. they ally with those they want and kill those that give them something, sometimes it seems to be more about position than resource. In my current game as Arabia, France attacked Buenos Aries, then Nubia attacked france and liberated the City state. I've now been trading suz with nubia over it, currently upto 12 for me and 14 for nubia. That said.. I'm 1 city off wiping out nubia.. so BA will soon be all mine.

 

[Disgustipated]

Because the method by which it is growing stronger is very frustrating and illogical. It puts the player in a position where there's just about nothing he/she can do to prevent a definite loss of envoys because liberating the city state only gives you 3 envoys and it is very difficult to reach them on time when they're on the opposite side of the map. Why should I be happy that the AI can simply conquer my city state with impunity? How is that fair to me who took the time and effort to invest envoys in that city state? Why should a declaration of war be the only solution to protecting city states and why should the AI ignore the consequences of doing so?

Which part of this "challenge" seems well-designed or fair to you?

On a side note the brutality of AI towards city states is going to make Scotland so overpowerd...

It's very possible to save envoys, become suzerain of an uncontested city state right before it gets captured and declare those wars with impunity without liberating them. Do these for multiple city states that are being captured and repeatedly declare free wars against multiple Civs every 10 turns and make peace thereafter. Do this for enough city states and one might just maintain 100% production for the entirety of the game.

This is one case when you actually want your city state allies murdered.

I'm generally okay with all that, but I do wish liberating a city-state would give you guaranteed suzerain over a city state for 50 turns (on epic speed) in addition to the 3 envoys. As for Scotland, we'll see if the devs already know about this and have something to prevent this abuse, or they may patch it in the future, or they may just ignore it.