Independent Powers are a nightmare - Option to disable them?

[sqidleston]

I would prefer an option to disable independent powers. Right now the hostile independent powers inundate you early game and make expansion/progress nearly impossible. Diplomacy with them is so expensive/takes FOREVER (and they STILL attack you during the process of trying to befriend them). Trying to disperse them requires a ton of military units that hinder progress towards other types of victories.

[Martin]

Build an army, wipe them out, you get good xp and bonuses killing them.

[sqidleston]

Originally posted by Martin:

Build an army, wipe them out, you get good xp and bonuses killing them.

Sure I could do this, and have done it. But I also said that if you intend to go for a victory aside from Military, say Economic or Science, you waste a lot of early time training troops just so you can deal with Independent Powers that you haven't even uncovered on the map. And they come with entire navies lol.

In order to deal with them effectively, I have found that I have to divert from technologies that are better suited to how I'm trying to play just so I can keep dealing with them. Which is how it makes it very difficult to do any victory aside from military in current state. Civ 6 had an option to disable barbarians, not sure why Civ 7 can't disable the equivalent.

[Korok Gaming]

I agree. 40 turns in, and im being swarmed by three different independent powers all in the same place, and it makes it impossible to go for any progression other than military in early game, and also the fact that they have a seemingly endless supply of units in incredibly frustrating to deal with.

[Townsendvol]

I usually have one or two that love to mess with me, but I have enjoyed them for the most part. They have kept me on my toes early game.

Plus being able to pay them to attack someone is always a fun way to dump some points. :)

With that said I am all for game options to turn things in or off or down or up.

[JC Denton]

They can be difficult if you just totally ignore military, but they're an excellent way to make sure you have at least one general with 1-2 commendation bonuses before leaving Antiquity, which in turn allows you to goosestep all over the AI for the rest of the game. You get tons of stacking bonuses against to them, to the point that by the time you're ready to expand you really should be trading 3 of their units for 1 of yours.

[Batailleuse]

well i am on the oppositem i absoilutely love them playing diplomacy, for cheap you can force them to attack factions and their unique buff and building are stupid strong.

+1 to either melee and/or ranged power for EACH city state you control (military city buff)
+1 FREE tech for every city state you take control (science city) < this one steam roll tech like no tomorrow especially on long or marathon games.

list goes on but basically going all diplomacy you can get +50% bonus*2 for befriending them or a special skill from one of the civ to instant own them.

city state can be so strong to play around its just stupid fun

[GhostBone]

Man everybody saying just get an army and fight them really missed the point of this post. Why they would not have an option to toggle basically anything in the game should make anybody mad. Why in the world would any game dev company force people to play a game one way is just straight dumb.

[kasnavada]

You literally need 3 units to beat them up in the early game, with a ranged unit it's even easier. That's not "a lot of military", it's basically lower than what you'd need to lower the aggression of ai players anyway.

If you don't actually disperse them, as far as my games went I never need more than 2 units to defend my cities against their aggression. By which I mean most of the time having a slinger afk in the city center and shooting them, without even once moving, is enough of a defense.

With a default of 10 influence per turn, even assuming you don't find another influence source (which is dubious as the AI loves to give you the agreement that gives you +2 influence when you just accept it), you can flip the closest by turn 32... and generally I flipped 3 of them by turn 50.

That said, I've go no issues with disabling them, but please don't use a reason that is so obviously fake.

[sqidleston]

Originally posted by kasnavada:

You literally need 3 units to beat them up in the early game, with a ranged unit it's even easier. That's not "a lot of military", it's basically lower than what you'd need to lower the aggression of ai players anyway.

If you don't actually disperse them, as far as my games went I never need more than 2 units to defend my cities against their aggression. By which I mean most of the time having a slinger afk in the city center and shooting them, without even once moving, is enough of a defense.

With a default of 10 influence per turn, even assuming you don't find another influence source (which is dubious as the AI loves to give you the agreement that gives you +2 influence when you just accept it), you can flip the closest by turn 32... and generally I flipped 3 of them by turn 50.

That said, I've go no issues with disabling them, but please don't use a reason that is so obviously fake.

I was spending influence on the other civs too so I could improve trade relations as I was trying an econ victory. I was making influence in other places, but I was still having to save a ton of influence for turn after turn... just to deal with a single hostile independent power. Spending upwards of 100 influence (I don't have the exact number memorized, I just know it was over 100) to make one hostile independent power not attack me is a lot.

That's all ignoring the fact that there are usually at least 3 hostile independent powers attacking me at once. Not to mention that while you're trying to buy their affection with influence, they continue to attack you in the process. So I'm still training troops to constantly fight them. 50 turns is a long time to be focused on independent powers when different victory types require influence to be used for other things too.

Maybe I'm just not the absolute best at the game (I accept that, I don't have tons of time to sit and really play a whole game out in one sitting these days) but it took at least 4 units to disperse one independent power. Meanwhile, a different hostile independent power pulled up with 4 galleys so now I'm putting resources towards 4 more units for that too. Repeat the that one more time for the third hostile power that's pulling up from somewhere else I haven't sent a scout to yet.

This doesn't take into account for other civs starting wars around you and needing to keep an eye on that as well. The game I was trying to play maybe just got unlucky with very military forward AI but I had tons of troops trained in the first era when I could have gotten way more done for the type of victory I was actually intending to achieve.

It's not a fake reason, I'm probably not the most efficient player, but I just figured adding something a casual player struggled with on the forum made for feedback was worthwhile. (I was already playing on a lower difficulty so that wasn't the problem either)