Nerf AI conquering City States?

[Tuvok694]

Months pass and nothing happens. And still the city states keep getting taken out of the game early, making several game features completely useless.
Why do people accept this nonsense so easily?
I am playing right now as Japan, level emperor, standard speed, round 46: my neighbor Gilgamesh has just captured his fourth(!!!) city state. This is ridiculous, and it happens in every game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Months pass and nothing happens. And still the city states keep getting taken out of the game early, making several game features completely useless.
Why do people accept this nonsense so easily?
I am playing right now as Japan, level emperor, standard speed, round 46: my neighbor Gilgamesh has just captured his fourth(!!!) city state. This is ridiculous, and it happens in every game.

I guess it's a question of how many City States alive is the right number? In my deity tests, using the standard 12 starting City States on a stand sized continents map, on average 3.4 City States were conquered in the first 50 turns (8.6 still alive at that point), with the number of surviving City States then falling to 7 by Turn 100, and 4 by game end (some of whom were liberated City States that had previously been conquered).

 

[pokiehl]

There are many simple mods which prevent this, such as TCS's Free Walls for City States: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1130568132

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Months pass and nothing happens. And still the city states keep getting taken out of the game early, making several game features completely useless.
Why do people accept this nonsense so easily?
I am playing right now as Japan, level emperor, standard speed, round 46: my neighbor Gilgamesh has just captured his fourth(!!!) city state. This is ridiculous, and it happens in every game.

That's weird. I am currently playing a game where I am in the Medieval Era, & of our starting City States, only a single one has been conquered. All others are being fought over-diplomatically & religiously-by all the major civilisations. Indeed, I can't recall a recent game I have played where the AI has ruthlessly targeted City-States.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Months pass and nothing happens. And still the city states keep getting taken out of the game early, making several game features completely useless.
Why do people accept this nonsense so easily?
I am playing right now as Japan, level emperor, standard speed, round 46: my neighbor Gilgamesh has just captured his fourth(!!!) city state. This is ridiculous, and it happens in every game.

I rather like that the AI takes out so many city states. I generally prefer warring, large maps, and slower speeds (epic/marathon). It gives me more opportunities for free envoys. In the last game I played I liberated 16 city states. If I remember correctly 3 were for 3 envoys and the other 13 were for 6 envoys. That's 87 envoys. If I had made it to globalization before reaching a domination victory, I would have received an extra +160% to science (just for liberating the city states). If I had been playing Australia, it would have been that much the better.

I do, however, understand your point. It can become annoying with non-domination strategies on smaller maps.

 

[N_M_L_C]

I play with 2 mods to solve that : one that give CS walls (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1130568132) and another which gives them more starting units (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=899802490)

That changes gameplay quite a bit. For my last games I've never seen an AI capture a CS... So it might be a too huge of a nerf.
And CS now are very efficient at clearing barbarian camps popping not too far from them. Which can help you a lot when your army is busy somewhere else.

So I think those 2 mods at the same time is a bit too much.

 

[Tech Osen]

I may have to try out a mod for this. Last game my neighbor Brasil was suzerein of one city state, he then declared war on two other city states, which were razed to the ground by troops of his suzerein city state...

 

[N_M_L_C]

Just to inform you that I started an immortal game yesterday, leaving only CS walls mod and it seems very fine. Only 1 CS got conquered by turn 100.
So it seems like feasible for warmingers AI but costly, which is fair I believe.

 

[UWHabs]

Just to inform you that I started an immortal game yesterday, leaving only CS walls mod and it seems very fine. Only 1 CS got conquered by turn 100.
So it seems like feasible for warmingers AI but costly, which is fair I believe.

Yep, the CS walls mod is a simple but pretty effective tweak. I find that a couple city-states will fall to the more aggressive civs, but most are alive that you can safely place envoys without worrying too much.

 

[Tuvok694]

In Gathering Storm I see no difference in the AI behaviour. If they have a city state in range, they will conquer it. Only those city states have a chance that are placed far away from any civ on the map. Will have to correct this by using a mod as soon as possible.

 

[Ovidious]

(Okay, my bad if this has been mentioned somewhere in the previous 16 pages since I haven't yet read through all of it), but since I almost never attack a CS, don't they all band together and all declare war on you if you declare war on two or more of them? Of course this may have been what is was in Civ 5 as I cannot remember.

I think knowing that you could lose out on any CS ever helping you would be a good incentive to not attack them. Take out one - okay, we'll let that slide. Take out two, okay buddy, now every CS has declared on you for the rest of the game.

 

[Council 13]

Its like the only area where the AI is competent at war is vs CS. Why can't they fight each other like that?