The Importance of City States

[gavos]

My first post. How exciting!!

Just some thoughts on CS and getting the Saz bonus.

Having played a number of games on mainly King level I have come to the conclusion that prioritizing envoys and getting as many CS as Sazerains is the key to victory. I usually play with Egypt (I like the flexibility for all victory conditions)

1) The Saz bonuses are very powerful and really can propel you to victory. I am not gonna list them all but many give you invaluable early game advantages.

2) Getting some early religious CS envoys will give you early Panth (very useful if you have lots of floodplain/marsh tiles) and an earlyish religion. In my opinion this is vital for religion/culture victory.

3) with items 1&2 above - getting some early apostles with the "capture barbarians" promotion is very powerful. You can build a strong early army in no time and take out the closest AI's which gives you more room to build some awesome cities and control the map.

4) CS on your side are very useful if you decide to start some nasty wars. You really don't want them against you.

5) One of the religious CS (cant remember which one) gives you relics if you find a wonder. This is awesome for culture and tourism.

6) I really think that the CS bonus' are the most powerful and easily obtainable resource in the game. Many are just as good as wonders and all you need to do is play smart and you can easily get 8-10 Saz, with all those juicy bonus!!

Therefore, early exploration is vital. Find and get as many first free envoys as possible, then concentrate on the CS tasks (early ones are easy to get) then watch as all the CS become your friends. Victory thereafter is inevitable.

Thoughts?

 

[Victoria]

Sure... I have played many games concentrating on just how close to 100 envoys I can get so have some experience in "Super Suzing"

CS comes in 3 flavors to me.

Sushi - These CS have something of great value to you and the game you play. Yerevan is OP for Religion and useless otherwise. Kumasi is amazing for boosting culture/civics if done right and Honk Kong is OP if you are using lots of projects. There are others... I mean a classic is Lisbon... complete rubbish normally but on an island game can be a life saver. Sushi is a personal taste that can be expensive but also quite rewarding.

Fillet - Being Suze can be an expensive contest and can add a lot of risk to a game. Instead, just aim to get 6 envoys in each production CS and have an industrial zone in each city getting +12 prod. If you use your diplomacy cards well you can even get all the culture or science ones to 6 as well. - 10 Cities at +12 science is not to be sniffed at. It is in fact part of good sound strategy everyone should do. It is also another good reason to sniff the all out. I think many have missed just how large this value is.

Shark Bait - If its not what you want, or can use and especially if it is of great use to others then its only good for killing. However Killing can mean the enemy civs will push more envoys your CS way... sooo unless directly in my way very early I will always leave as a pit for them to throw their envoys into... shark bait in effect.

There are a couple of useful suze cards where you get benefits from having lots of Suze but with the opposition getting many envoys your chance of hanging on to many for long is unlikely. Pair this with the fact that that slot can be very useful for other things (especially filleting) To me Super Suzing is more of a fun challenge than anything of value. The real value is filleting the right fish

Suze Challenges? - Sure get them, even getting shark bait ones if its not out of your way.... but beware all tasks that are off your target track slow you down and loose you time and possibly the game.

You were talking about Kandi in number 5... Kandi + Kongo + luck = 100 turn win.... or forced down the culture root if that fails.

Ally CS are very useful in wars and envoy hogging allows you to dump a bunch at a time of war to gain a buffer and even some very cheap troops.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Complementing Victoria's answer, another good "Fillet" type in my opinion are Trade ones. Since you'll probably build many Commercial Hubs for the trade routes, having 1 Trade CS with 6 envoys will net you +8 gold per Commercial Hub per turn - with 15 cities, you're looking at 120 gold per turn. That might be enough to help a mid-game timing push, rush-buy Great People or accumulate for Big Ben.

 

[chazzycat]

yep totally agree with OP, city states are very powerful. I generally try to spread out my envoys to get as many +3 or +6 bonuses as possible, rather than focus on suzerain bonuses. If you build a decent number of cities with districts (which you should anyway) those bonuses add up to be very powerful, and are totally risk-free investments compared to going for suzerain status, which tend to be competitive.

probably goes without saying but the diplo cards which increase envoy rates are obvious must-haves in every game.

 

[gavos]

Interested if anybody has done a guide to CS. it would be good to have all the info in 1 place?

anybody know if this is available?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

@WillowBrook was doing a guide about envoys and City-States. It should be ready soon.

 

[WillowBrook]

@WillowBrook was doing a guide about envoys and City-States. It should be ready soon.

That is the plan. Once I either complete or can pull myself away from my current attempt at the 60-length Russian trade route achievement (in the limited time I have access to the computer. I can browse the forums on my phone, but writing a guide requires a bigger screen)

Stuff in this thread will hopefully be worked in as well.

 

[WillowBrook]

I've updated the OP of this thread with my current draft guide to city states: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/what-should-be-in-a-guide-to-city-states.607452/. Further comments and suggestions are welcome; I hope to post it tomorrow.