How do I properly coup City States?

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Sep 10, 2012
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How does one effectively coup a city state? Does this work when I am at war with said City State?

Thanks.
 
Send a spy to a cs allied to an ai, wait till the coup button shows up. And press it.
From memory you can mouse over for chance of success or death.
cheers
john
 
And if its a city state that an AI had earlier couped; you want a secret agent instead of a raw recruit.

If your at war; your at -60; that should be less than 1% chance of success.
 
Does this work when I am at war with said City State?

It's highly unlikely to work when you're at war with the CS. The chance of success for a coup is greater the closer your Influence is to the current Ally's Influence. When you're at war, as joncnunn said, you're at -60 Influence which will be very far from the current Ally's.
 
Ah, gotcha. I was envisioning a scenario where the most direct route to an enemy is through one of his city states. Was wondering if there would be an option to just coup the CS rather than fight through. Thanks for the input.

I know the AI loves to coup. Do human players use it? When?
 
I find that you often have to spend almost as much money to coup successfully as you do to just buy the alliance. So I usually just buy it.
 
I find that you often have to spend almost as much money to coup successfully as you do to just buy the alliance. So I usually just buy it.

Since you can't tell if another civ has a spy in the same CS, gold gifts run the risk of immediate AI coup, particularly where your gold gift is just enough to get ally status -- next turn the AI coups and you've "wasted" some amount of gold.

If buying the CS alliance will involve (or can affordably involve) two or more gold payments, try this:

Let's say you're at 65 influence and need to get another 57 influence to displace your AI rival as ally, and under the terms the CS is offering right now, you could make a 500 gold gift for 35 influence or a 1000 gold gift for 70 influence. Yes, you could gift the 1000 gold and displace your rival as ally, but you're only 13 influence ahead, which is easy coup territory.

Instead, start by checking coup percentage -- say its 46% (too low to risk). Make 500 gold gift to get 35 influence, raising you to 100 influence (still 22 behind the leader). Recheck coup percentage (now it's 83% -- good to go). Coup successfully to switch places with the AI (you're now at 122 influence and the AI is at 100, which is still too close for comfort). Finally, make the other 500 gold gift, raising influence to 157, which should make you reaosnably coup-resistent.
 
Nice approach. Coups haven't been in my playbook at all.

Is anyone actually using coups are part of their normal routine ?
 
For me, only near the end of diplo games or, if I am in desperate need of culture to, e.g., plow through Rationalism or get to some other key social policy or playing a cultural game generally, with cultural CSs.
 
Bowd described it perfectly. In singleplayer and in multi I use gold to get me close to whoever is the current ally and I let my spy do a coup and then use whatever extra gold afterwards to make the cs coup resistant.
 
Is anyone actually using coups are part of their normal routine ?

Yup; I was (until I turned spying off as this was just too good)

Primary is ascetics + pledge to protect = free friendship with the world.
Then do the easy quests (other than bully)

Then if a city state has a needed resource that didn't have a quest, I'd station a spy there to take it over when the chance got high enough saving my gold for other things.
I'd keep spies in key city states for rigging & defense against coups.

All of this activity starting in Industrial era since I kept a spy in my capital at all times.
 
And I thought I had the CS game down. One of my current games I rolled Greece. I'll be saving some coin and become a couping fool.
 
Since you can't tell if another civ has a spy in the same CS, gold gifts run the risk of immediate AI coup, particularly where your gold gift is just enough to get ally status -- next turn the AI coups and you've "wasted" some amount of gold.

If buying the CS alliance will involve (or can affordably involve) two or more gold payments, try this:

Let's say you're at 65 influence and need to get another 57 influence to displace your AI rival as ally, and under the terms the CS is offering right now, you could make a 500 gold gift for 35 influence or a 1000 gold gift for 70 influence. Yes, you could gift the 1000 gold and displace your rival as ally, but you're only 13 influence ahead, which is easy coup territory.

Instead, start by checking coup percentage -- say its 46% (too low to risk). Make 500 gold gift to get 35 influence, raising you to 100 influence (still 22 behind the leader). Recheck coup percentage (now it's 83% -- good to go). Coup successfully to switch places with the AI (you're now at 122 influence and the AI is at 100, which is still too close for comfort). Finally, make the other 500 gold gift, raising influence to 157, which should make you reaosnably coup-resistent.

Wow. Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking to learn. Getting great answers like this sets this forum apart from other sites'.

From now on, I'm going to devote a late-age spy to coups. :goodjob:
 
Oh, just to double-check... making peace with an enemy CS's ally is the only way to make peace with that CS?

(Assuming their influence doesn't fall below 'ally' level.)
 
Instead, start by checking coup percentage -- say its 46% (too low to risk). Make 500 gold gift to get 35 influence, raising you to 100 influence (still 22 behind the leader). Recheck coup percentage (now it's 83% -- good to go).

Or you can save the 500 gold and wait a few turns (at most 16 turns) for the rigging of the election, which when successful * will both give you some influence and drop everybody elses and so will also increase the coup odds.

* Chance of a rig being successful: If no one else has a spy present; 100%. If someone else does; it goes to the highest promoted spy. If there is a tie, then whoever has had the spy present longer.
 
Or you can save the 500 gold and wait a few turns (at most 16 turns) for the rigging of the election, which when successful * will both give you some influence and drop everybody elses and so will also increase the coup odds.

* Chance of a rig being successful: If no one else has a spy present; 100%. If someone else does; it goes to the highest promoted spy. If there is a tie, then whoever has had the spy present longer.

Yep, although 16 turns is a loooong time to wait for ally benefits. Election in 5 turns? Oh, yeah. Rig, check coup percentage, drop gold or coup, rinse and repeat.
 
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