City offering, I have NEVER seen this before

[fifteenkeys]

I've never seen this before. Prince difficulty, new patch, me Pericles slowly building my empire and my army of phalanxes and spears when, all of the sudden, Sitting Bull offers me a city. For nothing. Heck, I've never been able pry away a city with war demands, let alone being offered one, during peace (never warred him), for nothing.

What is interesting is that the city fits perfectly within the fat crosses of my other cities, so of course I took it. But notice on the screenshot (I'm attaching it) that right on my border I am amassing quite a large invasion force of city raider phalanxes and was within a couple of turns of DOW him and taking the city by force. Hey, free city frees me to take his other cities by force, right?

Heck, I'm not on that good terms with him anyway, and a battle would have been hellish since I don't have catapults yet and he is protective with the damn totem pole+barracks combo.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? Is it the new patch?

 

[LegionSteve]

No never seen anything like that

Last night though, my first 3.17 game, I made Darius capitulate AND give me a tech (corporations). Never seen that before either. Even when my stack was looming over their last city with a singe wounded warrior in it, if I asked for capitulation and a tech, it would always say 'you must be joking' (and then I would kill them obviously).

SB may have seen what you were doing and tried to appease you. If the patch has made some civs less suicidal that is probably a good thing. I hope monty hasn't changed though, it wouldn't be the same without mad monty

 

[Shurdus]

Never seen the offering of a free city before, but capitulating and tech-giving is nothing really shocking.

 

[xmen510]

I have had it 2 or 3 times. Usually it is a city with cultural borders attached to mine and has no unites in it. Also, from what I have gathered the AI is also usually at war with another one and the city is lost anyway. That has been my experience at least. It is nice to see now and then.

 

[djvandrake]

Did the gift result in the 10 turn peace treaty? He might have been buying time to get some defenses up in his more valuable cities......

 

[Bruinbown]

So in my game on PitBoss when one of the civs who was about to lose gave me a city in exchange for tech it wasn't that far out there after all?

 

[brades]

Ive had that happen once before as Pericles as well. Justinian popped a city between my capital and my 2nd city which was on a 5 tile peninsula right before the 150 border pop. The borders popped and ate up most of Justinians BFC, so I guess he figured he'd just give it to me since I was going to claim it culturally or through a war.

 

[The Snug]

Ive had that happen once before as Pericles as well. Justinian popped a city between my capital and my 2nd city which was on a 5 tile peninsula right before the 150 border pop. The borders popped and ate up most of Justinians BFC, so I guess he figured he'd just give it to me since I was going to claim it culturally or through a war.

That's wild. In my 100+ games, I've never seen that. I've always had to wait for the cultural flip.

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

When playing as Asoka once, Genghis Khan offered me one of his cities. Whilst it took me by suprise as I'd never seen it before, but thinking about, it wasn't that suprising as he'd not long built the city, which was right next to my highest culture producing city. It wouldn't of taken much for it to flip anyway.

 

[brades]

That's wild. In my 100+ games, I've never seen that. I've always had to wait for the cultural flip.

Well, I've only had it happen once and I've probably played well over 100 games as well. So it's certainly a rarity. What may have hapenned was that since I was gearing up for war with him (my power numbers were probably higher than his), and he was attempting to wonderspam he figured hed just let me have that city in an attempt to appease me. It didn't work.

 

[The Snug]

Well, I've only had it happen once and I've probably played well over 100 games as well. So it's certainly a rarity. What may have hapenned was that since I was gearing up for war with him (my power numbers were probably higher than his), and he was attempting to wonderspam he figured hed just let me have that city in an attempt to appease me. It didn't work.

hmmm. And I suppose that when the AI graciously heals one of your units you reciprocate with the same type of mercy that you showed SB

 

[Strato]

Yeah, I've had the AI gift a city to me. It was under massive cultural pressure however, partly because it was a former city of mine (I lost it in a war, brought in an ally who captured it) then after the dust settled, this city was getting pinned on three sides with my cultural pressure due to cities I opted to capture just for that reason. I really liked that city. The leader who gifted the city was the Portugese (Joao).

 

[zoiks]

I think there should be a third option on the OP's screenshot; let me get back to you.

Not just for this, but there's plenty of other situations where it would be useful. Can't think of any others off the top of my head, but using this as an example...what if you've no idea where Snaketown is (and there's lots of civs that have similarly named cities)? You've just got to make a snap decision, yes or no?

All it needs is a Let me see the big picture option, and you can have a look at your map and then decide.

 

[Civ Diploma]

It could have been liberation. Was there the word Liberation next to the city name? I had this happen to me. Mehmmed just liberated his city. Didn't refuse it.