City States is it worth paying them?

[Eldaberry]

Seems like its a huge drain to pay the States 1000 gold to be your ally since there doesn't seem to be any consistency in your gold production. One turn i am making 100 gold a turn and 5 turns later its down to nearly none. No its not from a golden age ending it just seems to jump around allot , the same with happiness.

So do you think the benefits out way the the gold outlay vs say buying buildings or units with the money.

 

[shockeroo]

Yes!!

 

[Rellin]

To me, it seems OP tbh. I get the full tech tree in Patronage and I have like 6 city states, out of 14 or something avialable on a standard map, as allies. My population growth is insane, my happiness is better, and I get some units and culture from a couple/few as well.

 

[ashmizen]

No...

First of all, there is no way your income can jump from 100 gold to 0 gold a turn and not have it be golden ages. Golden ages are huge, and I go from +50 gold to +150 gold, and back, due to Golden ages. Otherwise, it could be you completed something like 6 - 10 new units in those 5 turns, whose additional maintance cost could cost 100 gold. My advise: don't build units you don't need.

Second, city states are too powerful, if anything, not too weak. Maritine city states are must-buys, even if they are hostile. Your cities grow so fast, and for free, so you can focus on building more trading posts than farms.

Culture city states are great too, they can help you get many more soical policies, which are free bonuses.

Miliatary city states are situational. They tend to suck badly if you are more advanced than the rest of the other civs, as they give you outdated units. They are also bad early on, as the cost of their alliance exceeds the cost of just directly buying early units. However, on high difficulty levels, where the AI's often have out-teched you in military techs, and later in the game, you can for a cheap 500 gold get units that cost more gold, that you might not even be able to build yet (because you have been focuses on slingshotting to other useful tech).

 

[ashmizen]

Also, if there are city states near your enemies, they can basically kill lots of expensive units for you, for a cheap 500 gold.

On Emperor, Germany declares war against me, and I already was allied with a city state next to him for culture. I then buy, for a mere 500 gold, a militaristic city state next to him. They then proceed to crush Germany's army, and besiege Berlin, bringing it to red. I then run in with a swordsmen for a free city

 

[Eldaberry]

hmm well i will try it out next game, ive pretty much been ignoring them, i do win but its a struggle. I toss them the odd 500 -1000 gold or do as they ask. My last game i had only about 8 units but built allot of buildings and wonders and improvements with about 7 cities. I did find my happiness and gold jumping all over the place for no particular reason. Strange...

 

[Punchline]

Maritime city states might be the most unbalanced thing in the game. And they stack.

Delicate city planning is basically no longer necessary since you're going to end up with such a huge surplus of food.

-P

 

[ashmizen]

Happiness - everytime your city grows, happiness goes down by 1. Once you finish a happiness building or get a resource, it goes up. Happiness always jumps in all games, cities just grow as a fact.

Gold - this is fairly consistent for me. Not sure why it could swing 100 gold for you, except Golden Ages. It goes down with units (2~20 gold per 2 units), buildings (1-5 gold per building), and roads (1 per tile). With 7 cities building buildings, I suppose it could fall maybe 20 gold if all of them completed a building at the same time, but I don't see how it could swing 100+ gold.

 

[cembandit]

short answer, yes

long answer, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss

 

[aisle5]

In my experience city states are useless. Militaristic ones always give me units I don't want to pay maintenance for, when they declare war on someone they do exactly nothing, just move troops around inside their own territory, and if they are too far away from me to protect them they just get taken over by any aggressive civ that is in the match.

 

[Olleus]

The cost to buy city states should probably scale with eras. In the later game there's almost no reason not to spend every penny you have on them. +4 food in all your cities is so so so so so much more powerful than an extra city or two.

 

[Morthis]

I pretty much always buy as many maritime city states as I can. If the AI more aggressively attempted to outbid your city states they'd probably be a lot more balanced (although culture and especially military are still too weak compared to maritime).

 

[Bibor]

Yes, if:
a) maritime or
c) they give you a resource you don't have or
d) they have strategic resources you really want (iron, oil) or
e) you want to prevent someone else for taking them as an ally or
f) you need their city to mount an attack/invasion

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

Part of why maritime is so much better is because it scales so well with the size of your empire.

 

[lilnev]

Maritime pets are awesome. Also, you should make a pet out of almost anyone with a luxury resource that you can sell. They practically pay for themselves.

 

[Tennyson]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Buying cultural states is awesome if you have a small empire. Military states can help you upgrade your army (if you get a good unit, replace one of your old units, otherwise just gift it to an ally in a strategic position). Easy way to get luxuries, and extra great people if you drill down the patronage tree.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

City states are so good that I actually like playing with no city states.

Now I have a reason to build something other than trade post.

 

[King Jason]

I think someone did the math somewhere and it worked out to about 8 GPT to run a city state allied without Patronage bonuses.

That thinking aside, City-states are absolutely overpowered. The most overpowered thing about them is that they scale with era, and most people here are utilizing slingshots of some kind to reach eras quicker than the A.I.

Not to mention... The A.I. doesn't snatch up States as much as players do, nor do they seem to care or focus on which ones they do. For example, focusing on Maritime city-states (easily the most OP one), you will never have to build a farm. Ever. More specifically, you could settle a city completely surrounded by hills, mine every single one, and still be growing in the positive.

In one game, I had an all jungle science city, and I needed some production to build a wonder in it. There's none to be found on jungle... so what could I do? Well... I pulled all of my citizens off of the tiles and kept them as 1 hammer unemployed citizens. The city was pop 9. I wasn't working any food. It was still growing.

For 8 gpt per city-state. That's worth it.

Run patronage and you get 33% science from all of them, double resources, 50% of the happiness from their luxuries, and random great people that at the very least you can burn on golden ages. Also, since the decay is longer and your gold buys you more... the investment becomes less than 8 gpt.

 

[ignite]

For example, focusing on Maritime city-states (easily the most OP one), you will never have to build a farm. Ever. More specifically, you could settle a city completely surrounded by hills, mine every single one, and still be growing in the positive.

Speaking of which, I went to war with Japan, and of course all my allied city states went to war as well. Japan had previously peacefully surrounded one of my maritime allies. It was quickly conquered. Suddenly 2-3 of my cities are starving ;-/

 

[Morthis]

Maritime pets are awesome. Also, you should make a pet out of almost anyone with a luxury resource that you can sell. They practically pay for themselves.

Unless there's some trick to this, you can't actually trade resources city states provide. You could, of course, sell your own resources and use the CS ones to stay in positive happiness, but I've never been able to trade excess resources from CS.