City States Envoy System

[PlotinusRedux]

Under the current system, basically whoever gets to Monarchy first and spends the longest time in it gets the city states, because the only things that really affect your total envoys are the Monarchy bonus, the base envoy points that are equal for all gvts of the same era, and the Totalitarian civic that adds 4 points every civ will take.

If the first patch doesn't address this, I probably will in a mod, and I'm looking for ideas.

Just brainstorming some ideas:

* Spies sent to city states to assassinate envoys if they succeed, you lose envoys (to arrests) if they fail, with the ability to send spies to defend your envoys in a city state;
* Buying envoys with faith/culture/money, starting at a very high cost and increasing rapidly for each buy, say, 1,000 for the first envoy, 2,000 for the 2nd, etc.;
* An additional City Project to add a few points towards earning the next envoy set;
* A Diplomatic promise to not send envoys to City States you are the sovereign of, with a Causa Bella for war if violated;
* Removing envoys as a trade option, particularly one you could demand in a peace deal;
* Conquering a city state and immediately liberating it, with all other civs envoys reduced by 25%;
* 2 for 1 envoys for city states that share your religion;
* Apostles with no charges spent can be used up to grant 1 envoy instead of spreading religion, if the city state already follows their religion.

 

[grizlob]

There are also envoys granted from some civics, e.g. Natural History. Sooner or later every nation will get these, but a high cultered civ is clearly favoured.

I like the idea to influence the envoys with your spies, it gives more options for your spies!

Also, I would suggest more CS quests and make them more dependable: For example, if you have two city states of the same type (science, commerce, etc.) make them rivals! In order to get envoys on the fomer, you can DoW the other or demand tribute like in civ5.

 

[Jarms48]

- I'd like the option for spies to "count as" envoys when deployed in city-states. That would make them much more multilayered, give you another reason to build them, and would be a nice buff to France. The idea of assassinating envoys (as you suggested), or perhaps just removing them from that city-state, or even locking them out from sending more envoys, with those spies would be nice as well.

- I see two ways to implement a city project, make the holy site prayers obsolete when you research Diplomatic Service, replace the additional faith and great prophet points (which are useless after you get a prophet), with faith and envoy points. Not sure what it'd be called, but it'd give people another reason to build Holy Sites, which is probably the weakest district to build (in multiplayer at least). The other way is to make the city project solely available from your capital, to prevent spamming.

Not sure about the rest of the suggestions. I'd remove the current +1 envoy from first meeting the city-state, it's way too powerful of a bonus (again, in multiplayer). That would be an indirect buff to the +2 envoys for the 1st envoy sent policy card, you could then replace the card with a +2 envoys if the city-state has a trade route/same religion as you.

 

[Koldborg]

I'm thinking about the

2 for 1 envoys for city states that share your religion;

Making a religion belief, that makes you gain +0.5 envy points for each city-state that follows your religion instead. And the additional point value depends on the number of players.
This also makes religion effect the envy system.

Spies sent to city states to assassinate envoys if they succeed, you lose envoys (to arrests) if they fail, with the ability to send spies to defend your envoys in a city state;

Is a nice idea, but to balance the game, they can only eliminate 1 envy after a number of turns, or you will loose 1 if they fail. This balances the envy system more, since the time of getting envys takes alot time. And ofcause the number of turns depends on the game speed.

But one thing I would not agree on is:

A Diplomatic promise to not send envoys to City States you are the sovereign of, with a Causa Bella for war if violated;

The reason why I would not agree on making that, is because of the current AI system. They already gets mad over you send envys to city-states that you even found first and is closest to. So they will most likely spam you the Diplomatic promise all the time, and begin to make war with you, because you ignored their request.

 

[Namaspamus]

City-states feel really dumbed down from Civ V, and I don't get why people don't rant more about it. Envoys seem more elegant than an influence value, but it's a false good idea, if we want a meaningful system we'll need a finer grain soon or later. And as you said right now it's all about Monarchy, system could hardly be more poor.

* Spies sent to city states to assassinate envoys if they succeed, you lose envoys (to arrests) if they fail, with the ability to send spies to defend your envoys in a city state;

Sounds good

* Buying envoys with faith/culture/money, starting at a very high cost and increasing rapidly for each buy, say, 1,000 for the first envoy, 2,000 for the 2nd, etc.;
* An additional City Project to add a few points towards earning the next envoy set;
* Apostles with no charges spent can be used up to grant 1 envoy instead of spreading religion, if the city state already follows their religion.

Sounds good too if as you say it stays quite expensive. The risk being maybe to see AIs denying you every single city-state in Immortal and Deity as they have much more production, gold, faith, etc...

Also, I would suggest more CS quests and make them more dependable: For example, if you have two city states of the same type (science, commerce, etc.) make them rivals! In order to get envoys on the fomer, you can DoW the other or demand tribute like in civ5.

Agree with this. They really need more personality.

And I think they should mostly follow their own interests a bit more, worry about their security (they need it). If they're attacked, denouncing or better DoWing the aggressor should be rewarded more than triggering some random inspiration.

I'd like Pledging to Protect back but not exactly like in Civ V. Pledging would grant you some influence of course, but if after they get aggressed you don't defend them with a war, you lose credibility toward all City-States, who don't value your pledges any more. So you should be careful with wich CSs you pledge to protect.

You could also in this case go the diplomatic way, demanding or negociating peace for them with the agressing Civ. If you manage to get peace, the CS should be grateful.

Also actually defending them should grant more influence than letting them fall then liberating.

 

[Eurik]

Do we really have to play city states? In V (or was it IV) at least there was the option to leave city states out of the game. The whole concept is silly. One city can grow into a civilization and another must stay a city.

 

[MagicCuboid]

I really like the idea that spies could count as envoys, or assassinate other civs' envoys. It reminds me of "rigging the election" from Civ V.

Also, how many of us think CS are just too powerful? I have two mods for them already - one cuts their bonuses in half, the other eliminates the free envoys for discovering CS. It just seems like getting lucky with an early scout can snowball you to victory in vanilla.

 

[PlotinusRedux]

@MagicCuboid, I don't think their standard bonuses are really too powerful, though a few Sovereign bonuses definitely are--certainly not the +2 to something you get from the free envoy for finding them early, to me that's just an incentive to explore early. If you find it too powerful, maybe implement something like Civ 5, where CS bonuses increase with era, say, starting at 0.5 instead of 2, and increase by 0.5 for each era?

But it's really a matter of preference--some people want no City States in their games at all, some want more of them.

What I'd really like to see is a ton of options for City States on the Advanced Setup screen, starting with setting the number of them (which we can't do yet--we can lower them, but not increase them), but also options for really everything we can think of--like your cutting bonuses in half, my ideas for making Sovereign more competitive, etc.

Unfortunately, the more I explore what we currently have available without the SDK, the more I'm finding we are really limited with what we can do with Lua right now. To a large extent, Lua seems to be limited to reading values and changing the UI rather than changing game logic, and of course with XML/SQL all we can do is change the values the current logic uses, without adding any real new features.

 

[Theodore9]

i like your suggestions very much, PlotinusRedux !!! The current city state mechanics are much to simple. I think Fireaxis should have implemented much more features to the new civ game. Once again, the modders need to complete it!

 

[Dicemechanic]

Problem with City Stats and Envoys is lack of meaningful choice. Sure, you can choose where envoys go, but you've got only a small amount of influence over how many you generate and you don't really pay anything for making that choice. At the very least, envoys should have an upkeep cost - all those ambassador's palaces and fine dining doesn't come cheap.

 

[PlotinusRedux]

So far all I've been able to implement is a Holy District project to create envoys: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/build-envoys-with-holy-district-project.25708/

The problem is the InGame LUA object for Influence only exposes get methods, with no set methods, so for now I'm limited to what can be done with the existing Effects in the database.

 

[Halcyan2]

City-states feel really dumbed down from Civ V, and I don't get why people don't rant more about it. Envoys seem more elegant than an influence value, but it's a false good idea, if we want a meaningful system we'll need a finer grain soon or later. And as you said right now it's all about Monarchy, system could hardly be more poor.

No, I actually LOVE the Envoy system a lot more than the old "throw money at the issue" approach of Civ V.

Regarding the OP, a good portion of Envoys can be achieved through Quests. I never spend any time in Monarchy but I still usually have control over most City States. Oftentimes, I have to carefully delay progressing into the next Era so that I can finish up city quests first!

 

[PlotinusRedux]

No, I actually LOVE the Envoy system a lot more than the old "throw money at the issue" approach of Civ V.

Regarding the OP, a good portion of Envoys can be achieved through Quests. I never spend any time in Monarchy but I still usually have control over most City States. Oftentimes, I have to carefully delay progressing into the next Era so that I can finish up city quests first!

I really don't like how Civ 6 in general punishes you for advancing and encourages exploits like researching techs until you almost get them then switching to another, knowing every tech you finish is going to make things more expensive to build, etc.

I like the idea of city state quests in general, but not the "Get an enhancement for X," where you have to go look up the requirements for that enhancement, and then if you learn the tech or civic, you fail the quest.

And I don't like that apart from quests envoys are just granted pretty much equally to everyone with the same era gvt.

 

[Halcyan2]

I really don't like how Civ 6 in general punishes you for advancing and encourages exploits like researching techs until you almost get them then switching to another, knowing every tech you finish is going to make things more expensive to build, etc.

I like the idea of city state quests in general, but not the "Get an enhancement for X," where you have to go look up the requirements for that enhancement, and then if you learn the tech or civic, you fail the quest.

And I don't like that apart from quests envoys are just granted pretty much equally to everyone with the same era gvt.

It's a pacing problem (which I would argue is a completely separate issue).

Research progresses too fast so you zoom through the Eras. This also means that many of the early Great People get skipped (especially Classical ones).

However, the game incentivizes you to stunt your era advancement. Between doing all the city state quests, reducing warmonger penalties (which increase significantly with each era), and getting all of the Great People, you end up artificially delaying the advent of a new era.

Also, you end up with a lot of half-finished techs because you leave open the possibility of getting the Eureka/Inspiration. While I like the concept, I think the implementation is flawed (and aggravates the problem of eras going by too quickly).

The problem is much worse than in Civ V. I remember delaying eras so that I could create Great Works from an earlier era but that was mainly for aesthetic reasons (and some minor theming bonuses). I guess there were also some cases where I would leave non-essential techs undiscovered, so that I could get extra science from trade routes (which is something that Peter of Russia can still do).

 

[PlotinusRedux]

@Halcyan2, one thing I liked in Civ 5 that I'll mod into Civ 6 once they fix the modding system enough to do so is that the bonuses from city states increased with each era. That would give you some incentive to advance, and make the bonuses less overpowering initially and still meaningful in the end game--something like instead of +2 science through all eras, +0.5 science in the ancient era to +4 science in the Information Age. Or maybe +1 to +4, but with the bonuses halved for everyone but the suzerain.

I also would like espionage to be more involved, as well as the city state type's synergy with your gvt (i.e., bonus to faith CS for Theocracy, etc.).

Unfortunately, modding is currently in a pathetic state, we can't even use GameplayScripts or localized text because they don't get reloaded when you load a saved game.

 

[Jarms48]

No, I actually LOVE the Envoy system a lot more than the old "throw money at the issue" approach of Civ V.

Regarding the OP, a good portion of Envoys can be achieved through Quests. I never spend any time in Monarchy but I still usually have control over most City States. Oftentimes, I have to carefully delay progressing into the next Era so that I can finish up city quests first!

I like the new envoy system as well, the only balance tweak I'd do is to remove the free envoy from meeting a city-state first. I'd also like to see a diplomatic victory re-added using envoys as the new "delegates", forcing players to choose between voting power or city-state bonuses.

So more interesting diplomatic policy slots would also be nice.

 

[TomKQT]

I like the Civ6 system more than the previous one, because in CivV I almost always ended as the ally of ALL existing city states and it also was very common that I didn't give myself all the votes in the world leader election, because I didn't want to end the game yet (for some reason). Being ally of everyone was too easy.

That however doesn't mean that the current Civ6 system couldn't be improved, it really seems a bit dull at the moment. I like the OP's idea on more ways how to send/remove envoys. But I would also be happy if they just added more quests - not just more variety, but especially to add new quests more frequently than just when you advance to the next era. Oh and I also don't like that when you are at war with a city state (not by attacking it, just by being DoW'ed by a suzerain of the CS) and you make peace, the previous quest dissapears.

 

[UWHabs]

I like the new envoy system as well, the only balance tweak I'd do is to remove the free envoy from meeting a city-state first. I'd also like to see a diplomatic victory re-added using envoys as the new "delegates", forcing players to choose between voting power or city-state bonuses.

So more interesting diplomatic policy slots would also be nice.

I think the biggest flaw with the free first envoy is that they can cause huge bonuses early. I had one game that I started where I met 3 science city states early near my cap, and instead of having 3-4 science per turn, I was generating 10, and just speeding like crazy through the early tech tree. Huge difference compared to other games where I don't meet any civs early. I'd rather just get the old system of a small boost to money/science/faith/etc... for meeting them first.

Otherwise, I agree with the above that lacking the "rig elections" seems like a missed opportunity. Send your spy to a city state, rig the election, one of their envoys switches to you. If you fail, they gain a CB against you, and you lose an envoy.

It would also be nice if you could somehow "recycle" envoys, so say I want to pull out of a city state. Maybe you only get them back at 50%, but there are definitely times where I wish I could just pull out of competing for a city-state, and refocus elsewhere.

Also, would be nice to have more diplomacy policy-card options for variety, especially ones that can give you extra bonuses for being suzerain other than their special ability. I find the couple that there are come too late, so would be nice to have some less powerful ones that come out earlier.

 

[Tamir Lenk]

I like the new CS system. It would be nice to have a more granular path to influence them. Maybe earn a couple envoy points (not full envoys) when you clear barb camps within 5 hexes of a CS, etc.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I would like it if at some points, including once in the early game one CS chose to permanently be your ally for the duration of the game, and you could accept or decline.

This is more for game flavor than making influence less volatile, but it is also an incremental solution toward the latter.

I would just love if you had a little buddy during the game, who you could look out for without any diplo penalties. Your envoy level bottoms at 3 and every other player's caps at 1.