[NFP] Improving the "bad" City States

[hhhhhh]

I was following the City State Elimination Thread and had fun. Now that the last 21 are decided (there's a total of 42 city states, so these are the ones that are "below average"), I'm thinking how they can be improved.

The goal is not to make all of them super powerful ones, just to make them not as bad as they were.

Here are my thoughts (numbers are the "ranking" from that thread, the larger the number is, the worse the CS is):

42: Lisbon: When your trade routes got plundered, the plunder gains nothing and your trader return to its original city. You will have the vision that the enemy unit that plundered the trade route has from now on. (Still bad but not as bad as before, the useless plunder will end enemy unit's turn and it gives you some extra flexibility on where to send trade route to. You will want some stupid AI/CS units to plunder your trade routes if you have this! Send it though enemy land if you can 100% hold Lisbon.)

41: Preslav: City center buildings provide +2 loyalty. (So it's at least usable in domination games.)

40: Vilnius: Gain 1.5 extra alliance point per turn when you are in an alliance. (On standard speed if you do your best it takes 40 turns to get Alliance Level 2, now with this it only takes 23 turns.)

39: Cardiff: Harbor buildings provide +2 Power each and if the power is not used it will be converted into gold (2 gold per unused Power).

38: Mexico City: Regional effects from your Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex districts reach 3 tiles farther. Your units have +1 sight and +1 height for line of sight considerations. (I'm not satisfied with this one, want to hear your suggestions.)

37: Mohenjo-Daro: Your cities all have full Housing from water, as if they were next to a river. This bonus is determined on settlement and is permanent (stays even if you lose suzerainty of Mohenjo-Daro).

36: Bandar Brunei: Your Trading Posts in foreign cities provide +1 Gold to your Trade Routes passing through or going to the city. Your trading posts give +25% tourism to the Civilization they are in. Your trade route give +25% tourism to the Civilization they are sent to.

35: Armagh: Your Builders can make Monastery improvements. Monastery can only be built 1 per city. +2 Faith. +1 Faith for every 2 population in the city. (Strictly speaking this is a change on Monastery, but anyway.)

34: Singapore: Your trade route provides +2 Production and +2 Food for each foreign civilization whose territory it passes. (If you can send trade routes far and cross multiple nations, good, if not it's at least as good as Wissenbanken.)

33: Jerusalem: Your trade route spread your religion as 4x powerful as regular. And your trade route spread religion to any city whose territory it passes by (doesn't have to be city center). (Still a passive ability but you will certainly have more trade routes than Holy Sites)

32: Mitla: +15% production in cities with a Campus. (was +15% growth before)

31: Antioch: Your Trade Routes to foreign cities earn +1 Gold and +1 amenity for each Luxury resource at the destination. (Added amenity.)

30: Muscat: +1 Amenity in cities with a Commercial Hub district. +1 Amenity for every two speciality districts other than Commercial Hub. (Added amenity.)

29: Vatican City: Your Great Person can now be activated on foreign districts. When the player activates a Great Person, they spread 400 Religious pressure of the player’s founded (or majority) religion to cities within 10 tiles. (Now just activate your Great Person far, far away.)

28: Fez: Each time you convert a city for the first time using a religious unit earn 20 Science per Population of that city. Each time you develop a technology, add 125 religious pressure to the city that religious pressure of your religion is present but has the least religious pressure of yours among such cities. (the added pressure is good for gaining some follower without converting cities in foreign land, making those beliefs that depend on the total number of followers better.)

27: Nazca: +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states. (I've no idea on how to fix Nazca Lines. For most of the change I try to stick to their original bonus, or make it at least related. But Nazca Lines just sucks.) Edit: Maybe we can leave Nazca Lines as it is. But I really want a CS that gives +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states.

26: Hattusa: Provides you with 2 of each Strategic resource per turn that you have revealed but have not improved, and 6 gold per turn for those you have revealed and improved. (So after Horse and Iron it's 12 GPT, not bad at all. Later it's not super good but at least not useless.)

25: Kandy: Receive a Relic every time you discover a new natural wonder.
Earn +50% bonus Faith from all Relics. After Exploration, gain +6 Faith in capital for each natural wonder you have found. (The problem is if you meet them late then it's just a generic religious city state. Now it helps with your faith economy.)

24: Hong Kong: Your Cities get +20% bonus Production towards city projects. Earn 2x of the Great Person Points when you finish a speciality district project.

23: Taruga: +4% Science in all cities for each different luxury and strategic Resource that city has. +2% Science in all cities for each different bonus Resource that city has.

22: Hunza: Receive +1 Gold for every 5 tiles a trade route travels. Traders provide an extra level of diplomatic visibility, and have a sight of 4. (Now with traders and printing, you gain "secret" level of access, if on top of that you have alliance or embassy you get "top secret" level of access, enough for you to see where their spy is.)

 

[Amrunril]

I was following the City State Elimination Thread and had fun. Now that the last 21 are decided (there's a total of 42 city states, so these are the ones that are "below average"), I'm thinking how they can be improved.

Excellent thread idea. Especially if the Diplomatic Quarter/Ethiopia Update ends up reducing the power of 3/6 envoy bonuses, it might be a good time to buff some of the less impressive suzerain bonuses to compensate.

Here are my thoughts on some of the individual changes.

42: Lisbon: When your trade routes got plundered, the plunder gains nothing and your trader return to its original city. You will have the vision that the enemy unit that plundered the trade route has from now on. (Still bad but not as bad as before, the useless plunder will end enemy unit's turn and it gives you some extra flexibility on where to send trade route to. You will want some stupid AI/CS units to plunder your trade routes if you have this! Send it though enemy land if you can 100% hold Lisbon.)
I'm not convinced a bit of extra visibility would improve this much. Then again, I wasn't convinced this bonus was all that bad to begin with. SImply removing the water restriction seems like a simple alternative to me, bu maybe it wouldn't be enough to outweigh others' objections?

39: Cardiff: Harbor buildings provide +2 Power each and if the power is not used it will be converted into gold (2 gold per unused Power).
Honestly, I'd be inclined to just move this ability to an era appropriate great person (or wonder) and start from scratch. Since city states appear at the start of the game whose bonus doesn't do anything until the industrial era just seems like a mistake to me. Maybe if city states could spawn mid game from free cities or something, this sort of bonus would be worth revisiting.

38: Mexico City: Regional effects from your Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex districts reach 3 tiles farther. Your units have +1 sight and +1 height for line of sight considerations. (I'm not satisfied with this one, want to hear your suggestions.)
Perhaps allow some limited stacking of regional bonuses? Your cities can receive each building types' regional effects from their own buildings and one other city's.

37: Mohenjo-Daro: Your cities all have full Housing from water, as if they were next to a river. This bonus is determined on settlement and is permanent (stays even if you lose suzerainty of Mohenjo-Daro).
Maybe "All cities you found gain the full housing bonus from water", just to simplify the wording.

36: Bandar Brunei: Your Trading Posts in foreign cities provide +1 Gold to your Trade Routes passing through or going to the city. Your trading posts give +25% tourism to the Civilization they are in. Your trade route give +25% tourism to the Civilization they are sent to.
I like the tourism from trading posts idea (I assume this would be limited to once per civilization). Adding the trade route tourism on top of it might be a bit much.

33: Jerusalem: Your trade route spread your religion as 4x powerful as regular. And your trade route spread religion to any city whose territory it passes by (doesn't have to be city center). (Still a passive ability but you will certainly have more trade routes than Holy Sites)
I'd actually take this one in a more outside the box direction:
The first player to become suzerain may immediately found a religion with Jerusalem as its holy city. This religion may be enhanced by the suzerain's apostles, and its founder bonuses are always awarded to the suzerain (even if different from the original founder).

32: Mitla: +15% production in cities with a Campus. (was +15% growth before)
Or, if trying to stay closer to the original theme, it could add a bit of housing to campuses or libraries to compliment the growth bonus.

31: Antioch: Your Trade Routes to foreign cities earn +1 Gold and +1 amenity for each Luxury resource at the destination. (Added amenity.)
This could easily be 3-ish luxuries per trade route. That seems like too much if Zanzibar (12 amenities total) is in the top tier. Perhaps limit it to one amenity per trade route? Or instead give yields corresponding to the individual luxuries (so Cocoa would give +3 gold, marble would give +1 culture and so forth).

30: Muscat: +1 Amenity in cities with a Commercial Hub district. +1 Amenity for every two speciality districts other than Commercial Hub. (Added amenity.)
This similarly seems like it could be a bit too much. Maybe some change that limits things to 2 amenities per city?

29: Vatican City: Your Great Person can now be activated on foreign districts. When the player activates a Great Person, they spread 400 Religious pressure of the player’s founded (or majority) religion to cities within 10 tiles. (Now just activate your Great Person far, far away.)
This could be really interesting (it actually reminds me a bit of Civ V Sweden), but the opportunity cost of delaying great person activations could be quite high, and there are a lot of great person abilities that couldn't really be used this way because of their location-specific nature. Maybe increase the pressure effect in later eras, and create more incentive to seek out great people that can be activated abroad.

27: Nazca: +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states. (I've no idea on how to fix Nazca Lines. For most of the change I try to stick to their original bonus, or make it at least related. But Nazca Lines just sucks.) Edit: Maybe we can leave Nazca Lines as it is. But I really want a CS that gives +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states.
Maybe remove the desert restriction for construction? It would still be most useful on otherwise unworkable deserts, but you'd also have the option to sacrifice a few grassland or plain tiles to boost faith on the neighboring tiles. The again, that could be a pretty big boost and we're starting to get close to median ratings

26: Hattusa: Provides you with 2 of each Strategic resource per turn that you have revealed but have not improved, and 6 gold per turn for those you have revealed and improved. (So after Horse and Iron it's 12 GPT, not bad at all. Later it's not super good but at least not useless.)
I think the cleanest change here would be to simply make the ability "Provides you with 2 of each strategic resource per turn that you have revealed." I feel like the limitation is mostly a carryover from previous patches where excess strategic resources weren't actually useful.

24: Hong Kong: Your Cities get +20% bonus Production towards city projects. Earn 2x of the Great Person Points when you finish a speciality district project.
With the double GPP, the production boost might not even be needed anymore. But yes, this should somehow be buffed to the point where standard city projects actually become appealing outside of niche circumstances. Being suzerain of this CS should feel like playing Al Falah in Beyond Earth.

23: Taruga: +4% Science in all cities for each different luxury and strategic Resource that city has. +2% Science in all cities for each different bonus Resource that city has.
This one's still very new and somewhat contentious, so it might be worth waiting a bit to make adjustments. If needed, my inclination would be to just boost the numbers of the current ability.

 

[hhhhhh]

33: Jerusalem: Your trade route spread your religion as 4x powerful as regular. And your trade route spread religion to any city whose territory it passes by (doesn't have to be city center). (Still a passive ability but you will certainly have more trade routes than Holy Sites)
I'd actually take this one in a more outside the box direction:
The first player to become suzerain may immediately found a religion with Jerusalem as its holy city. This religion may be enhanced by the suzerain's apostles, and its founder bonuses are always awarded to the suzerain (even if different from the original founder).

This one is very interesting. I like it. But may give the player a way too easy way to found religion - Meet Jerusalem first, do their quest, and add the Mysticism envoy, boom, now you have a religion without building any Holy Site etc.

 

[hhhhhh]

31: Antioch: Your Trade Routes to foreign cities earn +1 Gold and +1 amenity for each Luxury resource at the destination. (Added amenity.)
This could easily be 3-ish luxuries per trade route. That seems like too much if Zanzibar (12 amenities total) is in the top tier. Perhaps limit it to one amenity per trade route? Or instead give yields corresponding to the individual luxuries (so Cocoa would give +3 gold, marble would give +1 culture and so forth).

Oh giving trade routes the bonus of the luxuries is a great idea. Do you want for each copy of luxuries (3 Cocoa give +9 gold), or for each different luxuries? Maybe the latter as the former seems OP.

 

[Amrunril]

This one is very interesting. I like it. But may give the player a way too easy way to found religion - Meet Jerusalem first, do their quest, and add the Mysticism envoy, boom, now you have a religion without building any Holy Site etc.

It would be strong, but it would come with the downside that, unlike other religions, you'd be at risk of losing control based on future envoy dynamics. And while you could found the religion without a holy site, you would need to build up some faith generation before you could actually do much with it.

Oh giving trade routes the bonus of the luxuries is a great idea. Do you want for each copy of luxuries (3 Cocoa give +9 gold), or for each different luxuries? Maybe the latter as the former seems OP.

My thinking was per copy, but either one would be fine depending on which is better balanced.

 

[CoconutTank]

I definitely like this idea of taking a second look at some city states I do want to stress that being suzerain is something that players want to fight for, and losing out on suzerainty should matter, so one-off effects are probably not ideal (or should have some additional expense beyond getting suzerainty). I don't have meaningful feedback for each of your proposals, so I've left out the ones that I don't have much to say about.

42: Lisbon: When your trade routes got plundered, the plunder gains nothing and your trader return to its original city. You will have the vision that the enemy unit that plundered the trade route has from now on. (Still bad but not as bad as before, the useless plunder will end enemy unit's turn and it gives you some extra flexibility on where to send trade route to. You will want some stupid AI/CS units to plunder your trade routes if you have this! Send it though enemy land if you can 100% hold Lisbon.)

I think Lisbon's bonus is based on piracy, or waterborne merchants being able to fight off pirates? Seems cool from a historical perspective, but still pretty limited as it is currently. Removing the water requirement would be okay but I think it'd lose historical accuracy.

Mechanically I don't know if the change is better? One would still have to restart the trade route, which means yields can be denied, and gaining vision of 1 unit isn't that useful (players can reuse the affected units, AI kind wander about so no real information).

Maybe include a small combat bonus for naval units and/or the ability to see invisible units in the water?

41: Preslav: City center buildings provide +2 loyalty. (So it's at least usable in domination games.)

This does seem more reliable. Monuments and Walls are always what one tries to get first in conquered cities, and this plays well into it. Since it's not explicitily stated, would this mean the bonuses no longer apply to Encampment buildings?

38: Mexico City: Regional effects from your Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex districts reach 3 tiles farther. Your units have +1 sight and +1 height for line of sight considerations. (I'm not satisfied with this one, want to hear your suggestions.)

Not sure why Water Parks are left out, but I think they should be included in Mexico City's benefits if Entertainment Complexes are. I don't have a good idea here either. I was going to propose having the overlaps stack like they used to, but that seems to be one of Magnus' abilities, which I don't want to take away from.

37: Mohenjo-Daro: Your cities all have full Housing from water, as if they were next to a river. This bonus is determined on settlement and is permanent (stays even if you lose suzerainty of Mohenjo-Daro).

Holding suzerainty over a city state should matter. I don't know if the bonus being permanent would be a good idea, otherwise I'd tie it to some additional expense such as a unique City Center building or unique infrastructure.

34: Singapore: Your trade route provides +2 Production and +2 Food for each foreign civilization whose territory it passes. (If you can send trade routes far and cross multiple nations, good, if not it's at least as good as Wissenbanken.)

Seems good. I would definitely be more incentivized to do external trade routes over internal trade routes if I can get some bonus production and food.

33: Jerusalem: Your trade route spread your religion as 4x powerful as regular. And your trade route spread religion to any city whose territory it passes by (doesn't have to be city center). (Still a passive ability but you will certainly have more trade routes than Holy Sites)

More specifically concerning Amrunril's proposal:

The first player to become suzerain may immediately found a religion with Jerusalem as its holy city. This religion may be enhanced by the suzerain's apostles, and its founder bonuses are always awarded to the suzerain (even if different from the original founder).

I do not like this. This makes initial suzerainty over Jerusalem too important. It already kind of sucks that religion availability is limited and easy to get locked out of, and having Jerusalem take a religion would make that worse imo.

31: Antioch: Your Trade Routes to foreign cities earn +1 Gold and +1 amenity for each Luxury resource at the destination. (Added amenity.)

Seems like too much? I like Amrunril's proposal to take on the yields of luxuries at the destination.

30: Muscat: +1 Amenity in cities with a Commercial Hub district. +1 Amenity for every two speciality districts other than Commercial Hub. (Added amenity.)

What about +1 Amenity for each Commerical Hub district and Bank building in a city? Almost want to try +1 Amenity for each Commercial Hub district and Commercial Hub building but that'd likely be too strong.

27: Nazca: +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states. (I've no idea on how to fix Nazca Lines. For most of the change I try to stick to their original bonus, or make it at least related. But Nazca Lines just sucks.) Edit: Maybe we can leave Nazca Lines as it is. But I really want a CS that gives +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states.

I'm wondering why the Nazca Line itself needs to be unworkable, is this related to what Nazca Lines are like historically? If Nazca Lines can be worked and provide some minor benefit, along with their yield spread, that could help.

26: Hattusa: Provides you with 2 of each Strategic resource per turn that you have revealed but have not improved, and 6 gold per turn for those you have revealed and improved. (So after Horse and Iron it's 12 GPT, not bad at all. Later it's not super good but at least not useless.)

Agreed with Amrunril, I think Hattusa should just provide 2 of each strategic resource one knows of each turn instead of cutting off once one has a source.

25: Kandy: Receive a Relic every time you discover a new natural wonder.
Earn +50% bonus Faith from all Relics. After Exploration, gain +6 Faith in capital for each natural wonder you have found. (The problem is if you meet them late then it's just a generic religious city state. Now it helps with your faith economy.)

Meeting Kandy early is kind of bad too, because one is less likely to have the slots for relics available, which means losing out on unslotted relics for exploring. Would be nice if it were possible for the unslotted relics to be stored somehow, but I don't have a good fix in mind which doesn't become overly beneficial.

24: Hong Kong: Your Cities get +20% bonus Production towards city projects. Earn 2x of the Great Person Points when you finish a speciality district project.

This I like. Bonus GPP works well with what Hong Kong is doing here I think.

23: Taruga: +4% Science in all cities for each different luxury and strategic Resource that city has. +2% Science in all cities for each different bonus Resource that city has.

Thaaaaat seems like a crazy amount of potential science.

22: Hunza: Receive +1 Gold for every 5 tiles a trade route travels. Traders provide an extra level of diplomatic visibility, and have a sight of 4. (Now with traders and printing, you gain "secret" level of access, if on top of that you have alliance or embassy you get "top secret" level of access, enough for you to see where their spy is.)

This seems like a great bonus, but why specifically for Hunza?

 

[hhhhhh]

Not sure why Water Parks are left out, but I think they should be included in Mexico City's benefits if Entertainment Complexes are.

The suzerain bonus of Mexico City left Water Parks out. Probably because Water Parks is added in R&F and Mexico City was originally Toronto from vanilla Civ VI.

What about +1 Amenity for each Commerical Hub district and Bank building in a city? Almost want to try +1 Amenity for each Commercial Hub district and Commercial Hub building but that'd likely be too strong.

Emmm, you probably want to boost Bank, but Bank is a building almost no one build (290 production for 5 gold and 1 Great Merchant Point is just too lame).

This seems like a great bonus, but why specifically for Hunza?

No reason for Hunza in particular. Just wanted to boost it a little.

----------------

This was written prior to the July update. After that update commercial CS are super lame. Unless they get some very sweet suzerain bonus no one will want to deal with them.

 

[Aurelesk]

I do think the best improvement are the simpliest, so I am against too specific and too conditionnal bonuses.

For Lisbon, this seems too complicated. Why not simply add an immunity to Coastal Raiding, and district/tile improvement on water from being pillaged? We stay in the theme of fighting against piracy. Still niche, but at least you are safe, acting like an insurance. Immunity from natural disaster will be too much and off theme, most notably because an earthquake did destroyed Lisbon at some point.
« Your Trader units on water tiles, your coasts, and your tiles improvements on water tiles are immune from being plundered, from Coastal Raiding and from being pillaged respectively. The Harbor and Water Park districts and their building can't be pillaged. »

For Cardiff, why not simply just get ride of the condition? Why not yield Gold even if the Power isn't from the Cardiff but from all source. For example, all tiles improvement (Wind farms, solar farms, geothermal farms...), wasted ressources (consumed Coal / Oil / Uranium that didn't powered anything), and so on?
« Cities receive +2 Power for every Harbor building. 2 Gold for each unused Power. »

For Mexico, extra range from Industrial Zone / Entertainment Complex seems pointless. It could be infinite range, it will still not be that great (except doing some Magnus trick). Maybe bring back some stacking? Not free stacking as the beggining, but cities with Industrial Zone could enjoy the bonus from an other nearby Industrial Zone.
« Cities with Industrial Zone can enjoy the bonus from one other nearby Industrial Zone. »
Or we could change completly the bonus. Like making it the Nan Madol on Lake tiles?
« Your districts on or next to a Lake tiles provide a +1 adjacency bonus. »

For Mohenjo-Daro, maybe just get ride of the condition, so cities with fresh water still have something. In fine, it is "just" +3 Housing. It seems weak. Maybe give some Culture to cities without fresh Water as consolation?
« Cities receive +3 Housing. 3 Culture for cities without fresh water. »

 

[Zaarin]

Monastery can only be built 1 per city. +2 Faith. +1 Faith for every 2 population in the city.

Having more people is kind of counterintuitive to being a monastery. That being said, I do think the Monastery should be changed, especially since it's an Irish monastery. How about this:

Monastery: Cannot be built adjacent to a city center; only one per city; provides +2 Faith, +1 Science, and +1 Culture; +1 Faith for every two adjacent Woods or Coast tiles; provides 1 Housing

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The suzerain bonus of Mexico City left Water Parks out. Probably because Water Parks is added in R&F and Mexico City was originally Toronto from vanilla Civ VI.

Considering Mexico City comes only in GS I think it could be updated at least to include the Water Park. I think it would be thematically appropriate as well considering it was originally (re) built on a lake.

For Lisbon, this seems too complicated. Why not simply add an immunity to Coastal Raiding, and district/tile improvement on water from being pillaged? We stay in the theme of fighting against piracy. Still niche, but at least you are safe, acting like an insurance. Immunity from natural disaster will be too much and off theme, most notably because an earthquake did destroyed Lisbon at some point.
« Your Trader units on water tiles, your coasts, and your tiles improvements on water tiles are immune from being plundered, from Coastal Raiding and from being pillaged respectively. The Harbor and Water Park districts and their building can't be pillaged. »

I'm honestly expecting Lisbon to be replaced so I'm going to hold off trying to think of ways to change them.
That being said I'm secretly hoping that Lisbon turns into a pirate city-state like Nassau. What better way to keep being pillaged than actually allying with them?

 

[hhhhhh]

Having more people is kind of counterintuitive to being a monastery. That being said, I do think the Monastery should be changed, especially since it's an Irish monastery. How about this:

Monastery: Cannot be built adjacent to a city center; only one per city; provides +2 Faith, +1 Science, and +1 Culture; +1 Faith for every two adjacent Woods or Coast tiles; provides 1 Housing

Make sense. But the current bonus (+1 faith for every two adjacent districts) is also counterintuitive to being a monastery...

Maybe make monastery be like a Seowon: - As the base, +4 faith (or +3 if people think it's OP), but -1 for each adjacent districts. +1 faith for every two adjacent farm or every two adjacent coastal tiles, +1 culture for every two adjacent woods. After Reformed Church, +1 faith for every adjacent farm or every adjacent coastal tiles, +1 culture for every adjacent woods. Cannot be build next to each other. Provide tourism equal to additional (i.e. ignore the base) faith or culture it gains.

 

[Sirsquier]

Jerusalem: +4 faith from great works of writing.
Feels appropriate considering how writing was done by the monks and priests in ancient Jewish times. They'd have groups of monks in a room, each copying the same page for a certain period of time. This way more writing could be done in an effective way.

 

[Zaarin]

Jerusalem: +4 faith from great works of writing.
Feels appropriate considering how writing was done by the monks and priests in ancient Jewish times. They'd have groups of monks in a room, each copying the same page for a certain period of time. This way more writing could be done in an effective way.

I think you mean scribe, not monk. With the exception of the Essenes (who were sort of quasi-monastics, though still not really in the sense of what Christians or Buddhists would call "monks"--more like a religious community), monasticism has never been a thing in Judaism. I suppose you might call a Nazirite a kind of monk, if you squint a little, but Nazirites were not involved in the transcription of the Tanakh.

 

[JJOne]

27: Nazca: +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states. (I've no idea on how to fix Nazca Lines. For most of the change I try to stick to their original bonus, or make it at least related. But Nazca Lines just sucks.) Edit: Maybe we can leave Nazca Lines as it is. But I really want a CS that gives +1 Faith for each envoy you send to city states.

The mechanic is OK as it is, making them workable and buffing eachother would be OP. But allow them to be built on all flat tiles. So that Nazca is also interesting for a cold climate civ.

 

[Terminacarnival]

I will focus on the bottom two of each type for now.

Trade
Lisbon: Your trade routes cannot be plundered and killing a barbarian naval unit awards diplomatic favor equal to 50% of its combat strength.
Having a city state with a diplomatic bonus would be nice and I am pretty sure fighting pirates would be a good way to get people to like you.
Bandar Brunei: Your Trading Posts in foreign cities provide +1 Gold to your Trade Routes passing through or going to the city. Markets provide +1 Tourism after researching the Mercantilism civic.
I am not a fan of the trade route tourism modifier on a city state on top of the one already in the game, but I figure a pre-flight/conservation source of tourism on a specific building could work.

Militaristic
Preslav: City Center and Encampment buildings provide +2 loyalty.
If Valletta can let the player use faith to buy both CC and Encampment buildings, then I see no problem with Preslav giving loyalty to both.
Ngazargamu: Land combat or support units are 20% cheaper to purchase with gold or faith for each Encampment district building in that city.
I actually will not change this as it did not hit the bottom half and honestly hits that "pretty alright city-state that does not need to be changed" sweet spot.

Cultural
Vilnius: Every 30 turns, (on Standard) you unlock an inspiration moment for civics you and your ally have not yet researched. Trade routes to allies provide +2 culture for theater square buildings at the target destination.
I decided to hybridize both the base game and Rise and Fall bonuses as frankly neither were that great. Giving a unique ability comparable to the tier 2 research alliance is a nicer than an inspiration per Era, and since the player wants to send trade routes to allies anyway, giving a culture boost for theater square buildings in other cities is a lot more intuitive than tracking alliance levels and adjacency.
Mohenjo-Daro: Your cities have full housing from water as if next to a river. Commercial hubs receive the +2 gold as if adjacent to a river. City Centers provide +2 appeal to adjacent tiles.
The big problem with the old ability is you really wanted to settle on rivers, even with floods existing later. This change gives the city state bonus counters those incentives. The player gets some early game utility by not losing out on gold, a culture niche that still works with the makeshift river bonus, giving incentive to focus city placement on maximizing Seaside Resorts and National Parks. Overall this just makes your cities more flexible.

Industrial
Cardiff: +20% production to Harbor districts and buildings. Harbor buildings provide +2 power and cities with a harbor gain gold equal to unspent power.
Getting harbors and lighthouses online quicker gives a nice early game boost the city state needs.
Mexico City: Regional effects from your Industrial Zone, Entertainment Complex, and Water Park districts reach 3 tiles farther. Bread and Circuses is only 5% less powerful per tile away.
Yeah I get the lack of Water parks is an oversight from it being Toronto, but I find it funny that a city built on a lake does not have that bonus. The numbers of the project buffs can be tinkered with.

Religious
Armagh: Allows building the monastery (One per city. Provides +15 healing for friendly religious units, +1 Housing (+1 more with colonialism) +2 Faith, +1 culture from adjacent plantations and pastures, +1 science if founded on a hill, +1 Faith to adjacent farms).
The problem with monasteries is while they have a niche they only provide faith and housing compared to other more diverse tile improvements. The culture from plantations and pastures gives a nice reference to Monastery distilleries, cheese making, and other finer goods manufactured. The monasticism dark age policy card is also buffed to giving the science boost to cities with Holy Sites or monasteries.
Jerusalem: Becoming suzerain of a city state (including Jerusalem) converts it to your religion. Jerusalem and your cities with holy sites exert pressure as if holy cities.
Another combo of both abilities with a considerable buff to the base game where the conversion was limited to Jerusalem, making it highly situational based on map spawns. Being able to play defense on your own territory and suzerain snipe a city state across the map is a nice combo.

Scientific
Mitla: 15% growth for cities with a campus and +1 housing for Campus buildings.
If one is going to give a boost to city growth, give it a small boost to compliment that growth.
Fez: Each time you convert a city for the first time using a religious unit earn 20 Science and 2 Great Scientist points per Population of that city.
This is the one I am stumped with.

 

[bengalryan9]

I wouldn't change Fez at all TBH. It's situational, but when you are in a position to actually take advantage of that situation (meaning you found a religion and find Fez early) I've always found it to be pretty good.

 

[monikernemo]

Comments on Kandy and Fez:

The main issue with Kandy is that it is not retroactive bonus and blocks you from generating relic if you dont have slots which frankly speaking is quite annoying.
If you give them +6 faith in capital for each Natural wonder found, it will be overpowered for people will get faith from relic + natural wonder.
I think a good way to do this is to award player relic for each NW found after becoming suzerain, and if they do not have enough slots, award them the wonders after finishing temple or wonders that can hold these items.

As for Fez I think that the bonus is alright. 2 Great Scientist points per pop is going to be insane early game and religious pressure when developing tech is also pretty insane.
I think another interesting way to modify Fez is to earn a random Eureka after converting city with > 10 pop for the first time after unlocking exploration civic.

 

[hhhhhh]

Comments on Kandy and Fez:

The main issue with Kandy is that it is not retroactive bonus and blocks you from generating relic if you dont have slots which frankly speaking is quite annoying.
If you give them +6 faith in capital for each Natural wonder found, it will be overpowered for people will get faith from relic + natural wonder.
I think a good way to do this is to award player relic for each NW found after becoming suzerain, and if they do not have enough slots, award them the wonders after finishing temple or wonders that can hold these items.

As for Fez I think that the bonus is alright. 2 Great Scientist points per pop is going to be insane early game and religious pressure when developing tech is also pretty insane.
I think another interesting way to modify Fez is to earn a random Eureka after converting city with > 10 pop for the first time after unlocking exploration civic.

Oh I like these. I'm actually in an on-going MP game that I utilized both Fez and Kandy. And when they are no longer useful I will conquer them (to deny science bonus to opponents.)

For Kandy I think one way to do is, if you have slot, +1 relic, if you don't, +6 faith in capital (current Kandy make each relic 6 faith), but no tourism.

The 125 religious pressure to Fez may make it fun for religious victories. I don't know if it will be insane, the choice of city is kinda restrictive.

 

[monikernemo]

The 125 religious pressure to Fez may make it fun for religious victories. I don't know if it will be insane, the choice of city is kinda restrictive.

I think my only gripe is that will it might have the potential to cascade (bouncing back and forth between conversion and gaining science, completing tech, which turns to another spread charge) which may lead to some weird consequence.

 

[hhhhhh]

I think my only gripe is that will it might have the potential to cascade (bouncing back and forth between conversion and gaining science, completing tech, which turns to another spread charge) which may lead to some weird consequence.

The Fez suzerainty only grant you science on first time conversion of a city with a religious unit (so natural pressure conversion won't count).