GIFTING A CITY ~ to make allies after you've captured a hostile city......

I've tried this stratergy and it works everytime , its about gifting a city to a friendly civ. to make them even more happy with you ( so happy you can bribe them into war with another civ you dont like which keeps both of them in check )

So when to gift a city ?? ~when you take over another hostile civs city ( no matter what size ) and all that extra maintenance will hurt your income & research....... instead of just razing the whole city which really is a waste if you're clever.

Best thing is , its funny the when the friendly civ. gets the city they have to pay all that maintenance cost ! , it really makes slows their growth down ! > and also when they eventually go to war a little further down the track because they love me so much and I tell them to - that new cuty you gave them will be a decoy for the enemy on your border instead of directly enoying you.

It works so well , even abnoxious rulers like Tokugawa will become very friendly !! .

Plus if the friendly civ. you gift it to is not at war currently with that hostile civ. iy will stop your enemy ftrom quickly taking back the city from you if you're weak after siege.

And heres another dirty trick ..... I've dont it every game with great success >
build a settler and establish a city at the outskirts of yours where a hostile civ. is ( or just one that might oneday be ) and gift the new founded city to someone you want to make friends with.......... BUT the trick is to found the new city on a really RUBBISH spot in desert or something. ALSO because the new city you give will be far away from the friendly civ. that gets it , they`ll pay huge mainenance costs and it will really cripple them !.

Doesnt work every time. So you conquer a city, instead of razing it because it's on the otehr side of a large continent and would send you to the poorhouse, you keep it. Then you dial up all the AI's and guess what! They don't want it! THat's right! AI will refuse a city if the maintenece of it would eb too much for them to sustain. Otherwise I woudl build tight a bunch of crappy cities, give em to my enemy and watch him go broke while I overtake him with research.

Actually the captured city doesnt have to be on the other side of the continent to work. I've never had an AI refuse the gift yet , it might not make them go broke quickly (though over long time it strains them ).

To be completely honest though I found building a number of crappy cities and gifting them is much more usefull for slowing their gowth. And the more crappy cities you gift , is amusing bacause they get real happy with you. Later on make them go to war and its more fun watching them defend their extra crappy cities next to the their enemy.

haha, I like your style.

The ultimate gameplay-destroying imbalanced exploit strategy has been found... bye-bye balanced games... THX for ruining the game. GRRR

The trading of cities is a screwed up function that should be removed or atleast revamped ASAP. It can ruin a game in so many ways.

Gufnork said:

The trading of cities is a screwed up function that should be removed or atleast revamped ASAP. It can ruin a game in so many ways.

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I don't think it's necessarily broken, just that the AI should be able to determine that a particular city is bad for them and refuse it.

seems like an exploit for now. Should we write Firaxis and ask about this for a future patch?

I've had people trade away cities just so I couldn't attack him anymore. I've had people give away all their cities just to spite me. People give away cities that end up costing the AI for peace or war declarations. They give away cities that are about to flip. There's so many ways to exploit it that it's not even funny.

Well , I wouldn't be calling it a complete exploit , I think a patch might be a little too serious just yet. I did the same thing today , gifted 2 captured cities and gifted them ( on noble difficulty ) and to my surprise Isabella of Spain allowed me to make a permanent allience ! , then I just asked for those 2 cities back > she gave them back to me all fixed up ! We wiped out those nasty Germans , then finsihed Tokugawa , with only Peter left but then we won a UN victory.

By the way ..... > gifting the 'world map' , over and over again , I wonder if thats a real exploit , it seems to keep them happy all the way though. (Plus I never pick a state religion ~ diplomacy is my game )

This is a AI issue not a problem with the game mechanics. Hopefully, when they release the game AI SDK (Software Development Kit) in early 2006 (according to the manual) we will see some very intellgent AIs that start to exploit you!

Thank you for your time,
Arrummzen

i don´t see why people complains so much with exploits like this. I understand that it is importatn that in Mp games no one is able to cheat the AI, but in single games you just do not use the exploit if it makes the game unbalanced...

Nice thread. Its an interesting tactic thats worth looking into. But if the AI is so dumb that you can use it as an exploit then i'll be leaving it alone.... only after i've had some fun with it first though

I just had alot of fun in a war by gifting captured cities to third parties. I think this is a great tactic and brings a new dimension to the game of diplomacy and alliances within the game if used appropriately.

I was far away on another continent trying to gain a foothold against the Americans. I captured a two cities and razed one but was having a hard time keeping the captured ones from flipping. Just before I declared war for a second time against the Americans, I pulled out of these junk cities, gifted them to a third party with whom I had open borders, and then declared war on the Americans. I used the gifted cities as airbases and the few tiles around them as sancutaries from which to launch unanswerable pillages on the Americans with my gunships. The Americans would never cross over the borders as they did not have open borders with the third Civ (Greeks), but they wouldn't declare war on the Greeks either nor invade, which would bring the Greeks in against them.

The next city I won, a level 9, I kept long enough to heal my troops and then I gifted this over to yet another Civ, the Mongols, a close and more powerful neighbor to the Americans. I used their new (and old) territory from which to launch new incursions on the Americans, who, again, would not violate the Mongol borders, as I asked them to cancel all deals (esp. open borders) with the Americans as part of the city trade.

The war went well, with me winning two sincere friends in the Greek and Mongols, eliminating the Americans from the continent, and keeping three of the better American cities for my own.

Tee-hee.

I don't know if I'd call this an exploit. I would think the developers had to have thought of this possibility and allowed it to remain in the game.

I read another post about gifting units while on a transport and then suiciding that transport so that the entire world goes to war. That is an exploit because it takes a normal gameplay issue and turns the game on its head. To fix the problem would be to change a basic idea in the game (ie: the nature of transporting units).

I've never understood why city gifting is even in the game. Has this ever happened in history? (I really don't know) Has a civ ever handed a city over to avoid or end a war? Or handed a city over a show of good will?

It's such an overt move with only a few possible ramifications, this contingency had to be thought of--handing a captured city over to another civ to deal with. There's nothing feint about that move at all.

madmaven said:

I've never understood why city gifting is even in the game. Has this ever happened in history? (I really don't know) Has a civ ever handed a city over to avoid or end a war? Or handed a city over a show of good will?

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The UK "gifted" some disputed land to the USA on the current USA / Canada border during peacetime. Parts of Maine and Washington state and the northern border states could have been Canadian today.

France "gifted" much of her colonial land in the western hemisphere to the UK after a war. Spain "gifted" most of her colonies to the USA after the Spanish American war.

I think France "gifted" some disputed French/German land back to the Germans prior to WWII. And the allies "gifted" Czechoslovakia to Hitler (different though because the Czechs were not allowed a say).

I think there are examples of "gifting" during peacetime.

I think there are even more examples of "gifting" land to end a war, but usually it is captured areas being returned to their "rightful" owners.

Sounds like the AI needs to be worked out. But I don't think that gifting should be taken out of the game.

Louisiana purchase? Seward's folly?

Denmark "giftet" the Virgin Islands to the US long time ago, or actually, it was sold for a small sum i think...

I don't know if you guys know how cold, dark and wet it is in Denmark at this time at year? - A nice timeshare appartment at the Virgin Islands would really be nice, but noooooo, we had to sell it.

So now we are stuck with Greenland and the Faeroe Islands - thats even more cold and dark! - how stupid is that ;-)

Eh - but gifting cities in civ doesn't seem to have no interesting use, more an exploit. I opt for a more detailed "custom game" setup screen allowing to disable that odd feature.

>>> Okay , heres another trick. When your invaded by a huge army you cant fight of , make a new settler. By the time your settler is made , normally the AI will be willing to talk to you. Ask them to declare peace , and normaly they'll ask for some high price like one of your cities........ thats the trick. Make your new city right in the middle of your other cities with the most clture ,~ than you can give that completely new city to stop the war >

The catch is when they get that city ( in the middle of all yours ) not too long after it will revolt and switch back to yours! . When it switches back to you , make sure its not taking ap any priduction tiles or growing > just keep it a 'ghost city'.

Later if you're invaded again just repeat it as many times needed. It normally works , sometimes though can take a little while for the AI to accept it for peace (when they're willing to talk) but thats only if you really manage to #### them off somehow. (dont have another state religion against Isabella or another religious fanatic , wage war on someone peaceful , or be too weak against an AI like Khan or Montezuma.... they'll always attack you if you're next to them somehow AI knows the strangth of your military and will decide to attack)

It doesn't have to be an exploit if you don't use it that way. If you feel it ruins game play then simply don't use it way. It does have a legit purpose.

I've used it when I find myself with a neighbor who has declared war and I don't really feel like dealing them at that point in time. I usually bypass the heavily defended and obvious border target and head straight for a big city farther in. I take the city and then open negotiations with the opposing civ. During negotiations you offer the city back in the name of peace. This almost always works. I see it as a withdrawal from a newly conquered hostile city in the name of peace.

Look at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This type of negotiation is being used to try and instill peace in the region. If it is effective is a topic left for another time and probably not for this forum.

If you use the city 'gifting' feature in a legit way it can be a very effective tool in negotiations.