Diplomatic Penalties for Gifting Units?

[Bradlius]

I'm in a situation where I'd like to strengthen an ally, but I don't want to offend the other civs on my continent.
I'm playing on Noble/Vanilla as Gandhi, going for a cultural win. I've been using Hatshepsut as a buffer against Isabella and her Buddhist attack-dog Montezuma. (Huanya Capac shares Hinduism with me and Hatty, but I don't trust him). The trouble is, Hatty is losing ground to Monty. I just know he wants to attack me but I don't want to give him any more excuses to. (He's already Furious). If I gift some of my older but still useful units to Hatty, does that affect my relations with Monty and Isabella? I've never seen a modifier like "You gave units to our enemy" but I'm guessing it might have an effect somehow.

 

[Elrohir]

Nope, the AI isn't smart enough to know that you are helping them in that way.

That's something that needs to be fixed, giving other AI units should give you a diplomatic bonus with the AI you're helping, and their allies, and demerites from their enemies.

 

[cabert]

I'm in a situation where I'd like to strengthen an ally, but I don't want to offend the other civs on my continent.
I'm playing on Noble/Vanilla as Gandhi, going for a cultural win. I've been using Hatshepsut as a buffer against Isabella and her Buddhist attack-dog Montezuma. (Huanya Capac shares Hinduism with me and Hatty, but I don't trust him). The trouble is, Hatty is losing ground to Monty. I just know he wants to attack me but I don't want to give him any more excuses to. (He's already Furious). If I gift some of my older but still useful units to Hatty, does that affect my relations with Monty and Isabella? I've never seen a modifier like "You gave units to our enemy" but I'm guessing it might have an effect somehow.

2 things related to your question:
- monty has enough on his hands now so he won't attack you, provided Hatty lives long enough
- gifting units doesn't induce any relations modifiers (hatty won't be grateful, monty won't be pissed)

a few more thing :
- you should gift obsolete units to hatty, if she has the techs and resource to upgrade them. AIs pay a lot less upgrade costs than you do.
- you should move the troops before gifting them. The AI doesn't know what's good for him.

 

[Bradlius]

- you should gift obsolete units to hatty, if she has the techs and resource to upgrade them. AIs pay a lot less upgrade costs than you do.
- you should move the troops before gifting them. The AI doesn't know what's good for him.

Good points. Thanks.
I'm up to Longbows/Crossbows (and almost to Grenadiers) so I should gift Hatty my old, unpromoted Archers for her to upgrade. Maybe even gift her Machinery too. I didn't know about the AI unit-upgrade cheat.
And yes, I planned to move them into her cities first. Who knows what she would do with them otherwise!

 

[CivCorpse]

Monty will attack you regardless. Instead of gifting her troops to waste. March a fat attack stack over to Monty-land and attack him. Raze his cities until he is no more. By proloviding troops to Hassy you just give his troops more exp. Be a man and fight your own war instead of hiding behind a woman's skirt. Then go smack izzy a bit. try bribing Huanya into joining the war with you. He is a fast techer so you don't want him gaining the lead in tech while you are at war. The mutual struggles bonus will help your relations with him as well if you join the war.

 

[Bradlius]

Well gosh, thanks for shaming me into action. That's pretty much exactly what I did. I did gift Hatty a few units, but she used them, ah, unwisely.
Several turns later, Monty declared on me. Big mistake. Hatty and Huayna and I ganged on him and took back what he'd taken from them, and then some. I just didn't have the heart to wipe him out completely. Besides, he's a good thorn in the side of Huayna. Even though he's friendly now, I am still leery of him. But as long as Monty is around, he won't get too problematic with me.

 

[axident]

I'm in a situation where I'd like to strengthen an ally, but I don't want to offend the other civs on my continent.
I'm playing on Noble/Vanilla as Gandhi, going for a cultural win. I've been using Hatshepsut as a buffer against Isabella and her Buddhist attack-dog Montezuma. (Huanya Capac shares Hinduism with me and Hatty, but I don't trust him). The trouble is, Hatty is losing ground to Monty. I just know he wants to attack me but I don't want to give him any more excuses to. (He's already Furious). If I gift some of my older but still useful units to Hatty, does that affect my relations with Monty and Isabella? I've never seen a modifier like "You gave units to our enemy" but I'm guessing it might have an effect somehow.

Interesting idea; this thread got me to experiment a bit. I was in a game where there were basically just 4 big players left: Napolean, me, Shaka, and Kublai Kahn. I got fed up with Napolean's tribute demands since he was already the score leader. So I bribed him to attack every other civ on the map except me, costing me three techs--after that trade we were equal in tech. It was worth it, though, as he lost lost 2 cities before peace broke out. He still remained my biggest threat, so I waited a while and bribed Kublai Kahn into attacking him.

Unfortunately, Kahn's power couldn't keep up with Napolean's, similar to your story. I was going to invade Zululand with a big army, but I decided to gift it over to Kahn and wait till I had tanks and bombers for Zululand. I gifted to Kahn: 3 artillery, 34 cavalry, about 40 or 50 Redcoats, and an assortment of outdated units like longbows and axemen for Kahn to upgrade. The next turn, Kahn's power rating basically doubled and rivaled Napolean's, and a few turns later, a French city was captured by the Mongols. Gee, I wonder how that happened?

A word of caution though: rebuild your army after giving it away, if it damages your power rating so much that others start trying to bully you. Shaka demanded oil a few decades after I gave my army away, I refused, and he instantly declared war. Fortunately I had saved some artillery and cavalry instead of giving it all away, and a few of my cities had already emerged from infrastructure-building and were building new units. That let me hold off Shaka until I could build new units. Eventually I killed most of Shaka's invaders and counterattacked once I built up a large enough force. It reminded me of earlier in the same game when Ragnar DoW on me with several axemen and archers, but I was already well-situated for fighting a war since I was cranking out an army to take a barb city anyway.