What is the point of conquering city states? All you get is a crappy puppet or lots of unhappiness if you occupy. On the flip side if you ally with the city state you get bonuses and their resources. So I basically never conquer city states, I can pretty much always find an empty spot to settle if I want more cities or go to war with another civ if I want puppets. Yet the AI constantly conquers city states so maybe I'm missing something. My last game Rome and Mongolia conquered multiple states. Got annoying actually as I wanted to ally with the defeated states.
Certainly allying with them has the biggest benefit, but there are a few situational benefits to conquering them. The biggest I can think of is to deny the city-state to one of your rivals. If they are always an ally of a city-state right on your border, they can see what you're doing nearby and it can act as a beachhead into your empire. Another very situational benefit might be sea access. Coastline real estate can be fairly limited, and if you are surrounded and land-locked, it might be easier to conquer a city-state than to take a city from your neighbors. Plus city-states usually occupy choice locations, so they are hardly ever a waste.
But again, for the most part, it's better to ally with them than to conquer them.
Conquering CS can sometimes be a tough call. People typically take them over because they either dont have or dont want to expend the resources to ally them long term. Also, most CS have a luxury of some sort and or strategic resource. Whenever I take over one its because they allied with a civ im at war with.
For single player games, I agree with op. it is better to be ally of city states. However, in multiplayer games, it is totally different story. In multiplayer games, u can sometimes gain huge advantage to other human players after swallowing few city states.
To ensure that your supply link is constant and not threatened by some random event
That, or Manifest Destiny at its finest. Its something you might want to think about if you are on your own continent or have conquered it, and then there's some immortal runaway over the charts trying to come over and take you out vis-a vis colonization.
I've seen in many games, that all the CS spawn next to a resource that almost no one else has, such as whales or gold. My reasons to conquer a CS, in no particular order.
1. I'm struggling economically, and can't afford to ally.
2. I'm weaker economically to an opponent who maintains Alliances (high influence) with a neighboring CS.
3. Austria is annex-marrying CS's and I don't want her on my border.
4. It is contiguous to my empire, and impeding movement of units to different fronts.
5. Any of the above, plus it is a Military CS. (I usually don't use those)
What is the point of conquering city states? All you get is a crappy puppet or lots of unhappiness if you occupy. On the flip side if you ally with the city state you get bonuses and their resources. So I basically never conquer city states, I can pretty much always find an empty spot to settle if I want more cities or go to war with another civ if I want puppets. Yet the AI constantly conquers city states so maybe I'm missing something. My last game Rome and Mongolia conquered multiple states. Got annoying actually as I wanted to ally with the defeated states.
In some of my games another Civ takes over a nearby CS and makes it best buddies. Sometimes I simply don`t have the money to get that CS on my side. If the Civ that has control of the City State is at war with me then it can use that CS to be a pain while it attacks me.
If there are two or more CS` near my Civ and they`re all ruled (or most) by an enemy Civ then i`m in real trouble; I can`t travel without getting shot at. I can`t leave my city unguarded because a CS WILL attack it if I do. Trying to fight a major war AND having Cs` nipping at your heels is not funny.
In cases like that it`s better to just take them and own them.
ive only conquered them in sp when they are in my way to another capital AND that capital is their ally and de facto at war with me. but i will liberate them often when someone else conquers them.
edit: that is a 90% scenario. sometimes ally status isnt necessary.
If you are playing domination, it can be beneficial. Culture and maritime are meh. Military is often lackluster as well, considering a domination game usually entails lots of units anyway; that extra pikeman isn't going to help your Bomber/Battleship war machine. Faith and religion favors wide, sprawling anyway, so religious isn't needed.
Mercantile are the only useful, but with the recent nerf and the fact you still acquire jewelry/ceramics, it isn't a total loss.
Of course the question is "why?", and the answer for me is usually preventing the AI from claiming them while not having to spend gold on them myself. It may not seem like a big deal until Alexander declares war, and three city-states on the far end of your empire invade and raze a couple of your cities.
Also, as mentioned above, city-states often have luxuries not normally available. I've had a few games where it made more sense to capture a near by city-state than try to settle an additional city on available land with no resources.
I wouldn't bother in peaceful games. It tends to piss off a lot of Civs and will result in total war.
Cultural City States earn your social policies faster. Getting social policies faster is a Good Thing. Conquered cultural city states will never produce the amount of culture they did as allies or friends.
I can suppose I see your point about maritime City States, but I don't see the point of trying to conquer one. City State forces rarely go outside their cultural borders, so conquering one is a needless drain on happiness.
Military is often lackluster as well, considering a domination game usually entails lots of units anyway; that extra pikeman isn't going to help your Bomber/Battleship war machine.
No, but connecting pathways from empire to front lines is helpful. Especially when you know they are not going to be flipped by enemies and create an unexpected front.
Cultural City States earn your social policies faster.
I don't know if it is programmed or luck, but later in the game city-states tend to have a longer leash when attacking. I've had a number of games where a surprise DoW ended up by having a city capped by an enemy city-state. In higher difficulties, city-states tend to have impressive armies.
Um, what? Are you saying you don't go to war before you have Bombers and Battleships?
Taken too literally. If your focus is pumping out military units, whatever city-states give you is likely not going to be of much use. Whenever I play a domination game I don't think "Gee, if I grab an alliance with that city-state, that should really give me an advantage! That extra pikeman alongside my riflemen popping every 4-5 turns will really boost my military might"
Yeah...you may not want to pursue domination if you aren't willing to go to war before acquiring Bombers and Battleships.
Again, taken too literally. If you are not purposely trying to game the system and sack each capital by T100, then you will eventually reach later techs. A domination victory is a domination victory; not really fair to say it isn't valid if you've reached bombers/battleships.
I'm still not seeing why it's more likely for a player to conquer city states in a domination victory than for other victories.
1. Civs will likely be pissed at you regardless, so sacking a city-state and taking the negative diplo hit isn't as big of a deal.
2. Instead of spending a couple thousand gold to maintain alliances, it could be spent on additional combat units (such as bombers and battleships )
3. As I've mentioned, the additional city-state bonuses are not as significant if you plan on burning the world.
4. If the bulk of your army is out and about conquering, it is more important to be conscious of additional fronts. Sacking a city-state who is allied to Greece, for example, can be beneficial, as that is one less potential threat.
I'm not claiming that conquering city-states is a must, just that the obvious advantages of not doing so are less, and in some situations may even be beneficial.
What is the point of conquering city states? All you get is a crappy puppet or lots of unhappiness if you occupy. On the flip side if you ally with the city state you get bonuses and their resources. So I basically never conquer city states, I can pretty much always find an empty spot to settle if I want more cities or go to war with another civ if I want puppets. Yet the AI constantly conquers city states so maybe I'm missing something. My last game Rome and Mongolia conquered multiple states. Got annoying actually as I wanted to ally with the defeated states.
I think I've only done this during the Mongolian scenario.
For exactly the reasons stated; cheaper to ally with them.
And even if the city state is in a bad location that it really should have been 1-2 hexes away from where it was, your not allowed to raze it anyway. (I have seen maps that if you could raze city states I would have conquered and razed it. One example was one where the Great Reef was 4 to 6 hexes away and there was no legal place to found a city that could ever work the Great Reef due to where the city state was.)
I once conquered a CS that was going for Sweden size (you know Sweden, people), It had Iron, I needed it (getting to Frigates) as I was isolated in a continent, but now other people started to get mad with me.
I don't ever do this just because it's more like a personal thing - I feel no enjoyment when I dominate CS and only do so for absolute necessity (strategically in the way and don't have gold to ally them first). Even if I'm going dom unless there's a runaway on a another continent I'll likely ally the CS first to eliminate their CS bonuses before I DOW.
Should also mention that trying to move through city-states can be a nightmare, allied or not. I can remember one game in particular where the way to France, my only opposition, was safely behind two city-states at a chokepoint. Trying to move swordsman and trebuchets around all the city-state units was too irritating, so I took both of them, built roads, and eliminated the issue all together.
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