Militaristic city state question.

[firecat318]

Militaristic city states are often regarded as the weakest of the three types, but I have a question. How often do they grant you a military unit? This is assuming you have ally status with them.

 

[Fealin73]

I seem to remember getting a unit every 20 turns i think. I like them fine myself but I play on king for what its worth so maybe they are decent at lower levels. Mostly I seem to get decent useful units and I generally like having the extra ally anyhow.

 

[juckie]

They are awesome in epic games though! Where the unit spawn is more effective than food/culture.

 

[Nunya]

You get a military unit that you could build about every 17-20 turns. The unit will appear in the teritory of the militaristic city state. Sometimes you get Scouts, but I also got Helicopters and Tanks.

 

[EscapedGoat]

they seem to give you units you have tech for - in the industrial era, I regularly get artillery from them. That's pretty good actually. In my last game i got swordsmen and longswordsmen quite early from just being "friends".

I think there is little difference from being friends or allies in terms of spawn rate (may be wrong on this one)

 

[Alziel]

They can be really useful if you are doing well with money and have adopted the Military Caste policy because whatever unit they provide (even if it's only a scout) can be used as a garrison to increase happiness (or rather decrease unhappiness).

Of course you can use whatever they give you as well if that serves your purpose better - they can also be really useful to befriend in far flung corners of your empire where you might not have your own military presence.

I think the unit is provided every 20 turns if you are friendly and every 17 turns if you are allied. If you have two or three Militaristic CS allies, this can result in a nice steady stream of units for quite some time.

Of course - you have to watch your maintenance costs and if your gold cannot handle upkeep you have the option of turning off the spawning of military from any of your Militaristic CS friends/allies.

Personally I like them - but their use tends to be more situational than for the other two types.

Cheers

Alziel

 

[Airey]

The downside with Military Caste policy is
1. money used on unit upkeep can be better spent elsewhere
2. other policy also provide bonus happy in direct/indirect ways.

Militaristic CS would fit well later ICS game where small cities to produce military would take too long, big cities building something else (ie. space win). If you have a huge tech lead over AIs over at the other continent, spawning few advance units oversea could be beneficial.
But most of the time, they would only be considered when player have spare money to use, by that time, the game is already won anyways.
I've yet to see a game where Milit CS incooperation is game changing.

 

[CBPE]

I have two questions about this:

1- is there a sort of rule about what kind of unit they'll produce for the allied civ or is totally randomized?
2- can they provide a resource if they don't have the tech to see it?
I try to explain: a city-state worker mines a hill. Then, when I've finished IW, I see that on that hill there is iron. If I'm allied whit it, the CS will provide me iron even if it haven't researched yet IW?

 

[Alziel]

I have two questions about this:

1- is there a sort of rule about what kind of unit they'll produce for the allied civ or is totally randomized?
2- can they provide a resource if they don't have the tech to see it?
I try to explain: a city-state worker mines a hill. Then, when I've finished IW, I see that on that hill there is iron. If I'm allied whit it, the CS will provide me iron even if it haven't researched yet IW?

The unit that they provide to you is random but it will only be a unit that you yourself would be able to build based on your current technological level. You won't get units that you couldn't build yourself.

You will also not receive any Unique Units from a Militaristic City State. For example, if you are America, you will never get a Minute Man unit from a CS - they would give you a standard Musket Man instead.

If the CS gives you a unit that uses a strategic resource, the resource will be deducted from your own pool when the unit is gifted. If you have none of a particular strategic resource then you won't be gifted any units associated with it (for example you will never get Chariots, Horsemen, Knights, Cavalry or Lancers if you don't have at least one Horse resource available).

I actually can't answer the resource question that you have because I really don't know the answer! It does seem that the CS can take a while to hook up a resource that they have and that you can see sometimes - but to be honest this doesn't happen to me very often so I can't say for sure if you're right.

Cheers

Alziel

 

[Duo]

mililtary CS get stronger later in the game with free units which can have long build times at that stage, since production doesnt scale that well with the ages outside of dedicated production cities and even at that they can take a while. usually you have so much gpt towards the end that its well worth buying a couple off.

but i don't think theyre generally worthwhile early on, rather go for an early cultural CS at the start to snag some SP. maritime are always great obviously.

 

[KingofBeers]

The unit that they provide to you is random but it will only be a unit that you yourself would be able to build based on your current technological level. You won't get units that you couldn't build yourself.

I've found this to be untrue. I've received a War Elephant in the ancient era came in v.handy but i wasn't Siamese. Was a 1-off tho, maybe this was fixed in an update.

 

[avl8]

I must say militaristic CS is a good option for ICS if it provide an unique luxury/+5 happiness for 500g. Free units are also good, both for scouting and early defense.

Dunno, if those units are actually FREE or you gotta pay for their maintenance as usual.

 

[The Tollan]

The time for unit spawn is 17 turns if they are allied and 20 if they are friends.

They can be useful but they are the least useful of the city states in most cases.

Basically they can give you any or almost any type of military unit you can normally build (this includes technology requirements). One exception to this is that they can give you units that are replaced by the unique unit of a civilization. Not sure if you can usually get UUs from them.

It is somewhat of a problem that certain units, like Lancers and Cavalry, can be received even when one is very far in the Modern Era. Other units often are received by the player but the very old units can been acquired with significant frequency. The next patch will change unit upgrade paths so it will likely alter this situation.

 

[The Tollan]

I've found this to be untrue. I've received a War Elephant in the ancient era came in v.handy but i want Siamese. Was a 1-off tho, maybe this was fixed in an update.

That sounds like a glitch or some problem in the programming. It usually doesn't seem like one can get unique units from other civilizations.

 

[wurstburst]

I've gotten military CS early on a few times by doing their quests. When I did, the units they sent me were usually very very helpful. In the early to mid-game I am usually struggling to stay even with the biggest civ's military and sometimes having to fight 2 or 3 wars at once. Having a few extra units can be a life saver in the right situation.

Still, I don't ever buy them off, because I don't usually have the money early on and maritime is better when I do have the gold.

Late game when I have the cash to buy most of the CS, the units they send aren't really necessary.

 

[Bibor]

Units from militaristic states are sometimes handy. Sometimes being like half of the time. They can gift scouts but they can gift also tanks and artillery. I sometimes received promoted units as well (barracks or armory?) but I don't know the mechanics behind this.

In any case, getting a unit every 20 or so turns is great since it takes 10 turns to build a unit anyway. The donwside is that you can't really choose what you get. They are actually as beneficial as cultural city states. I know that people will probably disagree, but think about it. Turns not spent on building units can be spent on something else, stengthening your commerce, science or culture. While culturals grant you something tangible, militaristics save up production time.

 

[Kyroshill]

You will also not receive any Unique Units from a Militaristic City State. For example, if you are America, you will never get a Minute Man unit from a CS - they would give you a standard Musket Man instead.

In my current game as Alex.... I was gifted a hoplite instead of a spear

 

[mentor]

In my current game as Alex.... I was gifted a hoplite instead of a spear

On the other hand, in a game in which I was playing Rome, I received an Immoratal from a City State. That was weird. How does that happen?

 

[PaperBeetle]

^ Perhaps city states actually have a flavour apart from being Mar/Mil/Cult, i.e. they copy the UUs/UBs/UAs of one of the real civs. I'll have to keep a closer look out for UUs coming from mil states and check if they make sense historically/geographically.
I suppose evidence of this would be known to the modders out there, but I don't partake in such things, just idle speculation.

Of course - you have to watch your maintenance costs and if your gold cannot handle upkeep you have the option of turning off the spawning of military from any of your Militaristic CS friends/allies.

If you can't afford the upkeep on the new unit, just gift it straight back for +2 influence or whatever. I can't see the point of turning off spawning.

 

[fed1943]

Because Persia was in-game and had the technology to build immortals.