Crippling an enemy (or friendly) economy by gifts

[Phal78]

Hi, I dont have the game yet (standard disclaimer) so forgive me if I misunderstood something.

Is it possible to completely cripple an enemy economy by gifting them all the cities of a conquered nation (particularly if that conquered nation is far from their capital)? They will:

1) Have to pay a great deal of distance and extra city maintenance for all the cities
2) Have to support extra units to protect their new cities

This would work particularly well if you can still sell improvements in the cities and/or starve the population back to 1 before gifting them. I dont know if you can still do that in cIV though. It also aleviates you from having to pay maintenance on all those conquered cities.

Possibly you could do the same thing with extra units that you cant afford to upgrade. If you have so many that they are crippling *your* economy then there is a good chance that they will cripple someone elses too.

This way you can conquer an enemy and significantly weaken a friend (without diplomatic repercussions - or in fact with positive diplomatic repercussions) at the same time.

Those with the game, will it work?

 

[podraza]

I have the game, I haven't tried that, but it sounds brilliant.

 

[Akaoz]

That's just ebil...

 

[Akaoz]

The units thing won't work (disband), but a big group of 1 pop cities could work. Not in MP though, cause the human would say no thanks...

 

[avitarx]

If memmory serves correct in CivIII the others civilizations did not want cities that did not have their citizens in them.

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

That's diabolical! If you can pull it off, it might just be the most evil tactic ever. Genius. I'll have to try that at some point, too. If I do I'll report the results.

 

[Heroes]

I don't think it could work. More cities mean more upkeep, so if you keep 100% science you run into deficient. However they also produce commerce, so you can drag science slider down and get actually more beakers and commerce.

 

[Nyvin]

It sounds as if it could be dangerous though, if they do succeed in making the cities productive somehow, you could potentially make them stronger.

 

[GoldenAge]

I dont think you can sell city improvements in Civ4 - if you can, I couldnt figure it out.

 

[Qoric]

Last Resort tatic!

 

[Harry Haller]

I have tried to sell or even give away cities to other civs, and they don't want them, even for free.

 

[Jazz_Newton]

If memmory serves correct in CivIII the others civilizations did not want cities that did not have their citizens in them.

Yeah, i don't think they'll accept them 90% of the time. There's probably a whole pile of things in the code (like there was in Civ3) that make the AIs resistant to accepting 'gifted' cities.

 

[Path]

That's good, that'd be exploit like crippling if it worked. The distance costs per city would smother the civ in liabilities. Probably wont work, but it made me happy imagining handing my nice "friends" a "gift".

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It could be they can actually asses the gold costs v. benefits of the new city, and then add in how well that bit of new territory could be defended (culturally and militarily)

 

[Ultima Dragoon]

Hi, I dont have the game yet (standard disclaimer) so forgive me if I misunderstood something.

Is it possible to completely cripple an enemy economy by gifting them all the cities of a conquered nation (particularly if that conquered nation is far from their capital)? They will:

1) Have to pay a great deal of distance and extra city maintenance for all the cities
2) Have to support extra units to protect their new cities

This would work particularly well if you can still sell improvements in the cities and/or starve the population back to 1 before gifting them. I dont know if you can still do that in cIV though. It also aleviates you from having to pay maintenance on all those conquered cities.

Possibly you could do the same thing with extra units that you cant afford to upgrade. If you have so many that they are crippling *your* economy then there is a good chance that they will cripple someone elses too.

This way you can conquer an enemy and significantly weaken a friend (without diplomatic repercussions - or in fact with positive diplomatic repercussions) at the same time.

Those with the game, will it work?

Don't have it yet either, getting on thursday (you should too )
But that sounds like one of the best ideas ever. I'm gonna try it whenI get CIV4 and i'll try it tommorow in CIV3.

I got an idea: Build a city on a single tile island in the middle of an ocean and gift it to your enemy