Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[shinghand]

There is a faint, dotted brown line bleeding through northwest of the wheat - because it's brown and not yellow/blue/purple/red, it's an Industrial CS and not any of the others.

[Zero_1627]

There is a faint, dotted brown line bleeding through northwest of the wheat - because it's brown and not yellow/blue/purple/red, it's an Industrial CS and not any of the others.

so indeed You need to know what to look for - thank You!

[Zero_1627]

I have just reviewed Wiki on Industrial city states... Auckland suzerain bonus seems wonderful (although perhaps not so much on Pangea map). Toronto doesn't seem bad either - although, as You said, none of that helps immediately.

[oledavy]

I have just reviewed Wiki on Industrial city states... Auckland suzerain bonus seems wonderful (although perhaps not so much on Pangea map). Toronto doesn't seem bad either - although, as You said, none of that helps immediately.

Maybe I'll sit down at one point and type out my thoughts on each city-state and it's potential in MP by type, we'll see how bored I get this summer... 

My thoughts will have dubious value though, as it will be based on theory-crafting and SP experience rather than MP experience. 

That being said, I do really like suzerain bonuses in Civ6, I like the potential for conflict over strong ones, or the possibility of shaping your game play to take advantage of them. 

For example, I think Carthage (encampments provide 1 trade route each) is possibly one of the strongest CSs in the game, and invites a completely different play pattern for you civ if you can keep them friendly. I would actually love for Carthage to be in this game so I can test out its MP potential. 

Regarding Auckland and Toronto:  

I think Auckland is also one of the strongest in the game, and if my neighbor is Auckland, I would have to consider not killing it. It's bonus feels really strong, even if its impact is lessened somewhat by the Pangaea map. That being said, I've never seen it in my SP games....and I feel like it is rolled very rarely for some reason. I don't know if there is anything to this, but I know I run into Brussels and Hong Kong seemingly every game but Auckland never. My evidence is purely anecdotal, however. 

Toronto feels like it's a lot stronger than I think it actually is. I think it was a much better CS back before they removed stacking Industrial District Bonuses. Don't get me wrong, the bonus is strong, and saves you potentially hundreds of hammers by allowing you to cover an entire civ with 1-2 IDs/EDs versus 2-3. However, the problem with Toronto in my eyes is that you have to plan your district placement from day 1 on maintaining that suzerain bonus. If someone wants to screw with your production/amenities, all they have to do is throw envoys at Toronto, and unlike the case of Carthage, where the TRs will continue to run even if you lose their suzerain bonus, the extended range bonuses form Toronto go away immedietly. 

It all just feels like a ton of effort to have to build one less ID. And again, for my purposes here, Industrial city-states are just not that useful to me for awhile. I may be underrating it somewhat, as its based on SP experience where the AIs will steal away your suzerains every dozen turns or so. That level of frequency is harder to imagine with human players, but I imagine there will be more deliberate thought put into it when it does happen. 

At any rate, based purely on the frequency with which I see them in my SP games, I expect the mystery CS to be Hong Kong, Brussels, or Buenos Aires.

[oledavy]

Turn 5

And the winner is....



zzzzzzz....

Arguably the worst of all the Industrial City-States. Just in case anyone forgot Hong Kong's suzerain bonus: 



So yeah, between that and it being a mere 7 tiles away from my capital, it's a prime candidate for integration into Greater Hamiltonia. 

It has an easy quest, I'll likely get it before killing the city-state. 

Abroad, Woden met another CS (thanks to the sound nonsense). Alhambram met a scientific city-state and finished a scout. 

Currently debating where to send my slinger (leaning towards east) and which direction to plant my second city in (leaning towards south, I'll save further speculation until I actually do some more scouting though.

[Molach]

Will it be worthwhile to milk this baby for exp and culture? Do they replace unit losses quick?

[oledavy]

Will it be worthwhile to milk this baby for exp and culture? Do they replace unit losses quick?

You raise a compelling point. I'm not going to for Hong Kong, as it will be most beneficial to me to capture it as soon as possible and get it productive. For the rest though...it will depend on what the game is looking like. 

I don't think city-states produce enough units to keep being at war with them as a useful source of culture. However, I think in Civ6 you can declare on city-states as many times as you want without any long-term repercussions (someone please correct me if this is not the case). With this in mind, it may be worthwhile to look into going to war with each city-state I don't intend on influencing or capturing from time to time and moving my army in to kill as many of their military units as I can, reaping the culture. As opposed to the eternal war model, requiring garrisons to harvest each city's military, this would allow me to use less overall units and move them around on something of a rotation. This practice would also have the added benefit of preventing someone from levying an army against me on my doorstep.

However, systematic war like this would require a lot of units and may not be worth the hammer investment or the military forces it ties up, not to mention that I feel like most city-states are best utilized as allies or outright annexed.

However, I will be attempting to farm barbs pretty hard this game. I will be clearing the first camp I can find, for the associated Inspiration. After that, however, I want to set up surveillance with a few military units on each nearby encampment and farm the barbs that spawn. it's beyond my ability to engineer, but I would like these camps I find to discover my capital with their scout so the spawn rate is buffed and I have more barbs to kill for culture. We'll see how this plays out in practice. We're still talking about tying down substantial portions of my military when they might be needed taking Hong Kong, exploring, or defending my cities. That being said, farming barbs is certainly going to be something I'm going to try to do.

[oledavy]

Turn 6




Quiet turn. Crossing that western river is going to take both move actions, so I used my extra move action this turn to explore west -> northwest. I'll move adjacent to the river next turn, then cross it. At that point, the question will be whether to keep going west and increase my chances of finding another continent, or go south and scout out the western frontier for potential city sites. I need to defog more of the area, but I actually like the idea of planting on that hill to the west. I'll have to make some big decisions in a couple turns with my slinger. Deciding which direction to scout in is always one of my least favorite of the game, as it can have enormous impact on your early game, and you have no idea which direction has the double culture CS and which one ends in tundra. 

Anyway, grew to size two, and put that jungled hill to work. 

I realized Alhambram didn't finish a scout last turn, but grew a pop. 

I've thought more on the question of farming city-states. My big question in entertaining the idea continues to be, at which point does the investment outweigh the benefit, and at what point is it just better to conquer a city-state than kill its units repeatedly. I don't know, but hopefully we'll have quite a few of these games and get a better idea of the relative cost/benefit of tactics like that.

Also, is it bad that I'm already starting to debate where to put districts around Hong Kong...

[Zero_1627]

 I don't know if there is anything to this, but I know I run into Brussels and Hong Kong seemingly every game but Auckland never. 

Now that I think about it, I think I saw Sulla's comment that there's 3 cities of each kind. Wiki definitely shows more. And Auckland is on New Zealand... May it be that these 'rare' cities are from DLCs, and disabling DLC simply prevents them from showing up?

[Zero_1627]

As for scouting: knowing potential city sites in time is obviously crucial .

As for city states though - if You do intend to quickly kill and integrate those nearby, I'd say scouting further ones would be more important long term. If they're useful You'll get option of influencing them, either to Your gain or to deny opponent. And You always have a chance of scoring free envoy (and denying that to other players) - while if they do the same to You You'll just kill the city anyway .

In Sulla's game he quite effectively blocked access to 'his' City States, at least to opponents who didn't manage to scout them in early game phase. I wonder if that would be possible here, but botom line is that chance of free envoy in city You won't be killing .