City States dominate gameplay?

[man-erg]

Well, that's my impression after about 7 hours of gametime. That the whole game seems to revolve around interracting with the City States. Every few turns you're getting some message from them asking for something. They seem to have become more important than the real opponents!

On my second game, I reduce them from 16 (with 8 Civs) to 6 yet still it is the city states that I am dealing with for most of the time.

I'm really not sure about the whole concept of a "2-tier" nation system. Where do these city states come from in the first place? As a minor addition to the game, perhaps as a type of government (oh, but we don't have that anymore...) , or an occasional occurence as a result of gameplay like vassals in Warlords, it would be fine. But it seems to me they have far too much prominence over gameplay at the moment.

 

[KAuss]

City states actually have better diplo than actual civs...

What I like about them is the peaceful nature they have, and they can be soft road blocks sometimes... However, after a couple of games I decided to turn them off because they were no fun for me personally... Their messages clog up the right side bar, and their loyalty drop so fast I don't even bother with them...

I however am going to try to army feed states next time, and war with their neighbors to make them grow to fill the map LOL... That ought to be fun to watch...

 

[MadRat]

I do like them. They add a lot if flavor and are pretty reliable enemies. I do wish there was some way to end the so-called perma-wars thought short of conquest.

Liberate a city state and you have a pal for life! After I liberated Stockholm my Ally status was 240/60 WOOT!! 240 turns of Swedish coconut oil massages!

Rat

 

[KAuss]

It's 240 on what speed? Cause I did that on marathon and only got like 190 or 160 / 60...

Which is like time enough for 1 wonder...

 

[Nutteria]

I fed 5 longswordsmen to Genua and observed them razing 2 french and 2 egyptian citys. Had lols

 

[MadRat]

It's 240 on what speed? Cause I did that on marathon and only got like 190 or 160 / 60...

Which is like time enough for 1 wonder...

Epic I think.

Rat

 

[MadRat]

I fed 5 longswordsmen to Genua and observed them razing 2 french and 2 egyptian citys. Had lols

Yeah some city states build serious militaries. I just wish the cultural and maritime states would defend themselves a bit better. In an earlier game I had my hands full in a war with Egypt and 3 city states. The 3 city states were a bigger problem than Egypt by a wide margin.

Rat

 

[KAuss]

LOL, marathon game is like 1600 turns... I'm guessing epic is near 1000?

240 is no where near friend for life... That's one thing I hate about the new City State is that they're just a big money sink...

I want someone to be my army storage bin, so I don't have to pay maintenance and they can also go to work with me and I only have to "move" a small strike force instead of a whole line of 25 dudes LOL...

 

[Inspiration]

I played a few games with standard settings without city states and the game is pretty much boring to play since you have to wait forever to have your cities grow without the food bonus. And you need lots of food otherwise you can't spam TP which you need for the ridiculous (and unpredictable) maintenance in this game which you need to keep your empire happy.

 

[May Day 10]

I really do not like the feature of City States. I feel like they are too large a part of the structure of the game.

 

[KAuss]

City grow isn't so bad, I guess I'm used to marathon games... It's getting the first worker / settler that's the pain... I always build my first worker, and buy the settler... That way my main never stops to take in food...

The reason why I do it this way is because I'm always going to have a bigger city count / pop count than my happiness can keep up... So having all that pop isn't helping me any...

City states are the best when they are literally between you and the AI... Sometimes, you can fight a war and have them walk through them long enough that they'll trigger a war before you spend a dime on them... Then you just feed them high tech units and watch them go to work...

Next game like I said, I'mma shoot for them to take over the world... At least they CAN be friendly and grateful of your help...

 

[Lord Tirian]

240 is no where near friend for life... That's one thing I hate about the new City State is that they're just a big money sink...

Well, being Greece and Patronage helps.

Also, gifting superfluous units is helping a bit, helps with maintenance and some city states can go outright crazy if given a big heap of units - some are really conquer-happy!

They're cool war/long-term allies - which is nice, since the other Civs are always turning against you at some point, making something like having one ally "for life" you fight for and with next to impossible.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GoaGalneGbilski]

I played archipelago with the turks, and allied myself with every city state but one. Patronage and conquering the state that two others wanted eliminated made it easy holding them. Money focus is always useful too, but that is another discussion. They gave me a third of my science and 70% of my culture. Still they did not take the majority of my time, or dominate the game as said. It was like me and my friends making up a civ by itself.

What I don't like about them is the lack of options. It is basically give gold or units. The "quests" they give are often irrelevant too.
In one game Edinburgh asked me to connect furs. Problem was, that all the fur in the world was located in Edinburgh, but pillaged when they gave the quest. That was a bit lol.

 

[KAuss]

I wish they set a civ as enemy, and every unit you slain adds to their tribute... Things that drive you in game... Like maybe you share research and a % of your research you donate them gives you tribute... This way you improve yourself while you keep them aboard instead of just pay pay pay...

Or you upgrade their old tech units or build them a building, something...

They do ask you build a wonder sometimes, but that's more a bother than helping you along... I just wish they had more reliance to you than "I'm perfectly fine by myself, but you can bribe me if you want..." type feel...

I wish they were more like mercs, kinda like upgrade barbs, mixed in with some tomagochi... You gotta raise them right and payback is a war time friend...

 

[KAuss]

I played archipelago with the turks, and allied myself with every city state but one. Patronage and conquering the state that two others wanted eliminated made it easy holding them. Money focus is always useful too, but that is another discussion. They gave me a third of my science and 70% of my culture. Still they did not take the majority of my time, or dominate the game as said. It was like me and my friends making up a civ by itself.

What I don't like about them is the lack of options. It is basically give gold or units. The "quests" they give are often irrelevant too.
In one game Edinburgh asked me to connect furs. Problem was, that all the fur in the world was located in Edinburgh, but pillaged when they gave the quest. That was a bit lol.

That sounds like a job for the Great Artist!

I bombed a few City States before just to steal their resource LOL...

 

[Nutteria]

Epic is 750 turns IIRC.What I`d like from city states in general is 1) better defencive force on the non agressive states.More optimized city management.Sometimes they grow and build like mad sometimes they are like economy broken villages.Better catch-up tech wise esp. in the post rennesance era.They should automaticly obtain every tech the top 3 civs have.This way they can be viable throughout the hole game and not play the constant catch up game.

Also they should make more reasonable demands/quests and donating units to them should up the influence by a % of the rushcost of the unit.Say if a swordsman cost 600 then their influnace will increas by 50%(numbers out of the hat here) of that cost aka 300 gold aka 20 influence or something.

Oh and last but not least when they capture another city it whould be cool if they don`t auto-raze it.So far I have seen only once where a city state capturing a city to turn it to a puppy-state.(Alamaty did that on my last game)

Yeah that pretty much sums it all

 

[man-erg]

I really do not like the feature of City States. I feel like they are too large a part of the structure of the game.

Yes, that's what I'm feeling too! Surely the obvious thing would be for a collection of city states to become a nation? This is how Germany and Italy and probably many other nations were formed. Yet I don't believe this is possible in the game.

Maybe the release went wrong and we've been playing a pre-release build of "Civilization: City States" by mistake. (for PSP hence the HUGE FONTS) The real Civ 5 for PC will be released next week....

 

[jams]

I however am going to try to army feed states next time, and war with their neighbors to make them grow to fill the map LOL... That ought to be fun to watch...

Keep in mind that while City States do conquer AI cities, they never hold to them, but rather raze them instantly.

 

[KAuss]

I could of sworn I saw a screen shot where they held on to 3 cities... If you turn the "raze city" option off, guess what... BINGO

 

[shadowplay]

There's too many. Thankfully, you can reduce the number present by cuztomizing your game.