wobuffet
Barbarian
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2011
- Messages
- 1,248
I've been working out an idea for adding a sense of historical continuity to City-State relations. Here's what I came up with; let me know what you think.
Entering into diplomatic relations with any given City-State requires a one-time gift of any one of the following:
Influence (i.e., Friend status, assuming you started at 0 Influence) immediately, up to a max of 60. Obviously, a CS will not accept luxuries it already has access to, whether directly or through another Civ.
The first Civ to give an initial gift to any CS gets a 50% discount (i.e., only has to pay 250
; 150
+ 15 turns of a lux; or 50
+ 15 turns of 2 luxes).
PER-TURN GIFT LEVELS:
After the initial gift,
Influence is gained through per-turn gifts, which come in the following tiers:
If, for example, you gifted Silver, Ivory, and Pearls to a CS, you would achieve the Medium gift level and receive a "refund" of 5
per turn (= 7*3 - 16). Every time you decided to ally with a CS and coughed up the initial gift, you'd immediately have a strategic decision to make: rush ahead at the High gift level to get Allied benefits 5 turns earlier, or save money and chug along at the Medium gift level.
This would all give CS relations a sense of history. For example, getting to Allied status would normally take at least 10 turns (of High gifts after the initial gift). Maintaining good relations with CSs would be relatively cheap (say, 8
/turn to stay at 30 or 60
Influence, or presumably less with SPs from the Patronage tree) – unless a bidding war arose between Civs, of course, in which case the Gold and Influence would pour.
Under this system, you would be notified if someone switched to a higher gift level than you (e.g., tries to overtake you as the Ally). In order to prevent annoying games of "tag," maybe gift levels could be locked in for a minimum of 10 turns; cancelling before then would carry a -10 Influence penalty.
It would also be possible to, say, pay 320 gold at once to trickle into a CS at 32 gold/turn over the next 10 turns in order to prevent a scenario like "Crap, I bought a Pikeman by accident and now my treasury's empty and I'm disbanding units because I forgot that I committed to gifting up Cape Town for 10 turns."
OTHER DETAILS:
When a Civ declares war, any Allied CSs would take a turn to join in (in order to give other Civs a chance to react). However, a CS will not declare war on any Civ at same/higher gift level (so you can prevent an inconveniently placed CS from attacking you for up to possibly 24 gold/turn). Being at war with a CS prevents you from giving any gifts, and Influence would drop at a base rate of -3
Influence per turn instead of the standard -2, compared to the current system where you instantly drop to -60 Influence. So if you crushed your CS rival militarily or made peace other way in just a few turns, you wouldn't suffer the full drop to -60 Influence. Dropping to 0 Influence or below, whether for war or any other reason, however, would require you to give the initial gift again afterwards to a build a Friendship/Alliance.
The "quests" could remain in place (at least the Barbarian-related, Natural Wonder, and "find a certain empire" ones), though some might have to be reworked to provide gold credit towards gift levels instead of straight instant
Influence boosts. (I'd be pretty pissed if I permanently lost a CS's allied status over some AI fulfilling a silly "Make a Great Merchant!" quest.)
Here's a hypothetical reworking of the Patronage tree and CS-related UAs to work with this system:
With a continuous Influence system like this it'd be impossible to snatch up 8 City-States in order to achieve a blitz Diplomatic victory just before the UN elections. If (and it's a big if) AI Civs could be coached to seize good CS Alliance opportunities and respond to Diplomatic victory threats, it's possible I actually wouldn't mind losing to a Diplomatic victory and/or I wouldn't consider winning by Diplomatic victory "cheap" if I did it myself under this system.
Anyway, please discuss and let me know what you think.
Summary:
- To be Friends with a CS requires an initial gift of 500
.
- Staying at the same
Influence level (such as 30, to stay Friends) costs a certain era-dependent amount of
per turn (say, 8
/turn during the Renaissance Era). Otherwise,
Influence decays (as it does now).
- Increasing
Influence (to become Allies, for example) requires larger per-turn gifts (16 or 32
/turn during the Renaissance Era).
- Luxury goods can also be used to pay for gifts at the rate of 7
per turn each.
INITIAL GIFTS:- To be Friends with a CS requires an initial gift of 500

- Staying at the same




- Increasing


- Luxury goods can also be used to pay for gifts at the rate of 7

Entering into diplomatic relations with any given City-State requires a one-time gift of any one of the following:
- 500
;
- 300
and 1 luxury good for 30 turns; or
- 100
and 2 luxury goods for 30 turns.
This initial gift gets you +30 
- 300

- 100


The first Civ to give an initial gift to any CS gets a 50% discount (i.e., only has to pay 250



PER-TURN GIFT LEVELS:
After the initial gift,

No gift : 0
per turn = -2
Influence per turn
....Low : x
per turn = +0
Influence per turn
.Medium: 2x
per turn = +2
Influence per turn
...High: 4x
per turn = +3
Influence per turn
with x (the low cost) depending on your technological era as follows (thanks to Krikkitone for the suggestion!):
lo med .hi .Era(s)
.4 ..8 .16 .Ancient, Classical
.6 .12 .24 .Medieval
.8 .16 .32 .Renaissance
10 .20 .40 .Industrial
12 .24 .48 .Modern, Future
(Luxury goods are worth 7
per turn each in credit towards any gift level.)


....Low : x


.Medium: 2x


...High: 4x


with x (the low cost) depending on your technological era as follows (thanks to Krikkitone for the suggestion!):
lo med .hi .Era(s)
.4 ..8 .16 .Ancient, Classical
.6 .12 .24 .Medieval
.8 .16 .32 .Renaissance
10 .20 .40 .Industrial
12 .24 .48 .Modern, Future
(Luxury goods are worth 7

If, for example, you gifted Silver, Ivory, and Pearls to a CS, you would achieve the Medium gift level and receive a "refund" of 5

This would all give CS relations a sense of history. For example, getting to Allied status would normally take at least 10 turns (of High gifts after the initial gift). Maintaining good relations with CSs would be relatively cheap (say, 8


Under this system, you would be notified if someone switched to a higher gift level than you (e.g., tries to overtake you as the Ally). In order to prevent annoying games of "tag," maybe gift levels could be locked in for a minimum of 10 turns; cancelling before then would carry a -10 Influence penalty.
It would also be possible to, say, pay 320 gold at once to trickle into a CS at 32 gold/turn over the next 10 turns in order to prevent a scenario like "Crap, I bought a Pikeman by accident and now my treasury's empty and I'm disbanding units because I forgot that I committed to gifting up Cape Town for 10 turns."
OTHER DETAILS:
When a Civ declares war, any Allied CSs would take a turn to join in (in order to give other Civs a chance to react). However, a CS will not declare war on any Civ at same/higher gift level (so you can prevent an inconveniently placed CS from attacking you for up to possibly 24 gold/turn). Being at war with a CS prevents you from giving any gifts, and Influence would drop at a base rate of -3

The "quests" could remain in place (at least the Barbarian-related, Natural Wonder, and "find a certain empire" ones), though some might have to be reworked to provide gold credit towards gift levels instead of straight instant

Here's a hypothetical reworking of the Patronage tree and CS-related UAs to work with this system:
Opener: Initial Gifts give +40 Influence instead of +30 (was Influence decays 25% slower)
Philanthropy: 25% off all per-turn gift levels (+25% Influence from Gold)
Aesthetics: Influence decays/recovers towards 15 Influence instead of towards 0 (minimum 20 Influence level with all City-States)
Scholasticism: luxury goods gifted to CSs worth +10 Gold/turn instead of +7 (+25% Science bonus from CSs)
Cultural Diplomacy: CS-gifted resources doubled (CS-gifted resources doubled, +50% Happiness from luxes)
Educated Elite: +67% Happiness from CS-gifted luxuries (occasional Great People)
Finisher: +25% per-turn gift level cost for all other players (other players' Influence drops 33% faster)
and, just for good measure,
Greece's UA: 75% off all Initial Gifts and free innate +2 Gold/turn credit towards every CS (Influence decays at half speed, recovers at double speed)
Siam's UA: as is but buff bonus to +67%, plus military units gifted 67% more frequently (+50% CS yields for food and culture)
Philanthropy: 25% off all per-turn gift levels (+25% Influence from Gold)
Aesthetics: Influence decays/recovers towards 15 Influence instead of towards 0 (minimum 20 Influence level with all City-States)
Scholasticism: luxury goods gifted to CSs worth +10 Gold/turn instead of +7 (+25% Science bonus from CSs)
Cultural Diplomacy: CS-gifted resources doubled (CS-gifted resources doubled, +50% Happiness from luxes)
Educated Elite: +67% Happiness from CS-gifted luxuries (occasional Great People)
Finisher: +25% per-turn gift level cost for all other players (other players' Influence drops 33% faster)
and, just for good measure,
Greece's UA: 75% off all Initial Gifts and free innate +2 Gold/turn credit towards every CS (Influence decays at half speed, recovers at double speed)
Siam's UA: as is but buff bonus to +67%, plus military units gifted 67% more frequently (+50% CS yields for food and culture)
With a continuous Influence system like this it'd be impossible to snatch up 8 City-States in order to achieve a blitz Diplomatic victory just before the UN elections. If (and it's a big if) AI Civs could be coached to seize good CS Alliance opportunities and respond to Diplomatic victory threats, it's possible I actually wouldn't mind losing to a Diplomatic victory and/or I wouldn't consider winning by Diplomatic victory "cheap" if I did it myself under this system.
Anyway, please discuss and let me know what you think.