I think other CIVs don't like it when you attack city states.

[MykC]

I think other CIVs don't like it when you attack city states. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this or this has been discussed already but I really find that if I attack city states I'm more likely to get bad trade deals and have multiple or a lot of people declare war on me.

 

[alpaca]

You are correct, they don't like it at all. This is also the #1 reason for pact of secrecy offers in the early game: Some other AI attacks a city state, and everyone signs a PoS against them

 

[MykC]

So should I avoid steal workers from city states completely?

 

[alpaca]

So should I avoid steal workers from city states completely?

I think it's more effective to steal them from civs at any rate. I didn't make a cost-benefit analysis for stealing workers, anyways, because I don't do it by house rule. It's one of the most annoying AI exploits for me.

 

[MykC]

Does it matter if I attack a city state on behalf of another request? IE eliminate city state and we'll be friends? I'm guessing no.

 

[Scarpa]

Does it matter if I attack a city state on behalf of another request? IE eliminate city state and we'll be friends? I'm guessing no.

Despite the diplomatic effect it's hardly worth it to do that anyway, given how costly it can be to take a CS. Maybe if it's a 2-for-1 type deal where the same kill can get influence with multiple CS.

About the only time I'll take out a CS is if it's already at war with me due to being an ally of an civ that I'm at war with.

 

[Sneaks]

If you REALLY want to kill a CS, bribe another civ to do it, then DoW the civ and liberate it instead. Tons of influence, guaranteed diplo vote, and for a cost of only about 300 gold.

 

[neilkaz]

So should I avoid steal workers from city states completely?

I rarely steak a worker from a CS and note that some people consider it to be lame, but I have mixed feelings about it. The last time I stole a worker from a CS (Immortal level like you play now) I was Wu and had started with the plan of warrior rushing Siam, but after having 3 warriors, there was no new Siamese city near me and a look at their capital told me to try a different plan. I was about to run into happy issues and needed a worker now so I DOWed a CS along the way, snatched my worker and made peace.

I had to wait 60 turns for influence to recover from -60 and I was immediately taunted by Rammy, who very soon DOW'd me (which was fine since he took losses trying to attack and was soon almost defenceless when a couple horsemen joined my warriors)

I am unsure of how many CS wars I can get into before triggering perma-war with all of them, but it may be only 2 or 3. Anyhow..lots later in the game I was fighting CS's allied to an enemy that had DOW'd me without diplo issues.

Much better to take workers from an AI early on, and this slows then down as well and hopefully you can take a couple cities and cripple them, often getting a favorable peace deal as well.

As for wiping out a CS to gain influence, it seems to be a good deal of influence but it isn't worth it to me, unless said CS has DOW'd me since his ally has.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[juckie]

I think other CIVs don't like it when you attack city states. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this or this has been discussed already but I really find that if I attack city states I'm more likely to get bad trade deals and have multiple or a lot of people declare war on me.

This is mostly for warmonger hate. The higher the number, the more hate.
Montezuma:1
Alexander:2
Napoleon:3
Askia:4
Augustus:4
Suleiman:4
Catherine:5
Darius:5
Al Rashid:5
Wu Zeitan:5
Bismark:6
Hiawatha:6
Nobunaga:6
Ramesses:6
Elizabeth:7
Gandi:7
Washington:7
Ramkhamhaeng:8


I personally don't steal workers because it's a bit lame, and I noticed I get a lot more dogpiles since I tried it in my strategy.
It's also neat to keep you're "first war is free" for CS's, to do something when bored/need luxuries/border.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I rarely steak a worker from a CS.

Good. I disapprove of cannibals.


Seriously, though, it was a good post. On the subject of foreign workers, when I liberate a worker from barbarians ("This worker is a German captive, a captive from Belgrade, a captive from Hanoi" - you know the drill), it's always interesting to ponder whether to keep it or return it to owner. In the early game, it's practically pointless to return a captive worker to a City State because their gratitude evaporates fairly swiftly. If you want to ingratiate yourself with a particular major Civ (and particularly if your warrior/scout/whatever is far from your own lands), then letting the worker go might be a good idea.

 

[alpaca]

Good. I disapprove of cannibals.


Seriously, though, it was a good post. On the subject of foreign workers, when I liberate a worker from barbarians ("This worker is a German captive, a captive from Belgrade, a captive from Hanoi" - you know the drill), it's always interesting to ponder whether to keep it or return it to owner. In the early game, it's practically pointless to return a captive worker to a City State because their gratitude evaporates fairly swiftly. If you want to ingratiate yourself with a particular major Civ (and particularly if your warrior/scout/whatever is far from your own lands), then letting the worker go might be a good idea.

Actually it saves you 250 gold if you want to ally the CS (the second payment after the 500). So unless you really need the worker it makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Of course, if you need the worker, keep him. Sometimes I even returned a worker and then bought one with the money I saved because he'd have taken 20 turns to get to my empire, during which I'd have had to use my scout to protect him.

 

[Roghar]

distance from empire is definitely a big factor in returning workers or not

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Actually it saves you 250 gold if you want to ally the CS (the second payment after the 500). So unless you really need the worker it makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Of course, if you need the worker, keep him. Sometimes I even returned a worker and then bought one with the money I saved because he'd have taken 20 turns to get to my empire, during which I'd have had to use my scout to protect him.

Mmm... yes. You are right. But cultivating distant city states is not very worthwhile in the early game. If you groom such a city state, you also run the risk of annoying some other major civ which regards the city state in question as part of its sphere of influence. Of course, sometimes you want to annoy another major civ. In my present game, I live next door to Wu, who has hated me from the beginning. She kept turning up and telling me those charming things about how I was her favourite city state and hard to tell from the barbarians she swats and that my mother wears army boots. Then she launched an attack on me and got Bismarck to join in. I captured and razed one of Bismarck's cities (it was much too close to one of mine for healthy development), and then Bismarck sued for peace and gave me Munich, which I puppeted. (And a bit later, Hiawatha, who is expanding wildly and becoming a major headache, exterminated Bismarck.) Early in the game, I had huge amounts of money from barbarian villages, so I decided to test something and gave 1,500 gold to my nearest barbarian neihbour, the militaristic Tyre. (I also managed to be friendly with a couple of maritime cities, but they were too far away for any further cultivation to be worthwhile at present.) Anyway, Tyre keeps sending me useful units, and then it wanted me to destroy Helsinki to the north. Wu liked Helsinki, so her hatred increased even further when I conquered and puppeted Helsinki. Tyre, on the other hand, loves me for having destroyed its hated enemy Helsinki. Horse archers, catapults and pikemen may not sound like very impressive gifts, but at present they are most welcome, because Hiawatha has founded a city slap in the middle of my lands and assembled a lot of troops near my borders in a way that I don't need informationf rom the advisers to find ominous. Anyway, enlisting a City State early on can be very worthwhtle, but it should be clsoe enough to your empire to make further interaction possible. "Build a road to us!" , as my once-time friend Vienna said, isn't very easy when my workers would have to make their way through the lands of an increasingly hostile Hiawatha.

In that war I mentioned above, the one where Bismacrk was enlisted by Wu, I captured one of Wu's cities, and then she sued for peace and gave me another city. But she still hates me, more than ever after I conquered Helsinki. So once I have somehow managed to convince Hiawatha that he shouldn't mess with me, I'll put Wu out of her msiery. I do understand why she hates me; she is boxed in at the extreme northwest corner of the map by me. But she is much weaker than I, and she has no friends, so she should try to appease me. That ability is apparently missing in her encoding even when her existence is at stake. Or perhaps she is hoping that some oher civ(s) will attack me so she can join in. But in the meantime, she should refrain from turning up and tring to provoke me into attacking her. Even if Hiawatha would then attack me, it wouldn't really save Wu.

Teaching Hiawatha some manners includes capturing that city he built between three of mine. (I'm still too weak to obeject; I must maintain and build up an army near Wu's lands, garrison my capital adequately, explore distant lands beyond the sea and also maintain a presence towards, Darius, Odam Rambamthankyoumadam and Harun east of me. Another consideration to keep in mind is that I am playing on a Terra map, and my explorers have just started to swim to distant shores;I can't help thinking of it that way; and I shoukd preferably be able to spare a couple of military units to join them and the caravel I'm building.

In short: City States and diplomacy are rather intricate things, and I have no doubt they'll work even better afte the patch. I will then understand why Oda keeps inviting me to go to war over and over again, and when I twice out of many invitations accepted two, he made a visit one turn after the second one and informed me that my warmongering disgusted him and that I should regard our Pact of Cooperation as terminated. I can see that I must have exceeded the quota of aggressive wars for a "peaceful builder", but this is bery clumsily set up in the present form of the game.

This is a major digression, but I got onto the subject of "How and then to groom city states without annoying othe rmajor civs, or maybe because you *want* to annoy them. Wu is mine for the taking when I've dealt with Hiawatha. I now have several longbowmen and pikemenand a knight and a trebuchet. Once I can upgrade my swordsmen to longswordsmen and have an adequate border defence everywhere, I'll eliminate Wu. If Hiawatha then decides to join the fun, woe betide him. And THEN I can build the Great Trunk Road to Vienna.

Oh, I'm Elizabeth, by the way. Pardon the crossdressing.