Expanding City State Empire - ramifications question

[Brichals]

Dear civ fanatics

I have been a lurker here for years but never really posted. I was badly hooked on 3 and enjoyed 4 also. Now I've been getting into Civ5 finding it really fun and I find myself in a tense spot so please I have a question and a fun observation.

I am closing in on a science victory as Babylon on large King continents map. Siam is starting to overpower my continent as World Wars have erupted everywhere in the modern era. Now I plan to fight back and restore Songhai, Inca and Polynesian lands (I dont have the happiness to keep those cities). This will be no problem with my tech lead. However Siam has now 8 city states and loads of gold. I am about to finish United Nations and obviously dont want to lose on diplomacy. (10 votes needed)

Now the question, Vienna (Siam ally) took a city off of Polynesia. It's a 2 city state now! Does that give Siam 2 votes? I plan to DOW Siam and wipe out Vienna, cutting his votes and hopefully allying me with Lhasa (Siam ally but hate Vienna). Do I need to destroy both of Viennas cities? What if i take vienna? Does the other (former Polynesian) city become a city state of its own?

Any advice and tips would be welcome as I really want to win on King. It would be my first one (except I did a few scenarios on King by getting lucky).

 

[Keejus]

If you DoW Siam, all of its CS allies will DoW you, so if you want them as allies, you need to bribe them to your side first. However, if you have them on your side, Siam cannot bribe them back if you're at war and they stay as your allies.

If you restore an eliminated civilization, they'll return as they were (probably way behind in technology), but their borders will be permanently open to you, and you'll get their UN vote.

Vienna is still only a single city state, and gets one vote.

I'd reccommend holding off on finishing the UN until you're sure you get more votes than Siam.

 

[chazzycat]

Just don't build the UN if you're not going for diplo victory. There's no real reason to build it and hasten the vote if you're not ready to win that way. If you are really far ahead in tech you should be able to blast off your spaceship before Siam builds it, and win the game safely.

Build up some gold in this late stage just in case. If Siam does manage to build the UN, use your gold to buy as many allies as possible, then declare war on Siam. Bribe others to declare war as well if possible. You can't buy influence with city states you are at war with, hence this is very effective at preventing the AI from winning this way (assuming you are ready to defend yourself).

Direct assaults on their city states work as well, but honestly most of the time that's unnecessary.

 

[Brichals]

Thanks excellent advice guys, I always lose to diplo so now you gave me tips around it.
Siam has currently 9/10 votes and is at war with any other CSs he can effectively buy, (or will be when I DoW him) so I might not need to take any CSs myself. I'm quite sure they are a few techs away from UN because they are going down the bottom branch of the tree (nukes ouch). I will stop making UN but keep a few turns on it if I feel I need to finish it to stop somebody getting 2 votes.