Sources of envoys

[ShinigamiKenji]

According to the Civics tree (from left to right, top to bottom), there are 19 envoys to be earned:

• Mysticism: +1 envoy
• Military Tradition: +1 envoy
  
• Theology: +1 envoy
• Naval Tradition: +1 envoy
• Mercenaries: +1 envoy
• Colonialism +2 envoys
• Opera and Ballet: +2 envoys
• Natural History: +2 envoys
• Scorched Earth: +2 envoys
• Conservation: +3 envoys
• Cultural Heritage: +3 envoys

Please let me know if I forgot any civic, or there are any hidden envoys there. As far as I could see, no techs, wonders or religious beliefs give envoys.

BTW, I still wonder how Scorched Earth gets you envoys but Mass Media doesn't. Lesson of the day: For diplomacy, better to destroy your own land than broadcasting your speeches.

 

[Captain Potato]

BTW, I still wonder how Scorched Earth gets you envoys but Mass Media doesn't. Lesson of the day: For diplomacy, better to destroy your own land than broadcasting your speeches.

It's also funny that (this popped into my head because someone mentioned great people a few posts back) the great people providing envoys seem to be iirc overwhelmingly the great generals and admirals. I guess gunboat diplomacy really works.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

It's also funny that (this popped into my head because someone mentioned great people a few posts back) the great people providing envoys seem to be iirc overwhelmingly the great generals and admirals. I guess gunboat diplomacy really works.

Thanks to remind us about this source of envoys (though somewhat unreliable depending on your opponents). Here goes a list of great people that award envoys, according to Wikia:

Medieval Era

• Zheng He - Great Admiral - 1 envoy
• Piero de' Bardi - Great Merchant - 1 envoy

Renaissance Era

• Jakob Fugger - Great Merchant - 2 envoys
• Raja Todar Mal - Great Merchant - 1 envoy
• Ana Nzinga - Great General - 1 envoy

Industrial Era

• John Jacob Astor - Great Merchant - 2 envoys
• Simón Bolívar - Great General - 1 envoy

Have we finally exhausted the sources of envoys?

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Thanks for compiling that Shinigami. It seems like the 2 for 1 policy is best during early exploration. I wonder how often it's worth it to change policies before you send your first envoy to a CS. Depending on how many turns you have before your next chance to change policies it's probably worth it a fair amount of the time.
What I've come to is that I know I'll out-tech the ai so I know I'll unlock the new governments first and thus have an advantage with envoys. That means if I see a good CS early on I can safely count on their bonus through out the game. It just means you can't spread your envoys too thin if you're relying heavily on your allies.

 

[WillowBrook]

Thanks for creating those lists of civics and great people, ShinigamiKenji! That's just what I was looking for (and didn't have the patience to do myself).

 

[Victoria]

@elitetroops has it best, while they coukd be listed it is best to go to a game and look at the civic tree, a list does not privde that visual traversal one needs for sanity.

That link is useful, it has different values to those stated earlier in this thread, not sure which is correct. There is also tactics in CS , knowing where suze battles are happening to avoid. Values in only placing 3 or 6. Values in destroying CS for denial purposes or even tactical. Maybe a short guide on the subject? It should really be a chapter in a diplomacy guide

The 2 for 1 policy is powerful ALL game, use it well timing it with short civics and you will be suze of many nations.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I've been chewing on this one and my idea is that you probably only have to do this once. The way I understand it you don't suffer any penalty for waiting before assigning your delegates. I prefer to play on continents, so the idea would be to make sure you have one envoy saved for each CS on the far continent, and wait until you met them all. Then you could bank clefs on one civic before unlocking another thus giving you the chance to switch policies two turns in a row. That would get you two for the price of one in all of newly met CS, and you'd only use the policy for one turn. I haven't had a chance to look at the civic tree to see where it fall so I have no idea whether that would slow you down for an important civic but I think it might be viable with a little massaging. *edit* I'm about to start a new game. I doubt I'll get far enough tonight to try it out but I'll get there soon.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I've been chewing on this one and my idea is that you probably only have to do this once. The way I understand it you don't suffer any penalty for waiting before assigning your delegates. I prefer to play on continents, so the idea would be to make sure you have one envoy saved for each CS on the far continent, and wait until you met them all. Then you could bank clefs on one civic before unlocking another thus giving you the chance to switch policies two turns in a row. That would get you two for the price of one in all of newly met CS, and you'd only use the policy for one turn. I haven't had a chance to look at the civic tree to see where it fall so I have no idea whether that would slow you down for an important civic but I think it might be viable with a little massaging. *edit* I'm about to start a new game. I doubt I'll get far enough tonight to try it out but I'll get there soon.

Your strategy gets some good value for your current envoys. If you aren't interested in suzerain bonuses, it would work. But remember the next bonus level only comes at 3 envoys, so you still need to save up quite a bit.

However, more often than not I seem to be fighting over high-level suzerain bonuses for my playstyle (Toronto, Stockholm, Yerevan, Zanzibar, Buenos Aires etc)

 

[Victoria]

I've been chewing on this one and my idea is that you probably only have to do this once. The way I understand it you don't suffer any penalty for waiting before assigning your delegates. I prefer to play on continents, so the idea would be to make sure you have one envoy saved for each CS on the far continent, and wait until you met them all. Then you could bank clefs on one civic before unlocking another thus giving you the chance to switch policies two turns in a row. That would get you two for the price of one in all of newly met CS, and you'd only use the policy for one turn. I haven't had a chance to look at the civic tree to see where it fall so I have no idea whether that would slow you down for an important civic but I think it might be viable with a little massaging. *edit* I'm about to start a new game. I doubt I'll get far enough tonight to try it out but I'll get there soon.

@Mr. Shadows you get plenty through the game, do not save them all. Be wise, choose the CS you will get value out of. If you find one first, its like you already used the double card on them because it is an extra envoy. There is a few strategies you can use with maximising envoys, too much to type here but any you did not find first that you want to envoy, save an envoy and when you have a short civic use the double envoy card and send envoys then. This can maximise envoys. Look out for germany, no point in sending any to a CS near him. Its quite an undocumented area but Its a game I want to play soon, an envoy game to see how many I can get.

 

[greygamer]

I've been chewing on this one and my idea is that you probably only have to do this once. The way I understand it you don't suffer any penalty for waiting before assigning your delegates. I prefer to play on continents, so the idea would be to make sure you have one envoy saved for each CS on the far continent, and wait until you met them all. Then you could bank clefs on one civic before unlocking another thus giving you the chance to switch policies two turns in a row. That would get you two for the price of one in all of newly met CS, and you'd only use the policy for one turn. I haven't had a chance to look at the civic tree to see where it fall so I have no idea whether that would slow you down for an important civic but I think it might be viable with a little massaging. *edit* I'm about to start a new game. I doubt I'll get far enough tonight to try it out but I'll get there soon.

The problem with this approach is when the bonus for 1 envoy is a significant increase to resource (faith/culture/science) +2 is huge in the early game.

 

[Victoria]

Just to finish off the lists so we have all the things in one thread. I love cold war containment.

• Diplomatic League (Political Philosophy): The first Envoy you send to each city-state counts as two Envoys
• Charismatic Leader (Political Philosophy): +2 Influence points per turn towards earning city-state Envoys
  
• Merchant Confederation (Medieval Faires): +1 Gold from each of your Envoys at city-states.
• Raj (Colonialism): +2 Science, Culture, Faith, and Gold from each city-state your are Suzerain of
• Arsenal of Democracy (Suffrage): Your Trade Routes to an Ally's city provide +2 Food and +2 Production for both cities.
• Gunboat Diplomacy (Totalitarianism): Open Borders with all city-states, and +4 Influence points per turn toward earning Envoys.
• Containment (Cold War): Each Envoy you send to a city-state counts as two, if its Suzerain has a different government than you.

Cmon, someone create a guide on it

Best strategy I have found is to have Pericles, lots of commercial zones, find Kumasi early and race through the top of the civic tree while spamming merchant projects. Arsenal of democracy and Kumasi make a great pairing with lots of merchants.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

In the game I finsihed the other day I only had access to two city states until I got off my continent. I ended up in an envoy war in both of them with the neighbor I didn't eliminate even though Ididn't need either suzerain bonus. If I'd stopped at 6 each I'd have had everything I needed from them and had quite a few envoys left over. I've watched this happen a couple of times and it's a waste. If you want to be Suzerain if a CS that's a valid decision, but it needs to be deliberate decision. If I find Toronto (or some other suze bonus that I can use) early I'm willing to invest a lot of envoys because I'd found my cities taking their bonus into account so it would pay off. That's situational though, so the premise I'm working under is that it's generally better to have the consistant bonuses from 1-3-6 envoys in many CS than it is to have a small number of suzerain bonuses that won't be reliable unless you defend them at great cost. My idea (haven't tried it yet) would give me the bonus for 3 envoys in (hypothetically) six CS on the far continent for an investment of 12 envoys. That would pay off far more than becoming suzerain of a mediocre CS just for the sake of doing it.

 

[Victoria]

A sensible idea @Mr. Shadows used by many already. Many Suze benefits are not worth it but the +4 in every district is significant over 10 cities.
It also is a sensible rule... if you cannot Suze a CS with 6 envoys its probably not worth doing unless yerevan/kumasi/toronto or one of the other faves

 

[andydtoma]

Did anybody mention that fulfilling CS requests is rewarded by envoys ?

 

[Victoria]

Did anybody mention that fulfilling CS requests is rewarded by envoys ?

Nope. Like muppets we forgot the thing staring us in the face.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I think someone said it some time ago, but likely it got lost amid the other responses. Nice reminder.

 

[WillowBrook]

Did anybody mention that fulfilling CS requests is rewarded by envoys ?

I think I sort of implied it in my opening question, but it may be worth exploring a bit more.

I am under the impression that quests work like this:

You always get a quest when you meet a city state for the first time. That quest remains until either (1) you fulfill it or (2) it becomes impossible to fulfill. Impossible quests would include, for example, getting an inspiration for a civic that you complete without the inspiration. After you complete a quest or it becomes impossible, there is no quest until you enter a new era, at which time you get a new quest for all city states that don't have a current quest.

Please correct or elaborate on the above.

There are too many possible quests to list, but here are categories can recall seeing:

• Send a trade route
• Build a particular unit
• Build a specific type of district
• Get a boost for a particular tech or civic
• Recruit a specific type of great person

What other categories?

Also, are there restrictions on what quests might appear? It seems that the tech, civic, and unit-related quests that appear at the beginning of an era usually (always?) pertain to that era.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In my last game, I eventually had about six CSs asking for a trade route. All my trade routes were to my fat (maximum districts) capital, so my trade network was not expanding. As time went on, I got fewer and fewer international trade route options (could be a bug; I could understand a lack of expansion, but how could a contraction occur?).

In any case, I sent a Settler near a bunch of far away CSs and was finally able to capitalize on the CSs' trade route requests.

 

[Victoria]

The contraction typically occurs when you are no longer a merchant republic that provides +2 trade routes if that is what you mean?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The contraction typically occurs when you are no longer a merchant republic that provides +2 trade routes if that is what you mean?

No, I never switched to Merchant Republic. What I am refering to is in the middle game seeing about 10 potential foreign trade routes as options and after capturing about ten more cities, seeing maybe as little as a single foreign trade route as an option. There were about 13 CSs and 6 Norwegian cities still around when the game ended, yet my new city near the far away AIs only added about 6 potential foreign trade routes, a net decline in the end game versus the mid game (10 -> 7). It would have been 10 -> 1 potential foreign trade routes, if I had not settled that city.

To clarify, when I set up a trade route, I always picked an internal route to my capital. As the game progressed, my potential trade routes had progressively fewer international trade routes until the only potential foreign trade route was one to the nearest CS. This is what I mean about my (potential international) trade network contracting. My real domestic trade network expanded from about 26 to 36 trade routes (almost every city added a Commerical District ASAP) while my empire expanded from about maybe 30 to 40 cities, via warfare (I wiped out all but one Civ) and settlers.