Build units just to sacrafice them

[Siv]

Any thoughts or comments about building cheap units like explorers and sacraficing them in another city to hurry production?

In my current game I can build explorers in two turns, get them to a city in another 1-3 turns to sacrafice them gaining a 5 shield gain per sac'd unit.

It is either this build more workers or wealth.

 

[ozo]

I usually do this with any suitable unit available late in the game when I want to rush buildings. I build units in my big powerhouses that don't have anything better to build, and I try to find a unit that doesn't waste shields. Then I just railroad it to another city and disband to get shields.

 

[Siv]

Thanks,

Nice to know that this strategy is used by other players.

 

[Vizurok]

Do you think thats usefuL? Only for 5 shields? If your city produces e.g. 20 shield in a turn, does that matter?

 

[Lennon]

Do you think thats usefuL? Only for 5 shields? If your city produces e.g. 20 shield in a turn, does that matter?

If you have some core cities spitting out units that you can send to some underdeveloped, remote city to rush a temple it is very useful.

Personally I generally prefer using my units to kill my neighbours once they amass sufficient numbers.

 

[Vizurok]

If you have some core cities spitting out units that you can send to some underdeveloped, remote city to rush a temple it is very useful.

Only two questions:
1. Why dont you build useful things in your core cities?
2. Why dont you simply rush the buildings or cut the trees?

Personally I generally prefer using my units to kill my neighbours once they amass sufficient numbers.

So do I.

 

[ozo]

Only two questions:
1. Why dont you build useful things in your core cities?
2. Why dont you simply rush the buildings or cut the trees?

1. There isn't really much useful to build anymore. All the improvements are there already. Units are useful for defending too.

2. Rushing costs money, and that I use to buy techs. Usually there aren't any trees to cut, since they have been cut already.

 

[emzie]

I really only have ever found this very useful if I wanted to half the gold cost when rushing an improvement on the first turn. Even then, rushing a worker gives the same effect, allowing one to concentrate his or her 'core' cities on producing new units to use on others.

 

[Vizurok]

1. There isn't really much useful to build anymore. All the improvements are there already. Units are useful for defending too.

When? Maybe in middle-industrials, with only infantry and artillery, but in C3C this time gets filled, too (docks and exchanges).

2. Rushing costs money, and that I use to buy techs. Usually there aren't any trees to cut, since they have been cut already.

Try wealth after economics, it has better effeciency than the explorer-factory.

 

[Siv]

I like the idea of building the cheap units then r/r them into recently captured cities to rush temples - GOOD IDEA!!

 

[Mr. Do]

I liked it in Civ 2 how you could use caravans for wonder production. But oh well.

 

[derekroth]

I would only do this with a pop rush government. I have done this in the past with huge communisms. I would figure out the biggest unit I could make in one turn and then RR them to smaller cities like discribed above. But in those situations it was always perfectly clear that I was going to win. Maybe it is time to increase the level.

 

[Favorius]

In the Modern era draft your people to mech inf or TOW, then dispand them in developing cities, incredible-24shields for 1pop instead of rushing them for lower shields.

 

[Longasc]

use bombers for quick rushing. Works like a charm in communism.

 

[Chieftess]

That tactic can be very useful. Suppose you have several cities that can only pump out 30spt (with factories, offshore platforms, nuke plant, Mfg Plant, etc.). You could build a cheap unit in a matter of turns (in vanilla Civ3, that would be a sword every turn), and disband it to either cash rush a new improvement/unit for 1/2 the cost, or to speed up production of an improvement/unit to complete it in 1 turn.

 

[Roi du Culture]

I, being a builder, like all improvements in all my cities, even the single-shield ones, and sometimes your cash flow can't keep pace with your wish list. I like to sacrafice expensive units, not just cheap ones, to help out my little infant outposts. I'm willing to give up my units for corruption reducers, harbors, temples, barracks, and graneries all the time. If I'm doing well, I'll rush the others, too.