play without city-states?

[danaphanous]

Oh, I turned off diplo victory long ago. It's totally stupid. But even without it, my ability to permanent-bribe 10+ CS's once my economy is up an running totally messes up the dynamics of the WC.


I guess gold-gifting wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't the be-all and end-all of the relationship. Likewise the 'quest' where you gain influence by generating the most culture/faith/science/etc. in 30 turns. So big civs get influence. That's boring.

Distance from your founding capital implies some shared cultural influence. So does maintaining an ongoing trade route. (Trade routes would give players interesting choices, because there would be a trade-off for sending one to a CS, which means less gold and beakers. Also, they are limited in number, so you can't exploit this to ally every CS.) Shared religion suggests cultural ties, so that would make sense - but then again it might also be redundant, since trade routes and geographical vicinity spread religion passively.

I think that by mixing in more diverse resting point bonuses, and making quest/gift bonuses a bit more ephemeral, the system could be a lot more interesting. Modders, help! My kingdom for a modder! (Or, at least, some small neighboring kingdoms)

I've thought about this a bit as well because I loved the idea of CS's in the beginning and was thrilled when I saw them. Mini-civs that aren't playing to win? So cool!!! But then I figured out how shallow and 1-dimensional they are and it turned into a gold-gifting slug-fest that for some reason the AI just gives up on when you have X amount of influence more than them they just kinda stop gifting to overcome you. I think this is a glitch that if they can't surpass you with a single gift of 1k they give up and resort to spies to reduce you first. This gives you years of ally-status though...especially if you took patronage. Anyway, however many there are I inevitably seem to get most of them allied due to the size and scope of my empire. All those 30-turn quests add up. Then I start gifting...realizing how close I am to allied status. It's too easy.

I think CS's should be changed, definitely. I think the whole friends/ally/neutral status is fine, just don't make it so black and white. It makes CS's out to be shallow. I think CS's should have both leader-pics and a few more interactive abilities. And I think all of them should have a pool of luxuries/resources they will trade with friends+ instead of just giving it all to the highest bidder who allies himself. Allow CS to trade their resources/luxuries like normal civilizations! The difference would be you must invest in relations to stay friend-status to propose a trade. This means you wouldn't be working at your relations just to get passive perks but to get them to trust you so you could begin trading.

Maybe also expound on the differences in CS ideology too:

Some of my more nuanced ideas:

mercantile: trade-focused, can produce a special unit which can create 1-tile colonies abroad to bring in extra resources and luxuries for trade . This will make at least befriending them very helpful as they are a great trade-option. If you think this is OP and annoying maybe: You cannot settle on the colony but if you settle next to it you can usurp control as you expand over it. Like old civ III colonies. Note, this means if they use colonies to fully fill their island or take 1-tile areas you can never steal them away without war. I want this to happen making mercantile states good trade partners all-game.

religious: religion-focused. If you convert the CS to your religion for 10 turns and are friends an option in the leader-screen to adopt your religion as their state religion will pop-up. If they adopt it, the city will actively try to convert nearby cities and produce periodic missionaries. This means they maintain your religion for you and can spread it into Civs nearby without diplomatic penalties to you. They cannot produce prophets. The 10-turn lag is to reduce flip-flopping, giving the original partner time to re-convert if he cares too. The CS will not instantly adopt the new religion.

commerce: growth-focused CS. As a unique ability, you could pay them gpt to send a single food-loaded caravan or cargo ship to a city of your choice if you are friends. This would be very useful as you wouldn't have to divert one of your own caravans and it would be a bit cheaper than devoting one of your own, meaning investing in friends and trading with them this way would pay off in net gold and get you some great growth in the beginning. Only one route per civ.

militaristic: war/piracy focused. Militaristic states would care more about global politics/wars and would not be friends with the enemies of its current friends. meaning they would participate in global cliques. Finally, a CS that sticks to its friends! You could get it to switch but not without a lot of work or making up with the civs it currently likes. Militaristic states would also produce a special privateer unit like the one from civ III which is un-identifiable and raids shipping for gold. You could pay them to conduct privateer raids on a particular civ/CS though you couldn't pay them to declare war of themselves. These would be the bane of mercantile states...frequently targeting and pillaging their colonies of their own accord. They will not attack the shipping of friends.

If the current system is kept I also think the idea of distance should come in in allying, and your influence should decay more rapidly, proportional to distance from your capital (or nearest city if you wanna keep diplomatic victory as an option).

 

[happyturtle]

I played a game recently without city states. Happiness was a real problem, all game. I had no idea I was so reliant on Merchantile city-states and city-state luxuries.

 

[magritte]

I played a game recently without city states. Happiness was a real problem, all game. I had no idea I was so reliant on Merchantile city-states and city-state luxuries.

I tend to ignore city states because they're tedious to deal with, and I do often struggle with happiness. The problem is that the A.I. civs rarely seem to be interested in trading luxuries. I preferred the barbarian civs that could form if barbarians captured cities in Civ 4 to the city states. City states seemed like an interesting idea initially but they quickly became an annoyance.

 

[Vitruvius]

Diplo victory without city states is the most interesting VC one can hope to achieve. Definitely worth a try. If one is worried about hand-picking civs, theres a mod called "really advanced setup" which allows you to eliminate civs from the randomizer. Otherwise, one can always randomize the eligible civs on your own externally and input them manually into the setup screen.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I think CS's should be changed, definitely. I think the whole friends/ally/neutral status is fine, just don't make it so black and white. It makes CS's out to be shallow. I think CS's should have both leader-pics and a few more interactive abilities. And I think all of them should have a pool of luxuries/resources they will trade with friends+ instead of just giving it all to the highest bidder who allies himself. Allow CS to trade their resources/luxuries like normal civilizations! The difference would be you must invest in relations to stay friend-status to propose a trade. This means you wouldn't be working at your relations just to get passive perks but to get them to trust you so you could begin trading.

Maybe also expound on the differences in CS ideology too:

Some of my more nuanced ideas:

mercantile: trade-focused, can produce a special unit which can create 1-tile colonies abroad to bring in extra resources and luxuries for trade . This will make at least befriending them very helpful as they are a great trade-option. If you think this is OP and annoying maybe: You cannot settle on the colony but if you settle next to it you can usurp control as you expand over it. Like old civ III colonies. Note, this means if they use colonies to fully fill their island or take 1-tile areas you can never steal them away without war. I want this to happen making mercantile states good trade partners all-game.

religious: religion-focused. If you convert the CS to your religion for 10 turns and are friends an option in the leader-screen to adopt your religion as their state religion will pop-up. If they adopt it, the city will actively try to convert nearby cities and produce periodic missionaries. This means they maintain your religion for you and can spread it into Civs nearby without diplomatic penalties to you. They cannot produce prophets. The 10-turn lag is to reduce flip-flopping, giving the original partner time to re-convert if he cares too. The CS will not instantly adopt the new religion.

commerce: growth-focused CS. As a unique ability, you could pay them gpt to send a single food-loaded caravan or cargo ship to a city of your choice if you are friends. This would be very useful as you wouldn't have to divert one of your own caravans and it would be a bit cheaper than devoting one of your own, meaning investing in friends and trading with them this way would pay off in net gold and get you some great growth in the beginning. Only one route per civ.

militaristic: war/piracy focused. Militaristic states would care more about global politics/wars and would not be friends with the enemies of its current friends. meaning they would participate in global cliques. Finally, a CS that sticks to its friends! You could get it to switch but not without a lot of work or making up with the civs it currently likes. Militaristic states would also produce a special privateer unit like the one from civ III which is un-identifiable and raids shipping for gold. You could pay them to conduct privateer raids on a particular civ/CS though you couldn't pay them to declare war of themselves. These would be the bane of mercantile states...frequently targeting and pillaging their colonies of their own accord. They will not attack the shipping of friends.

If the current system is kept I also think the idea of distance should come in in allying, and your influence should decay more rapidly, proportional to distance from your capital (or nearest city if you wanna keep diplomatic victory as an option).

Religious, maritime and militaristic I like (didn't understand mercantile), add to that my 3 points I'd change and I want those changes now.

 

[qemist]

Personally I find zero city states too extreme in BNW; but I do find the default ratio of 2:1 too much so I simply cut them down to a 1:1 ratio in advanced settings.

I too. I also generally up the number of civs by 4 or so. Otherwise the game is too much like playing in a vacuum with the new penalties for warring and expanding.