Alexander cheating?

[Woefdram]

I just had the weirdest thing. Things, actually.

When conquering Athens, the great general fortress seemed to contain landmines or something. All my units on those 7 tiles took damage every turn, all of them! Not a lot, but it nearly killed my almost-dead lancer. I had to draw all those units back. I took the city nonetheless.

Shortly after that I liberated Tyre from Alexander. Usually they're glad and become your ally. But not this time. These ungrateful b*stards immediately allied with Greece, and declared war on me. I had just liberated them from Greece, wtf?

Even the destroyer that took Tyre was gone.

Did I hit some easter eggs, or have I simply missed some unique Greek features?

 

[Volcanon]

I just had the weirdest thing. Things, actually.

When conquering Athens, the great general fortress seemed to contain landmines or something. All my units on those 7 tiles took damage every turn, all of them! Not a lot, but it nearly killed my almost-dead lancer. I had to draw all those units back. I took the city nonetheless.

Shortly after that I liberated Tyre from Alexander. Usually they're glad and become your ally. But not this time. These ungrateful b*stards immediately allied with Greece, and declared war on me. I had just liberated them from Greece, wtf?

Even the destroyer that took Tyre was gone.

Did I hit some easter eggs, or have I simply missed some unique Greek features?

Sounds like a bug, Tyre should have immediately declared against Alexander. Sometimes there is this one turn delay. So in the mean time Alexander bought his way to being allied with Tyre, so Tyre declared against you.

Also citadels will hurt you if they are not pillaged as long as they are in enemy territory.

 

[Woefdram]

Thanks. Didn't know that about citadels...

The alliance seems like a bug indeed. It was immediate, there was no turn between it. The moment my destroyer took it, they allied with Greece. And took my destroyer...

 

[Woefdram]

I found that destroyer back in a different city... Cool, teleportation!

 

[HughFran]

The lancer is a great unit for pillaging - if you see a citadel in enemy territory that you plan to move units into very soon, send in the lancers to pillage like mad!! The City State thing is weird though

 

[Primacide]

Regarding the CS: when you liberate a CS you get 140 influence with them, which usually means you are allies. However, all other players' influence with them reasserts itself when you liberate the CS as well. In other words, if you liberate Hong Kong, you will get 140 influence with them. If I had 200 influence with them way back when they were conquered, that 200 influence comes back into play and thus I am their ally instead of you. This is precisely what happened to you with Greece. When you liberated the CS, it gave you points for it, but Alexander's previous investment was worth more.

I've had this happen occasionally. Almost always with Alex though, since his influence with city states basically doesn't degrade.

 

[Sclb]

If Alex controlled Tyre before liberation, the only way he can conquer that city in the first place is either declaring war on it, or given to it from peace deal. If he conquered the CS while the CS was already annexed to another civ, then this can happen. However if he conquered CS while CS was free, upon declaration of war, the influence will be in the negative, so this case can't happen.

 

[Primacide]

Just reread the OP and you're right - he liberated tyre from Alex himself. The CS Dow after liberation thing typically happens to me when I'm at war with multiple civs. I liberate the CS and it turns out that someone else I'm at war with (usually Alex in these cases) has more pre-existing influence than me, so bam! We're at war even though I just saved your pathetic little city.

It is still technically possible for Alex to have both acquired the CS and have a high existing influence with them. I don't have any code to back it up, but I can almost guarantee the game doesn't track influence degrading from a conquered CS - I'm sure it just parks the numbers until/if the CS gets liberated and then recalls these numbers at that point. So Alex's influence from turn 50 can be relevant and without decay at turn 150. I know that my own influence with CSs does not degrade while they are occupied. When liberated by another civ, my influence with them is exactly the same as it was the turn they were conquered.

I suppose the sequence of events is not that out of the ordinary. Most AI civs will annex or puppet a gifted CS if they don't have many cities or it is early in the game.

For example: Alex is ally of tyre. Alex dows Monty. Monty takes tyre. Alex whoops up on Monty. Monty offers tyre in a peace deal and Alex puppets. When the OP comes along, he liberates and blammo! Alex has more happiness and a new ally. And the OP has tears of frustration.

 

[Woefdram]

...

For example: Alex is ally of tyre. Alex dows Monty. Monty takes tyre. Alex whoops up on Monty. Monty offers tyre in a peace deal and Alex puppets. When the OP comes along, he liberates and blammo! Alex has more happiness and a new ally. And the OP has tears of frustration.

That sounds like a plausible explanation. I know that Pacal and Alexander had been at war from about turn 1, and Tyre lay right between them.

And now for the explanation of how my destroyer ended up in a different city

 

[docbud]

That's weird about your destroyer. I know they will teleport if an open border agreement with an AI is not renewed. But if you were at war with Tyre, I would think it wouldn't teleport.

 

[Woefdram]

That's weird about your destroyer. I know they will teleport if an open border agreement with an AI is not renewed. But if you were at war with Tyre, I would think it wouldn't teleport.

If an Open Border Treaty expires, your units will be pushed out of the country and end up at the borders.

Heh, I remember how disappointed I was in one of my first Civ games, when I found out the hard way that this also happens if the treaty expires when you declare war...

However, this time I didn't have Open Borders with Greece anymore, not after I took Athens at least And my destroyer wasn't just over the border, but in a completely different city. My own city, thankfully, but a city by a blocked part of the sea. So I couldn't even sail back to the front line.

 

[docbud]

^^Yeah--I know that they will pushed to the borders. But I thought I read somewhere that naval units would be teleported to your nearest coastal city. I don't recall, as it was a long time ago when I read that.

EDIT: Maybe that was a bug that was discovered in vanilla or something. I don't remember. I do remember a thread where the guy's ship ended up in a one tile lake.

 

[Woefdram]

Wow, that sucks even more

 

[KmDubya]

Something similar happens with a teleporting ship when you take a city and raze it while your ship is in the city.

 

[beetle]

Shortly after that I liberated Tyre from Alexander. Usually they're glad and become your ally. But not this time. These ungrateful b*stards immediately allied with Greece, and declared war on me. I had just liberated them from Greece, wtf?

Are you on BNW? This used to happen pretty regularly until the more recent patches. I don't think I have seen the bad effect in more than a year. They rebalanced things now so that the liberating civ is always the ally.

Sometimes there is this one turn delay.

I have never seen a one turn delay. When you choose liberate, the effects are always instantaneous.

 

[Phukit]

Bottom line Alexander is a total #%&#%!.....killing him should be your top priority even if it costs you the game.i spite!

 

[stormtrooper412]

Are you on BNW? This used to happen pretty regularly until the more recent patches. I don't think I have seen the bad effect in more than a year. They rebalanced things now so that the liberating civ is always the ally.

It's not. You just gain 150 influence

 

[beetle]

It's not. You just gain 150 influence

It used to be that simple, which could have the result of a CS being at war with the civ that Liberated it. They fixed this quite a while back, longer ago than I was remembering.

See Fall Patch Notes - 10/15/2013, about halfway down:

City-State Influence: Cleaned up influence calculations when a City-State is killed, to ensure a future liberator will be the undisputed ally and receive the intended reward.

• Ally influence is set to 45 (becomes Friends).
• Friends influence is set to 15 (becomes Neutral).
• Neutral influence is set to 0.
• Negative influence remains as it was.
• When liberated, the liberator's influence is set to 150 (becomes Ally).

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well there, I knew it was something along the lines. Now it can be a number of things that caused Alex to have more than that and flip it over, maybe a quest brought him just enough to secure it with a 500 gold

 

[Woefdram]

Bottom line Alexander is a total #%&#%!.....killing him should be your top priority even if it costs you the game.i spite!

I did so a few turns later