What is strange about these screenshots?

Check out the screenshots below. What do you think happened?

Wow - you've got a lot of production/money there! I didn't realise you could gift Great Generals to the city-states too - just how many have you got?!

Also, I notice that the city-states are keeping (non-capital) cities rather than razing them...

they do that sometimes, depending upon the city. it doesn't help you unless the new city also has some useful luxuries.

Yeah, City- States will sometimes keep the Enemy cities. (usually if they have luxury resources)

On easier levels, i usually will flood city states with military units and let them conquer my opponents for me.

shostrock said:

I didn't realise you could gift Great Generals to the city-states too

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You don't have to, if they do a lot of combat they will generate them like any other player.

shostrock said:

Wow - you've got a lot of production/money there!

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That's hardly surprising considering the number of cities I had (check out the minimap - I basically controlled 80% of the world's territory). I had three times the amount of gold, but I spent them on buying units to gift to the city states you see on the screen.

Also, this was on Emperor. Will probably be more difficult on Immortal/Deity.

shostrock said:

I didn't realise you could gift Great Generals to the city-states too - just how many have you got?!

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They can produce their own great generals.

But I did have to gift the city states many battleships, stealth bombers, mech infantry and giant death robots to achieve the above result. I wanted the two civs on that continent dead, but wasn't ready to declare war yet (my troops needed time to arrive from the other side of the globe). So I got the city states to weaken them for me first. Amazingly, the city states conquered multiple cities for me.

I wouldn't recommend this method unless you have loads of gold though - city states are really horrible at waging warfare, and will just let good units sit idly within the range of enemy artillery until they are bombarded to death, or send GDRs into the water when there are enemy destroyers just one hex away.

The funny thing is, one of the city states won a conquest victory for me by taking Rome's capital... twenty turns after I had already won a space victory (I chose the "just one more turn..." option). I didn't know it was possible to get a second victory screen!

After seeing the above I'm very tempted to try something similar in my current game! I'm playing as China, and have conquered Greece, Persia and Egypt controlling the whole of my continent (along with a load of city-states, all but one of which are allied to me). The Iroquois are isolated on another continent with a couple of my city-state allies, and the Ottomans control another continent, having conquered India and all the city-states there.

I'm a fair way ahead in tech and have plenty of gold (can't remember the exact amount but it's several thousand, and earning hundreds per turn). I could probably win any way I wanted (apart from culture), but after seeing this it looks tempting to rush-buy and gift a load of units to the city-states on the Iroquois continent, let them loose on the Iroquois, whilst dealing with Suleiman personally. Might give it a go!

Word of advice, if the units are near the City-State, manual gift them, preferably after they're set up in a good position. If you just built them, obviously use the gift feature instead.

If you want to gift units, it's better to take "backbone" units and gift them en masse, than to make a diversified military power and gift them.

Because the CS can't use military well, like the rest of the A.I. So better just 10 longswordmen, than longswordmen, archers and knights. Cause the CS will waste the archers and knights anyway. Basically units that defend as well as they attack are the best.

King_Course said:

If you want to gift units, it's better to take "backbone" units and gift them en masse, than to make a diversified military power and gift them.

Because the CS can't use military well, like the rest of the A.I. So better just 10 longswordmen, than longswordmen, archers and knights. Cause the CS will waste the archers and knights anyway. Basically units that defend as well as they attack are the best.

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Thanks for the advice - I've got Modern Armour and Mech Infantry available so I'll gift some of those (maybe along with a few planes for good measure). In the past I've often gifted one or two units to a city-state to try and help them hold off a civ, but the unit hardly ever lasts more than a couple of turns! So I'll just gift a load at once.

Word of advice, if the units are near the City-State, manual gift them, preferably after they're set up in a good position. If you just built them, obviously use the gift feature instead.

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Yeah, the city-states are in the middle of Iroquois territory - can't get there without crossing the ocean and opening borders. I'll just use the gift feature.

I've found gifting planes to be the most effective, since the city states can't really go wrong with using planes (as mentioned, they squander land units pretty horribly). Even so, they will prioritise bombing cities over land units, which is stupid when you have a mass of enemy land units knocking at your door.

Also, I forgot to mention, if you want to above strategy to work (if you consider it a strategy at all - to me it is just a fun way to break the late game monotony), you must block access to the city states with your units. Occupy every hex around the city state so that the target civ cannot conquer it; otherwise it will go down fast and all your units will be wasted. Needless to say, you need to be at peace with the target civ so that it will not attack your units.

lol I've never seen a CS take a city, i didn't know they could...

Giving them strategic units is a waste when they lack the resource.

Why? Just because you are just unable to build a unit doesn't mean it affects your ability to use it.

clarkcd said:

Why? Just because you are just unable to build a unit doesn't mean it affects your ability to use it.

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Don't they get the strength penalty for lacking the resource?

nm...

Beef Hammer said:

lol I've never seen a CS take a city, i didn't know they could...

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lol In my current game (just Warlord difficulty), with my naval support, Singapore absolutely steamrolled Greece. Granted, the AI is bad with units (getting a chopper shot down by medieval units), but Alexander didn't last too long.

Singapore and Florence just razed all of the cities they took, though. Kind of unfortunate. It was hillarious because Alexander tried to attack and take over Singapore, but he got owned by Singapore's vastly superior modern units, which steamrolled his cities in 2-3 attacks.

King_Course said:

If you want to gift units, it's better to take "backbone" units and gift them en masse, than to make a diversified military power and gift them.

Because the CS can't use military well, like the rest of the A.I. So better just 10 longswordmen, than longswordmen, archers and knights. Cause the CS will waste the archers and knights anyway. Basically units that defend as well as they attack are the best.

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One exception here, though. If you physically set up ranged units in position with protection and everything, they are far more likely to use it correctly.

PawelS said:

Don't they get the strength penalty for lacking the resource?

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more than likely, unless its one of those things the AI is immune to at higher levels. but i really dont think so