Don't Attack City-States and Guard Your Annexed Cities Well

[Bleser]

I'm posting my findings/experiences in these two areas to try and help others avoid my mistakes.

In my first game (which I'm still playing... stupid job!), I found my military got fairly bored and City-States had resources I wanted... so I attacked them. Actually I attacked and conquered four of them. Just before attacking the fourth, every civ came to me and started calling me "bloodthirsty" and that they "can't share this world with me anymore", etc. Then, after the fourth was conquered, they ALL declared war on me - world vs. me! So be careful and become friends with them - don't just go around annexing them.

Secondly, I discovered a major penalty about losing a previously-annexed city to another civ. Japan's northern army was impossible to fend off (my forces were all in the south and doing well) and did conquer one of my prior-annexed cities (from an old war with a now non-existent civ, Siam) - which proved to be very costly. After I re-conquered it, every building now no longer existed (including the courthouse) and the population dropped from 6 to 1. The courthouse took 40 turns to build, and now I have to build it all over again, suffering major unhappiness all over again. This was tolerable in Civ IV since building was much faster and rush-building via whipping was an option, but now it is very costly.

So, in summary:

1. Don't attack city-states unless doing so to win favor with another city-state. If you do attack them, be wary of seriously hurting relations with all other civs.

2. If you annex a city, then lose that city to a foe, and then finally re-capture it again, all improvements are lost and the population is nearly eliminated. This is true even if the original civ you conquered it from no longer exists!

 

[Trickster7135]

1. Don't attack city-states unless doing so to win favor with another city-state. If you do attack them, be wary of seriously hurting relations with all other civs.

2. If you annex a city, then lose that city to a foe, and then finally re-capture it again, all improvements are lost and the population is nearly eliminated. This is true even if the original civ you conquered it from no longer exists!

1. Personally, I'd advise against attacking them at all. If you attack too many, you'll become permanently at-war with every city-state. Even a warmonger would enjoy the benefits city-states provide anyways. They're there to be your friends.

2. That happens even if they conquer one of your own cities. All cultural and military buildings are automatically destroyed, all other buildings have a 66% to survive. Wonders always change hands though.

 

[Gath]

I'm finding if you're willing to invest the money into them, you can get way more out of city states peacefully than you can militarily.

 

[mcmpan]

If you go to war early try conquering another civ instead of city states. Difficulty is almost the same. It's far better to make friends with city-state than conqeuring them.

Sometimes a city state wants some other city state to be conquered. What about this? Should you go for it?

 

[mcmpan]

[double post, sorry]

 

[lymond]

I've had no issues conquering 2 city-states in my game. It depends maybe on how isolated you are. Japan got peeved at me but I wiped them out anyway. I only attacked them as quests and I find the Militaristic city states to be the least useful. The units they give you are very random and one allied Military city state kept building me Scouts. I know you can stop them building units but it still seems pointless to dump money in them. My assumptions is that if you are actually at war with someone that these Mil city states will provide you better units and "at peace" they will build you scouts.

I now realize why I see certain AIs at war with all these city-states. pretty funny.

 

[bhavv]

If I find a friendly cultural city state, it becomes my BFF.

I save my gold up until I have patronage and +25% influence from gold gifts unlocked, and save up 1000 gold in the meantime to dump into them.

Research agreements absolutely suck for the money, going with Patronage, Philanthropy + Scholasticism and then dumping all your money into Friendly or Neutral City States gets you much more benefit than taking out rubbish research pacts with the AI.

 

[BenRabstar]

If you go to war early try conquering another civ instead of city states. Difficulty is almost the same. It's far better to make friends with city-state than conqeuring them.

Sometimes a city state wants some other city state to be conquered. What about this? Should you go for it?

If the city is nice and you are not willing to be friend with that state as well, why not? But that also depends on their relationship to other civs. Be aware of conquering a civs friend! ;-)

 

[bhavv]

Conquering city states isnt worth it because those requests are usually from hostile one with which influence degrades a lot faster. Normally, the one they ask you to capture is is a friendly or neutral one, and you want to keep those ones as allies as they have slower influence loss.

 

[ZapRowsdower]

Conquering city states isnt worth it because those requests are usually from hostile one with which influence degrades a lot faster. Normally, the one they ask you to capture is is a friendly or neutral one, and you want to keep those ones as allies as they have slower influence loss.

I've seen non-hostile ones ask for other city states to be conquered. Usually it's some mutual spat, X wants Y dead and Y wants X dead, so you have to choose sides.

In a recent game, I killed 2 or 3 city states at the request of others. At that point, several city states that I had no prior relationship with had me at "permanent war" status. But there were still enough cooperative or neutral ones around that this wasn't such a limitation.

I have to say, the city state addition is great. In all previous civ games, I never had any incentive to leave someone alive. It's kinda fun to have AI buddies that you can get a tangible benefit from who won't just betray you. Plus it gives you mini-quests during the long arc of a full game to add flavor.