What additional suzerain bonuses from city-states would you like to see in Civilization VII in the future?

[The Fanatical]

The suzerain bonuses change depending on the age, but for reference here are the ones from the Antiquity Age.

 

[BlueWildRye]

I love the idea of city-state dependent units like the Nihang from Civ 6 and Antiquity's Foederati, so anything like that in the Exploration or Modern Ages would be awesome!

 

[Trengilly]

I have a couple concerns with Independent Powers and suzerain bonuses

Right now there are three things you can do with Independent Powers:

• Fight and kill them . . . earning experience for your commanders and significant loot when you disperse them.
• Befriend and add them to your empire . . . getting a new town
• Befriend them for their Suzerain bonus . . . the benefits are ok, but you will only have them until the end of the age. And most benefits scale per/IP so you need to ally with multiple to really buff the benefit.

I worry that the Suzerain bonuses aren't strong enough to encourage allying with IP. Just destroy or annex them seems more effective.
And Exploration/Modern age Suzerain bonuses didn't seem to scale up in power (despite your overall yields increasing each Age).

Going to need time to play it to determine how balanced it is.

Can't really think about different/new powers without knowing the entire game systems.

 

[Krikkit1]

I have a couple concerns with Independent Powers and suzerain bonuses

Right now there are three things you can do with Independent Powers:

• Fight and kill them . . . earning experience for your commanders and significant loot when you disperse them.
• Befriend and add them to your empire . . . getting a new town
• Befriend them for their Suzerain bonus . . . the benefits are ok, but you will only have them until the end of the age. And most benefits scale per/IP so you need to ally with multiple to really buff the benefit.

I worry that the Suzerain bonuses aren't strong enough to encourage allying with IP. Just destroy or annex them seems more effective.
And Exploration/Modern age Suzerain bonuses didn't seem to scale up in power (despite your overall yields increasing each Age).

Going to need time to play it to determine how balanced it is.

Can't really think about different/new powers without knowing the entire game systems.

Supposedly if you annex them you keep the Suzerein power (although most of those are better with more Suezeins)

 

[Yzman]

Those bonuses actually seem quite powerful to me?

 

[reddishrecue]

On these screenshots, I like the way the ui looks. The colors have a sort of fade to it which makes it look neater than other civs.

 

[Trengilly]

Those bonuses actually seem quite powerful to me?

Its just hard to tell what the balance is.

Dispersing an IP gives you +100 production and triggers an event which can give you a unit or a pop. That's a lot, in addition to the valuable XP for your commander.

Befriending the IP instead costs a LOT of Influence and takes 30+ turns. A 5% Gold that only last until the end of the Age (possibly for just 100 turns or less) isn't very exciting.

Especially since Influence seems very limited and has many uses. Instead of the IP you could spend the influence on establishing research or trade agreements, etc.

 

[Siptah]

IP unlocked wonders, buildings, units and improvements are a very nice idea imho.
I like that now there is a unit for the militaristic IPs per age, and improvements for the others. I could see another units for the militaristic ones, and a wonder or building for the others.

Btw: how unique are the bonuses within a single game? If a take a bonus that gives me a resources, I can't take it again. But can other players also locked out of this bonus? In short, is the uniqueness per map/game or player?

 

[Krikkit1]

Its just hard to tell what the balance is.

Dispersing an IP gives you +100 production and triggers an event which can give you a unit or a pop. That's a lot, in addition to the valuable XP for your commander.

Befriending the IP instead costs a LOT of Influence and takes 30+ turns. A 5% Gold that only last until the end of the Age (possibly for just 100 turns or less) isn't very exciting.

Especially since Influence seems very limited and has many uses. Instead of the IP you could spend the influence on establishing research or trade agreements, etc.

5% per IP…so with 5 Ips you could have 25% gold, 5 extra science on your science buildings, 5 extra CS on Infantry, 5 extra Civics and a new unique building.

 

[Siptah]

Befriending the IP instead costs a LOT of Influence and takes 30+ turns. A 5% Gold that only last until the end of the Age (possibly for just 100 turns or less) isn't very exciting.

In the game I've seen, Befriending was a matter of fewer turns (5-12 iirc) - but I guess most were on online speed. I think Befriending is just an intermediate step anyway. You want to invest a bit more influence (and 5 turns) and take over the CS completely. That way, you keep the bonus until the end of the age, but also the city for the future age(s). Stopping at Befriending seems suboptimal.

 

[The Fanatical]

Btw: how unique are the bonuses within a single game? If a take a bonus that gives me a resources, I can't take it again. But can other players also locked out of this bonus? In short, is the uniqueness per map/game or player?

I just realised that the Age of Heroes bonus is absent from the image I posted. Some of these bonuses might be random per age. I speculate that the resources, improvements and units are only available to the player that picks them first. The numerical bonuses are probably infinite. That's just my speculation, of course. Maybe all of them can be picked only once, if we consider how Pantheon bonuses worked in Civilization VI. If the latter is the case, then a cap for city-states needs to exist per age, which means suzerainty can't be abused.

 

[The Fanatical]

Exploration Age Cultural Suzerain Bonuses.

 

[Xandinho]

I find it interesting that the unique improvements of IPs are no longer as specific as they were in Civ6 (we have Stone Heads instead of Colossal Heads or Moais. Step Pyramids are also generic, as multiple civilizations built them). This could open up the possibility that Colossal Heads and Moais become unique improvements for their respective playable civilizations.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Having gone a little more 'generic' with the regular Units in the Ages, I think military IPs would be a good place to introduce more specific units as Mercenaries or Feodoterii.
Historically, these included types of units like:
Horse Archers (Scythians, Huns, Turks)
Cataphractoi (Sarmatians, Turks)
Peltasts (Thracians, Gauls, later Germans)
Fusiliers/Riflemen (every minor state in Europe in the late 17th - early 18th centuries) - call them "Hessians" if you like
Legionaires (there was a Spanish as well as French Foreign Legion in the 19th and 20th centuries)
Flying Tigers (yes, there were 'mercenary' air units, although the Privateer concept is probably more accurate)

More specific to IPs or 'city states' might be:
Peltasts from Thracians or Seuthopolis IP
Grenadiers from Hessia (German state) or Darmstadt IP
Numidian light cavalry from Numidia or Sertes IP
Pikemen from Basel or Swiss IP
Landsknechts from Palatinate (Pfalz) or Köln IP

Given the numerous commercial military outfits servicing the world today, the concept could be applied in some form for all three Ages witgh different IPs in each age, each miitary one potentially providing some kind of specific military or semi-military unit.