City States and diplomacy

[Fidel]

Mmmmhkay, does anyone have any ideal how I can see which CS is allied with whom and who pledged to protect a certain CS. For all i see, there is no way I can tell what relationships - both AI/AI and AI/CS are like. Surely I am not to write down every announcement or dig into notifications that were made eons ago?

[MxM]

There is no way to see AI/AI relationship (which is really strange), apart from seeing research agreements. But when you look at particular CS window, you will see if it is allied or if someone protects it. The problem is that you have to go through each state one by one... Agh!

[pdxsean]

If you go in the diplomacy window and then select diplomatic overview it opens another window where you can see some details of these relationships. The city state details are visible in the default tab, if you select the global politics tab you can see details of the AI relationships, like who is at war with who.

[Fidel]

Yeah, I can see that now.
I still cannot see who pledged to protect whom. I noticed that they pledge this irrespective of whether they are allied or not, so do I really (really?) have to write it down?
Also, Siam was allied with a CS, I needed it (it was a rare military CS on our continent), so I dumped some gold on it and it showed that it is now I who am their ally. Does this mean I can oust foreign powers and basically outspend them in this regard? How can I track whether or not my investment is sufficient for that....or is any investment sufficient to ally them with me enough to end other entanglements? I smell a broken feature, very prone to abuse.
Also, how does the game react to rah's 'strategy'? I reckon the only way it could would be an all-out attack by all civs on the CS-daddy. This means that the Greeks should be attacked repeatedly even earlier.

[Ming]

At the higher levels, the AI attacks the City States. They just start picking them off and denying you the ability to ally with them. However, it is fun liberating the City States once they've been taken by somebody else... they are buddies for life after that

[Fidel]

Yeah, I see that at the King level. They are attacking my allies. However, how does 'taking over allied CSs' work actually? Is that an exploit, or is a human player with enough cash supposed to have this advantage? How would that work in MP? (not that I am interested in MP)

[pdxsean]

In the game I just played, almost all of the city states were conquered by the AI by the late industrial age. There were a few on scattered islands but all of those near the major powers were gobbled up. It does seem like allying all of the city states like in this plan would help prevent that, as the AI probably wouldn't be so keen in picking them off.

[pdxsean]

However, how does 'taking over allied CSs' work actually? Is that an exploit, or is a human player with enough cash supposed to have this advantage?

I'm pretty sure money makes a big difference. Modified by policies, of course, but whoever has the most influence points is the ally from what I understand. It's not all money tho, as you can gain influence through fulfilling their quests, but in the end if you have a ton of cash you could buy them all.

[Ming]

And then you need to defend your allies as well. Liberating a CS is cheap and easy, and makes a buddy for practically the rest of the game with no additional money ever needed.

[pdxsean]

Liberating a CS is cheap and easy, and makes a buddy for practically the rest of the game with no additional money ever needed.

This has been a real spoil of war in my opinion. I'm usually pretty peace-oriented but if attacked I'll take over as much of the enemy as possible. Liberating city states is a great new bonus imo.