Free Cities should become City States (Civ 6 Suggestion)

[King Phaedron]

(Wasn't sure to put this here or in Civ Ideas and Suggestions or both)

When a Free City has remained a Free City for at least 15 turns (depending on game speed) WITHOUT any decrease in loyalty from nearby cities, it should become a City State.

Reasoning:

1) Because while Free Cities are at war with everyone, the AI cannot target them specifically to declare war. (I've never seen a game where the AI captures a free city by force. The AI should see the opportunity to get a free city for what it's worth, like it does with City States in the early game.)
2) Constant war with a Free City lets you exploit the XP system to maximize promotions (And even with the free city at 0 health, and AI units nearby, they STILL refuse to capture it!) And it's annoying. The Exploit can be arranged easily, just give an AI a city near many of yours, and it will rebel from loyalty.
3) Because it makes sense. Why would they choose to stay at war with everyone indefinitely?

FREE CITY that become CITY STATE Envoy Bonuses:

1 Envoy: +10% Great Person points in the Capital
3 Envoys: +1 Food in All Cities
6 Envoys: +10% Great Person points in all Cities

Ideas for SUZERAIN bonuses (Free Cities that become City States do NOT grant +1 Diplomatic Favor)

First: Cities founded on Desert, Tundra, or Snow Tiles get +3 Food and cannot Starve (Helps growth if you have a really bad city in the middle of nowhere for some reason, like to obtain oil.)

Second: Razing a City to causes it's survivors to become a Settler. (Some Restrictions apply to prevent mass exploit, and increases the cost of Settlers as usual)

Third: All Governors establish in 2 turns.

*Feel free to add more suggestions

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

The free cities already have a mechnism to several of your points:
1) Yes the IA is not always good at taking the free cities, that is a fact.... BUT, see 3)
2) Free cities are just like barbarians, they give 1xp for unit with 1+ promotion. There is no problem of farming them.
3) They won't stay at war, since they will soon enough flip to the most influence civ in its radius. That is also the reason why it flipped in the first place.

As for the true reason for 1): if the AI take the free city, you can see 3 cases:
- If its the original owner of the free city: it will soon reflip, since conquering it reduce population, and it didn't have already enough pressure to begin with. So net gain: not that much...
- If it is the most dominant civ around: again, it's better to just wait for the flip, so that it doesn't lose population. Just make sure the free units don't do damage home, and all is good.
- If the IA is neither the original owner nor the most influent: in some rare case a third civ has border close to the free city, and has enough pressure available. Then it should try to get the city by force. Else it is a city that will soon reflip, zero gain (or a slight loss for the most dominant civ...).

By the way, this is kind of the decision tree player themselves are using. And taking a flipped city is kind of an heavy investment in troops, so few people/AI are willing to cross half the map to get them, unless they are already planning to get a few cities around it already.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas and Suggestion forum.

 

[White Spider 8]

Talked about a very similar idea in the thread “Barbarian City-States.”

I like that, after so long as a Free City they develop into a Barb-State if not brought into a Civilization for a while. I’m playing a game right now where another Civ settled in a bad spot, lost the City and it’s out of the way so no one has taken it.

I think with that it would be cool if it had a chance to become a normal City-State, or a Barb-State.

Get a notification, “The people of “X-State” have been independent for so long it seems they’ve developed their own unique culture. -

a. Fortunately they seem to be friendly. Becoming friends with them could prove to be valuable.

b. It seems they are not friendly, we may want to keep a close eye on them.”

 

[acluewithout]

This sort of thread just comes up again and again, doesn’t it?

I think the current mechanics around barbs, free cities and city states are okay, but whereas city states have got better and better over various new mechanics and patches, barbs and free cities are still pretty underdeveloped even if they are still serviceable.

If FXS were going to do something, I’d suggest maybe keeping Science, Culture, Mercantile and Faith City States, but merging Industrial and Military City States, Free Cities and Barbs into “Independent” Cities. These would maybe have different diplomatic options than “normal” city states and you could have positive or negative relations. Negative relations, and the city also spawns barb camps and barbs and is generally a pain in the backside. Positive relations and you get boosts to trade, growth , production and things.

Even if FXS didn’t want to go that far, barbs could be made way more interesting just by combining barb camps and goody huts and maybe giving barbs some more unique units. I’d also love to see their spawning be based on a bit more than just visibility, eg maybe how much of a continent is settled, overall happiness / loyalty. That sort of stuff.

 

[King Phaedron]

I meant to do some editing with this. My ideas were incomplete, but I ran out of time.

The Suzerain bonus with Governors establish sooner was meant to have a small bonus for each type of Governor. Like +2 faith, +2 gold, +2 production, Amani acting as 3 envoys instead of two.

And the sentiment that New City States should not provide Diplomacy is probably misplaced as well, but I was thinking, that they aren't really intended to be good. I was even thinking maybe you could have your envoys refunded. There would have to be some difference, because they can't be a diplomatic penalty if a Civilization recaptures a city that was originally theirs, and you can't liberate Neutral cities to become City States, probably only to the original owner.

So those were my thoughts.

Also, the "Exploit" of Neutral Cities isn't really about building up XP. I forget to even mention the real thing, which was making sure the city has an improved tile that's pillaged, so that the AI will constantly produce free builders for you to capture.
Because the Neutral City counts as a separate player, for them to make builders is dirt cheap, and they will produce every couple turns.

 

[Taa]

This is a good idea. There is a mod that do something similar but it don't work for me.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1405531706&searchtext=