CS behaviors are about the same don't you think?

[prince_caspian]

So far the types of CS personalities are: Friendly, Neutral, Irrational, Hostile.

Aside from Friendly, the other 3 don't really seem that different. Sometimes they ask for the same stuff as Friendly, and they also spawn the useless kill quest. About the latter Hostile is said to spawn them more often but has anyone here done it enough to find out if it's really true?

So IMO it seems Neutral is not really neutral in the truest sense, and Irrational is not really helmed by madmen after all. Probably G&K will overhaul this.

 

[NotSure]

I think Irrational is pretty similar to Hostile. Hostile just means they don't like anyone, which apparently includes their ally ("What business do you have here?"...Um, to give you another bucket of gold?). Both Irrational and Hostile CS crank out the CS conquer quests, but you don't loose influence as fast with Irrational CS and they don't greet you like a jerk when you try to give them gold or guarantee their protection.

Neutral CS are pretty similar to Friendly CS, but the Friendly CS will never give you the CS conquer quests. Friendly CS also seem extraordinarily easy to keep because they always give the easiest quests like "connect ___ to your trade network" (sometimes even their own unimproved resource), "build a trade route" or "create a Great ___."

I agree that there aren't great distinctions and eventually every CS that isn't Friendly wants another CS destroyed. The changes promised in G&K sound great. I can't wait to see the new quests and bully some gold out of a CS that Alex allies from halfway around the world.

 

[PhilBowles]

There are differences in military behaviour, I think. In my current game, Monaco took Taghaza and held it for a while. It was only when a sudden Dublin/Siam alliance dragged Dublin (within my borders, and spamming riflemen) into the war, with the resultant loss of Tomboctou to the perfidious Irish, that I remembered CSes usually raze captured cities; Tomboctou is now burning, while Monaco made no effort to raze Taghaza.

Hmm, checking the CS screens both have neutral personalities - so this seems to be a difference between militaristic and other states rather than a CS personality trait.

 

[Ajuga]

Capital cities and City State cities can not be razed at all, so that's why.

 

[PhilBowles]

Capital cities and City State cities can not be razed at all, so that's why.

The city captured by Monaco was Taghaza, the Songhai fourth city - thinking on it, it may actually be the first time I've seen a CS capture and keep a city that was neither a capital nor a former CS.

EDIT: Militaristic Tyre captured the poor city next, and burned it to the ground.

 

[NotSure]

I don't know what causes some city states to build a huge military and others to build nothing. If I had to guess I'd say it just boils down to available production. I've noticed that it's always a different one and their personality and flavor don't seem to matter. The city states that do get a large military usually have productive land.

 

[smallfish]

I don't know what causes some city states to build a huge military and others to build nothing. If I had to guess I'd say it just boils down to available production. I've noticed that it's always a different one and their personality and flavor don't seem to matter. The city states that do get a large military usually have productive land.

I suspect they get military units from one or two of the major civs. That's how hostile faraway-on-another-continent runaways love to threaten me - with their CS proxies.

 

[prince_caspian]

If it makes a point, usually - not always - those CS that have a bloated military are miliaristic CS. I'm not just theorizing, it's an observation

Now I'm putting this across because CS personalities (now I'm getting the term right) are just not differentiated enough. If the game shows different personalities it should also make it that each one is special enough to be noticeable on its own. Now only Friendly and maybe Hostile (due to the more rapid drop) are actually something unique, but what can we say about Neutral or Irrational?

Neutral CS are supposed to mind their own business - they still ask for favors attributed to Friendly, fine, but after a while it gets back to kill that sh&t over there again. So boringly predictable. It should be that Neutral CS don't even ask for anything at all, sort of a hermit state so the only way to gain is by throwing in gold which makes it harder to keep up over time.

And Irrational, those supposed random requests don't seem quite random. Maybe G&K will fix it I don't know. Let's suppose that right now, if something should seem pretty random it'll be a request to kill NOT a neighbor CS, but one that would be half the globe away. That would be random - and irrational. Or when just any CS is killed, you get with Irrational even though it's never made the kill request. Or Friendly neighbor gets a road done - he's jealous and drops. That would be most LOL and confirms that its leader is a madman.

 

[gozpel]

Once I played this game, where I had allied the cultured CS of Warzaw who where sitting next to Greece, but still far away from me. Of course Alex sooks and soon denounces me for taking his CS away. I actually grabbed a couple more too, so he was really unhappy.

As time goes by I get bigger and better and from "nowhere", Alex declares war on me. His units must've walked since the ancient era and I mashed them with cavs and rifles.

I did take a look at the CS when they asked for units and they where in a pretty bad shape, so I gifted them 4 rifles and 3 cavs. It took like 3 turns until they appeared on the CS map and within 2 turns they smacked Knossos, and kept it. A very nice city, which I would've kept myself.

By this time, I had a few cavs ready for Athens and wounded it to red. Who comes for for the taking? Warzaw, of course and 2 cavs took the city.

So here I had a city state that had 3 cities and 4-5 extra luxes.

This was before the newest patches though, but I'm inclined to figure out a way to do it again.

As for Neutral/Irrational CS, they often give you "find that wonder or civ-quest too", so they're not that bad. Even hostile CS is good enough for me, what's a few gold after all?