Nerf AI conquering City States?

[Ferocitus]

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'm not disagreeing with anything you wrote, but it's almost meaningless without
knowing what size map you play on and the number of civs you play against.
It's a very different game on a 200x100 map against 33 civs and 28 CS.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Considering I've had Sumeria nearby in 3 of 4 games they've been falling like dominoes. It does seem a bit excessive but I also enjoy liberating them back. They will probably introduce some balancing measures eventually. I do agree that it doesn't make much sense for civs like Pericles to be wiping CS off the board but it definitely does for Mongols and Sumeria. Honestly - on high difficulties this sort of thing should be expected. The AI has a definite advantage early and is pressing it - that's what should be happening.

 

[Athmos]

I'm not disagreeing with anything you wrote, but it's almost meaningless without
knowing what size map you play on and the number of civs you play against.
It's a very different game on a 200x100 map against 33 civs and 28 CS.

I usually play on Deity, Standard map size, everything else on default:
continent, default number of opponents, default number of CS (12 on standard sized map).

I also have had only a few game, but in this limited experience City states were annexed quicker and in greater quantity by the AI than in my previous experiences.

 

[Ferocitus]

I usually play on Deity, Standard map size, everything else on default:
continent, default number of opponents, default number of CS (12 on standard sized map).

I also have had only a few game, but in this limited experience City states were annexed quicker and in greater quantity by the AI than in my previous experiences.

Thanks for the clarification.
That also happens on games I play on 200x100 size maps with 33 civs
and 28 CS.
IMO, if you want to play games that take advantage of CS bonuses, then
you should be prepared to liberate ones that have been taken by your
opponents and keep them from being taken back or flipping. Having
them give you bonuses for you just being you is piss-weak.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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?

Once you learn the game, the reasons for buffing city state defenses on high difficulties will become more clear. Or just refer to post # 52.

I can just freely conquer them first --> war vs AI, or snipe them after the AI does some damage to them (especially attractive since this is a predictable scenario). What are they going to do, denounce me? This still loses interactivity in the design of city states. It also means I might be able to nearly insta-pocket 1600 gold by whaling on a damaged city defended by warriors without warmonger penalty if I want to fish for an "emergency response".

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?

1. Units are similar on deity to before
   
2. AI is more aggressive (good, AIs should try to win)
3. City states don't get deity bonuses like AIs do (bad)

Why is #3 bad? Because it means that rather than acting like city states, they act closer to settlers w/o escort. Players can take them as easily as the AI. I would go so far as to argue this is a persistent issue from vanilla, where city states that aren't great were juicy targets for the player. The AI knows this now too, which is a good thing...but the ease of conquering them has been too high since release if you want players to interact with most of them rather than conquer.

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.

No, we can still easily take the city states also. Are you making a case that city states *should* be walkovers for the player, even on deity?

 

[Very Mad Max]

Um, one kinda huge feature with Civ 6 is just that all AI don't act the same. If you don't like that then sorry.

They kind of do act the same. AI rushes CSs. AI declares pointless joint wars on players. All the AIs build the same units. I could go on. The only thing that makes them different is their agendas and some are so annoying that theres honestly no point in even dealing with diplomacy. It's so flawed.

 

[drubell]

Liberate them and reap the reward, or don't - your choice.
If you want to play without military action then you will have to come
up with something better than hoping Genghis is nerfed into a Quaker.

You seem to have this weird notion that because I feel that the AI should prioritize taking use of CS bonuses over taking them as normal cities (thus removing a large portion of CSes in the game) that I therefore must dislike the military option. This is an illogical assumption. I think people who have any idea of how I play is that I highly encourage early rushes and Domination wins.

I would imagine that you can understand that there's a difference between how I play and the fact that, in a game that starts with 12 city-states, the AI priority seems wrong if there's only 3 city-states remaining in the Classical Era. This is a reflection on how the AI prioritizes its resources (there is no reason for the AI or players to not try to get suzerain bonuses outside of very specific circumstances) more than anything to do with how I play.

If you would like to continue to decide to baselessly ridicule the playstyles of people who you don't know (and are objectively incorrect about it), and I'm seeing you personally attack the way people play aside from just myself, then it just really makes me feel that you don't even play the game, that you know nothing about the game, and just post on the forum to troll people. And I mean, you're free to do that, but it doesn't make you look any bit knowledgeable about how the game functions in R&F.

 

[steveg700]

If one accepts the premise that city-states are intended to be more than little freebies that you can capture and add to your empire, then it is a simple exercise of reason to know something is wrong with what's happening currently, where you can't actually reap the bonuses of any CS not within your immediate reach because your (unrecallable) envoys are just going to wind up meat for the grinder.

The notion that the game is fine as-is, and the simple solution is to aggressively attack any civ that DOW's a CS is a rather glib proposition. This AI behavior is far to prevalent. A player would liberate a CS and then be at war with someone over it in short order, and they would likely be doing this for multiple CS's simultaneously.

If nothing else, civ's should be able to declare CS's to be under their protections, as in Civ V--essentially, establish a defensive pact. Right now, if an AI civ attacks a CS--even one that's you a suzerain of--you have to DOW the AI civ, and if they aren't already denounced you probably have to do a surprise war given the rapidity with which CS's fall. That makes the protector the warmonger, not the blitzkrieger. As a human player, I would certainly see it as an easy thing to undermine a science contender by going to the CS he's dumped 10 envoys in and poaching it out from underneath him, so I wouldn't begrudge the AI for doing it either. There just need to be commensurate risks and rewards, actions and consequences.

Alternatively, you wait for the CS to be captured and then liberate, and suck up losing all the envoys who were killed.

Many other things that could be done: let players recall their envoys from CS's (rather than having to assign permanently), let players gift units to CS's (also an option in V), and, of course, just make CS's less of a pushover.

 

[magha77]

I have noticed that citystates doesn't always keep a unit fortified in the city when its under siege. That should almost be mandatory.
I dont mind the new change, but I would like to see some upgrade to how citystates protecting themselves. They do get a lot of units if they stay alive long though. Thats fine.

AI doesn't seam to raze city states, so this isn't a huge problem IMO. Liberation doesn't only grant you the city state back, but also a reduction in warmonger.
I don't have any good suggestion myself how to make city states better though. But I don't see the update THAT bad.

I’ve seen city state AI mount a serious attack, take over an AI city and raze it twice in my last game!

 

[steveg700]

They kind of do act the same.

They're same enough that nobody is acting as the freedom-loving peacekeeper in most games, regardless of agenda. Teddy and Curtain will attack a CS as merrily as Barbosa and Genghis.

 

[Cymsdale]

Being able to set up unilateral defense pact makes a lot sense. You shouldn't have to wait until a city state is actually taken before you are allowed to defend it.

 

[Karpius]

No, we can still easily take the city states also. Are you making a case that city states *should* be walkovers for the player, even on deity?

Not at all! My point is that city-states are a bonus more to the human player than to the AI simply because the human mind is still better at exploiting those bonuses to their utmost. Therefore, I am speculating that the developers, in responding to outcries about how easy the AI is even on higher levels, may have attempted to make the game harder by having the AI be more aggressive with city-states. It now increases the challenge of maintaining a hold or relationship with a city-state. So it has not removed the game mechanic of city-states and their bonuses, but made the system more challenging. This just doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but as I have mentioned, I have not experienced this on King level.

If the developers now chose to scale up the units available to the CS I can imagine that would be a whole new complaint by people wondering why the puny city-states deserve to have so much firepower compared to the human player.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not at all! My point is that city-states are a bonus more to the human player than to the AI simply because the human mind is still better at exploiting those bonuses to their utmost. Therefore, I am speculating that the developers, in responding to outcries about how easy the AI is even on higher levels, may have attempted to make the game harder by having the AI be more aggressive with city-states. It now increases the challenge of maintaining a hold or relationship with a city-state. So it has not removed the game mechanic of city-states and their bonuses, but made the system more challenging. This just doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but as I have mentioned, I have not experienced this on King level.

If the developers now chose to scale up the units available to the CS I can imagine that would be a whole new complaint by people wondering why the puny city-states deserve to have so much firepower compared to the human player.

Those complaints could be shut down by a simple "If you want AI factions to have fewer bonuses, pick a different difficulty". It's the uneven distribution of bonuses causing the extent of this weirdness.

With the new systems in place (emergencies in particular), I'm not convinced current AI practices actually make the players advantage relative to the AI weaker regarding city states. From a purely strategic standpoint, centralizing gameplay makes games easier, not harder.

 

[Kruos]

Early CS conquering is a good and efficient strategy to sky rocket a Civ development, it should stay as it is now. Maybe decrease it a little in the lower difficulty levels but that's all.

It's absolutely not a problem, there are always a lot of 'surviving' CS, and the new loyalty system make them revive very often by themselves.

 

[Josephias]

1. Units are similar on deity to before
   
2. AI is more aggressive (good, AIs should try to win)
3. City states don't get deity bonuses like AIs do (bad)

Why is #3 bad? Because it means that rather than acting like city states, they act closer to settlers w/o escort. Players can take them as easily as the AI. I would go so far as to argue this is a persistent issue from vanilla, where city states that aren't great were juicy targets for the player. The AI knows this now too, which is a good thing...but the ease of conquering them has been too high since release if you want players to interact with most of them rather than conquer.

That's a reasoning I can I agree with. (3) is the only point that needs to deal with, so if the OP had said "Strenghten city states on Deity" rather "Nerf AI conquering City States", which seems more a rant expecting the AI is less aggressive towards CS just because, this topic could have got a better reception. As many have commented, the AI should not be forced to "care" about city states, and should make what suits her needs instead. It is clear if they are finding capturing city states too easy vs other possible interactions, this may need to be balanced, but it is not a matter of nerfing AI behaviour. (specially when having decided to play on higher levels)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ I definitely don't agree with OP entirely. The only reasoning for stopping the AI conquering cities states that would convince me is if I saw evidence that the AI (as it presently operates) performs better as a result of not doing so. On the other hand, making city states themselves more resilient makes sense and is consistent with difficulty scaling.

Otherwise there is something to be said for envoy dominating a couple good city states, then trashing everyone else's and getting cities in exchange.

 

[Ferocitus]

You seem to have this weird notion that because I feel that the AI should prioritize taking use of CS bonuses over taking them as normal cities (thus removing a large portion of CSes in the game) that I therefore must dislike the military option. This is an illogical assumption. I think people who have any idea of how I play is that I highly encourage early rushes and Domination wins.

I would imagine that you can understand that there's a difference between how I play and the fact that, in a game that starts with 12 city-states, the AI priority seems wrong if there's only 3 city-states remaining in the Classical Era. This is a reflection on how the AI prioritizes its resources (there is no reason for the AI or players to not try to get suzerain bonuses outside of very specific circumstances) more than anything to do with how I play.

My comments were not all aimed at you. I don't know how you play, nor do I care.
That's up to you. I think it's ludicrous to want the game nerfed to prevent AI
or human players from stomping CS as soon as they can or want. You and others
obviously think otherwise.

If people want to play a game where they get bonuses from CS then let them do
something for those advantages. Why should CS give you bonuses just for being
you? Liberate them, or protect them from being taken or retaken again, or from
flipping, and earn the bonus.

There are those (no, not you!) who said they want to win peacefully (perfectly
legit IMO), however, they also want the AIs to play in a particular way. Again,
no problem, get a mod that replaces a Varu with Babar the Elephant walking
around on his hind legs holding a balloon. Just don't expect a change to the base
game to accommodate specifics that make a desire for a peaceful game the
norm and that force the majority to get mods that are not needed now.

If you would like to continue to decide to baselessly ridicule the playstyles of people who you don't know (and are objectively incorrect about it), and I'm seeing you personally attack the way people play aside from just myself, then it just really makes me feel that you don't even play the game, that you know nothing about the game, and just post on the forum to troll people.

It really makes you feel that does it?

 

[Kyro]

Liberate them and reap the reward, or don't - your choice.
If you want to play without military action then you will have to come
up with something better than hoping Genghis is nerfed into a Quaker.

Calling City States a reward rather than a given game feature is probably the most silly thing I've heard this week.

 

[Ever Adrift]

I suppose I'll throw my two cents into the friendly conversation:

I do think it's a problem that the AI is able to quickly and efficiently take over CS, especially early in the game.

1. From a gameplay aspect, especially on large maps, you simply don't have the option to mount any real defense of them. They are fodder for the closest civ(s) and can be taken out too early, before they ever are experienced as a game mechanic - and, depending on map size and number of civs, it can become silly to see liberation as possible as they may be swallowed up into a growing AI player.
2. The AI doesn't make rational decisions regarding razing and not razing a CS - I've seen civs take out two city states of useful kinds that they found very quickly; they'd have benefited much more by keeping them.
3. They are meant to be interactive as a system throughout the game. Several civs (e.g. Greece, Georgia) rely heavily on them and having 70% of them wiped out by the end of the classical age is too much

The problem seems to be one of degree. Too many are taken out at too rapid a pace. That is not to say that they should never be targeted, including early in a game (say, to take control of a wonder - Yerevan spawned right next to Kiliminjaro in my last game and bordered my capital...). They should simply be targeted with less impunity. There was a patch awhile back that I felt best balanced this aspect - it seems the changes to AI behavior have been altered yet again.

I can understand that lack of empathy for those wanting any changes if you typically play on smaller maps or with few civs relative to map size - it is easier to defend and liberate in those conditions. But overall, don't feel it's balanced correctly right now.

I've said it before, using a mod that gives CS walls and a couple extra units helps significantly.

 

[Ferocitus]

Calling City States a reward rather than a given game feature is probably the most silly thing I've heard this week.

It would be, but that's not what I wrote. City-state bonuses are the reward
you reap for your efforts. I'll use little words for you next time.

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