Effects of pillaging AI improvements? (also a Denmark story)

Hi all,

(Difficulty note: this game took place on Emperor (6), but my question stands for anything from Prince upward (4-8). It was also a Standard size map with Standard speed.)

In playing Random games I have been trying to have some fun exploiting what makes each Civ unique... especially the lesser played / underpowered Civs. When I drew Denmark on Small Continents, rather than go for a textbook conquest victory, I decided to blast my Vikings off into space and keep would-be rivals in check through hit-and-run pillage warfare, exploiting the fact that Denmark's UA gives no movement cost to melee unit pillaging (and sometimes using the embark portion of the UA to further improve hit-and-run tactics).

I started off by steamrolling Gandhi and taking a city or two from Cathy to get quick control of my continent, and when I eventually explored the world, Darius of Persia seemed to be the runaway threat. I took a city-state as a base of operations on his continent, and after he DoW'd me and I repelled several attacks, I started cranking out Horsemen and Knights and running around through Darius's territory -- mostly non-rough terrain, which was nice! -- using 4 movement to pillage both improvements and roads on multiple tiles, very turn. I never attempted to capture any of his cities, and I refused several offers of peace until his territory was nothing but a thick cloud of black smoke. I took over any trade routes I could find, and for good measure, I also managed to capture a few brave Persian Workers... which I summarily deleted the following turn

...as fun as this was, it didn't seem to have many noticeable effects. Darius wasn't plunged into deep unhappiness or poverty, and most disappointingly I don't recall seeing any of his cities drop in population despite nearly every food improvement being burned down. It did dramatically slow his progress, but I think that was as much due to his "I need units" military panic as it was to my pillaging efforts.

Eventually he gave massive enough concessions (by offering me GPT that was still alarmingly high...) that I accepted peace. Later in the game I went on another pillaging spree, after Darius rebuilt his army substantially and gave me a DoW that was quite hard to fend off (in my lone "base of operations" city) before resuming my pillaging fun. After that, I was far enough in the lead simply by focusing all buildings on Science that I began the usual Next Turn... Next Turn... Next Turn-fest until I had enough Great Scientists and Great Engineers (Order Ideology) to rush fairly quickly through the spaceship parts. Vikings in Space!

(NB: right before locking in my last spaceship part, I declared war and dropped 2 A-bombs and a Nuclear Missile on Persepolis, dropping it from 30-some population down to 3. That'll teach him! )

But the fact remains that I'm disappointed at how ineffective a pillage disruption campaign seemed to be. Surely we all know the pain of an unchecked barbarian unit knocking an early city into starvation or burning the last luxury good before empire unhappiness sets in. I was hoping that a strong enough campaign would have huge effects, even in the mid-game onward when pillaging is less dangerous. After going through his continent, I had hoped to see Darius sitting on negative happiness, low GPT, with his cities occasionally losing 1 population. So what's the problem? Did I overestimate pillaging's ability to cause havoc beyond the early game (regardless of AI bonuses)? Or is the AI just too resistant through the un-pillage-able bonuses it receives on increased difficulties?

I don't know, but one game against a runaway China, I pillaged all the improvements and destroyed their entire army, and they sold me their whole empire (plus gold, GPT, luxes, and open borders) for that pittance 10-turn peace (which I gladly overran their last city the turn it expired).

Sturmgewher88mm said:

I don't know, but one game against a runaway China, I pillaged all the improvements and destroyed their entire army, and they sold me their whole empire (plus gold, GPT, luxes, and open borders) for that pittance 10-turn peace (which I gladly overran their last city the turn it expired).

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That is interesting. However, my battle tale might have been misleading by mentioning the peace concessions I was offered. As far as I know, BNW diplomacy bases that decision and the number of concessions on "pointy sticks" (current military strength) and not much else. I was more interested in the economic and growth ramifications of my pillaging spree... namely, whether I was wrong to expect Persia's cities to start shrinking and empire to fall into unhappiness.

First off, I'm glad I'm not the only one to think of this as a good way to smash a rival without suffering those painful diplomacy and per city penalties. That said...

This attack won't work as we'll on the AI due to their advantages, and it's not quite as devastating as we'd like because they still have all their buildings. Nonetheless, you've hampered their ability to work specialists, work more mines, etc.

It's hard to actually starve a city out; granaries, water mills, and a hospital can provide enough food for a few citizens, and the rest can scavenge from grasslands or at least partly feed themselves from forests and plains. Cows and wheat can help make up some surplus too.

an attack like this has the long term in mind. Doing it with the onset of ideologies is hilarious if you've got lightning warfare in autocracy, as your armour can't be stopped by anything less than a solid wall of units.

Interesting. I shall try it on prince and see how it works without AI advantages.

You did note it was mostly flat terrain, which means odds are they sustained themselves, you did hamper their growth however.
Pillaging also seems to have a VERY positive effect on the peace treaties you get offered. The more you pillage, the more they're willing to give you in return. It's how I broke a stalemate with Siam in my last game, pillaged all their lands, and they gave me their 2nd biggest city which held Machu Picchu (Which I was besieging too, without notable progress due to him having his Elephants). Without the pillaging, there was nothing he'd give me for peace.

Let me know how it goes if anyone else tries this! It seemed like a fun way to take a reputedly underpowered Civ like Denmark and exploit what makes them unique.

I do wish there were more ways to starve out a city (or an empire). One could encroach on borders with chain after chain of Great Generals, but that requires TONS of combat (which my strategy mostly avoids). Plus, as you said, nothing changes the fact that even a one-square city can have massive food, happiness, production, etc. through buildings and wonders, not to mention AI bonuses. Perhaps in a future version there could be a way to rampage through a city, taking minor damage and dealing no damage to the city's health but potentially destroying a building. This would have to leave the attacker vulnerable to city counterattack on the following turn so as not to be overpowered... but it could be fun!

If you have your army placed on the the workable tiles of a city, the citizens of that city can't work that tile. So if you pillage everything and park your units on high food tiles like grassland, cows, wheat, etc. you might be able to starve an AI city. Although, like it was mentioned earlier, the AI gets massive bonuses on higher difficulties which may be able to offset this.

BenitoChavez said:

If you have your army placed on the the workable tiles of a city, the citizens of that city can't work that tile. So if you pillage everything and park your units on high food tiles like grassland, cows, wheat, etc. you might be able to starve an AI city. Although, like it was mentioned earlier, the AI gets massive bonuses on higher difficulties which may be able to offset this.

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Good call - I had forgotten about that and didn't exploit it much. However, part of the problem there is that I wanted a small, mobile army of pillagers - a larger army to occupy many city tiles would have detracted from building science buildings (or happiness... which was in short supply that game).

This actually works really well for coastal cities. Park a few boats nearby and the city can't work those water tiles at all. I think this has a radius of 2 tiles around the boat. A city with mostly water tiles is super easy to basically shut down.

I did a game like this a few weeks ago. I went to metalcasting after the philosophy. Built a few berserkers and DoWed Portugal. She had gone liberty wide and had a lot of improvements for me to pillage. I was slower on getting to education than I normally am but I had more money than I normally do and workshops too so I was able to gold buy and build my universities faster than normal. As far as tech and beaker output goes I wasn't as far behind as I expected to be. That was immortal, I haven't tried it on deity yet. Not sure how well it'd work there.

That was with a 4 city tradition start. I'm thinking it might work really well for liberty though, maybe even better. Getting engineering earlier for aqueducts could really help a liberty game out.

Denmark's really underrated. I think it's critics really just aren't playing it right. Later in the same game I rolled Shaka almost entirely thanks to the disembarking bonus. Being able to land and attack with so many troops all at once almost makes Darius' golden age combat bonuses look sad.

You can terribly nerf cities even on high levels. Problem is, big cities are probably not working with everyone. A 27 pop city probably has 7 specialists that aren't generating food. When you pillage they move off specialists and pick less ideal spots that your troops aren't sitting on. Therefore it is really hard to starve a big city...especially one with a large food store from aqueducts, hospitals, granaries...etc. You will, however, hurt it a lot in production if you focus on high yield areas. This is a good strategy to deal with a city that is spamming defensive units. I was fighting Korea and he produced a new rifleman every turn and was tearing into my gatling guns and cannons. Sent my horse around and pillage high yield areas and he couldn't spam them as quickly anymore. Also, just sitting on the best areas is a good option, because even after pillaging the tiles still yield enough food typically to feed a citizen.

SickFak said:

Interesting. I shall try it on prince and see how it works without AI advantages.

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its better on higher difficulties as the AI is very slow to improve tiles in the lower difficulties.

Man I wish planes could still do air strikes on improvements

Lol at least that's what nukes are for

danaphanous said:

You can terribly nerf cities even on high levels. Problem is, big cities are probably not working with everyone. A 27 pop city probably has 7 specialists that aren't generating food. When you pillage they move off specialists and pick less ideal spots that your troops aren't sitting on. Therefore it is really hard to starve a big city...especially one with a large food store from aqueducts, hospitals, granaries...etc. You will, however, hurt it a lot in production if you focus on high yield areas. This is a good strategy to deal with a city that is spamming defensive units. I was fighting Korea and he produced a new rifleman every turn and was tearing into my gatling guns and cannons. Sent my horse around and pillage high yield areas and he couldn't spam them as quickly anymore. Also, just sitting on the best areas is a good option, because even after pillaging the tiles still yield enough food typically to feed a citizen.

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You should be able to cripple someone's economy if you can do this around their capital. Plunder the caravans and cut off the roads for the city connections, then occupy and pillage the luxuries. Landsknechten of course are going to be good at this as well.

Tried this tonight, also with Denmark. DOW'ed Harun and Cathy, and pillaged every improvement in their respective empires. This reduced their capitals pop. by a couple of citizens only. Eventually I got bored (Harun was doing OCC) and took their caps, which might not have been the best idea since I had spent a long time destroying all their improvements.
It was great fun to blockade the cities and station my units around the cities, pillage for hp after city bombardment, and have a few workers on hand to repair the improvements, and then repeat. Pyramids helped

Ideologies give happiness benefits, especially Autocracy. When playing Polynesia(I pick Autocracy) I eventually turn every tile into a moai(even if it's a lux tile), and still be in happiness(once i was at 118 with no luxes of my own). Perhaps trying your pillaging campaign earlier might yield the desired results. As noted earlier the AI gets bonuses to everything, perhaps try on a lower difficulty to hone your Viking strategy.

One note: Build the Pyramids and unlock Citizenship. When you send in the troops send in some workers(that can now repair pillaged tiles instantly). You should not loose a single horse unit.

Usually the effects will be
1. not as much excess food
2. not as much excess happiness
3. not as much excess gold
4. not as much production

Which makes them weaker... but not collapsing unless they were at the brink of collapsing anyways.
and it makes them weaker in ways that are hard to notice (they don't lose pop, but they have less pop than they would otherwise.)

To starve a city...
Block every single Land hex it can work with a military unit of yours in fortify mode.
Pillage the improvement for cash.
Blockade any worked water hexs with warships.

Then wait for the stockpiled food of the City to deplete.
After it is depleted.
It will lose 1 population a turn.

How long it will take depends on city improvements it have like granary etc.

Cities in civ 3 is vulnerable to starvation through siege, but cities in civ 4 and 5 is extraordinary resistant to siege situations. Its very difficult to starve them unless you're willing to spend alot of turns to make a city suffer.

Spies will help you in detecting a city that don't have huge food stockpiles I think.

I starved an Inca city once. Took it from about 15 down to about 5 by pillaging all its tiles then just standing on them so they couldn't work even the grassland. I think they were a bit reliant on their terrace farms.