CS proxy conquest trick I just discovered

[Le Roi Soleil]

Here it goes:

It takes a bit of luck because the following situation will not occur in every game, but it should occur often enough that many players can plan for and take advantage of it.

- Ally a city state that has a neighboring CS, preferably with lux resources different than your ally.

- Wait until the neighbor becomes allied with another Civ. Either let that civ DoW you (best case), or DoW that civ yourself.

...your ally CS and its neighbor will now be at war. March your army over to the neighbor and wreck house, but do not conquer the city. Let your ally take the city.

Your ally will conquer its enemy, and gift you all the resources of the now conquered CS. If you've got Scholasticism, you will also get a bonus from the now higher pop of your ally. You don't get the CS bonuses from the puppet state, but you do get the resources, and without the diplo hit of actually conquering the CS yourself.

Not bad, eh? And not hard to pull off.

 

[Noatz]

Sounds like a lot of effort to avoid paying 500 gold :/

 

[JeanBaptiste]

Sounds like a lot of effort to avoid paying 500 gold :/

Agree on that note. However, it is definitely a valid thing to do if the situation "naturally" occurs. Letting your ally CS take over another CS that you are at war with is always better than taking that severe neg dip point you get from conquering and puppet it.

I also try to as much as possible use the CS's to take the AI's cities. Especially when it borders another AI that you don't want to upset (covet land, build to many cities etc.) When in industrial era and with artillery it is fairly easy to trim down an area and city for your ally CS to come in and take it.

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

Sounds like a lot of effort to avoid paying 500 gold :/

I take it you've always got the funds to ally every CS you come across? I dunno what level you play at, but at the higher levels you're not going to have that many CS allies unless your entire strategy revolves around it, and even then it is difficult to have many allies (while also signing RAs, maintaining and upgrading units, etc.) because the AI gets huge economic bonuses.

The broader point here, which JB makes well, is that CSs are very useful cat's paws for local military conquest without diplomatic penalty. They can be used to take down small bordering AI cities, though in my experience they are fairly inept at taking strong cities and simply raze the cities they do take, so there is no great gain for the player. If used to take down neighboring CSs, they of course keep the cities because CSs cannot be razed, and the annexed resources are transferred to the player. It can be a nice resource boon at the higher levels where every gold counts.

Planning for such an eventuality is easy, as CSs routinely neighbor one another, and the military effort required to wear down a CS's defenses is minor. It's not an "I win" strategy by any means, but rather a nice trick that one can pull when the opportunity presents itself, which is pretty often.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I never knew that CS could capture cities! This is great info. But how do you get the CS to send its soldiers and conquer the city? I've reduced a city to 1HP (because I thought my swordsman would finish it off, but he got lucky and still had 1HP) with an allied CS pikeman immediately next to the city and he didn't attack. He actually retreated so I had to take the city with my swordsman. How do you encourage the CS to actually attack/take the city?

 

[The Pilgrim]

I never knew that CS could capture cities! This is great info. But how do you get the CS to send its soldiers and conquer the city? I've reduced a city to 1HP (because I thought my swordsman would finish it off, but he got lucky and still had 1HP) with an allied CS pikeman immediately next to the city and he didn't attack. He actually retreated so I had to take the city with my swordsman. How do you encourage the CS to actually attack/take the city?

You can try to block the pike with your own units to prevent retreating and force it to attack. However this still doesn't guarantee it's gonna happen. AI and CS's in particular is really bad at taking cities. Once I had exactly the same situation and CS's unit fortified to heal with 8 or so HP instead of moving into defenseless enemy city. On the other hand, sometimes they're doing relatively well and manage to take several cities during the course of the game. Go figure.

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

How do you encourage the CS to actually attack/take the city?

I'm not sure there is any active way to encourage them to attack, just as you can't tell them to move their soldiers out of the way so that your workers can complete a road or whatnot. They simply do as they please, but are generally willing to aggressively attack and conquer any enemy cities that they can see (meaning within one hex of their borders or farther if they have moved units out a bit from their borders). Whether they will attack and conquer is somewhat hit and miss, but I find them generally willing to strike the killing blow if I have cleared out resistance beforehand.

 

[Dai]

My sort of loose observations suggest that City States aren't really that different than regular civs in terms of what makes them more likely to send things outside their borders to attack. In general, if they've got the superior force built up, then they'll attack neighbors they're at war with; otherwise they won't. The one exception is that they generally won't attack something you're attacking, even if they have lots of forces available to do so. Presumably there's some kind of "don't get in the player's way when he's trying to conduct warfare" check in there that keeps them from worming their guys in when you're laying siege to an enemy city, even if it's quite nearby. Most cases of a CS taking as city that I've seen occur when the CS is sort of at the far end of the civ you're attacking, rather than when the two of you are on the same front.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Wow, really? I have yet to see a CS successfully capture a city at all... let alone do it on their own. Is this more common on the higher levels of play?

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

Wow, really? I have yet to see a CS successfully capture a city at all... let alone do it on their own. Is this more common on the higher levels of play?

I couldn't honestly tell you as I haven't played below emperor but once (I think my first CiV game was on prince), but I see it on immortal with a fair degree of regularity, moreso when I soften targets for my allies. Dai is right that you usually have to back off of the target after wearing it down...then your ally will often (but not always) move in and take it some rounds later.

It also helps to have a tech lead when pulling this strategy, as CSs get techs to the level of the leader. The stronger the melee units you have unlocked, the more likely your CS friends are to take an enemy cities (obviously enemy CSs get these techs as well, so you have to wear them down).

 

[Dai]

Wow, really? I have yet to see a CS successfully capture a city at all... let alone do it on their own. Is this more common on the higher levels of play?

I wouldn't call it common, per se. I play on immortal (or emperor if I'm trying something weird and need more breathing room), and it happens on average far less than once a game, although it varies a lot with the level of conflict over the course of the game. On rare occasions a city state will really go nuts and take out a few enemy cities, but I've seen that maybe twice ever. (Both, if I recall correctly, in situations where the CS had a few tech levels on the target and the target was getting pounded from elsewhere.)

 

[Drottocoitus]

Wow, really? I have yet to see a CS successfully capture a city at all... let alone do it on their own. Is this more common on the higher levels of play?

I was playing a small quick deity game and I noticed my arch enemy Alexander appear (he is a constant pain when I play deity.) I was going to build up an economic empire for a diplomatic victory, something with Alexander is a pain to go against since his CS bonus is so strong.

Anyways I was Spain and early I found a bunch of NW and was able to get 3 allied CS. Alexander attacked me pretty early on and one of the CS conquered him while I was fighting his army. I couldn't believe it and I went on to win the game.

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

I wouldn't call it common, per se. I play on immortal (or emperor if I'm trying something weird and need more breathing room), and it happens on average far less than once a game, although it varies a lot with the level of conflict over the course of the game.

I'm guessing you are a peacemonger, because I see it at least once per game at immortal, sometimes up to 3-4 times from multiple CSs. I'm more or less a "wide warmonger" style player (though sometimes I like to play around with culture) and tend to ally CSs as buffers on the borders of my empire, so my CS allies spend a lot of time fighting.

One thing that helps is to never offer peace to CSs who have declared war on you through their allegiance with another civ, even if you end up at peace with that civ. You don't take any diplomatic hit for continuing those wars, and don't take a hit when your CS allies conquer some , either.

 

[Rpger29]

This happens more for me if I'm able to use air power to soften up the target city. The CS does seem to need to be able to see the culture border of the target city in order to attack it. It's nice if they're also in a perma-war with the AI in question. You can keep feeding them units even while you're at "peace" with the AI.