Nerf AI conquering City States?

[Ferocitus]

I guess it's mostly about expectations. If you expect that most city states are around for all the game (and that is the intention of city state), obviously you will be upset by the current state of the game. This was how the game behaved in the beginning, so I can see why it upsets some people.

They are not scarcer if they are not razed. Some people choose not
to liberate them because they do not want to play that style of game.

I do agree though, that sometimes it seems a bit illogical how the AI is targeting them for conquest rather than augmenting their science/gold/faith/culture output.

Sure. Then turn it to your advantage in some way if it suits your style.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For those who don't like that AI attacks a city state, you could defend them. Warmonger isn't an issue in ancient and hardly even in classic.

I don't really understand why this change poses any bigger problem? Not all city states gets conquered, just like not all civs gets conquered early, but some do. Why shouldn't a civ attack another city to get it for themselves? Every player does that.

There are worse problems in the game, but the tuning on this one is bad. The city states are there for the player to make different choices regarding their existence than other cities, and this is rendered moot when 80% of them are off the board fast.

The main origin of this happening is that city state bonuses don't scale with the normal AI freebies. You could easily alter this by letting them have walls fast/inexpensively or even just giving the city states themselves the same extra starting units (sans settlers) as the AI on a given difficulty. This would also prevent the player from inexpensively picking up strong cities quickly as a bonus.

 

[Karpius]

I do agree though, that sometimes it seems a bit illogical how the AI is targeting them for conquest rather than augmenting their science/gold/faith/culture output.

Again, I have not seen this. I don't play above King, so is this something that becomes more common at higher difficulty levels?

In my current game (as Trajan) I am in heated competition with Gorgo and Wilhemina for suzerainty over Yerevan. Wilhemina and Gorgo are at war and poor Yerevan is constantly flipping between neutral (with Trajan as suz), or at war with one of the other two. Its almost comical. Those poor swordsmen and archers must be getting dizzy! So far, out of five CS Trajan has met, only one has been conquered by Tamar on another continent. So yeah, I am not seeing the emergency here.

 

[Architect]

My last game was Immortal Zulu and I got a start with two of the city states that provide production for units and encampments on my border. I defended and kept suzerain status all game. This made the game very interesting and fun. At one point I surrounded a city state with my units so the AI couldn't take it.

And in all the games I've played I've not seen anywhere close to 80% of the city states captured. In the Zulu game it was at most 50%. I also used these captured city states to remove warmonger penalties in the mid game that would have crippled my diplomacy but instead made it where it was maybe 20 turns to remove the remaining warmongering from a empire purge of the evil Georgians.

 

[ferretbacon]

Not only do AI civs need to scale back their City-State conquests, but the City-States need to learn to defend themselves. I kid you not, I saw Hong Kong get conquered by Norway by land in my game last night and there were only two tiles to attack from. The other 4 tiles around the city center were mountains and ocean. The two land tiles weren't even adjacent and a mountain range prevented an easy approach from both sides at the same time, so I suspect that Norway simply rammed a warrior into the city over and over again and that Hong Kong couldn't defend against that for some reason. There were no ships involved (he'd have to have gone past my city with ships and he didn't) and ranged support wasn't possible because this was before Norway had archers.

 

[Athmos]

My last game was Immortal Zulu and I got a start with two of the city states that provide production for units and encampments on my border. I defended and kept suzerain status all game. This made the game very interesting and fun. At one point I surrounded a city state with my units so the AI couldn't take it.

And in all the games I've played I've not seen anywhere close to 80% of the city states captured. In the Zulu game it was at most 50%. I also used these captured city states to remove warmonger penalties in the mid game that would have crippled my diplomacy but instead made it where it was maybe 20 turns to remove the remaining warmongering from a empire purge of the evil Georgians.

Mind mentioning the difficulty level ?

In my deity Zulu game, at T50 Rome has taken Mohenjo Daro (between them and me) and also Lisbon and Brussels, which are on the opposite side (Roman unit have to go around or through me to get there). I was tied in a war with Australia or I would have steal killed the Cities first. Australia has conquered another one, and I've seen at least 3 other alerts "an unmet city state has been destroyed", which mean at least 50% are dead at T50 (standard map = 12 City states at start). I have contact with no live CS at the moment.

I invested no envoy luckily, but you have no way to diplomatically protect city states so your army cannot deter an AI from taking it and resetting all envoys at any point. You'll have to liberate it and reset it again if you want it, so influence and envoys play no significant role anymore.
Adding the other CS nerfs, right now to me they're just pre-settled free cities you can take without occupation penalties.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Again, I have not seen this. I don't play above King, so is this something that becomes more common at higher difficulty levels?

In my current game (as Trajan) I am in heated competition with Gorgo and Wilhemina for suzerainty over Yerevan. Wilhemina and Gorgo are at war and poor Yerevan is constantly flipping between neutral (with Trajan as suz), or at war with one of the other two. Its almost comical. Those poor swordsmen and archers must be getting dizzy! So far, out of five CS Trajan has met, only one has been conquered by Tamar on another continent. So yeah, I am not seeing the emergency here.

It's pretty common to see 2 down by turn 50 on deity, more is quite possible. The more I think about it the more I think this is solved by simply giving them what other deity AI get. They'll still get conquered sometimes after that but so what? I expect the scale would be reasonable then.

 

[bonafide11]

I'd like if the AI was as aggressive towards each other (and the human) as they were towards the city-states.

 

[Karpius]

It's pretty common to see 2 down by turn 50 on deity, more is quite possible. The more I think about it the more I think this is solved by simply giving them what other deity AI get. They'll still get conquered sometimes after that but so what? I expect the scale would be reasonable then.

So at higher difficulty levels the AI becomes more aggressive and starts removing potential bonus mechanics enjoyed by other Civs (player included)? Perhaps the developers were trying to respond to numerous complaints about how easy the game was on Immortal and Deity level?

Or, perhaps, they were trying to create more situations for "Emergencies" and "Liberation" for the sake of the new era points mechanic.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So at higher difficulty levels the AI becomes more aggressive and starts removing potential bonus mechanics enjoyed by other Civs (player included)? Perhaps the developers were trying to respond to numerous complaints about how easy the game was on Immortal and Deity level?

Or, perhaps, they were trying to create more situations for "Emergencies" and "Liberation" for the sake of the new era points mechanic.

Neither. It's poor scaling. Firaxis has a long track record of poor scaling, so the outcome isn't surprising. AI is same aggressiveness on deity as king, it just starts with more units. The city states don't. The implications are obvious:

1. Relative to lower difficulties, city states are easily conquered by AI
2. Relative to lower difficulties, city states remain easy conquest targets for players as well, especially when compared to other civs

It is not clear you can make a value judgment that these particular actions by the AI make the game "harder", measured in expected winrate for the player. In fact you mentioning the liberation and emergency mechanics seems to point the opposite direction (big opportunity for resource acquisition with reduced warmonger penalty). What it does do is remove a significant part of the decision-making surrounding city state interactions.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Or, perhaps, they were trying to create more situations for "Emergencies" and "Liberation" for the sake of the new era points mechanic.

I think this is very likely. They want to ensure that emergencies would actually be triggered, since they don't trigger every time conditions are met.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, they really need to tone it down. Only 2 of the 4 city-states on my continent survived, and I'm not sure how the second one survived (I think Tamar got busy fighting Phillip to finish taking it out). It's really frustrating to see the AI start with multiple settlers, and then on top of that have enough troops to take down a city-state, and build another settler. The AI can easily have 4 cities settled before i get my second one out of immortal, which is just a frustrating start to deal with.

 

[Cymsdale]

Conquering city states is great, it would be weird for the AI to not do it when I can take such advantage of it myself.

 

[Athmos]

So at higher difficulty levels the AI becomes more aggressive and starts removing potential bonus mechanics enjoyed by other Civs (player included)? Perhaps the developers were trying to respond to numerous complaints about how easy the game was on Immortal and Deity level?

Or, perhaps, they were trying to create more situations for "Emergencies" and "Liberation" for the sake of the new era points mechanic.

honestly, I don't think it makes the game much harder or easier, just simpler : one less thing to handle. You don't have to think much about what to do with a city state you meet. Unless it is in top-tier suzerain bonus and you can nest it completely in your empire, It's never worth keeping.

 

[Ferocitus]

Yeah, they really need to tone it down. Only 2 of the 4 city-states on my continent survived, and I'm not sure how the second one survived (I think Tamar got busy fighting Phillip to finish taking it out). It's really frustrating to see the AI start with multiple settlers, and then on top of that have enough troops to take down a city-state, and build another settler. The AI can easily have 4 cities settled before i get my second one out of immortal, which is just a frustrating start to deal with.

Or play at a level lower until you develop tactics and strategies to
counter their advantages. Why should some aspects be nerfed to
cater for people who haven't learned the game's intricacies within
a couple of weeks after release?

 

[UWHabs]

Or play at a level lower until you develop tactics and strategies to
counter their advantages. Why should some aspects be nerfed to
cater for people who haven't learned the game's intricacies within
a couple of weeks after release?

I can manage it. But just because I can manage it doesn't mean I have to like how it currently works.

 

[Athmos]

I'd like if the AI was as aggressive towards each other (and the human) as they were towards the city-states.

In Deity, they're very aggressive toward the player and each other as well.

Actually, I don't think their level of aggressiveness changes with the difficulty, other than the relationship penalty.
But CS start with a settler and 2 warriors (I think), same for king AI, so the balance of power doesn't make immediate annexation attempt that obvious a choice to them (I'm sure balance of power is at least a factor before declaring war).
Deity AI starts with 3 settlers and 5 warriors (and 2 builders, and much more). They have to respect each other armies somewhat as they're equal, but both the player and any city state look like very easy target to them when comparing strength or empire score.
The player can handle it as (s)he can expand, act in diplomacy, and is obviously much better at predicting AI behavior and at tactical management, city states... not so much.

As others suggested, starting troops of city states should scale at least a bit with difficult (which would tone down Germany bonus a little as well, probably for the best)

 

[Karpius]

• Relative to lower difficulties, city states are easily conquered by AI

• Relative to lower difficulties, city states remain easy conquest targets for players as well, especially when compared to other civs

Do the AI civs now start with even more units in R&F than they did before in relation to the city-states? Or are the AI civs simply more aggressive regarding city-states in higher difficulties than King?

Also, is this situation impossible to strategize for? Is there no way for a determined human player to protect one or two city-states that they can concentrate on? Is there no chance of liberating them? Are they all being conquered long before the human player can do anything?

If I step back from the details, all I see is that on higher difficulties the game has a method of reducing bonuses the human player can be quite good at exploiting. If this is new in R&F, I suspect it is in response to some level of fan comments.

For those players who regularly start conquering CS's right off the bat and have complained about the AI's lack of aggression, I would expect they would be pleased. Unless, of course, they are now peeved at the AI for "picking the fruit" before they could.

 

[Ferocitus]

I can manage it. But just because I can manage it doesn't mean I have to like how it currently works.

hahaha. So you are complaining that you find it frustrating to start
behind the AI when playing at a high level, but you want the game
nerfed in your favour at that level. A mod that gives CS walls and
other strengths sounds perfect. No need to change the base game
at all.

 

[Athmos]

Do the AI civs now start with even more units in R&F than they did before in relation to the city-states? Or are the AI civs simply more aggressive regarding city-states in higher difficulties than King?

Also, is this situation impossible to strategize for? Is there no way for a determined human player to protect one or two city-states that they can concentrate on? Is there no chance of liberating them? Are they all being conquered long before the human player can do anything?

If I step back from the details, all I see is that on higher difficulties the game has a method of reducing bonuses the human player can be quite good at exploiting. If this is new in R&F, I suspect it is in response to some level of fan comments.

For those players who regularly start conquering CS's right off the bat and have complained about the AI's lack of aggression, I would expect they would be pleased. Unless, of course, they are now peeved at the AI for "picking the fruit" before they could.

It's quite possible to strategize for it, but the only meaningful interaction is now war, either to protect or to liberate. Since you cannot deter AI from attacking (they can't even easily consider suzerain military might before declaring, as suzerain might change any time), your only option will be to declare war before the AI take the CS (and take all warmongering penalties even if you don't take any cities), or liberate it afterward, in which case all envoys will have been reset.

So basically the whole envoy game disappears. Unless you are already all around a city state and can physically prevent its conquest (you'll have to close borders), it makes no sense to invest any envoys since you can loose them any time. I don't know what changed to make the AI so much more aggressive toward them (I'd say Deity AI usually took one city state close to them before R&F, on average).

If you combine it with the conditioning of the bonus on district buildings, envoys now have a very marginal purpose after the very early game (when you have no envoys anyway, outside of first meet and quests)

Of course you can still interact with city states, but the influence/envoy game system is useless, at least in Deity, outside maybe strange games where city states all spawn isolated from most AI. I have seen that happen before, but the new algorithm for start placement in R&F should prevent that now anyway.

The only uses of city states that were really strong were very specific and hard to achieve anyway (globalization rush), other than papal primacy which has been removed from the game anyway and still required the right religion.

Specific Leader abilities regarding city states (Pericles) are currently useless as well.