Game Setup with Less City States

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CharlieM

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Veteran Civ-ver, but only played 3 games of Civ V so far.

I'm working my way up, next playing on King.

I find the large number of city-states annoying because they constantly bicker, ask me to declare war on their enemies, and ask for stuff. It's also confusing trying to keep track of so many.

Wondering about others experience or wisdom with regard to reducing the number of City States (standard map and game) from 16 to maybe 8 or 10.

I'm guessing that, by freeing up more land and giving less options for alliance benefits, this would make the game harder.
 
I don't think it makes the game harder. I always reduce the number of city states. I find them annoying. Not as bad as 1 UPT, but definitely one of the worse Civ5 design decisions. I do keep a few in for the maritime bonus, and I like cultural bonus too. If you go with the default number of city states you don't have enough room to expand, or you get a city state in the middle of your empire which I don't like. I try to keep it under 10. I keep a 5 to 8 in for "flavor", but really they don't add much to the game. I should also mention I always disable diplomatic victory which I don't like.
 
You can right click on the icon to ignore their messages instead of zooming to their city.

As for making the game harder if you have less, it depends. It will mean there is less chance of a runaway AI becoming completely OTT and hoovering them all up due to unlimited cash. On the other hand, a player who has a good economy can basically win the game by buying up a bunch of city states themselves. It's actually a very easy way to win the game on Emperor. Playing a game as France today where I basically own them all on my continent (6-7 or so), so easy to keep them on your side by throwing 500 gold at them every few turns. Obviously as the Greeks it's an auto-win.
 
I would reconsider; City States can be your best friends. If you're missing a crucial resource you can ally yourself with a CS that has that resource and they'll give it to you. Maritime CS (City States) provide valuable food resources that allow you to run more Specialists. Cultural CS provide cultural artifacts that yield more Culture-per-Turn than most World Wonders. Once you work your way through the Patronage Social Policy tree you get a percentage of all of the Science research of your allied CS as welll as being gifted the occasional Great Person.

Should you go to war your allied CS' will also declare on your enemy. That last is non-trivial; in a recent game Harald Bluetooth DoW'd on me and two of my allied CS' attacked him from the south while I fought him in the north. They took two of his cities and kept him from being able to throw all of his forces at me.

You can ignore the requests, particularly ignore those from CS "A" requesting that you go to war against CS "B."
 
I often reduce the number of City-States too, usually because I find they get in the way of peaceful expansion.

For my second-ever game on Emperor, I turned City-States off altogether. It was one of the easiest Emperor games I've ever played.
 
They have a huge impact on the variance of the game, that's for certain. If you're on a high difficulty with an AI or two who have a strong inclination to make CS friends and an economy to support it (Darius and Harun al-Rashid come to mind immediately), they'll buy up every city state they've contacted before you know what happened. There's also the matter of which kinds of city-states spawn, near whom, with what resources, and with what temperaments.

But I very much like the addition. Yeah, the way favor works in vanilla is incredibly boring – just funnel gold into them because by 1000 BC every one of them is just offering the "kill this other city-state" quests – but they're another way of focusing your civ and channeling your resources. And hopefully the change to the favor system along with the addition of 2 new types of city-states in Gods and Kings will make it a more interactive system than "find best city-state, give 1000 gold, find second best city-state, give 1000 gold" ad nauseam. I do also agree that having 2 city-states per civ is too many, and often dial them back to 1:1, give or take a little. Although then you should disable Economic – I mean, "Diplomatic" – victory because nobody will be able to get enough votes behind them to win, and I don't think the AI takes that into account in their strategic planning.
 
I normally reduce # of cities as well: I tend to reduce it to 1 CS per player instead of the default 2 CS per player.

That's still plenty of city states too choose to be allies while it does free up more city spots. (Particularly because CS are often found in bad site locations but with them being unable to be razed, you can't fix it via conquest like you can most other AI founded cities.)

I also like Ring map where CS have already been cut down to 5.

As to the AI: I'm afraid they'll pick Patronage tree even if there are NO city states in the game. Chances are they'd research Globalization even if you turn Diplomatic victory off.
 
City-States are a double-edged sword, fa'sure, but I think their advantages outweigh the negatives. I've been finding them to be incredibly helpful in the early and mid-game stages. Like, when you want to build up that goldstack to upgrade your warriors to swordsmen, or when you want to mess up your opponent's plans by buying off a city-state or two on his flanks.

That's why I had problems in Ring.


Also, turning off Diplomatic victory doesn't stop AI civs from buying off city-states.
 
Thanks, all!

I think I'm going to go with 8 civs / 8 city states and see what happens.
 
yeah the 1:1 ratio is a good ratio, it's about what I run. I just like my empire to be all one color without a city state in the middle. And I never attack them and conquer them, so I'm stuck with them.
 
I reduce them too simply because I find the AI has trouble with too many itself never mind me.. The AI seems to get more intelligent for me the less Citys states there are.. I dont get rid of them all though as they can be fun to manipulate
 
smallfish said:
City-States are a double-edged sword, fa'sure, but I think their advantages outweigh the negatives. I've been finding them to be incredibly helpful in the early and mid-game stages. Like, when you want to build up that goldstack to upgrade your warriors to swordsmen, or when you want to mess up your opponent's plans by buying off a city-state or two on his flanks.

That's why I had problems in Ring.
Click to expand...

On Ring map, you'll want to found a city site on the coast with the inland sea.
And also use the standard build HS to rush PT and use the GS to bulb Astronomy.
If you have left over scouts you can send them across fairly safely (if your the only one in the new era; Barbs don't get Caravels until the second player does), but building a Caravel works better for exploration due to their much better visibility.

You should be able to make first contact to all City states. After you make contact with all five and discover the last natural wonder that was probably in the middle, keep a Caravel handy for the City state requests to deal with barbs that's been to show up soon (for the city states your interested in making allies)
 
joncnunn said:
As to the AI: I'm afraid they'll pick Patronage tree even if there are NO city states in the game. Chances are they'd research Globalization even if you turn Diplomatic victory off.
Click to expand...

They do.
I cannot believe they cannot code them properly so they don't waste policies in that tree with no CS, but they still do...
 
It makes the game easier when you remove city states. There's a little less diplomatic conflict and some of the AI get very powerful with CS bonuses (especially maritime).
 
I normally go with 1/1 City State ratio as well. Keeps things focused.


As for this....

blackcatatonic said:
Alexander is in love with Patronage, even when there are no CSs. It's hilarious.
Click to expand...


...how do you know what Social Policies a rival Civ is taking? All, I can see is Alexander has 2 out of 5 social policies etc. screen?:confused:
 
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