Why some many CityStates Want Each Other Dead?

[bcaiko]

I had a game recently where all 12 city states on the map requested another CityState be wiped out. This is by far the worst request from CityStates, IMHO. There's really no use in wiping out most CityStates and losing potential bonus culture, ect., since their placement is never *that* good and you can't raze them. Why does this request come up so often now? Can't the CityStates just get along and give me another request?

It'd be nice if there were other ways to deal with this request. Maybe some way to broker a diplomatic solution (I'll give you stuff, Tyre, if you just stop pissing everyone off!) or to teach the annoying CityState a lesson militarily without taking it over (like pilaging its squares and wiping out its army).

(Sorry about the typo in the thread name... )

 

[OmegaKabob]

I agree. It gets really annoying when some of the only things you can do for them is wipe out someone else or give them large sums of money (which i usually lack.) I like the idea of giving tyre stuff if they stop pissing everyone off!
FYI, There is a good City State Diplomacy Mod, though.

 

[apocalypse105]

They should remove the diplomatic penalty if you atack a city state as reason for getting influence with a other city state ...

Then i actually should consider doing it

 

[cccv]

The problem is that once a CS issues a quest it doesn't move on to a new one until the quest has been done. At some point every CS will roll a "kills other CS" request, and will then be stuck in that mode if no one obliges. So eventually every CS is just going to be requesting another's demise.

It's a terrible quest for so many reasons, never really worth doing except in rare situations when you'd actually want to take that CS anyway, and you wouldn't want to do it more than once per game or so unless you want huge diplo repercussions. So yeah, the fact that all requests dead-end there is just stupid.

Best way to fix it would be to have CSs eventually decide that they worked out their problems and give a new quest. The kill other CS request should only last like 50 turns or so at the most.

 

[Ozymandous]

Hmm, I remember when Civ5 first came out I saw all sort of requests from CS. They wanted a resource connected, they wanted a road built to them, they wanted a GL of some sort, etc.

Lately however it seems that all they want are: 1) barbs killed, or 2) other CS killed.

What happened to the other options they used to do?

 

[spider1]

Hmm, I remember when Civ5 first came out I saw all sort of requests from CS. They wanted a resource connected, they wanted a road built to them, they wanted a GL of some sort, etc.

Lately however it seems that all they want are: 1) barbs killed, or 2) other CS killed.

What happened to the other options they used to do?

This does seem to me to be a trend. My last game I was allies with six CSs, and only one of them did I ever get a challange besides "go kill someone for me".

 

[The Ed Carden]

Hmm, I remember when Civ5 first came out I saw all sort of requests from CS. They wanted a resource connected, they wanted a road built to them, they wanted a GL of some sort, etc.

These things are still out there. In my latest game (under the new patch) all the ones you mentioned came up. However, I will agree that "Kill my rival" does seem to be the most common.

 

[Keejus]

I think the main problem is that there are very few quests a city state will give you if you aren't already friendly with them. Of all the mutually exclusive quests, I think "wipe out my rival" is the only one that can be gotten while neutral. So from the moment you meet a city state (other than Friendly ones, who I believe never roll this quest), you are on a countdown to bribe them to be friends or kill barbarians for them, or they will, sooner or later, roll a Rival quest.

 

[dayfax]

I recently played a small earth map where literally every CS in the game had a hit out on Stockholm. England expands, absorbs Stockholm and boom! 12 city states are now their ally.

It would make more sense if only militaristic city states put out contracts (and then gave you units to get the job done) or if city states could offer more than one quest at a time: build a road, get this wonder, give us some furs and, oh, by the way, wipe Hanoi off the map.

I wouldn't want to see the contracts removed entirely because the Mongols get a combat bonus when fighting City States.

 

[Jalkaa]

Best way to fix it would be to have CSs eventually decide that they worked out their problems and give a new quest. The kill other CS request should only last like 50 turns or so at the most.

The best way is to remove this type of quest alltogether. Why should we be involved in these squabbeles at all?

 

[cman2010]

This all boils down to the fact that the ai is broken I hope they fix it and make the game playable soon.

 

[Putmalk]

This all boils down to the fact that the ai is broken I hope they fix it and make the game playable soon.

This is not an AI problem, it's a game rules issue that involves city states locking on to a particular quest, and a terribly designed one at that.

 

[Misterboy]

The problem is that once a CS issues a quest it doesn't move on to a new one until the quest has been done. At some point every CS will roll a "kills other CS" request, and will then be stuck in that mode if no one obliges. So eventually every CS is just going to be requesting another's demise.

It's a terrible quest for so many reasons, never really worth doing except in rare situations when you'd actually want to take that CS anyway, and you wouldn't want to do it more than once per game or so unless you want huge diplo repercussions. So yeah, the fact that all requests dead-end there is just stupid.

Best way to fix it would be to have CSs eventually decide that they worked out their problems and give a new quest. The kill other CS request should only last like 50 turns or so at the most.

This ^^^^ Exactly.

The "kill" quest stacks up, and it does so because you never do it, and you never do it because it's almost never worth it. That is a bad chain of logic. The devs need to fix it somehow.

Make the quests expire. Make it worth killing CSs (or remove diplomatic penalty for taking on this quest). Change the quest so it only requires pillaging or X number of troops killed.

In the very least, let this quest expire...even after a LOT of turns.

 

[RD-BH]

I was under the impression this request had specific diplo triggers.
The random roll is to check if CS acts on trigger.

 

[Aldor]

I think the main problem is that there are very few quests a city state will give you if you aren't already friendly with them. Of all the mutually exclusive quests, I think "wipe out my rival" is the only one that can be gotten while neutral. So from the moment you meet a city state (other than Friendly ones, who I believe never roll this quest), you are on a countdown to bribe them to be friends or kill barbarians for them, or they will, sooner or later, roll a Rival quest.

I think this is it. Once I get a city state to friendly status, I usually never get the kill mission from them anymore (and it doesn't matter if they go back to neutral afterwards).

 

[KaiserKevin]

From my experience a CS will request another CS dead unless you gain a certain amount of influence over them at some point before any request is made. If I kill 3-4 barbs at a CS border it might give me a 'resource' or 'road' quest. But if I have no interaction with it whatsoever (which happens most the time) the CS will go to 'kill nearest neighbor' quest. Appears others have noticed this too.

 

[Callonia]

Only once, I saw two feuding city state actually unleash their militaries to settle their grudges. ONCE! And that was civ 5 in its unpatched state on release day.

Was an militaristic state attacking an cultural state, problem is, both of them is my pets. So I looked upon it within horror and awe and prayed that they fight to a stalemate, sadly.

Militaristic state won, and I was like uh crap, Sneakily snuck a lone mech infantry to help repel a bunch of infantries, gifted it to the cultural state in a place that's just out of sight to the militaristic one.

That mech infantry managed to repel the stragglers before they could take the city and stayed inside the cultural city's borders keeping its eye on that militaristic state. xD

Seriously, I'd love it this particular little event would happen more often.

Personally pummeling the douchebag out if no great power helps them out.

 

[Bezurn]

From my experience a CS will request another CS dead unless you gain a certain amount of influence over them at some point before any request is made. If I kill 3-4 barbs at a CS border it might give me a 'resource' or 'road' quest. But if I have no interaction with it whatsoever (which happens most the time) the CS will go to 'kill nearest neighbor' quest. Appears others have noticed this too.

Yep, this is true. Any city state whose disposition isn't "friendly" can spawn a 'eliminate rival' quest, even when allied with them. It is important to find which city states you might want to foster a relation with early and dump 250-500 gold on them early on so that you can get more favorable quests.

I think CS's kill quest is meant to spur the diplomatic side of the game even more. The designers wanted a war game and these entities fulfill the role of creating another thing worth fighting over.

I would suggest that if the CS's can resolve their dispute with a rival that any Civ that has positive relations (or perhaps have pledged to protect) with the CS should take a small infuence hit. You are supposed to be the big Civ taking care of the little guy, and you failed to live up to your end of the deal. Something like -10 or 15 influence, just so there isn't too much easy influence running around now that new quests are available. If pledge to protect is used as the condition then there needs to be a positive status for pledging to protect a CS. (perhaps +10% of their science from the CS). This should only occur if you're the ally of the CS.

 

[Selous]

I think CS's kill quest is meant to spur the diplomatic side of the game even more. The designers wanted a war game and these entities fulfill the role of creating another thing worth fighting over.

this might have worked if you didnt get diplomaticly screwed for killing CS's, instead it just breaks the mechanic of CS missions

 

[KaiserKevin]

Only once, I saw two feuding city state actually unleash their militaries to settle their grudges. ONCE! And that was civ 5 in its unpatched state on release day.

Was an militaristic state attacking an cultural state, problem is, both of them is my pets. So I looked upon it within horror and awe and prayed that they fight to a stalemate, sadly.

Militaristic state won, and I was like uh crap, Sneakily snuck a lone mech infantry to help repel a bunch of infantries, gifted it to the cultural state in a place that's just out of sight to the militaristic one.

That mech infantry managed to repel the stragglers before they could take the city and stayed inside the cultural city's borders keeping its eye on that militaristic state. xD

Seriously, I'd love it this particular little event would happen more often.

Personally pummeling the douchebag out if no great power helps them out.

I've never seen that happen before, wish I did. I have seen CS able to capture at least 1 other city on several occasions and become a 'double CS' and one time the CS actually managed to capture 3 other cities to become a mini empire. Sadly it burned the city it captured with uranium nearby, otherwise it would have had 2 Uraniums with 4 each, giving 8 total with C.Diplo.