I decided to play around on the tectonics map script today as Gandhi and got toku, shaka, genghis, monty, gilgamesh, isabella, and lincoln as neighbors. Well, at the same turn (1 AD), every civ except isabell declared on lincoln so I decided to join. I declared war, and with ONE axemen, captured 3 workers on the same turn (note that I didn't capture Lincoln's workers the same turn I declared-I captured them on the 3rd turn of the war because for some reason he left them out in the open). I then instantly declare ceasefire and I am bumped out of Lincoln's territory.... And outside of Lincoln's territory are another group of two workers who are roading a farm that is separated from one of Lincoln's cities by mountains...so I declare again and steal more workers. Then ceasefire, then declare, etc.

I declared on Lincoln 5 times and stole about 10 workers from him which I used for my empire. Crazy. And I suffered no demerits with anyone else since no one liked Lincoln. And I did all that with a single combat 2 axemen who was venturing in the midst of American territory (he did NOT get killed because for some strange reason, Lincoln decided that he didn't want to kill my axemen even though he could have...)

Anyone use this?

And I'm also wondering-the 3.17 patch was supposed to improve AI management of workers yet I have stolen so many workers because Lincoln either put them right in front of my axemen, didn't move them when he could have, or they were outside of my borders and I used the ceasefire-bump-my-axe-out-of-american-territory-then-declare-again-and-steal-worker-nearby tactic.

Note: This was immortal difficulty. Lincoln only waited 2-3 turns before he was willing to talk to me and I could sign a ceasefire.

I use it a lot. Sadly it doesn't work well early on with immortal difficulty because the AI wont take peace with you after doing the traditional worker steal typically. Later on I use cease fire not only to grab workers but more typically to get the AI to realign his troops so I can capture a city easily. If nobody likes the target AI there's no penalty in cease fire/war/ceasefire/war abuse, and sometimes doing it can let you get good cities/cripple the target entirely. The AI is stupid and even if you continue building units as if in war it will not trigger to do so while in cease fire.

Usually I don't get the luck/situation where I can steal workers and then take peace a bunch of times, but if it shows up I take advantage!

The game that I described above was on immortal difficulty, so I believe it can work on any level (well except deity since you risk a large army steamrolling you).

The game that I described above was on immortal difficulty, so I believe it can work on any level (well except deity since you risk a large army steamrolling you).

I understand that, what I'm saying is that the AI won't take peace if you steal with your starting warrior, because your power rating is too low compared to theirs due to the starting bonuses. The AI's actual intelligence isn't higher on immortal, so later on when this is less of an issue (and particularly when that AI is at war with multiple people), it works like any other difficulty.

Oh, I see. I misread the post at first.

I stole Lincoln's workers starting at the AD's and our powers were about the same so I guess that's why he was willing to sign peace.

Lincoln was probably taking into account the fact that the rest of the world was at war with him.

What JBossch said. AIs are more interested in making peace when they are at war with 2 or more civs, they're tweaked that way in my experience.

Oh, that makes sense. And I guess this exploit is kind of situational, especially if you've got an AI who is really aggressive and waits a while for peace.