[R&F] Are Free Cities too aggressive?

[Brutus2]

I seem to remember in a live stream it was said that although we are always in a state of war with free cities, they would mostly play defensively and just protect their own territory. That has not been my experience. In several games now, I have been able to flip cities to free and then the turns begin to count down until they will join my civilization. The thing is while waiting for the free city to flip to me they spawn a bunch of the latest tech units and move into my territory and start attacking me. I almost always end up just capturing free cities even if they are going to peacefully flip to me soon because otherwise they will keep sending units against me which means I have to leave my troops there anyway.

Anyone else seen this? Is this working as intended?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I was surprised by this as well. I expected the Free City units to remain within the city's territory and only attack any units that come in or near their borders.

 

[seeker7]

Yup, I don't think it is working as intended. Also the description says they should remain mostly peaceful unless provoked. That is definitely not the case. As soon as it turns into a free there are units attacking me.

 

[sanchopanda]

I was surprised, too - but in a positive way. At least one "civilization" is fighting against me
It can be annoying if the city flips every few turns and is near your territory.

 

[darkace77450]

I don't know if it's working as intended, but right now the Free Cities are essentially XP pinatas for your units.

 

[Ferocitus]

No, their aggression is about right.
I hope they run all over your civ and stomp on your olives.

 

[Inlex]

This seems to be working the same as barbarians (and "Partizans") do. Which is dumb. I had a sequence of turns where a spy from rome recruited partizans in my most populous city (26), spawning mech infantry which then attacked Rome's units, which were at the brink of invasion. At the same time, I had flipped one of Rome's cities, and had so much loyalty pressure that the city was going to join me in 3 turns. That didn't stop the soon-to-be-Cree-Free-Romans to attack my nearby city with tanks for 3 turns after which they said "YEAH, WE WANT TO JOIN YOU! YOU'RE AWESOME"

All very immersive, yes...

 

[Pietato]

This seems to be working the same as barbarians (and "Partizans") do. Which is dumb. I had a sequence of turns where a spy from rome recruited partizans in my most populous city (26), spawning mech infantry which then attacked Rome's units, which were at the brink of invasion. At the same time, I had flipped one of Rome's cities, and had so much loyalty pressure that the city was going to join me in 3 turns. That didn't stop the soon-to-be-Cree-Free-Romans to attack my nearby city with tanks for 3 turns after which they said "YEAH, WE WANT TO JOIN YOU! YOU'RE AWESOME"

All very immersive, yes...

That partisan thing sounds fine. The free cities need to be changed, though.

 

[kaspergm]

As others have other said, I find their implementation quite disappointing. They are turning barbarian cities instead of free cities. They should be neutral and not in war with everybody (except their former owner). You should be able to DoW them for a minor warmonger penalty but not get the usual city capture penalty for conquering them.

 

[pgm123]

I don't think it's working as intended, but I don't think it's broken at the moment. Hopefully it gets fixed in a future patch.

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't mind the units so much, but they spawn a builder every 5 turns for some inexplicable reason. Which means I get a free builder every 5 turns.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That partisan thing sounds fine. The free cities need to be changed, though.

While partisans being hostile is reasonable, this isn't a scenario the AI should be using the action. To prevent self-harm, it should be possible to set a required min distance between AI's planned target city(ies) and where it's willing to generate globally hostile units.

 

[Acepox]

As others have other said, I find their implementation quite disappointing. They are turning barbarian cities instead of free cities. They should be neutral and not in war with everybody (except their former owner). You should be able to DoW them for a minor warmonger penalty but not get the usual city capture penalty for conquering them.

Agreed. They should only be hostile to their former owners, unless you cross their borders with military units or attack them.

 

[Jewman]

Way too aggressive. I've found that since the cost of maintaining a conquered city is so high when waging far away wars (this is a relative term b/c having wars not so far away but removed from your general civ vicinity b/c of terrain, city-states, etc... can be quite difficult), whenever I get into one of these wars I focus on crippling my enemy into submission which leads to a lot of free cities. the problem is as my armies are marching forward, im getting flanked by free city troops which are hyper aggressive. So I've been forced to suffer mass casualties, or lose entire armies as they get stranded deep in enemy territory. The solution is really to just raze all these cities, but i don't really like razing cities.

Its really quite annoying but I don't necessarily dislike it, punishes players for diving deep into enemy territory without providing some logistical support structure behind their troops, i.e. a foothold city that you invest a governor, occupying troops and a loyalty civic to. Free-states could be a little less aggressive tho. I definitely need to learn to play differently tho.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I haven't noticed any free city units coming out of their borders and attacking other Civs. Admittedly this may be because I usually park my units on their borders ready to take them when they do flip

 

[Sven]

I'm playing a game of RF/GS for the first time and I've been at war with Genghis forever. He refuses to give up and is now about to lose. Four of his cities have broken free and I thought they'd be angry with him and friendly with me, but they started attacking my unit on its way to attack Genghis, and the unit was still within MY borders. Idiotic.

 

[Naeshar]

They are way too aggressive. I expected them to sit in home territory, but they behave like madmen. So barbaric...
On the other side, they usually crash into my superior units and the free city remains defenseless. Just wait until the radicals die out and let the city join my empire peacefully.
I'm not sure whether they count as barbs or regular units for xp farming purposes.

 

[Tech Osen]

Necromancy is not part of the Civilization franchise.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Free cities are not considered barbarians. Aztec Eagle Warriors are able to capture free city units as slaves, but they can not capture barbarians (they should be able to capture barbarians!!!!!).

Also I had a free city swordsman chase one of my units for 10 turns (about 30 tiles) until the city revolted again.