AI Refusing to trade basic city?

[Menzue]

so I just got this game with the winter sale, and the aztec planted a city directly next to iron which was really close to me, with the only other known deposits being on the other side of the map. The only resource they actually have in the town is a single sheep. Im a declared friend of the aztec, ive given them delegations, and im willing to drown them in gold and luxury resources, even give up my own cities, but no matter what, they just say "I cannot accept this deal under any circumstances."
Am I gonna have to go to war because they couldnt be willing to give in?

[Lemurian1972]

The only time a civ will even consider trading a city is after a long war where you've razed most of their empire. They rebalanced the trade AI so the 'cost' of a city is really high, and you need a ton of leverage on your side before they'll consider it.

Peaceful city trading has never been possible in Civ VI, though that may change in Gathering Storm, but I can't say for certain.

[Menzue]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

The only time a civ will even consider trading a city is after a long war where you've razed most of their empire. They rebalanced the trade AI so the 'cost' of a city is really high, and you need a ton of leverage on your side before they'll consider it.

Peaceful city trading has never been possible in Civ VI, though that may change in Gathering Storm, but I can't say for certain.

Ok, thanks for the answer! Their leader is now getting paranoid as "I'm getting too close, and my armies are so strong!" even though it consists of like 3 basic warriors and an archer guarding the capital....
Guess I'll build my armies a bit while annoying him to the point he doesnt want to be friends.

[Exemplar]

I really don't think the program is going to let AI just trade away cities. DoW isn't the only option for capturing a forward-settled city, though. Once you look into the rise and fall (if you have rise and fall) mechanism for city loyalty and become comfortable with all the bonuses it might be possible to take the city with that, provided AI doesn't have much else close.

Monte being Monte, though, it doesn't take much to set him off. There's a good chance he'll just DoW you and make that decision for you.

On a side note you might ask yourself why you really want iron. Chances are you will already be past the usefulness of swordsmen, but knights are pretty amazing. Even still, it might be time to look ahead toward niter units. Beeline military engineering to reveal niter. I'd sooner conflict with neighbors over that, than iron.

[leandrombraz]

Just to add to it, the AI also value stuff that the city provide since a few patches ago. Basically he knows there's iron there, it's probably his only copy, under no circunstances the AI will trade their only copy, which include trading the city that provide that copy.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Just to add to it, the AI also value stuff that the city provide since a few patches ago. Basically he knows there's iron there, it's probably his only copy, under no circunstances the AI will trade their only copy, which include trading the city that provide that copy.

Which is kind of funny considering Aztec can kind of just ignore Swordsmen and continue using their Eagle Warriors thanks to their higher strength and the luxury attack bonus, to continue getting free builders, until eventually you're in a position to get muskets and then just roflstomp everything with them.

[Menzue]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I did end up going to war with them, I had surrounded the city in question with about 8 archers and told half to attack the city, with the other half defending against the troops. I ended up draining him of troops before taking the city and he begged for mercy. He was willing to give up all of his cities (besides the capital) and all of his luxuries inside the capital, except for his oranges. Man likes his oranges I guess.

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Which is kind of funny considering Aztec can kind of just ignore Swordsmen and continue using their Eagle Warriors thanks to their higher strength and the luxury attack bonus, to continue getting free builders, until eventually you're in a position to get muskets and then just roflstomp everything with them.

Its funny you say that, he had begun using the iron to make swordsmen, who were simply overrun with the barrage of arrows. I'll keep that in mind.

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Just to add to it, the AI also value stuff that the city provide since a few patches ago. Basically he knows there's iron there, it's probably his only copy, under no circunstances the AI will trade their only copy, which include trading the city that provide that copy.

During the war I actually noticed that swordsmen were coming from his second city, (he had 3)
so I took a look and he actually has an iron mine already set up there. Out of curiousity, is there an estimated price to an empty, basic city that had just been founded?

Originally posted by Exemplar:

On a side note you might ask yourself why you really want iron. Chances are you will already be past the usefulness of swordsmen, but knights are pretty amazing. Even still, it might be time to look ahead toward niter units. Beeline military engineering to reveal niter. I'd sooner conflict with neighbors over that, than iron.

I'll keep this in mind, thanks! Like I said I just got Civ 6 and it seems so different yet so much better than 5.

Is there anything new to the AI that I should know about? This whole thing seems like a rather big change that I had no clue about, just wondering if theres any others like it.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Menzue:

During the war I actually noticed that swordsmen were coming from his second city, (he had 3)
so I took a look and he actually has an iron mine already set up there. Out of curiousity, is there an estimated price to an empty, basic city that had just been founded?

Not that I know but population, resources and probably districts will increase the price up to the point where they won't trade under any circunstance. Trading a city for another city might also be easier than trying to buy it with gold.

The AI used to trade cities easily but they changed that since it was easy to abuse, now they value it quite a lot. When I'm trying to liberate a CS, I like to conquer other cities and then trade for the CS if the CS is too far, last couple of times I tried that I got almost their whole empire, tried to trade all of it for that one city and I still had to add 100+ gpt to the deal.

[Dray Prescot]

As someone pointed out in another discussion thread of mine, the BEST way to KILL a conquered enemy is to conquer a former City State as the LAST city he/she has left and then instead of keeping it, liberate it, i.e. allow it to become the City State again. This way you do NOT get the Doubled Warmonger penalty for destroying a Civilization. This saved me over 30 Warmonger penalty against my first conquest.

You still have to deal with all of the bad Loyalty effects in conquered Cities, particularly with foreign neighboring Cities, but with Governors, Policies, Buildings (particularly repairing Monuments) that give Amenities, possible Religious benefits, etc. it IS possible to totally absorb a conquered a conquered CIV and have them (eventually) be totally Loyal. It took me 2 Wars to conquer and absorb China, my first conquest.

Having a LOT of governors to assign to conquered Cities helps improve Loyalty with the right Policies to improve Loyalty.

I have done this TWO (out of THREE) times in my current game, so I know it works. Plus you get a nice bonus (+5 in my game) to your Diplomatic relations for liberating a City State and enough envoys in that revived City State for you to control it as Suzeran and get all the usual benefits of doing so.

See thread

https://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/0/3216031607498129987/