Citystate...take it down or keep for bonus?

[Gorbash]

Just wondering what best way forward is here as I see two options
a) keep it alive for bonus....
b) conquer it but loose out on bonus

I would prefer to keepit alive....but AI tends to conquer even if allied, any ideas how to prevent that maybe?

[Mansen]

If an AI takes a City State you can take it back with a Liberation Casus Belli - And give you a free pass to take ... more ;)

If you're Germany, you should start out with some early City State rushes, since you have a bonus to damage against them. And the AI can't complain about warmongering in the ancient era.

[Astasia]

It's an awful idea to attack a city state in any situation. Even the basic 1-6 point envoy bonuses are better than owning an extra city, and many of their unique bonuses are game changing powerful. It makes me face palm so hard when the AI takes out 3-4 of them early on in every game.

Edit: The exception of course being a bonus you have zero interest in. IE a faith city state when you are not going for faith or religion at all. I would say faith city states are the only ones to even consider though,

[BarcaS]

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's an awful idea to attack a city state in any situation. Even the basic 1-6 point envoy bonuses are better than owning an extra city, and many of their unique bonuses are game changing powerful. It makes me face palm so hard when the AI takes out 3-4 of them early on in every game.

That is simply not true.

[Slimane]

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's an awful idea to attack a city state in any situation. Even the basic 1-6 point envoy bonuses are better than owning an extra city, and many of their unique bonuses are game changing powerful. It makes me face palm so hard when the AI takes out 3-4 of them early on in every game.

Meh. I conquered a cultural city state which I had 1 envoy, +2 culture per turn in my capital or capturing a city state with horses, lots of hills, iron and with a strategic location? Easy call. They had already build a theater district too (who builds those anyway?) so I got more then my 2 culture per turn back.

Plus it was the one that gave a free inspiration once you enter a new era, probably the worst one in the game. It's not like you'll have enough envoy for all of them anyway. I always priotize the industrial ones.

[Battler]

As Aztec, take city states early for the free builders.

[Tynendir]

I mean some bonuses are just meh like Jerusalem which automatically convert the city to your religion if you become allies. Some other bonuses are pretty cool like the one which gives you amenity for each bonus ressources (bonus not luxury!) you have near your cites! Or another one which gives river bonuses to all your cities even if they were not built next to a river. That's pretty sweet bonuses but you won't have enough envoys to collect all those bonuses. You need to make choices and the City-States you can't befriend should be conquered so as to not let your ennemies get those bonuses.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Prince Viserys Targaryen:

Meh. I conquered a cultural city state which I had 1 envoy, +2 culture per turn in my capital or capturing a city state with horses, lots of hills, iron and with a strategic location? Easy call. They had already build a theater district too (who builds those anyway?) so I got more then my 2 culture per turn back.

Plus it was the one that gave a free inspiration once you enter a new era, probably the worst one in the game.

If it was close enough that you'd consider taking it, it would have been easy to maintain suzy over it and get all those resources for yourself anyway. The 1 point envoy bonuses are fairly weak by mid game, but the 3 and 6 point bonuses are the ones that matter. Having +4 culture in every theater district in your empire is a massive bonus, after settling a bunch of cities that's more culture added by that one city state than any other city in your empire by far.

[JTL]

Mybe there are some bad Boni from City States, but there are some pretty good ones too.

I formyself try to Play Freinds with them and Free every Citystate that was Conquered.
I know that eraly on conquering them gives a huge Boom to your Economy / Prod and so on,
but there are other Civs there too. So i rather go for them, instead of the City States.
I get less Competition and Huge Boni from Citystates. I think its the better Solution. ^^

[PhilkIced]

But if he's going for a non-cultural victory, he isn't going to build more than one single theater district, if he even builds one, so it's still useless, better to take the city.

As said above, you can't befriend all of them, and some you don't even want to depending on your victory style, if those are well positioned and rich go for it and take them.

[Astasia]

The quality of the special suzy bonus doesn't matter that much, if you don't like it let the AI waste their extra envoys on it. By just doing the city state quest every era you can easily get to 6 envoys with every city state on the map, and the more that are left later on the better your chances of keeping suzy status over 2-3 of them. Letting the AI get a "bad" one isn't going to worsen your situation.

Originally posted by PhilkIced:

But if he's going for a non-cultural victory, he isn't going to build more than one single theater district, if he even builds one, so it's still useless, better to take the city.

As said above, you can't befriend all of them, and some you don't even want to depending on your victory style, if those are well positioned and rich go for it and take them.

You need culture for every startegy, unless you enjoy going through the civic tree at a snail pace. You also run out of districts to build, so you'll be building a bunch of culture districts just because there's no reason not to.

You can easily get to 6 envoys with every single city state with minimal effort and little to no envoys spent.

[BarcaS]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The quality of the special suzy bonus doesn't matter that much, if you don't like it let the AI waste their extra envoys on it. By just doing the city state quest every era you can easily get to 6 envoys with every city state on the map, and the more that are left later on the better your chances of keeping suzy status over 2-3 of them. Letting the AI get a "bad" one isn't going to worsen your situation.

Letting CS live simply because of a good bonus you will use somewhere later compared to taking good spot and city with few buildings, people, improved spots and/or districts. It is not black-white situation you are trying to make look like.

[Gorbash]

Ok good advice all around still taking back Citystate on war will tend to kill friendship/alliance...was hoping something to stop the AI conquer thingy...

[Astasia]

Originally posted by BarcaS:

Letting CS live simply because of a good bonus you will use somewhere later compared to taking good spot and city with few buildings, people, improved spots and/or districts. It is not black-white situation you are trying to make look like.

Considering the game is all about spamming cities as close together as possible, ignoring resources, yields, or good placement, having one or two extra cities in any state of development is a completely laughable thing to compare to having a bonus that applies to nearly every single city you make. It is completely black and white, the city state bonuses are extremely powerful, one individual city is nearly worthless. You will be kicking yourself so hard for getting that one extra city when you have 30 cities that are all losing out on 4-8 extra yield each.

[PhilkIced]

You need just a small amount of culture for any victory that is not cultural, very small, to go through the civic tree at an acceptable pace that won't delay you too much, investing too much in culture while going for a science of domination victory will make someone win before you if you're playing on emperor or higher. If you are not going for religeous victory nor cultural victory the bonus from those 2 city states are not as important as being the suzerain of that Brussels or (insert any another OP suzerain bonus CS here), they are also not as good as a very strong city with lot's of resources, because you only get the resources if you are the suzerain and no one sane would contest to be the suzerain of a religious CS while going for domination.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by PhilkIced:

investing too much in culture while going for a science of domination victory will make someone win before you

Building a bunch of culture districts because you've built everything else a city needs for your given victory not only helps you go through the civic tree faster to get things like neighborhoods, but increases the yields of internal trade routes. Having that city state there, getting envoys for free just from playing the game, getting the extra culture from it, there's just no situation IMO where destroying that city state would ever be worthwhile. Ever. Doesn't matter the resources it has or the bonus is might be giving to another civ, it's just an absolutely terrible idea to me.

Originally posted by PhilkIced:

no one sane would contest to be the suzerain of a religious CS while going for domination.

Theocracy.

Though as I said in my edit faith city states are the one where I could see people entirely avoiding. Still even a non-religion playthrough can benefit from high faith income for extra GP.