Why do free cities act like barbarians?!

[Illusion17]

https://steamcommunity.com/id/0939634/images/
Was playing this game where Germany and America kept forward settling, causing their cities to rebel. The 2 German cities rebelled at around the same time, causing them to remain free cities instead of switching to my civ. They proceeded to spam out units which immediately flooded into my territory, pillaging everything and attacking my cities until I managed to get an army built up. Why on earth do they act like this? If anything they should spawn in as city states at war with their former civ. This system is honestly obnoxious since it was like having 2 hyper active barbarian camps right next to my civ.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I assume that the reason is so that anyone can attack and capture them at any time without the need for diplomacy or diplomatic penalties. The main problem I see here is not that two free cities started sending units into your territory, but rather than you had to build up an army to defend yourself from them *after* they started attacking you. If you were that close to two other civs, and the game has been going on for long enough for them to forward settle two cities near you, then you probably should have had an army already, if for no other reason than to defend yourself from Germany and America.

[Cyrus]

Because they already have your money and don't care anymore. Same reason you had to buy 2 expansions just to get a world congress. Money grab joke. Lobbies are broken. Exploits don't get fixed, but cater the kids with a battle royal.

[Illusion17]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

I assume that the reason is so that anyone can attack and capture them at any time without the need for diplomacy or diplomatic penalties. The main problem I see here is not that two free cities started sending units into your territory, but rather than you had to build up an army to defend yourself from them *after* they started attacking you. If you were that close to two other civs, and the game has been going on for long enough for them to forward settle two cities near you, then you probably should have had an army already, if for no other reason than to defend yourself from Germany and America.

Mostly because neither germany nor America did either. This was on epic speed, and I had equal strength with them with the archer and warrior I had. I don't spend time building up an army unless I have to as it's much more productive to build up my city strength first. This wasn't on deity, neither of them posed any threat.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by illusion goddian:

Mostly because neither germany nor America did either. This was on epic speed, and I had equal strength with them with the archer and warrior I had. I don't spend time building up an army unless I have to as it's much more productive to build up my city strength first. This wasn't on deity, neither of them posed any threat.

... until they enacted their brilliant plan to crush you with free units from their rebel cities - but seriously, one warrior and one archer is less than you ought to build just to handle barbarians.

[leandrombraz]

It isn't supposed to. That used to happen when R&F was released, then it was changed in the May 2018 update. Whatever happened in your game, it isn't intended behavior. Free cities units are supposed to stay in their territory and only go for a fight if your units are inside or adjacent to their borders.

Source:
"Free cities units that are not involved in attacking other units will stay within their own territory."
https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-rise-and-fall-spring-2018-update-release-date/


If you still have a save while that was happening, either open a 2K support ticket:
https://support.2k.com/hc/en-us

or post it here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ6-bug-reports.553/

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

"Free cities units that are not involved in attacking other units will stay within their own territory."

Why are you assuming that the free city units that left their cities' territory were not pursuing nearby units? Once they step outside their territory to chase a unit they can see, they are free to do anything, including pillaging or attacking enemy cities.

[plaguepenguin]

Yes, the AI messed with your preferred strategy of using your early production opportunities to build up your cities, instead of building an army bigger than the two units you mention.

That's not a flaw, that's what the AI is supposed to do, mess with whatever preconceived strategy you try to follow. The AI, as imperfect and inept as it is, does at least sometimes manage to mess with you, so you have no choice but to remain flexible in your approach and leave yourself free to both take advantage of unexpected opportunities the AI throws your way, and the more rare but much more educational challenges it throws at you when it does manage to mess with you.

The two most important things you have to do to preserve enough freedom of action to enable you to take advantage rather than be the victim of random events and the AI's machinations are: 1) stay at least competitive in science, and ahead if at all possible 2) maintain an at least moderate sized army. The fact that you didn't do the second means that you are lucky that barbarians and/or your opposing civ neighbors didn't take advantage of your mistake earlier. That's the most common pattern, that the AI fails to take advantage of your mistakes.

If you had a reasonable size army, which you should have as a safety play, no matter how much trade-off you have to accept in terms of less time your cities can spend building all your other priorities, this occurrence would have been a free gift for you. These are two free cities, and you get to take free cities without all the grievance and other forms of enmity you create by going to war with your neighbor civs and then keeping their cities at the end of the war. You could have, you still can now that you have built an army in reaction, take these free cities and get two cities for free, without having to build settlers, and without having to then wait for them to grow to their current size. Extra cities are a huge benefit, and the AI gave you an opportunity to have two of them at much lower cost than you would normally have to pay.

So say goodbye to your old strategy for this game of developing what you already have in peace, and accept that this particular game has evolved differently, and has made a new strategy more advantageous, a strategy in which you get two new cities you hadn't planned on getting, but which have fallen into your lap. Maybe the changed map means that you should just go on with your new path of conquest, because you've already built up an army, and finish off Germany. But even if that isn't a good idea, you will have managed to steal two German cities without making Germany your permanent enemy, and so your still free to pursue a path forward in which you and Germany are best buddies.

[Illusion17]

Originally posted by gtomkins1:

Yes, the AI messed with your preferred strategy of using your early production opportunities to build up your cities, instead of building an army bigger than the two units you mention.

That's not a flaw, that's what the AI is supposed to do, mess with whatever preconceived strategy you try to follow. The AI, as imperfect and inept as it is, does at least sometimes manage to mess with you, so you have no choice but to remain flexible in your approach and leave yourself free to both take advantage of unexpected opportunities the AI throws your way, and the more rare but much more educational challenges it throws at you when it does manage to mess with you.

The two most important things you have to do to preserve enough freedom of action to enable you to take advantage rather than be the victim of random events and the AI's machinations are: 1) stay at least competitive in science, and ahead if at all possible 2) maintain an at least moderate sized army. The fact that you didn't do the second means that you are lucky that barbarians and/or your opposing civ neighbors didn't take advantage of your mistake earlier. That's the most common pattern, that the AI fails to take advantage of your mistakes.

If you had a reasonable size army, which you should have as a safety play, no matter how much trade-off you have to accept in terms of less time your cities can spend building all your other priorities, this occurrence would have been a free gift for you. These are two free cities, and you get to take free cities without all the grievance and other forms of enmity you create by going to war with your neighbor civs and then keeping their cities at the end of the war. You could have, you still can now that you have built an army in reaction, take these free cities and get two cities for free, without having to build settlers, and without having to then wait for them to grow to their current size. Extra cities are a huge benefit, and the AI gave you an opportunity to have two of them at much lower cost than you would normally have to pay.

So say goodbye to your old strategy for this game of developing what you already have in peace, and accept that this particular game has evolved differently, and has made a new strategy more advantageous, a strategy in which you get two new cities you hadn't planned on getting, but which have fallen into your lap. Maybe the changed map means that you should just go on with your new path of conquest, because you've already built up an army, and finish off Germany. But even if that isn't a good idea, you will have managed to steal two German cities without making Germany your permanent enemy, and so your still free to pursue a path forward in which you and Germany are best buddies.

You do realize it wasn't difficult to deal with, nor messed with my strategy right...? It took around 30 turns (Epic length) To build an army and wipe the cities out, giving me two valuable cities. If anything this actually helped me in the long run. However, it seriously weakened Germany. They lost 2 cities, several units, and several builders. The Ai did not do some master plan that screwed me. They did something incredibly stupid that was a minor inconvenience for me, and really messed them up. Besides, this post wasn't about why the ai forward settled me, it was about why free cities attack other civs with no benefit to them. I agree with them spamming out units, but what reason do those units have to attack a civ that they aren't involved with at all. They need those units to protect them from their original civ. Looking at the other ai, both Germany and America are by far the weakest two civs in the game, so it seems giving me free cities wasn't a good strategy after all.

[plaguepenguin]

Okay, so your point wasn't that these free cities were messing with you, but that having free cities behave like barbarians, mindlessly and indiscriminately hostile to all neighboring civs, was bad strategy on their part. Very true, but almost inevitable given the overall limitations of the AI.

There is a rank order of how stupid the AI controlling these different entities are, in order from dumbest to smartest: barbarians, free cities, city states, competing civs. While it might be nice f they made free cities smarter, I'm not sure they can do much on the critical problem that free cities face -- who to align with. That would take an ability to analyze a game position for the strength or weakness of each relevant civ, and not even the competing civ AIs can seem to manage that. They have their tropisms and habits and pre-set game plans that they follow without a lot of flexibility or modification by the likelihood of particular other civs being able to frustrate their plans.

A free state stuck between two (or maybe three) superpowers has no hope for survival except by the continued weakness of both (or all three) of its neighbors. So they programmed the free state AIs to attack and pillage to do what little they can to contribute to the cause of keeping neighboring civs weak as long as possible. This is pretty suicidal against human civs, but against AI civs -- hey, I've seen games where not just city states, but even some regions of AI civs, are permanently overrun by barbarians, so indiscriminate belligerence is not a hopelessly bad strategy for the free states.

What the game designers could and should do with free states, is to let them evolve. Perhaps they could make it so that if they survive long enough as free cities, they become city states, with type and suzerain bonus only revealed after they complete this evolution. Or they could introduce a vassalage feature, that might apply both to free cities and AI civs, that decide to give up and join you when it becomes clear they can't beat you. Whatever else they decide to do with the free cities, they could make it possible for you to make deals with them -- alliance against other civs, tribute for your not attacking them, or even tribute to them for not attacking you -- there is a lot they could do beyond having them act like barbarians who happen to own a city.

[Illusion17]

Originally posted by gtomkins1:

Okay, so your point wasn't that these free cities were messing with you, but that having free cities behave like barbarians, mindlessly and indiscriminately hostile to all neighboring civs, was bad strategy on their part. Very true, but almost inevitable given the overall limitations of the AI.

There is a rank order of how stupid the AI controlling these different entities are, in order from dumbest to smartest: barbarians, free cities, city states, competing civs. While it might be nice f they made free cities smarter, I'm not sure they can do much on the critical problem that free cities face -- who to align with. That would take an ability to analyze a game position for the strength or weakness of each relevant civ, and not even the competing civ AIs can seem to manage that. They have their tropisms and habits and pre-set game plans that they follow without a lot of flexibility or modification by the likelihood of particular other civs being able to frustrate their plans.

A free state stuck between two (or maybe three) superpowers has no hope for survival except by the continued weakness of both (or all three) of its neighbors. So they programmed the free state AIs to attack and pillage to do what little they can to contribute to the cause of keeping neighboring civs weak as long as possible. This is pretty suicidal against human civs, but against AI civs -- hey, I've seen games where not just city states, but even some regions of AI civs, are permanently overrun by barbarians, so indiscriminate belligerence is not a hopelessly bad strategy for the free states.

What the game designers could and should do with free states, is to let them evolve. Perhaps they could make it so that if they survive long enough as free cities, they become city states, with type and suzerain bonus only revealed after they complete this evolution. Or they could introduce a vassalage feature, that might apply both to free cities and AI civs, that decide to give up and join you when it becomes clear they can't beat you. Whatever else they decide to do with the free cities, they could make it possible for you to make deals with them -- alliance against other civs, tribute for your not attacking them, or even tribute to them for not attacking you -- there is a lot they could do beyond having them act like barbarians who happen to own a city.

Yeah, I agree with you there. I really like the idea of cities rebelling, but think it's poorly executed. I really think Loyalty should be based more on military strength and amenities than pure population. I'd also really like to be able to support free cities in their rebellions by sending them economic or military aid. In its current state, I find that the loyalty and free city mechanics just end up hurting the game in ways they shouldn't. In every game I play, I have 4 to 5 ai cities rebel and join my civ, needlessly weakening the ai. I really hope they redo rise and fall's mechanics.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I had a game where Spain and I were some distance apart, with decent land between us. I was occupied in another direction, and so that land was left for Spain. Instead of settling outward from his own territory, he insisted on forward settling cities (gradually, to make matters worse) on my border. They kept rebelling and then flipping over to me. In the end of it all he'd given me about six free cities and all of the territory between us.

That sort of thing doesn't happen to me often, but it should probably be something that the AI is better prepared to avoid. So, I too agree that some adjustments are in order. Maybe a little less desire to forward settle and a little more attention paid to positive pressure present at the site of new cities.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

I had a game where Spain and I were some distance apart, with decent land between us. I was occupied in another direction, and so that land was left for Spain. Instead of settling outward from his own territory, he insisted on forward settling cities (gradually, to make matters worse) on my border. They kept rebelling and then flipping over to me. In the end of it all he'd given me about six free cities and all of the territory between us.

That sort of thing doesn't happen to me often, but it should probably be something that the AI is better prepared to avoid. So, I too agree that some adjustments are in order. Maybe a little less desire to forward settle and a little more attention paid to positive pressure present at the site of new cities.

I've only seen this scenario once (okay twice, but the second time I was playing as Eleanor and I made it happen with Eleanor's special mechanics), and it happened that way because the opposing AI forward settled on me during eras in which we were both at the same level. The flipping started in the next era, in which I was golden and the AI was in a dark age. Once it started, it fed on itself, and got enough momentum that it didn't even need a gradient of golden to normal anymore, but just went on until the other AI was gone.

Is this how it went in your game, a matter of age gradient, or was it just straight up forward settling into a loyalty situation that was unsustainable even at equal era status? You would think that would be an easy thing for the AI to avoid. Anything that involves analyzing a game position for the interplay of competing strengths and weaknesses is of course beyond the AI, but the loyalty gradient is a simple knowable number.

I have noticed that Spain tends to be eager to settle other land masses, but haven't seen it do so suicidally as in this case you observed, so I can't blame this on some agenda or tropism peculiar to Spain.

[plaguepenguin]

By the way, did you notice whether the units of these two free cities that were next to each other would attack units or land of the other free city, or only units and land of civs or CS? The latter would make them conform to what I have observed of barbarians, who act as if at war with everyone but other barbarians, including barbarians spawned at different camps.

There seems to be honor among thieves, but they only honor other thieves, or something like that. I'm curious if free city units act like barbarian thieves.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by gtomkins1:

Is this how it went in your game, a matter of age gradient, or was it just straight up forward settling into a loyalty situation that was unsustainable even at equal era status? You would think that would be an easy thing for the AI to avoid. Anything that involves analyzing a game position for the interplay of competing strengths and weaknesses is of course beyond the AI, but the loyalty gradient is a simple knowable number.

The process happened gradually, spanning several waves of forward expansion and several ages. The initial cities were stable, but my border cities grew faster than his (I was playing the Inca) and so the pressure built up. I believe that the flipping triggered when I had a better age than him, which caused 1, 2, 3 cities to flip in order. Then he came down and conquered a city state on my (new) border, which flipped. Then he settled a couple more cities on my border, which were stable at first, but again my cities grew faster (because the cities I flipped all had mountains), and so those two flipped eventually as well.

I don't think all of the flips occurred when I had a better age than him, but that was a factor. Still, the AI should recognize the risk of forward settling and take into account factors like the risk of increased relative pressure during an inferior age. Maybe Spain "thought" that it would be able to settle all five cities and conquer the city-state before pressure on the border cities became an issue, in which case there might have been enough friendly pressure to hold the border even in an inferior age. That's a very risky plan, though, and at least in this case it backfired. If he had just settled in the other order, starting near himself and expanding outward then he probably would have gotten to keep all of those cities. Maybe I would have grabbed one or two of the sites myself (I wouldn't have, but the AI couldn't know that), but still Spain would have been better off because he could have kept the ones he did get. Instead he took a huge risk and lost all the cities, and then shortly after ended up eliminated.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by gtomkins1:

By the way, did you notice whether the units of these two free cities that were next to each other would attack units or land of the other free city, or only units and land of civs or CS? The latter would make them conform to what I have observed of barbarians, who act as if at war with everyone but other barbarians, including barbarians spawned at different camps.

There seems to be honor among thieves, but they only honor other thieves, or something like that. I'm curious if free city units act like barbarian thieves.

I believe that free city units to not attack one another. Essentially they are all part of the same faction. Also note that free cities will provide positive loyalty pressure to one another. Under the right (and rare) circumstances you can end up with a bloc of free cities supporting one another and they will resist pressure and stabilize as free cities.