Nerf AI conquering City States?

[PeterChu]

This is quite beside the point I'm trying to make. I usually have an army and I'm fine with conquering/liberating city states. My point is that beyond a certain amount of periodic reconquering of city states by anyone, the whole influence/envoy system becomes useless. Even if you liberate a CS, the envoys will have been reset, both yours and the AIs. added up to the fact that you now need buildings to make use of the 3 and 6 envoys bonus, CS peaceful interaction is reduced to suzerainship, which you get much easier with liberation, including conquest of the CS -> gifting to an AI -> liberating again.

I'm coming to think too that major civs should be able (after a certain civic) to sign a protection agreement with city states for a set amount of turn (maybe with other conditions, say you need at least 3 envoys ?), so that attacking the CS would act as a declaration of war on the protector as well. It would allow the player and AI's to prevent the conquest of city states with their army deterrence, rather than re-liberating it afterward.

Once again, the issue with the current state of "war only" interaction is that it nullifies the envoy/influence mechanic. Well the main issue in my opinion anyway.

Another solution in this regard could be suzerainship=declaration of protection. We did have the declaration of protection for city-state in Civ 5. So it should not be hard to imagine how this mechanism would affect the playthroughs. This said, the R&F Xpansion as it is now seems to offer an alternative -- that is, the CS emergency. But the CS emergency as a check-and-balance system can only work after the capture of the targeted city-state, not to mention that it only work for you with those city-states you have met and sent envoys. In addition, what would happen if one of your allies attack the city-state of which you get suzerainship? I have not yet encountered such situation in my own games, so I am curious how things would turn out to be. Between the alliance system and the emergency system, which one would get primacy?

Especially on higher difficulty, AI civs tends to capture neighboring city-states as an 'efficient way for expansion'. But even on lower difficulty, it seems AI civs would simply attack those city-states you gain strategic advantage over them. In such cases, wars on city-state could be their most 'efficient strategy' to reverse or destroy your strategic advantage based on the envoy mechanism. This could be seen as another kind of easy exploit for the AI civs?

 

[Victoria]

Throwing a "WTH" at my response, especially given that I made a brief mention of some of said earlier discussion (non-inclusive) is disingenuous in this context .

That ignores the point and is a disingenuous response given the discussion.

No it is not in my view and get rather tired of you calling things disingenuous, its rather unpleasant of you. We are all entitled to say what we want and even repeat what other people say, you are using language to imply we are trolling and thats not allowed... and we are not. STOP ATTACKING PEOPLE, just say your piece and be done with it. If you do not like what we say report it but you know that very well.

 

[PYITE]

This is mostly a result of the AI becoming much more efficient at capturing cities. I’ve run a lot of autoplay and in the past the AI would still constantly attack CS but would frequently fail in its attempts. The AI is also much better at determining which cities it can effectively take.

There is a pseudoyield for city value and defense. If this isn’t an intended behavior from the devs then they can make CS value decrease for each civ based on personalities, envoys and victory conditions pursued if they want.

This is still RF version 1.0! Threads like this are great for spotlighting a mechanic that players aren’t happy with, but give the devs a chance to make balance adjustments before we denounce them as game breakers. Sometimes when you fix one thing you have make adjustments with other things to compensate.

Personally I just look at it like the game is playing differently then it has before and I need to adjust my strategies in order to be successful.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No it is not in my view and get rather tired of you calling things disingenuous, its rather unpleasant of you.

That was clearly quoting a different post than yours, which is why it's a separate quote .

We are all entitled to say what we want and even repeat what other people say, you are using language to imply we are trolling and thats not allowed

If we are "entitled" to say what we want, then calling a misrepresentation of an argument or ignoring it to restate points it refutes can also reasonably be called disingenuous to the discussion. A disingenuous argument is not the same thing as trolling! Never in this thread did I say or imply that people are making posts to intentionally annoy someone, and in my experience that is atypical even among the subpopulation of "disingenuous posts"...most of the time people mean what they say/are genuinely attempting to present a point of view...but are not doing it in a way conducive to progression of discussion or debate.

If internet forums enforced that with any consistency it would look very different, but would also have an overwhelming need of moderators. Maybe off in some forum whose express purpose is debate and nothing else?

STOP ATTACKING PEOPLE, just say your piece and be done with it.

All caps doesn't make it any more real. I'm not "attacking" any more than dozens of other people here are "attacking" (any standard for considering my posts an "attack" that I would meet would also include most posters in this thread, and the one I'm quoting more strongly than mine ^_^). I'm typing agreement or disagreement at a keyboard, and people read it or don't read it. When debating mechanics this typically falls into categories of a) providing reasoning for my own arguments or b) demonstrating flaws in reasoning of other arguments as-presented. Everyone involved makes mistakes, so demonstrating reasoning flaws and altering of positions is an expected outcome...given evidence presented I'd argue it should happen more than it does in most threads.

The "report" function is not a button I would or should hit merely because I don't like what is posted. That's for actual rule violations.

Moderator Action: Nothing in this post is on topic for the discussion. It derails into a discussion of another poster, that is a violation of the rules. Please discuss the topic and not each other. If there is an issue like this, report the post instead of derailing. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Victoria]

Happily perma ignored

Moderator Action: Telling someone they are on your ignore list is trolling and against the rules. This is also off topic. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[steveg700]

1: I never played game to be T230, except for the GOTM T250 score ones. And I see a lot of people reporting weird bugs after T200 like game not working or so( I myself also experienced that in my only post-200 game.), I guess every bug is expectable if you play that late game.

2: Given your situation attacking Yerevan is beneficial. I see no point not attacking it if I am Lautaro.

Bugs? I'm not sure what you think might be bugged here. The AI is attacking a city-state in a reckless fashion, as it does throughout game after game. Doesn't matter what era or turn number. It's typical spoilsport behavior. The cynic in me suspects that comment just a thin premise for you to bring speed-play into the discussion, as you are ever wont to do. You should know by now that a post-200 game is not really aberrant, as you've certainly had that pointed out to you enough times by now. If you live in an outlier's bubble of micro-games, then that impacts your qualifications to make comments about the game couched as axiomatic. I would hate to rile Victoria by bandying the word "disingenuous" around at just this moment, buuuut........

To be clear, I'm not playing Lataro. I'm Pedro. Lataro is blue. I'm green. Given that, I don't know how you can surmise there's a point in attacking Yerevan for either of us. It's a city with little to offer as a constituent of an empire. The AI thought Yerevan was worth Lataro investing nine envoys in, but suddenly says to hell with it and goes for its throat. And since I surround Yerevan and exude heaps of loyalty pressure, it would be flipped to me tout de suite. What is the point?

There isn't any. It's another example of obtuse AI strategy, once again a case where the AI has been supplied with an inadequate level of conditional logic. It's the same problem with things like the AI building Petra on one desert tile. It just doesn't have enough if-then branches to make a judicious decision.

Of course, a chief deterrent should be that stiff -50 warmonger penalty. If an AI civ's belligerence was alienating itself and setting itself up to be DOW'ed and punished by multiple civ's and not just the player, people might be quicker to recognize this as a problem.

 

[Kurnn]

I don't find this to be an acceptable answer. as many posters have pointed out since you posted. I hope this gets back to Firaxis. I don't think this is an intended mechanic, hence my objection.

Good thread, everyone. Lots of reasonable opinions expressed.

And please note, quite a lot of opinions that the upgrade to the AI with the expansion is a good thing, not bad.

 

[steveg700]

And please note, quite a lot of opinions that the upgrade to the AI with the expansion is a good thing, not bad.

Sure, lots of players just want lots of war, war, war. They can't see the forest for the tree, and I guess aggressive AI is more interesting in an AI than the other extreme where the AI will not declare war.

The AI attacking city-states can be a good thing, when implemented with proper conditional logic. That just isn't present right now, and therefore is no upgrade, just more senseless AI behavior.

What I think we have right now is the worst of both worls, with the AI just chickenhawking city-states, and for the most part leaving the other civ's alone. Right now, all I see are ancient-era DOW's and joint wars later in the game.

 

[local_hero]

What a kick in the teeth one of my latest games was. Stockholm, Zanzibar and Antananarivo were conquered and Brussels was razed. Four top CS in my opinion. I'd personally like to see reduced aggressiveness towards city states, but at least changing so you can't raze them and a peaceful option to protect them (for example to be able to bribe the AI to make peace with CS).

 

[Kruos]

This is mostly a result of the AI becoming much more efficient at capturing cities. I’ve run a lot of autoplay and in the past the AI would still constantly attack CS but would frequently fail in its attempts. The AI is also much better at determining which cities it can effectively take.

There is a pseudoyield for city value and defense. If this isn’t an intended behavior from the devs then they can make CS value decrease for each civ based on personalities, envoys and victory conditions pursued if they want.

This is still RF version 1.0! Threads like this are great for spotlighting a mechanic that players aren’t happy with, but give the devs a chance to make balance adjustments before we denounce them as game breakers. Sometimes when you fix one thing you have make adjustments with other things to compensate.

Personally I just look at it like the game is playing differently then it has before and I need to adjust my strategies in order to be successful.

I think you are exactly on point, I totally agree with this. AI attaking and now succeeding to conquer CS is a good news and perfectly fine. We now just need some little levers here or there to give the players some tools to adapt and react gameplay wise. Like as already suggested in the thread, a way to protect diplomaticly the CS, a way to put pressure on CS agressive AIs, etc etc.

 

[Tuvok694]

Dear developers,
pleeeeeeeease fix this weakness of the city states OR the incredible aggressiveness of the AI towards them.
In almost every game I play, about half the city states are GONE within the first 50 rounds (on standard speed).
The game would be more interesting WITH the city states. I really hope very very much that this problem will be solved with the next patch.

 

[tedhebert]

Ais are also players, they have their right to make their strategies and follow their path to win (although their approach are silly).

Capturing CSs definitely helps everyone to win and is a common strategy. Why can't AIs do that?

If you think that's not to your favor you can try to defend or liberate CSs instead of complaining. Of course Ais don't have to play in your favor.

I humbly submit that you are missing the point here, Lily...

We are NOT against AI attacking CS... what we are are against is how MUCH the AI goes after CS, and how easy it is to pluck them, especially in the start game...

I my humble opinion, taking out a CS, be it from a human player or an AI player, should be DIFFICULT, and should incur a significant cost and preparation in order to succeed... as it stands right now, it is just TOO easy to take them out... their units are weak, they have no walls and very limited defence...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sure, lots of players just want lots of war, war, war. They can't see the forest for the tree, and I guess aggressive AI is more interesting in an AI than the other extreme where the AI will not declare war.

The AI attacking city-states can be a good thing, when implemented with proper conditional logic. That just isn't present right now, and therefore is no upgrade, just more senseless AI behavior.

What I think we have right now is the worst of both worls, with the AI just chickenhawking city-states, and for the most part leaving the other civ's alone. Right now, all I see are ancient-era DOW's and joint wars later in the game.

Yes, conditional logic is weak in general for the AI.

The unfortunate reality is that the game's mechanics encourage war spam yet it continues to pretend to cover 4 other victory conditions...victory conditions that are only viable absent defending yourself at war if not everyone is trying. The AI is *intentionally* designed to not consistently try to win, because the mechanics are incompatible with that behavior allowing multiple viable VCs.

Interestingly, city states are a rare exception, and it's pretty silly to dump 9 envoys on one and then conquer it...while denying your opponent a good one with lots of their envoys can make sense. Regardless, they're too easy to beat down early. For everyone. That setup prevents many otherwise possible interactions from being relevant.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

In my opinion the issue is that at higher difficulty levels that AI gets lots of units at the start. This is at a time when the human player is struggling to have more than a mere handful. At the start of the game the AI can with impunity take over city states and even rush the human player (warcarts are particularly unpleasant). Given time, the human player can overhaul the AI. Perhaps better that the AI gets some extra units each age of the game rather than all at once at the start when they do not need them.

 

[steveg700]

In my opinion the issue is that at higher difficulty levels that AI gets lots of units at the start. This is at a time when the human player is struggling to have more than a mere handful. At the start of the game the AI can with impunity take over city states and even rush the human player (warcarts are particularly unpleasant). Given time, the human player can overhaul the AI. Perhaps better that the AI gets some extra units each age of the game rather than all at once at the start when they do not need them.

Yeah, I've often thought the difficulty shouldn't just give the AI a better start that a human will eventually snowball past.

I think TMIT was saying previously that part of the issue is that difficulty levels up the AI civ's, but not the CS's. That too would be problematic.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I humbly submit that you are missing the point here, Lily...

We are NOT against AI attacking CS... what we are are against is how MUCH the AI goes after CS, and how easy it is to pluck them, especially in the start game...

I my humble opinion, taking out a CS, be it from a human player or an AI player, should be DIFFICULT, and should incur a significant cost and preparation in order to succeed... as it stands right now, it is just TOO easy to take them out... their units are weak, they have no walls and very limited defence...

Why? In real world, taking off relatively-small areas like Iraq or Libya is very easy for major Civs like United States.

Only when that area being protected by another major Civ (like the war of Korea or Vietnam) will make this process difficult.

So it's good design to make city-states easy to take off. In real world they're easy to take, too. Only when that city-state having a strong protection will it get out of the fortune of being dominated.

So if you want your city-state not to be taken you shall protect or liberate them yourself(sending them envoys will increase their defense too), the city-states self defense shall be weak and unreliable.

 

[steveg700]

Why? In real world, taking off relatively-small areas like Iraq or Libya is very easy for major Civs like United States.

Only when that area being protected by another major Civ (like the war of Korea or Vietnam) will make this process difficult.

So it's good design to make city-states easy to take off. In real world they're easy to take, too. Only when that city-state having a strong protection will it get out of the fortune of being dominated.

So if you want your city-state not to be taken you shall protect or liberate them yourself(sending them envoys will increase their defense too), the city-states self defense shall be weak and unreliable.

Consider that arguing realism can be a very specious way to justify degenerate AI behavior. The needs of gameplay are priority one.

However, following this train of thought, in the real world it is actually possible to deter powers from this sort of behavior with means other than waiting for them to attack and constantly declaring wars. Jerusalem and Geneva are not constantly under bombardment or occupation and in need of liberation, despite being surrounded by many stronger militaries of powers that likely wouldn't be considered their suzerains. At the very least, you can reasonably expect long-term allies to not whimsically attack a small nation just because they like you a little better. Also, in the real world powers might well hesitate to attack a small nation if it's a more effective ally. What's the strategic value of taking Geneva's territory versus having it as an ally? Big fan of rocks?

It's okay for CS's to be targets, but there is a lack of depth in how CS relations are handled because the AI acts without fear. Again though, if you're finishing games in 160 turns, you simply lack time to appreciate depth. Everything is about speed and repetition in service to optimization.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yeah, I've often thought the difficulty shouldn't just give the AI a better start that a human will eventually snowball past.

With the new era system, it might be interesting if the AI got a gradual bonus at the beginning of each era. I'm not sure what that would be, however, that wouldn't be immersion breaking for some players. The advantage of a start bonus is that you don't see the AI "magically" receive a bonus partway through the game.

But maybe something that runs behind the scene, like a percentage boost to yields? They could start at zero, since the AI already starts with more settlers, or whatever bonus they already have built in to the difficulty levels, then rise at the start of every new game era, say +5% for the classical era, another +5% (now 10%) for the medieval era. It might help make the late game more tense, at least if you haven't won by turn 150 anyway. Right now, it's all about catching the AI. Once you've done so, it's just a matter of time before you win, because the AI can't come back to catch you. With escalating bonuses, maybe they'd have at least a chance of doing so.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

With the new era system, it might be interesting if the AI got a gradual bonus at the beginning of each era. I'm not sure what that would be, however, that wouldn't be immersion breaking for some players. The advantage of a start bonus is that you don't see the AI "magically" receive a bonus partway through the game.

But maybe something that runs behind the scene, like a percentage boost to yields? They could start at zero, since the AI already starts with more settlers, or whatever bonus they already have built in to the difficulty levels, then rise at the start of every new game era, say +5% for the classical era, another +5% (now 10%) for the medieval era. It might help make the late game more tense, at least if you haven't won by turn 150 anyway. Right now, it's all about catching the AI. Once you've done so, it's just a matter of time before you win, because the AI can't come back to catch you. With escalating bonuses, maybe they'd have at least a chance of doing so.

Currently they get envoys, eurekas and inspirations at the beginning of each era.

Not sure at the beginning of his self era or world era. Since world era is much slower than self era for everyone, Rise and Fall may downgrade their progression a lot.

 

[Ferocitus]

With the new era system, it might be interesting if the AI got a gradual bonus at the beginning of each era. I'm not sure what that would be, however, that wouldn't be immersion breaking for some players. The advantage of a start bonus is that you don't see the AI "magically" receive a bonus partway through the game.

But maybe something that runs behind the scene, like a percentage boost to yields? They could start at zero, since the AI already starts with more settlers, or whatever bonus they already have built in to the difficulty levels, then rise at the start of every new game era, say +5% for the classical era, another +5% (now 10%) for the medieval era. It might help make the late game more tense, at least if you haven't won by turn 150 anyway. Right now, it's all about catching the AI. Once you've done so, it's just a matter of time before you win, because the AI can't come back to catch you. With escalating bonuses, maybe they'd have at least a chance of doing so.

So, in essence, you don't want to use mods to make CS harder
to take, or to get the type of game you want. However, you want
to force those who are quite happy with the status quo to use
mods to get what they want, even though they already have it.