Ok.. i'm experimenting here.. 4 player FFA, 50 city-states!

The idea is you have to decide that if you will conquer the city states to expand more, or will you work with the city states in peace. The map is large so there is enough room - i tested it out by checking the map.

Interesting thing I learned - city-states are not fixed when the game starts - they are all individual settlers first, and then they found their city.. Guess i just assumed the city-state was a fixed location.

This means potentially.. if you started really close to a city-state, you could steal their settler before they plant their city.