Settler as a diplomatic tool?

Bibor

Bibor

Doomsday Machine
Joined
Jun 6, 2004
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Location
Zagreb, Croatia
In several of my games I noticed that the AI can become a real pain (or very happy) with border issues. -1 or -2 doesn't seem much, but sometimes (especially after free religion flip) it can become a problem.

I wonder if this would work:
1) build a settler
2) plant a city by following directives:
....a) must not be on a hill
....b) must be at least 4 tiles away from your closest "real" city (thus ensuring the AI doesn't plant a city close to your "real" borders).
....c) must be as close to neighbour's city as possible
....d) make sure its BFC doesn't feature a too important resource
3) have that city generate science or units (zero infra investment) until the other civ's culture starts pushing
4) gift that city away

My questions are:
a) how much + diplo would one get for this kind of "you liberated one of our cities"?
b) does the "you liberated one of our cities" bonus fade away in time?
c) would this gifting be sufficient to overrule or at least compensate for the -1 or -2 "our borders spark close tensions" penalty?
 
For every 2 cities you'll get 3 diplo bonus. (first city 1 point, second 2)
It never fades away.
It works best when creating a colony. Almost every city can be liberated if your capital isn't too close.
 
I use this ploy infrequently but I think it's quite common among experience players - I see it mentioned all the time. Great way to keep someone off your back or gain favor with attack dogs like Toku or Monty.
 
Tatran said:
For every 2 cities you'll get 3 diplo bonus. (first city 1 point, second 2). It never fades away.
Click to expand...

Great news! Would this gifting negate (clears penalty adds bonus) or compensate (adds penalty, adds bonus) for the "our borders spark..."? Perhaps you know?
 
If there is no longer any reason for the border tension demerit, then it clears the penalty and ads a bonus. If after the gift there is still reason for the -1 border demerit, then it adds both the demerit and the bonus.
 
By the way, the "close borders" penalty reason is not really about border closeness per se. It's about how much territory your culture is stealing from the given civ.

So gift a city in a spot where, if you *do* have adjacent cities, they are either at a bit of a distance or they're not cultural powerhouses.
 
Bostock said:
By the way, the "close borders" penalty reason is not really about border closeness per se. It's about how much territory your culture is stealing from the given civ.

So gift a city in a spot where, if you *do* have adjacent cities, they are either at a bit of a distance or they're not cultural powerhouses.
Click to expand...

Exactly my first point. I'd make something like (under optimal conditions)

E--G----M

where Enemy city, Gifted city, My city and the dashes are squares, so that even after the gifting my old(his new) border-city and my own would not compete too much for land.
 
^ About gifting city diplo, in addition to the city liberation bonus it obviously has tons of trade value, resulting almost always (during the first half of the game) in +4 fair trade bonus if that is not acquired already. Handy if you're not in a position to make lopsided tech trades to acquire the coveted fair trade max :) So it can be like +5 net diplo (without taking the lost border hate into consideration) and hence a very quick ticket from Annoyed -> Pleased in the right circumstances.

Keep in mind that what gives fair trade bonus, gives about the same amount of WE hate if someone has your trading partner as their worst enemy.
 
Looks like a nice strat, but isn't there a risk the AI will politely decline the gift of what might be a naff city ??

Then you are left with it as cities can't be disbanded.
 
Negator_UK said:
Looks like a nice strat, but isn't there a risk the AI will politely decline the gift of what might be a naff city ??

Then you are left with it as cities can't be disbanded.
Click to expand...

If the city is on their borders (i.e. it's listed as "liberated" instead of normally gifted in the first place) they will always be willing to take it. AFAIK the only reason AIs refuse to take cities is if they are too far away culturally ("We would have nothing to gain").

Nice as it may be, it's still sort of a niche strat usable in rare situations since land is power so gifting away land (even marginal) isn't always a wise move.

I think making crap cities to give AIs is more common (and more needed) when trying to end a bad (read: Deity) pre-Alphabet pre-Currency war than simply for boosting the diplo somewhat.
 
Negator_UK said:
Looks like a nice strat, but isn't there a risk the AI will politely decline the gift of what might be a naff city ??

Then you are left with it as cities can't be disbanded.
Click to expand...

I don't think an AI will decline recieving a city that has his/her own culture in it. Hence the need to plant it right at the border.
 
TMIT gave me that as a tip if you get toku close and cant rush him. Gift him a crap city for 5+ diplo gratz now you can open boarders and live in peace as you expand .D
 
As long as the city isn't to far away the AI is stupid enough to accept. To be honest, I hate gifting cities simply because it feels cheap. If the AI actually valued the city rather than just looking at distance it would be ok since you then had to give away something useful, but getting +5 diplo for handing over a desert-city which only will be a drain on the economy ruins the fun for me.
 
I tried this strategy with Sitting Bull and it didn't work, gifting two ice cities gave me no diplo points. He is almost impossible to get friendly given his low weight on religion and reluctance to accept war bribes. Perhaps it only works with some leaders.
 
Nilmerf said:
I tried this strategy with Sitting Bull and it didn't work, gifting two ice cities gave me no diplo points. He is almost impossible to get friendly given his low weight on religion and reluctance to accept war bribes. Perhaps it only works with some leaders.
Click to expand...

He needs to have nearby cultural influence and/or (?) not be too far away from his capital; then the city shows up as "Cityname (Liberate)" in the diplo screen. Only then AFAIK will you get the bonus from "You liberated our cities!". You will get the fair trade bonus (up to +4) regardless, but you may have already maxed this due to earlier lopsided gold/tech/map/civic/peace/war gifts/trades.
 
Silu said:
He needs to have nearby cultural influence and/or (?) not be too far away from his capital; then the city shows up as "Cityname (Liberate)" in the diplo screen. Only then AFAIK will you get the bonus from "You liberated our cities!". You will get the fair trade bonus (up to +4) regardless, but you may have already maxed this due to earlier lopsided gold/tech/map/civic/peace/war gifts/trades.
Click to expand...
I put them right in his core territory and it did show up as "liberate". Still no diplo bonus, and yes I did max out the fair trades. The reason I needed him friendly was to give me religious victory votes. No matter, my solution was to convert all his leftover cities to Christianity so he ended up being my voting rival instead of already friendly Alexander.
 
I have used this method to get Napoleon to Friendly in a UN Diplo Win. I build some nice coastal 1 seafood ice cities for him, he loved them!
 
Bigtime- I know he would have taken them however bad they were, but it seems an advantage to have an ally be in decent shape for tech trades rather then have them falling into tech obscurity because you weighed them down with horrible cities. The cities i build for him would be working 6 coast/ocean and running one or two specialists, hardly game breaking. In the game i reference I was going for a UN win and had no fear of Napolean beating me with a culture or space win.

This raises a queston: at high levels like, immortal and diety, are A.I. Mainence costs so low that even horrible cities would not burden them?
 
This raises a queston: at high levels like, immortal and diety, are A.I. Mainence costs so low that even horrible cities would not burden them?
Click to expand...

Correct :/. At least it won't drag them very much, unless it blocks resources from ever being worked (1 off coast near seafood that now can't be settled).

One of my personal favorites is to plant right next to a barb, gift it over, and get it auto-razed :lol:. Not always practical but +5 without giving them ANYTHING is kind of fun. You essentially buy fair trade + liberation for the settler hammer cost then.
 
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