How many city-states?

[McSaucy4418]

How many city-states do you all play with? I play exclusively marathon games on huge maps (often continents plus or the tectonics script) and have recently been adjusting the number of city-states. I find lowering it to 24 (2:1 ratio) or lower makes for interesting games in that it makes it more difficult to ally yourself since so many civs are competing and also lowers the number of votes in the world congress making diplomacy with major civs much more important. Have you all found something similar?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

2:1 is the default ratio.

But I keep it at that.

 

[McSaucy4418]

I don't think it is on huge maps. Or at least it isn't in my settings. I was getting games with 12 civs and 41 city-states.

 

[Browd]

12/41 is far from the default. You probably set CSs at 41 for one game and that was preserved in your Advanced Setup settings.

 

[Winston]

I normally increase the number of Civs and sometimes reduce the number of city-states. I like to play tiny maps, 6 civs, 8 CSs, standard speed.
It's very easy to exploit CS's to win diplo games or gain huge bonuses so I lower their number relative to Civs.

In the game I just completed, Siam was hording tens of thousands of gold and Ramkhanthan probably could of bought all the CS's but he didn't. Seemed pretty strange to me that he didn't use the gold.

 

[McSaucy4418]

12/41 is far from the default. You probably set CSs at 41 for one game and that was preserved in your Advanced Setup settings.

That's what I thought but now I think the huge number of city-states might have been preserved from a TSL map with 22 civs and all the city-states. The number of civs went back to 12 but the city-states stayed maxed out.

 

[GMO]

I play on a Huge map with 22 civs and 15 CSs.
City-States are too restrictive in function, in my opinion, so I prefer fewer of them.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

normal maps has the default at 16CS's and 8 civs, a 2:1 ratio. I prefer (and almost consider it cheating) to reduce the CS's form 16 to 12, a 3:2 ratio, as I found that there wasn't enough options for city placement with that many CS's, especially with the AI civs encroaching near me with aggressive settling. In G&K, it meant needing 10 of 12 for a diplomatic victory, which was tight, especially if Austria was in, but is no longer an issue in BNW

 

[Matthew.]

I prefer to slightly reduce CS's on larger maps. Most games a large number of the CS's will go to one or two players. On a standard map that is usually something in the 8-10 range. If playing on huge with something like 18/36, that means a Civ going heavy on CS alliances can get 25+ at one time!

 

[CaptainPatch]

I prefer Huge maps, just to have the elbow room. Then I drop in 41 CSs whose territories amount to about 5-10% of the land mass. Then I've been playing around with the number of civs to see when overcrowding kicks in immediately. My idea of the best concentration is to be building your Settler for the second city before you even meet a second civ. I figure you MUST have multiple cities to qualify as an actual civ, as opposed to being just another City State. Right now with 10 civs in play, I hadn't even started the Settler before the neighbors came knocking. Optimal to me seems like 7-8 civs.

 

[razor436]

It's tough to really say what's best, but I stick with the default number of CSs. In my mind, 2k tested and balanced the game based on those default settings, so I'll stick to them.

On the one hand, for a fair game, you need a good number of CSs for the sake of those Civs that gain bonuses with them on the map. You also need enough so it is possible to gain a diplomatic victory, as well as majorities to pass resolutions.You also need enough so that some civs could attack them early enough in the game. And you also need enough CSs to go around (It's no fun when one civ hogs all the CSs for himself, other civs should be able to make buddies with at least one CS. And attacking a CS is a great way to annoy rival Civs who promised to protect it.

On the other hand, CSs, in general, take up space and get in the way of the placement of a perfect city. They only seem to defend their close proximity, so their usefulness as an ally in wartime is not as you'd expect.

There are also problems with CSs on specific maps.
I only play Continents or ContinentsPlus so I'll use them as examples.
In Continents, I'd say CSs are generally spread out, but that means they get in the way on the mainland. In ContinentsPlus, almost all are spawned off the mainland on islands, which gives you lots of room on the mainland to expand and place your cities in the best spots, but the early game map feels empty since other civs are too far away for an early war, and you have no CS to get a first land trade route.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

I play on a Huge map with 22 civs and 15 CSs.
City-States are too restrictive in function, in my opinion, so I prefer fewer of them.

Agreed.

I tend to lower no of City states to equal no of civs. I'll often add an extra civ from the default for the map size though.

 

[ronjon]

I use a huge map, 20 CS 22 Civs. I am looking for maximum early conflict. Thinking a couple less CS's because useful city sites are often eliminated because of CS. I would like too have more civs actually.

 

[cpm4001]

I play on Large/Huge maps with 22 Civs, too, and I find that you want either a 1:1 City-State to Civ ratio or lower, to about 1 City-State per 2 Civs. This keeps the City-States from hogging all the good city locations, while still having enough in for an interesting game.

 

[FeiLing]

Standard

 

[joncnunn]

I normally reduce to a 1:1 ratio.