[GS] Secouring City state bonus

Hi everyone!

I took quite some time off the game and just got back to look at the things which came with the game mode and Balance patch Updates. So far I'am really having fun. I know a lot of you are upset with the game, but I kind of see it as what it is and don't measure it according to my expectations and wishes. So yea, I'am having fun But in my reagular games, after testing everything, I just leave heroes, cooperations and secret societies on. I nearly exlclusively play on small or standard pangea, as otherwise you may have issues with room or isolation. If you found different map types having the same perks, I'd love to read in the comments which one those are. I got a pretty nice, yet unfinished, roman domination run but I just hit t197 bombers so good night everyone left. The first one was a (for my cosmos) very good russian SV at T243. I admit that heroes feels a bit like cheating and I abused hercules, esp. for the space ports, but I could've bought them with faith or gold easiely. But still this one could have been faster without messing up admussen and citie states. Here comes the main reason for my posting: I lacked exploration because I had a little horsie clapping at the start and lost my Single scout, just forgot. After this I went peaceful and I found a single science CS which was gobbeled up quickly by AI. I didn't pay attention and had no measures to react to this on the other side of the world. I just realized "oh crap for what was this?" while chopping out kilwa on auto pilot. How do you protect you science cs's? What is the CB mechanic around this? Do you maintain a seizable army on your way to space? I lacked this, I didn't pillage aswell, just befriended everyone, one reaearch alliance and spy spam on the rest. Feels really bad to blow kilwa into nothing. I often encounter maps with one or even Zero science cs's as default.

Thanks in advanced for any Response! Have a nice weekend.

 

Nothing you can do if you roll zero or one Science CS (although it you play barbarian clans mode, some of the clans can eventually "civilize" into additional science CS). When I play peaceful games I will actually build or buy six Scouts or Warriors once I find an important CS and just camp them on all six tiles around the CS so no one can conquer them (at least not without declaring on me first, but in peaceful games it is pretty easy to get Friendly with most of the AIs). If you are playing violent, its often possible to free them with your army if they are not too distant, which has the additional bonus of giving you three free envoys plus 100DF. You can also be proactive by levying their armies and removing the threat - I find that a CS often has a pretty good army but still gets conquered due to random moves, so you may be better off taking control of their units and beating back the attackers, especially if you have money to upgrade them.

 

That's about what I do in terms of levying but I usually just stack obsolete units around city-states so even if I get declared on, I can just upgrade them if need be. When playing with mods, I do enjoy the conservative approach of Zegangani's Real Allies, which prevents allies from attacking each other's city-states, and the liberal approach of SeelingCat's City-State Defender, which allows any suzerain to declare a protectorate war on any civilization (including allies and declared friends) that attacks their city-state. I find this latter mod can lead to out-of-control WWI-style conflicts among the AI with zero player involvement.