How to Manage City State Relationships in Civ VI

Knowing how to manage city state relationships in Civ VI is a cornerstone of the game. Leveraging relationships with the city states you discover can make or break your game at a critical moment — especially during war time.

What Are City States in Civ VI?

Introduced in Civ IV, city states represent independently run small states which influence and are influenced by empires, such as the one you build in the strategy and resource management game. By fulfilling city state quests and impressing them, you can get bonuses and rewards.

As you send envoys to city states, certain things happen, described on the city state tab. You can earn these bonuses and rewards for sending 1, 3, and 6 envoys to a city state. City states match victory type depending on focus. You can find a religious, warlike, or cultural focus state, by example. There are also merchant states.

City states don’t compete with civs to win the game — they’re there to be complementary tools for big civs to use.

Sending Envoys to City States

If you are the first nascent empire (human or AI player) to discover a city state, you will earn an envoy with that city state.

In addition to first meeting a city state, various events (including key civic and scientific research advancement mechanics in the game) will unlock more envoys. There are many strategies to assigning envoys, but generally, the following basic strategies are smart:

• Invest in city states closest to you (so other empires cannot levy their militaries against you)
• Complete viable city state quests (to get era points and bonuses)
• Always prioritize a militaristic city state, regardless of your focus (so you can levy it for defense if required)
• Advance your government tier to get more influence points per turn towards city states.

Tips for How to Manage City State Relationships in Civ VI

You’ll have to keep an eye on city states to maintain relationships with them. What are they looking for? (Little icons will appear next to them on the city state management screen to let you know.) To retain control, you’ll need more envoys at city states than other civs.

If you’re playing a cooperative game, communicate with your teammates about how to divvy up the city states — there’s no use in competing with your own team for the same city state.

To gain early game control of city states:

• Scout early: Sending one or more scouts out early will help you discover city states and other early game resources crucial to meet your era score and defeat barbarians. Remember, you get that free first envoy when you discover a city state.

• Consider using Governor Amani, your diplomat governor, as an extra envoy: If you select the diplomatic governor, you can assign Governor Amani to a city state, where she exerts influence and counts as an envoy!

• Choose diplomatic cards wisely: As soon as you get a form of government that enables you to use diplomatic cards, take advantage of that. And, consider using a diplomatic card in your wildcard policy slot. In particular, there is a card that lets your first envoy at each city state count as two, and another that increases your influence points.
• If you have the Ethiopia Pack DLC downloaded and enabled, you can construct a Diplomatic Quarter, and you should do this immediately upon receiving the ability to do so. These provide extra gold.

Why City State Relationships Are Important in Civ VI

City states are crucial to success in Civ for the following reasons:

• Levy city state military: If you have gold but you’re outmatched in war, you can levy the military of the city state if you are top level with them. It’s expensive, but generally cheaper than buying an entire army.

• Earn gold: Many of the bonuses provided by city states are related to the wealth of your empire. It can make a major difference to have these bonuses.

• Era points: If you reach Suzerain status and are the first civ to do so for a given city state, you’ll get era points. You need those to avoid a dark age in the next era.

It’s also important to note that you may conquer and liberate city states. City states may be worth conquering if your enemy controls them and they are becoming a thorn in your side. Usually if you declare war against another civ, so will the city state loyal to you. The same goes for other civs and their city state relationships.

Depending on game size and advanced options you’ve selected, there are typically 6-24 city states in a game of Civ VI.

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