Another One Bites the Dust ...

[Lord Emsworth]

Just imagine that you are at war with, uhmm, let's say the Egyptians. It went quite well for you and there is only one enemy city left and nothing can stop you from taking that last city too. So, go ahead, destroy them!

But wait a minute. You can actually exploit take advantage of such a situation pretty effectively. It is fairly well know that Military Alliances that end prematurely because the common enemy gets destroyed do not give anybody a rep hit. So, why not make a bunch of allainces agaist a civ that is about to be destroyed? You can get techs, lump sums for free. You can also get insanely high gpt payments - far more that the AI is able to actually pay.



But first the up-front variety:

Premise: You are about to destroy a civ this turn.

Step 1: Go to your domestic Advisor sceen (F1) to free up gpt. (Put your lux and science sliders to zero)

Step 2: Pay all the civs that you are not at war with and with whom you have no alliances yet a visit and make deals in this fashion:

They give:
• Alliance vs the Egyptians
• Chemistry
• 200 Gold
• World Map

We give:
• Alliance vs the Egyptians
• 200 gpt
• Incense
• Spices​

Step 3: Destroy the civ that you were about to destroy.

Step 4: Go to your domestic Advisor sceen (F1) to restore your settings.


Step 3 of course means that the deals you made in step 2 are off: you will not have to pay 200 gpt, you will not export 2 luxes. You will however get a tech, and a nice sum of money - for free. And no rep hit.



Now the tech broker variety:

Premise: You are about to destroy a civ this turn.
Premise: You are up in the tech tree.

Step 1: Go to your domestic Advisor sceen (F1) to free up gpt. (Put your lux and science sliders to zero)

Step 2: Pay all the civs that you are not at war with and with whom you have no alliances yet a visit and make deals in this fashion:

They give:
• Alliance vs the Egyptians

We give:
• Alliance vs the Egyptians
• 200 gpt​

Divide up your whole gpt income amonst the other civs.

Step 3: Pay all the civs that you made a deal with in step 2 a visit and make deals in the following fashion:

They give:
• 100 gpt

We give:
• Chemistry​

Make sure that you get as much gpt as possible out of your tech trading. The AIs will now trade the gpt that you have given them in step 2 back to you.

Step 4: Destroy the civ that you were about to destroy.

Step 5: Go to your domestic Advisor sceen (F1) to restore your settings.


Step 4 of course means that the deals you made in step 2 are off: you will not have to pay 200 gpt. What is not off are the deals that you made in step 3 where the AI very likely pays you money that it does not even have. And of course you will not get a rep hit.



You can also combine the two varieties easily. 'Buying' techs here, and selling them elsewhere. But especially the second variety can be an exceptionally powerful exploit trading tool as you can see from the screen shot attached to this post.



PS: Tremble before the settler in a ship!

 

[IronJeff]

Interesting. I'm going to have to ty it. heh heh heh

 

[Kristius]

Nice! I'm definitely going to have to try this.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

Over 86.000 gold in treasury?!

It's same as all the gold I ever saw in Civ x 15.

 

[The 777 Hoax]

Holy crap! I'm gonna have to try that! Nice idea

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

86.000! Where is all that gold coming from? Used a game editor?

 

[Twonky]

You can actually exploit take advantage of such a situation pretty effectively.

While this is not considered a banned exploit for GOTM/HoF games, it is a borderline technique imho. The human player clearly takes advantage of a deficiency in AI programming. So I think I may use this, but I´d have a guilty conscience about it.

And btw, this was already hinted at already:

Cases that do not trash your rep

There are certain cases that a prematurely terminated gpt deal does not affect your rep.

...

2. The deal involves an MA and the target AI is destroyed

If you have a gpt deal with A in which you have MA against B. If B is destroyed before the 20-turn period expires, the deal ends immediately but your rep isn't affected. It's often (ab)used by players to sign an MA when the target AI is about to die, and get money back as soon as the AI is destroyed.

Although I have never seen someone pushing it this far!


Sir_Lancelot: what do you mean? Lord Emsworth is squeezing 4.750 gpt out of the AI. That money alone sums up to 86k in 18 turns or so...

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

Sir_Lancelot: what do you mean? Lord Emsworth is squeezing 4.750 gpt out of the AI. That money alone sums up to 86k in 18 turns or so...

But how can that be possible? The gold must come from somwhere, it must be generated. Can the AI's pay that much? From where do they get all that gold?

 

[MAS]

But how can that be possible? The gold must come from somwhere, it must be generated. Can the AI's pay that much? From where do they get all that gold?

The joy of playing at higher diffeculty levels!

Becouse the AI is not pathatic, they actually have something to give you in trade!

The AI could give you 50k for a modern age tech, but not at lower diffeculty levels becouse they simply don't have 50k at lower diffeculty levels.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

I play on regent and my rivals rarely have more than ~50 gold. I'm in the middle ages. These civs live in peace with eachother on a continent and should be rich. They will never pay me gpt because they are broke.

On higher levels, do the AI "cheat" with gold? Like it do with shields?
On Sid, I think, the AI produce 10 shields where you would produced 1.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

But how can that be possible? The gold must come from somwhere, it must be generated. Can the AI's pay that much? From where do they get all that gold?

Most of it comes from nowhere as all the AIs who are paying me are running a serious deficit now.

Or to be more accurate, it was me originally who gave them gpt, quite a lot of gpt, for alliances. Here in this example I gave four civs 1250 gpt each for an alliance against Egypt. From the gpt that I had given them they then bought techs at their real value from me. The Iroquois, for example, are paying a monopoly price of 460 gpt for Atomic Theory. And so on.

And then I destroyed Egypt, thus cancelling the deals where I would pay a horrendous amount of money and leaving the AI with a heavy deficit.

Also, on the screenshot that I posted you see the effects of two such scams separated by 15 turns.

 

[sanabas]

Step 3 of course means that the deals you made in step 2 are off: you will not have to pay 200 gpt, you will not export 2 luxes. You will however get a tech, and a nice sum of money - for free. And no rep hit.

I have a feeling that if you include luxes or resources, you will still trash your rep. I'd have to double check though, this isn't an exploit I use all that much.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The AI don't need to have the gold they pay you. I don't know what happens for the AI, but i have seen 1 town AI's pay dozens of gpt with no cash in stock.
They keep paying their deals even though they cannot.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

The AI don't need to have the gold they pay you. I don't know what happens for the AI, but i have seen 1 town AI's pay dozens of gpt with no cash in stock.
They keep paying their deals even though they cannot.

I guess they have one improvement sold or one unit disbanded per turn. As usual if you run a deficit with no more cash in your treasury.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

I see the AI often sell city improvements, sometimes all of them.

So the AI always can pay even it can't, that's not right. I think I call it a bug.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I see the AI often sell city improvements, sometimes all of them.

So the AI always can pay even it can't, that's not right. I think I call it a bug.

A human player gets the same treatment and has either one improvement sold or one unit disbanded. Except for Chieftain, where there are no consequences.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I guess they have one improvement sold or one unit disbanded per turn. As usual if you run a deficit with no more cash in your treasury.

Yeah, and when they run out of stuff to sell, the money just comes out of nothing.
Now that you say it, it is indeed the same for the human player as far as i know (an exploit i haven't used yet)

 

[Virtual Alex]

heh, totally unfair to the poor simple minded AIs. If they looked at Egypt and could comprehend what would happen next turn, they would "never agree to such a deal!"

Awesome tip though.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

At Sid, the AI has huge unit support, so they often don't need to pay for units.

They build improvements fast.

They rarely have a lot of corruption, because they don't build large cities.

Put it this way:

a size 20 city, roaded, in republic, with 8 river squares, a market, bank and stock exchange can make 182 GPT before corruption. 10 of those is 1820 before corruption. And that's with no big commerce bonuses, like, say, Tourism bonuses for being able to hand build collosus by 2900

 

[Virtual Alex]

Well I am aware of that, but thats what Sid is all about. But "tricking" the AI into generating infinite money out of nowhere to give to you, is clearly an exploit. it's the human taking advantage of oversights in the game to his advantage.

I suppose it depends on your view of fair play.