Germany Changes Poll

[Akbarthegreat]

Some general thoughts on Germany:

I have two somewhat distinct images of Germany in my head.

1. The pre-17th century Germanic princely states - embodied by the Hanseatic league for example
2. The post 1850s super efficient production/war heavy Germany - embodied by the Panzer

The flavour from Germany as a civ I get in VP is primarily the former, and my primary concern is that this change will tilt the balance towards #1 even more by removing the panzer. Civ4 had Germany with UU Panzer and UB Assembly plant (a factory with free engineer basically). RFC DoC gives Germany an upgrade related bonus (-50% upgrade cost? Or something along those lines). I think bonuses on unit upgrade fit Germany quite well as part of the efficiency/war theme.

Re: the UA proposal

The current Germany UA is very bland and awkward, and definitely needs to be change. But I think the biggest flaw with the suggested UA is that people will not use it in the expected 'Realpolitik' way.

I really don't think I will be strategically weighing votes every single time to try and make each proposal I vote for win. Instead most times I would just put one vote in the other two proposals (50% or better chance on both) and concentrate the rest of my votes into a single proposal. This is for two reasons: Rarely do I have enough votes to actually make a difference on multiple proposals, and most times there is at least on proposal on which I urgently need as many votes as possible (e.g. if I am trying to pass world religion, if an enemy is trying to sanction me or take sphere of influence over an ally) - in such a situation I would not risk getting sanctioned or losing an ally just to get a few yields. Rather than making players pragmatically choose which proposal is likely to win and then push it over the edge, it is more likely to encourage players to bandwagon on winning proposals with just one vote. This doesn't really seem like Realpolitik style play.

Re: the UU proposal

I don't really like lategame UUs, but I am attached to the Panzer thanks to many hundreds of hours on Company of Heroes
More seriously, as mentioned above it seems like the Panzer is the only unique that is relating Germany to theme #2 mentioned above. If you are moving the Panzer away I would really like it if the UA was then based on theme #2.

 

[pineappledan]

I have two somewhat distinct images of Germany in my head.

1. The pre-17th century Germanic princely states - embodied by the Hanseatic league for example
2. The post 1850s super efficient production/war heavy Germany - embodied by the Panzer

I like how you have framed this. I agree this is the sticking point of this proposal. The UB is firmly in camp 1. the Panzer is firmly in camp 2, and Bismarck as a choice of leader -- with a UA that ties itself firmly to his style of leadership -- is set firmly in the transition from 1 to 2

Re: the UU proposal

I don't really like lategame UUs, but I am attached to the Panzer thanks to many hundreds of hours on Company of Heroes
More seriously, as mentioned above it seems like the Panzer is the only unique that is relating Germany to theme #2 mentioned above. If you are moving the Panzer away I would really like it if the UA was then based on theme #1.

I sympathize with the desire for either a symmetry or a core focus for what is stressed about Germany. This is why I tried to further develop @Gizmoman's suggestion of using a Jaeger as the UU, because that also inhabits that transition point between Germany 1 and Germany 2. Ultimately, the resources and permissions for a Landsknecht were easier to secure (they're literally already in the game), and while the Hanseatic league was partially part of the HRE, the Landsknecht provide more direct emphasis of a South German HRE, so there is something to commend in that geographically distinct, but still HRE-contextualized components, tied together by the leader that took those disparate principalities under a Prussian hegemony to form the German nation.

Ultimately the choice was dictated by what resources are available to us. You might even say it our decision-making was... pragmatic.

Rather than making players pragmatically choose which proposal is likely to win and then push it over the edge, it is more likely to encourage players to bandwagon on winning proposals with just one vote. This doesn't really seem like Realpolitik style play.

I think we both agree on what the gameplay style that emerges from this is most likely to be: putting 1 vote into resolutions you don't really care about and then throwing your real influence behind something you really do want to pass/fail. But, while you say this is not pragmatic, I think it does capture a realistic, pragmatic approach. Pragmatism is not about winning every time, it's about accurately assessing what you can win. for the rest, you want to be seen going along with the majority. Influence what you can and cut your losses on what you can't. A specific historical example of this bandwagon-as-pragmatism is Bismarck's acquisition of African colonies for Germany. Bismarck did not agree with colonialism and didn't personally think there was anything to gain by it, but he went along with popular political opinion from both other European powers and from his own populace anyways. He secured overseas German colonies, because it gave him the political capital at home to prosecute his culture war (kulturkampf) against the Catholic Church.

In the gameplay of civ, you would normally be able to just abstain and save 1 more vote for the thing you do care about, and the AI doesn't assign any value to it. This is a limitation of how the game depicts real world diplomacy. The choice to abstain in real politics does carry weight, and doesn’t somehow rob your other political moves of their weight. So it's not perfect, but I am satisfied that it depicts something meaningful by incentivizing you to vote in a different way than you might otherwise

 

[Stalker0]

I think we both agree on what the gameplay style that emerges from this is most likely to be: putting 1 vote into resolutions you don't really care about and then throwing your real influence behind something you really do want to pass/fail.

if that’s the norm though, I don’t see how this is really an improvement. It’s not particularly interactive or interesting, you are just throwing away a few votes for a chance at some yields. I can understand that maybe it fits realpolitik better, but I don’t see how as a game concept it has much value.

I mean heck you could just say “gain X yields after every WC”…. It can flavor as Germany wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to get benefits, and that way and least it’s consistent and not a crap shoot on whether you get benefits or not.

again, I can get behind changes to Germany’s UA, but I don’t see how this is really better than what we have today.

 

[pineappledan]

First off, because if you do want to maximize your bonus, that could come at a considerable risk in the first 2 WC votes, because you don’t have many votes in those. In the first WC vote, you maybe only have 2-5 votes total.

it certainly is better than what we have now, because what we have now exclusively rewards you with passive yields and WC votes for things you were going to do anyway. It does not impact any decision or player choice outside of orienting yourself towards getting many CS allies.

I mean heck you could just say “gain X yields after every WC”…. It can flavor as Germany wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to get benefits, and that way and least it’s consistent and not a crap shoot on whether you get benefits or not

what you are saying here is that any UA with any risk or counterplay is bad, and I completely disagree with you there. You wouldn’t be saying this about a military bonus or a reward for conquest, because you accept that there is a possibility of losing a war, but you don’t accept the possibility of losing a WC vote.

and the more we discuss this, the more I go back to my original position of disagreeing with any additional tools like unlocking vote trading or giving more opinion vision to Germany. As @Milae pointed out, unlocking vote trading with everyone effectively makes you omniscient, because you can determine everyone’s vote bias on each proposal based on the gold value of their votes. That renders every vote unloseable, and I reject this notion that you shouldn’t ever be allowed to lose. Why am I even playing if I can’t lose? At that point you may as well make it X yields each WC session, because you have handed a human Germany player a crystal ball for exactly how every WC vote will go.

 

[Stalker0]

what you are saying here is that any UA with any risk or counterplay is bad, and I completely disagree with you there

There is a difference between risk and randomness. Risk you have strong control over (like warfare), randomness you do not.

the fact remains that players do not have enough insight into WC votes to make good informed decisions on which way many resolutions will go…and so will guess. Maybe it’s a slightly informed guess, but it’s still mostly a guess.

guessing is a fine game mechanic in many games, but not in a strategy game like civ.

So I don’t consider this a good game mechanic and the notion that “it’s better than what we have” does not convince me it should be implemented, just convinces me we should be discussing more ideas.

We discussed diplomat ideas. For example, what if embassies counted as diplomats? Suddenly Germany is the best vote deal maker in the game, able to trade votes with almost everyone. Now that’s some interactive realpolitik.

 

[Nizef]

Hi there,
With the risk of making a fool of myself, I will try to comment on the proposed UU change. Firstly, let me say that I mostly play unmodded BNW and have only fooled around with earlier versions of VP. However, I do have well over 80 Deity wins in HoF on standard sized maps (or larger), so I feel that I am not entirely clueless regarding our great game.

German history is full of wars and other historic events, all the way back to the Teutoburg forest in 9 BC. So there is definitely room for a qualified discussion about which unit is interesting enough to represent Germany as a UU. The Panzer is in many ways a logical choice based on its success and capabilites during September 1939 in Poland and during those six weeks in May-June 1940 when France was overrun in one of the most astonishing victories in modern warfare. After all, France had a standing army of almost 5 million men at the time. However, already in 1941 their percieved advantage was gone and soon many armies had better tanks at their disposal. It is also questionable, whether a unit from the, very brief, period of 1933-1945 at all qualifies to represent Germany. The Landsknecht is a safe bet, since it was a useful unit for about 100 years (roughly 1470-1570).

Having said this, in BNW, I don´t think that the UUs are very relevant. In fact, I find that there are only a few UUs (Keshiks, Camel Archers) that really alter the way I go about a game. Many of the UUs are not more than gimmicks in Single Player. As was already stated above, many UUs are available, either in the early game or in the midgame. The Panzer is one of the rare exceptions and as such a valuable member of the "UU club". I also understand that a majoirty of the hardcore VP community is for a switch to Landsknechts. I do not want to oppose to that wish, but I wanted to bring a slightly different angle to the table.

And lastly: Keep up the good work!

 

[Stalker0]

It is also questionable, whether a unit from the, very brief, period of 1933-1945 at all qualifies to represent Germany. The Landsknecht is a safe bet, since it was a useful unit for about 100 years (roughly 1470-1570).

This is the one part of your argument I will disagree with, at least in principal. While true the Panzer is a short lasting unit in terms of actual years....we do have to consider that modern technology moves incredibly fast compared to history, aka any modern unit will never last as long as units from older eras. So I don't consider that an automatic strike against any unit, especially one that was a part of a true world facing war.

Now, I can respect that duration is a factor on whether a unit becomes an "exemplar" of that civilization, as the longer a unit lingers the more likely it become synonymous with that civ (Rome and Legions, Greece and Hoplites, etc). I would argue that even with the panzer's relative short duration, it is today the often quoted example of Germany's military might during WWII (regardless of how true that is, it has that reputation). So I think the panzer fits the bill of an exemplar unit regardless of its duration.

 

[Recursive]

At that point you may as well make it X yields each WC session, because you have handed a human Germany player a crystal ball for exactly how every WC vote will go.

the fact remains that players do not have enough insight into WC votes to make good informed decisions on which way many resolutions will go…and so will guess. Maybe it’s a slightly informed guess, but it’s still mostly a guess

Not taking a side here, but if you want a crystal ball, there's Debug Mode for diplomacy available in DiploAIOptions.sql.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

what you are saying here is that any UA with any risk or counterplay is bad, and I completely disagree with you there. You wouldn’t be saying this about a military bonus or a reward for conquest, because you accept that there is a possibility of losing a war, but you don’t accept the possibility of losing a WC vote.

I disagree with your comparison, cause its definitly not the same.

As France, you get bonuses, if you conquer a city. You get the full 100% reward, if you simply conquer a city, something you do anyway as warmonger, which brings you closer to a domination victory.
As Germany, you would only get 33% of the maximum reward, if you do what you do, passing your proposals you need to win. If you want 100% possible reward, you have to take away votes from your own proposal to other ones, lowering the chance to pass a proposal which would bring you closer to a diplomatic victory.

Its like saying to France: "you only get the full reward, if you conquer a city with less than 5 units, for every more you use, you get 20% less reward."

There is not a single UA in the game, which forces you to activly lower your chances in following your victory path to trigger 100% of the UA......you can check that.

 

[Rekk]

and the more we discuss this, the more I go back to my original position of disagreeing with any additional tools like unlocking vote trading or giving more opinion vision to Germany. As @Milae pointed out, unlocking vote trading with everyone effectively makes you omniscient, because you can determine everyone’s vote bias on each proposal based on the gold value of their votes. That renders every vote unloseable, and I reject this notion that you shouldn’t ever be allowed to lose. Why am I even playing if I can’t lose? At that point you may as well make it X yields each WC session, because you have handed a human Germany player a crystal ball for exactly how every WC vote will go

As a soft benefit, we could give German diplomats a reduced travel/setup time. This would give Germany an improved ability to find out what ways they should be voting without instantly providing all of the information.

Maybe we could even provide yields when they finish setting up so as to encourage players to always have their diplomats moving around.

Note that a diplomat/shared ideology alone only lets you know in what direction a civilization leans for the proposals. You don't know how much effort, if any, they will spend on the proposal unless you have both.

A final aside for a QoL improvement: in general, I would like a notification stating when a diplomat has set up and can now start vote trading/give information on a city. When I'm going on a mission to buy votes, it's a big issue remembering/repeatedly checking for when a diplomat will finish so I can move them to the next civ in time for the next WC.

 

[JamesNinelives]

As of writing, we are sitting at:
37 for Landsknecht vs 13 for Panzer (74% vs 26%)
37 for Landsknecht vs 17 combined 'No Landsknecht' votes (69% vs 31%)
13 for Panzer vs vs 41 combined 'No Panzer' votes (24% vs 76%)

So I don't think it's looking that great for the Panzer

I understand that and I am actually one of the people who voted Landsknecht - I agree with many of the points you made in your initial argument. My point was rather than it seems there are a few people who really like the Panzer and would be sad to see it go. So my instinct here is that keeping it but trying to temper some of the problems with the unit would make the most people happy. It's not clear-cut though, I recognise there are also people are strongly for the change.
In any case we've gotten to a more complex stage of the discussion so I'm happy to defer to others here.

 

[Drakle]

I mean to the Panzer, Germany wasn't a innovator when it came to very early tanks, it was the Brits who did it first, and they were always playing catchup in WW1. The early unlock of such a powerful unit doesn't fit. While in WW2, most of their tanks in the earlier half of the war, where they won their shock victories, were tank, for tank inferior to equivalent French and British tanks. It was the communications, doctrine and supporting elements that made them decisive. While later in the war, when they were building tanks that were superior individually (but were grossly over engineered so badly inferior in numbers) everybody else had largely caught up in those elements. Thus stuff could be represented by ideologues, as people have pointed out.

Anyway, I'm fine with the current suggested UA. But as a possible alternative to raw Science and Culture, what if they give GPP? Imperial Germany was a powerhouse of innovation at the time, and modern Germany has a very good tech and industrial sector today. I don't have a strong preference between them, just wondering what people would prefer.

 

[chicorbeef]

There is not a single UA in the game, which forces you to activly lower your chances in following your victory path to trigger 100% of the UA......you can check that.

I mean, there is opportunity cost. You are not forced to dedicate a vote to something, you will simply lose out on yields and influence if you pour all your votes into one proposal.

If you play the Ottomans for example, and you just teched Gunpowder and have an opportunity to kill your problematic neighbour, you might have to declare war to use your Janissaries to their full extent, and cancel your trade routes and thus you lose yields from the UA. That's a tradeoff you have to decide to make.

By the way, is it really that rare to split votes? If I can, I will split votes if I think it's safe to do so because I've had situations where the AI is proposing open doors on a city-state I own while I am trying to pass a sphere of influence on another city-state. Of course sometimes there are situations where I just want to dump all my votes in a key proposal, but I don't think it's that one-sided a situation

Especially now with the vote trading abilities that you can buy off people's votes for some peace of mind (if you can buy off votes to shut down another AI's proposal that can give you breathing room to pass your own proposal safely, for example).

 

[Hinin]

So, after reading some people willing to have a more militaristic, and thinking about the UA in general, I may have come up with an idea :

• I personally think that the base yields brought by the UA (+4 Science per Friendly and +4 Culture per Ally City-State) are a bit too much. When you consider the fact that they scale with era and that each Ally CState also rewards you with the Friendly bonus, it makes for something a bit excessive.
• I do not fully agree with pineappledan that Friendly and Ally CS should reward exactly the same amount of yields : the cumulation of both bonuses for Ally CS already makes this part wrong by principle, and one will seek alliance when possible because of that, of the increased bonuses from the CState itself, and the additionnal yields for TRoutes.
  
• The militaristic post-1850 period is indeed a little underrepresented by the current UA I think. That said, I disagree with the idea that a full revamp is needed in any way.
• @Akbarthegreat talked about a bonus related to upgrade cost, which I think is interesting enough
• I still want to preserve the same yields as what the current kit provides ( ///)

So, what is my idea (knowing that I still support the "Free diplomat from embassies") ?

UA - Realpolitik

+2 Science and -5 % Gold upgrade cost per Friendly City-State and +2 Culture and +5 XP to new Units per Ally City-State, yields scaling with Era. Embassies offer the same benefits as Diplomats. When successfully supporting or opposing a resolution, gain Science, Culture and Influence with all City-States, scaling with Era.

(we can always put caps or tweak the numbers if necessary)

Explanation :
The Friendly part, as you can see, allows interesting rush tactics (something the Landsknecht already incentivizes you to do) : you can focus key military techs and upgrade you units at a very low cost to surprise your opponents. It can scale very quickly knowing how easy it can be to obtain a large number of Friendly CStates (especially with the second part of the UA).

The Ally part is more about long-term benefits : bonus Culture and base experience are always good, especially during the later half of the game, when the number of units tend to increase a lot. Since Ally are more difficult to maintain, it seems not too far-fetched to look for such bonuses.

I reduced the base Science and Culture yields from the first half of the UA, because I think it makes too much when added to the instant yields from the second half. To me, the military bonuses are good enough as a compensation (and represents the German military union Bismarck used to unify the country).

I did not go for Unit production for the second half simply because the Hanse is already good enough on that front, and that would make the German kit too much geared towards Authority. Upgrade cost reduction and bonus experience are good even when you don't want to have a ton of units.

These bonuses allow for an excellent Imperialism synergy : the bonuses for this policy branch add up with those from the UA to provide some fearsome military bonuses towards the endgame... if you manage to preserve your diplomatic relations with CStates (so the second half of the UA becomes even more important in that aspect).

 

[Hinin]

Note that a diplomat/shared ideology alone only lets you know in what direction a civilization leans for the proposals. You don't know how much effort, if any, they will spend on the proposal unless you have both.

That is the main reason why I still support the WCongress part of this change : you can gain some limited knowledge about how things will go, but only for some civilizations, those you have an embassy with (so any civ denounced/denouncing you or at war with you is out of the radar), and the rest must be obtained through exchanges, vote per vote, to ensure you can pass things with certainty.

This means that there is a inherent balance to the military bonuses you would get from my proposition just above : Germany relies on winning as often as possible on vote sessions, which often ends up infuriating some civilizations (to a great extent sometimes), to maintain its grip on CStates, since it has no particularly strong bonus toward diplomatic units. Thus, its military power would remain indirectly dependent on its ability to have a say in the WCongress, and so to maintain healthy relationship with other civilizations. With that in mind, a war represents an even bigger gambit for Germany : the diplomatic penalties it can suffer during it can really make the WCongress sessions more unpredictable, especially if you go on a killing spree and angers other civs.

That gives something like this (yeah, we are at that point).

Spoiler Germany UA Circle :

The main unknown factor remains the behavior of other civs : they can try to take your City-State Alliances from you, they can consider you a rival on the world stage and garner support against you, they can declare war on you etc. In the end, there are lot of ways this system can derail if you're not careful, but I personally think that it makes for a more intersting playstyle.

 

[General_Drax]

Just go for it.

Germany is a civ I do not even consider playing from King level and up and as enemy AI it's free land.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I do like Panzers. You get even more of a power spike with Ballistics. You can ignore Combined Arms and still have an Atomic Era frontline unit to help clean up armies.

It is not a good fit however, for Germany given how lackluster their UA is. The Landsknect proposed here will help them earlier on.

 

[pineappledan]

I'd like to revisit this idea of a gifting mechanic. I have been going back to it over and over, so why fight it?

Realpolitik
+3 Science per Friendly City-State and +3 Culture per Allied City-State, scaling with Era.
Gain Science and Culture for each World Congress Resolution you help pass or defeat.
Unit gifts to City-States generate +1 Influence per turn.

Spoiler :

• The Unit gifts have to be alive, you don't get influence anymore if the unit you gifted is killed.
• Naturally, the amount of CS gift influence caps at the unit cap of the CS
• Only possible exploit I can think of is declaring war on a CS, killing all its units, and peacing them, gifting them their full unit cap. Seems really complicated and not that much more rewarding than just gifting units to other CS instead of maxing your bonuses.
• Combines with the TR to CS bonus from the Hanse to make Germany the Influence-Per-Turn king
• We had previously proposed something similar as a UU bonus, but it is more at home as a UA bonus, rather than tied to a specific unit. If tied to the a specific UU, the value of this ability increases as the unit becomes more and more obsolete, because its value as a diplomatic unit is inversely proportional to its cost relative to the size of your economy. Tying it to the UA frees the ability from this awkward obsolescence benefit; you can still gift obsolete UUs, but there isn't such a fine point made on it, and gifting up-to-date units reduces the chance they will be killed off.
• This gives that early game influence tool people have wanted for Germany. (gifting earlier is stronger than gifting later. More turns left in the game.)
• This could be seen as a reference to the Druhtiz, an oath-sworn retinue of a thane. The Scandinavian or English equivalent is a Hird or Huskarl. These honor-guards are a centrally important facet of Germanic culture that takes on, semi-mythologized aspects in surviving Germanic and Scandinavian epics.
• It could also be seen as a reference to the Foedus, treaties signed by various Germanic tribes with Rome that supplied Rome with German soldiers in exchange for confederate status, granting them settling and billeting rights. This is nice because it relates to some ultra-early Germanic culture for roleplay purposes, but doesn't feel out of place for mid-game and late game, HRE/principalities Germany with the constant exchange of mercenary forces.
• Giving this as an influence tool means we can strip out the global influence trigger from the proposals, which was the strongest part. When reduced to only yields, the relative weight of winning each vote is lessened; if you don't stand to gain as much then you don't stand to lose as much.

There is a difference between risk and randomness. Risk you have strong control over (like warfare), randomness you do not.

the fact remains that players do not have enough insight into WC votes to make good informed decisions on which way many resolutions will go…and so will guess. Maybe it’s a slightly informed guess, but it’s still mostly a guess.

guessing is a fine game mechanic in many games, but not in a strategy game like civ.

So I don’t consider this a good game mechanic and the notion that “it’s better than what we have” does not convince me it should be implemented, just convinces me we should be discussing more ideas.

Winning CS votes is not a matter of guessing and random chance. You can outmaneuver and outplay other civs in the WC much like you can in tactical combat. I get that you're trying to argue a point, but you're crossing a line into no longer basing it on how the AI really behaves or what happens in-game.

If you genuinely felt that how the AI votes was unfair, un-counterable, and opaque then it wouldn't just be a concern for Germany, it would be a concern for all civs. You aren't making that broad claim about the general vote mechanics, however, you are making that specific claim that solely within in the context of awarding bonuses on the basis of winning WC votes, the system is intolerably arbitrary and random.

Regardless, reducing the reward for winning votes defangs this debate somewhat. Getting all 3 / triggers for winning will feel nice, but getting 1-2 won’t sting much if it isn't your main vehicle for getting an edge on CS influence.

 

[Solic]

I really like making unit gifts actually worthwhile for this specific civ to give them more of an unique angle. I only gift units if I can't reach a CS, I wish to defend against an adversary or if I need to get rid of a strategic resource deficit. The influence gained is so measly, it doesn't factor in to me.

Bringing this avenue into it, I think it'd be cooler if this was the main thing they would have their edge in. Not necessarily the right side of a vote reward. Extra production will also make it easier for them to actually be able to 'lose' some units.

 

[Drakle]

Unit gifts being a permanent 1+ influence unless killed is way too much. Unless a AI starts bashing on city states, a lot of city states will likely be fine, only having to worry about Barbarians. And your own mod gives Germany a dirt cheap Warrior UU that could be spam built / purchased and gifted to every available city state. If a early game wonder was 1+ influence with every city state in sight for the rest of the game, it would be a must build for any strategy. And you could easily do 2-3 Slaganz per city state. That would make Germany a diplomatic powerhouse, and the main counter play is attacking the city state and killing the units. Which is hard even for a player to do for every city state and would be very hard to train a AI to do.

If we want a game wide Influence gain, how about this.

1 Influence per turn with a Pledge of Protection (Halted if City State is successfully heavy tributed over threshold until cooldown). Tributing or Conquering a CS causes Ally and Pledge of protections with that CS to lose influence with all known city states, scaling with tribute and era.

So Germany's diplomacy is having a big stick to back their word. So you always need a big enough army to get pledges of protection all over the place. And you want to be big and tough enough to fend off tributer AIs.

But you also have a diplo counter tool. You can focus on a city state, and bully it or conquer it, to help you with every other city state by reducing AI influence. Conquering would count as 150% tribute.

And there is some basis. The destruction of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia convinced all the rest of Eastern Europe that the Western Allies couldn't protect them (and of course scared of the Soviets eating them), and so they should go with Germany. The HRE was bascially a big pledge of protection and alliance network of CS. And less with city states, but Prussia beating Denmark, Austria and France convinced the German minors to side with them. I was thinking of maybe also adding beating a AI in a war (at least 25 war score like the Aztec golden age trigger) reduces its influence with all its city states, but that might be too much ( and too wordy for the UA text). I will leave that to you guys.

It also isn't a straight influence boost, it's lowering your rivals influence.

The counter play is also easier, as you just have to be powerful, and fend Germany off from tributing your city states.