CS influence for gifted units

[alchx]

I'm playing version 3.0.4, so I don't know if this has been changed.

I tried to play without emissaries, completing quests and gifting a lot of units, but I just got tired of spamming the AI with emissaries.

It's worth considering changing the influence when gifting a non-quest unit (usually 8-11 points), because the emissary has 50+ influence. In vanilla, 8-11 points per unit is a good influence, because the usual influence on CSs is 100-150 and we will get about 8-10%. But with the integrated diplomacy mod and scaling of quest rewards, it is often possible to have 200-300, and if desired, 600+ influence. For example, 3 diplomats have 3*110 influence. It would take about 40 military units to achieve the same effect. With 30-40 units, CS could take over half the continent if the AI played the units very carefully. It seems to me that 30-40 units should be valued significantly more than 3 diplomats. In hammers and gold, units are worth about 10 times more.

Or we need to significantly increase the price of diplomatic units in gold and hammers.

The emissary, of course, has to travel on foot instead of teleporting in 3 turns. But, even if the emissary takes 10 turns to get there, then during this time you can send only 3 units and get 24-30 influence if the CS is not at war with anyone. In this case, the emissary will not have any positive effect for the CS - will not give them gold, science or culture, will not increase their combat power, will not protect their territory.

 

[Anarcomu]

Giving units completely bypass distance, barbarian/war threat, and closed border. They should remain low.
I'm not against buffing them based on turn/era, but only slightly. They should never fully replace emissaries. In this case however, I'd also increase the gift cd to 5 turns or something.

 

[MIS]

Additionally, gifting units is more effective when the city-state needs it, e.g. times or war, or when there is a quest for it (and then it gives gold to). IRL Ukraine appreciates units, because they are at war, but Canada probably wouldn't.

 

[alchx]

The gift frequency of 5 turns will make such gifts useless if CSS is fighting with someone. Even with the frequency of giving of 3 turns CSs, it is unable to keep the army, since the territory for retreat and healing of units is very small.

My empire has strong production, good income. I try to create a strong army to allied city-states so that they are a good distracting factor or can protect themselves during my war against their neighbor. But through the mass production of units and giving the city-states it is impossible to compete with the simple spam of AI emissaries. It’s easier for me to buy the same emissaries myself. This will cost much cheaper than the production of units. But I am not interested in sparing the emissaries. For me, this is a mechanic "running on the spot". We are forced to produce emissaries, only in order to neutralize the effect of other AI's emissaries. As a result, several empires suffer from nonsense in order to make one CS an ally. And it turns out inflation of influences on CS - there is no sense in 3 empires to have 600 influence on the same CS. Exactly the same effect will be achieved if everyone has 100 influence, but you do not have to produce 10+ emissaries or 6 diplomats.

 

[alchx]

It is also worth considering the difficulty of generating the Great Diplomat and Emissaries+.

GD increases influence by +180 and reduces others' influence by -180, if I'm not mistaken. That is, in total GD gives us +360 influence over other empires. This does not take into account the factors that someone ceases to be an ally or friend, loses bonuses from CS, loses the promise of protection (and receives a penalty for 19 turns, it seems). The influence of these factors can be estimated at some other value, but it is difficult to calculate.

360 influence - 6-7 emissaries, 4 diplomats.

It is unlikely that it will be possible to send 6-7 emissaries at the same time, due to a lack of paper, but 4 diplomats will most likely be possible.

4 cities simultaneously producing diplomats will spend 2-3 turns. For emissaries, up to 10 turns are possible, since production is worse at that time.

Plus travel time. With diplomats it will take up to 10 turns if you make your way through half the world (3 to produce +7 to travel). With up to 25 emissaries, perhaps (10 to produce +15 to travel with last emissary - bad roads. bad swimming).

GD generation time is significantly higher. At the same time, the production speed and spam of late diplomatic units increase - better production, more income, higher movement speed. But the frequency of obtaining GDs is falling, each new GD requires more specialist points. Despite the fact that the number of generation slots is increasing, it is unlikely that all cities will be able to grow new GDs.

 

[Stalker0]

It is also worth considering the difficulty of generating the Great Diplomat and Emissaries+.

GD increases influence by +180 and reduces others' influence by -180, if I'm not mistaken. That is, in total GD gives us +360 influence over other empires. This does not take into account the factors that someone ceases to be an ally or friend, loses bonuses from CS, loses the promise of protection (and receives a penalty for 19 turns, it seems). The influence of these factors can be estimated at some other value, but it is difficult to calculate.

360 influence - 6-7 emissaries, 4 diplomats.

It is unlikely that it will be possible to send 6-7 emissaries at the same time, due to a lack of paper, but 4 diplomats will most likely be possible.

4 cities simultaneously producing diplomats will spend 2-3 turns. For emissaries, up to 10 turns are possible, since production is worse at that time.

Plus travel time. With diplomats it will take up to 10 turns if you make your way through half the world (3 to produce +7 to travel). With up to 25 emissaries, perhaps (10 to produce +15 to travel with last emissary - bad roads. bad swimming).

GD generation time is significantly higher. At the same time, the production speed and spam of late diplomatic units increase - better production, more income, higher movement speed. But the frequency of obtaining GDs is falling, each new GD requires more specialist points. Despite the fact that the number of generation slots is increasing, it is unlikely that all cities will be able to grow new GDs.

GD also gives a +30 minimum influence, which under most circumstances roughly translates to +1 influence per turn as a ballpark