[NFP] City-States Elimination Thread

[kryat]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [13] (12+1) Production is king because it gets things done. I’d also rather have harbor districts than commercial hubs because harbors give gold, food, housing, and production, while commercial hubs just give gold (I’d actually argue that the lighthouse is the most powerful building in the game, but maybe that’s for another elimination thread). Great Admirals are actually pretty competitive with Great Merchants for the past year. Coastal cities can be very, very powerful, and Auckland just turns them into beasts.
Bologna [25]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [16]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [14]
Rapa Nui [20]
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [17] (20-3) I’m probably going to be crucified by someone for this, but Yerevan is extremely powerful, but only in spreading religion. I’d argue that something that’s generally strong at helping every game is stronger than something that’s specifically strong in situational games. There’s no doubt this CS wins games, but not every game. This is the same reason the Inca and Australia are very strong civs to play as; they are good at everything.
Zanzibar [20]

 

[bengalryan9]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [13]
Bologna [25]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [13] (16-3) It's a nice bonus and all, but if we're going to criticize some city states for (supposedly) only being good at one victory type let's not pretend the militaristic city states are any different. I'll get very little from this nine times out of ten.
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [14]
Rapa Nui [20]
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [18] (17+1)

I’m probably going to be crucified by someone for this, but Yerevan is extremely powerful, but only in spreading religion.

Yerevan can also be used for culture (use Martyr to farm relics), to raise armies (use Heathen Conversion near barb camps), to farm gold (Indulgence Vendor has it's uses, especially early on), or even to heal your armies quicker (Chaplain), and all of these can be taken advantage of even if you don't found your own religion. Besides all of this, it also just so happens to be the absolute best at complementing religious victory.

Zanzibar [20]

 

[Francel]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [13]
Bologna [25]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [16] (15+1) - In an effort to continue spreading votes around, today I'll be upvoting Caguana (batey improvement) and downvoting Rapa Nui (maoi improvement). Please indulge my logic, because I believe this is largely dependent on personal preference and playstyle. It's important to note that I avoid harvesting resources and also favor a "tall" playstyle. This makes the batey the better improvement than the maoi, at least in my mind. It's not unusual to have a +7 or even +9 batey with a bit of luck and careful planning (after unlocking exploration). Tile for tile, this is much better than the maoi. Furthermore, since I focus on having a few cities, each one tends to get quite large and have several districts and wonders. Thus, it can create a scarcity of tiles or competition for tiles. The maoi seems to excel when it's spammed, and I rarely have the free tiles. Also, the volcanic soil and hills that often are ideal places for the maoi tend to provide the bulk of my production (and improved by mines and mills). Certainly I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but for these reasons, I much prefer the batey.
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [13]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [14]
Rapa Nui [17] (20-3) - See above explanation.
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [20]

Random thoughts: This thread raises the question, should a city-state that is S tier in a specific situation be valued more than a city-state that is A tier in all situations, or vice versa? I'm not sure, but I do think Yerevan is easily the strongest in a specific situation, and ultimately deserves to finish in first place.

Edit: Incorporated the vote above that I missed. Excellent reasoning on Yerevan @bengalryan9 as well that I hadn't considered.

 

[Leucarum]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [13]
Bologna [25]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [16]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10] (13-3) Nice to have as opposed to game changing.
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [14]
Rapa Nui [18] (17+1) These can build up into a solid culture and tourism source.
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [20]

 

[hhhhhh]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [13]
Bologna [22] (25 - 3) No one hates Bologna, but it's not good enough to be never downvoted in this thread, so I downvote to keep it from going wild. It's usefulness diminish as your empire grows. And if you earn Great Person too fast, the extra era penalty is prohibitive (for example if an Industrial Era Great Person appear in Medieval, it's 1075 points, making that you have to wait a long long time to get it).
Brussels [4]
Caguana [16]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [15] (14 + 1) It's good enough to change where you put your districts - for example Commercial Hub's +2 gold adjacency is strictly worse than a lake-side or coastal +2 culture. And it works for many coastal wonders. For the ones worrying about coastal flooding - Nan Madol is good enough to make you win before that happens.
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [20]

 

[tedhebert]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [14] (13+1) Auckland is just OP on coastal maps. Really. You can easily get 30+ prod out of it with 6-7 cities, double that at industrial. Very nice bonus.
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13] (16-3) Again I just don't understand why This is still in the mix for top 8 when grenada is already out. The bonuses are very similar. Again, I feel everybody just overvalues culture over anything else. So downvoting it for a second time in a row
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [15]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [15]
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [20]

 

[JesseS]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [14]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [16] (15+1) Adding science adjacency to reefs buffed Nan Madol, because you now want to build coastal campuses for an easy +3 between the reef and a city center-harbor district triangle. With Nan Madol, this district triangle produces an extra 6 culture per coastal city. It's a good passive bonus on any map with coastal cities.
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12] (15-3) I think Valletta used to be the strongest city state in the vanilla game, back when there was almost nothing to spend faith on if you weren't going for a religious victory or using stewardship. Now that we have so many other things to spend faith on (monumentality builders, units with Grandmaster's Chapel, Nihangs) and the World Congress often votes to double production of city center buildings, I don't find myself using Valletta's ability much. The monument and granary are pretty cheap to build or purchase with gold. Walls can be built quickly with limes. This leaves some relatively niche scenarios where Valletta's abilities are useful (high faith income but no monumentality golden age, purchasing walls in captured cities in a contested front, purchasing flood barriers towards the end of a slow game).
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [20]

 

[JJOne]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [14]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [13] (16-3) Nice to have, of course, but I won't change my district placement only for this.
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12]
Yerevan [18]
Zanzibar [21] (20+1) best amenity city state out there.

 

[Amrunril]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [15] (14 +1) Even if you do nothing to optimize this, it will give most empires quite a bit of production from tiles they were working anyway. If you do plan around it, it's just silly.
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [13]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12]
Yerevan [15] (18-3) Some promotions are better than others, but you generally want a mixture, so choosing from a selection of 3 isn't bad. And no combination of promotions will let you convert a religious founder who's actually dedicated to stopping you.
Zanzibar [21]

 

[TMC24601]

Antananarivo [16]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [10] (13-3) I agree with the post earlier today saying districts by the coast are usually worse for adjacency bonuses, so it’s not worth building them there just for this bonus. Less strong than most of the remaining city states here
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12]
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [22] (21+1) I don’t think you can overstate the importance of these free amenities, particularly in the early game

 

[Josephias]

Antananarivo [13] (16-3) Good culture bonus, but it may take time to bulid and is capped at a % of your output. (so, you can get nice culture numbers from it, but only when you are aready producing a good deal of culture). At this point in the thread, it starts to pale.
Auckland [15]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [13]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [17]
Nan Madol [11] (10+1) I'd like to point out this works not only on "by the coast" districts, but also coast ones, so harbours and water parks (if you build them), will also benefit of the extra culture. Of course, not that relevant in pangea maps, and not the best of the remaining bunch but I think it deserves to fight a bit more.
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12]
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [22]

 

[monikernemo]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [4]
Caguana [14] (13 + 1)
Bateys > Alcazars because you can just hit so much culture with one Batey and Alcazars depend on appeal which in the early game is harder to control compared to bonus resources.
Again, culture is highly-valued because it is scarce early game, and it helps you change policies frequently.
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14] (17 - 3)
The main issue with Nihangs is you really have to waste a district slot in one of your cities for Nihangs to power up.
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [12]
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [22]

edit: I don't see any issue (at this stage) downvoting civs that are devoted to very narrow victory types (**cough** yerevan , kabul**cough**) because in my view, the benefits it brings to multitude of victory types is a equally valid criteria in determining how powerful city state bonuses are.

 

[Baigan]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [22]
Brussels [1] 4-3 Yes, each victory condition has a handful of corresponding wonders that you usually/always want to go for when pursuing that VC. But: 1) with the exception of Diplomatic Victory these wonders are not essential and 2) the +15% production in the 1-3 cities which are actually constructing wonders is meager compared to the benefits you'd get from plugging your envoys into city-states that actually give empire-wide boosts to the yields which are directly propelling you to your VC. The best way to speed up wonder construction is to speed up your tech/civic research rate. +15% production is just too marginal and too narrowly applied.
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [13] 12+1 There are better CSes and this likely deserves to go soon, but this is better than some that currently have more votes. Yes, Gold purchasing Monuments and Granaries is cheap but this lets you save Gold for purchasing buildings and Reyna districts to get your new cities up and running. (In an average game, Reyna is more likely to hit her Tier 4 promotion than Moksha.) Extra utility when paired with GMC and its Faith from pillaging. Plus, you continue to enjoy the benefits of the effect after losing suzerainty because the buildings remain. That's an advantage which most CSes left don't offer.
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [22]

 

[bbbt]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [23] 22+1 Can be a huge boost to your GPP generation.
Brussels [1]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [13]
Yerevan [12] 15 - 3 - Clearly I play a lot differently than other folks in regards to religion, as I've never found Yerevan that useful. Most of the time I'm either a) not founding a religion or b) I've founded a religion for only my empire that I'm primarily spreading via religious colonization and not really buying apostles. When I am playing a religious victory game, I'm usually buying tons of apostles so I get the mix of promotions I want anyways.
Zanzibar [22]

 

[TCBB]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [23]
Brussels [0] Eliminated. Whatever, I’ll finish this one off - my main rant is about the utter stupidity of trying to eliminate the most powerful city-state in the game already.
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [13]
Yerevan [13] (12+1) Okay, no, just no, this is getting ridiculous now. I am totally fine with people voting Yerevan down because it’s getting too high, or because they think it should come 3rd instead of 1st. But you’re trying to eliminate it now?? Have you EVER played a religious game in your life?

The vast majority of apostle promotions are utterly useless. So all you people saying ‘oh I’ve always done fine with my heathen conversion x indulgence apostles’, you are clearly lying. Not only does Yerevan avoid this problem of wasted faith (because most of the apostles you buy without Yerevan ARE wasted faith). It actually lets you choose *the most powerful* bonus in the game at will, Debater, or either of the next two powerful, Proselytiser and Translator. And if you rushed Moksha’s final promotion, you can pick TWO of those three for EVERY ONE OF YOUR APOSTLES. This is unbelievably powerful - and as JhGf commented, POWER is how we are rating these city-states. You can go from a turn 200 religious victory without Yerevan to a turn 100 victory with Yerevan. That is the single strongest bonus in the game.

I know I sound salty, and that’s because I am. I strongly, strongly suspect 9/10 of the people voting Yerevan down are your classic ‘once played a religion game, didn’t enjoy it, went back to science and domination’ types. You don’t like religious play, therefore you’re blindly voting to eliminate the religious city-state.

Yerevan CLEARLY deserves top 5, because of the 5 victory condition it SINGLE HANDEDLY turns one of them into an utter walk in the park. And not only does it deserve top 5, but pound for pound what it offers, there’s a strong case to make it 1st place. You’re mad if you’re still downvoting it now. Play a religious victory once in a while, jeez.
Zanzibar [22]

 

[kaspergm]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [23]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [10]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [13]
Yerevan [14] (13+1) - I can't believe people are voting this down because "it only helps towards one victory condition". First of all, that's not true - spreading your religion can have big impact on stuff like envoys, gold and culture/science (I don't think many people have realized how powerful the new Cross-cultural Dialogue/World Church beliefs are). Secondly, while it's true that Yerevan focuses mostly on religious victory, it's still the only city state that's literally the difference between making this victory super easy and super difficult.
Zanzibar [19] (22-3) - Sure, amenities are nice, but they are not that hard to come by (if people really needed amenities, maybe they'd start building entertainment districts), and while I agree Zanzibar is good, it's no-where near top 5 imo., must less top 3.

 

[Lamington]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [23]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [7] (10 - 3) To be honest, there are other ways of earning XP for units, that this while useful, wouldn’t necessarily WIN you games, like Yerevan can.
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [13]
Yerevan [15] (14+1) - Even from a more objective perspective, this is one of the most powerful specific city-state bonuses
Zanzibar [19]

 

[JhGf_123]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [15]
Bologna [23]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [7]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [10] (13-3) As I say below, all of these city-states are very nice to have but most don't directly win you the game. Valletta is probably the clearest example of this. It's nice to have another currency to spend on city-centre improvements – but is it essential? No. Is it going to win you the game if you can buy ancient walls or flood barriers? No. So probably about time for Valletta to go.
Yerevan [16] (15+1) Whir whir, broken record on repeat, broken record on repeat. There's so much i could make a point of ("I get the promotions I want anyway", okay m8, you go enjoy your chaplain promotions while the Deity AI crushes you with their OP debaters), so I'll limit it to this. Just like @Lamington just said, none of the remaining city-states will directly win you a victory. They're all very good in their own way, mostly quality of life improvements or extra yields that are useful in various situations. But none will actually make you win, apart from Yerevan. All my fastest religious victories were with Yerevan under my belt. It takes the repetitive, often monotonous grind of religious victory and turns it into probably the fastest victory you can achieve. And @kaspergm rightly points out that religion has become even more useful for all victory types now – so Yerevan is not the one-hit-wonder people claim it is.
Zanzibar [19]

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [12] 15 - 3, this one feels like it should be impactful but just never seems to give good results for me.
Bologna [23]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [7]
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [10]
Yerevan [17] (16+1) As others have said, a top 3 CS at least - possibly the best, absolutely crazy that people are voting this one down.
Zanzibar [19]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

Antananarivo [13]
Auckland [12]
Bologna [23]
Caguana [14]
Cahokia [20]
Geneva [13]
Kabul [4] (7-3) It's a very strong bonus, no doubt about that. But as Bengalryan9 and Lamington said, Kabul is not exactly going to win you a domination victory by itself. Also, I agree in general with the comment someone made about Lahore: of all victory conditions, domination is the easiest for a human to win. On Deity, the AI is (generally) competent at accumulating science, culture, or faith yields; but they're still rubbish at positioning units, keeping units alive, and upgrading units. So weighing up the six types of city-state, the domination ones have an inherent 'win-more' feel to them because a human can outsmart the AI in warfare 9 times out of 10 anyway.
Kumasi [13]
Lahore [14]
Nan Madol [11]
Rapa Nui [18]
Valletta [10]
Yerevan [18] (17+1) What more is there to add to the previous five? If you're genuinely doubting Yerevan's bonuses, I don't think you've attempted enough religious victories. They're all about speed: eliminate as many religions as you can before the Deity AI starts the oppressive grind of apostle spam. Yerevan is the ultimate tool for speed, because you get to pick the unbelievably good bonuses (debater, proselytiser, translator, sometimes pilgrim) without wasting any time or faith on the situational/useless ones (chaplain, heathen conversion, indulgence vendor, martyr).
Zanzibar [19]