Donate this unit

[aragami_frog]

How many have actually ever used the "Donate this unit" ability while your unit is in another AI's territory? I've only done it once and that was to save a neighboring nation from being overrun by a nation they were at war with. I supplied them with 2-4 machine gunners in their cities as gifts to defend (and I must admit they did an excellent job) their cities.

There seems to be really no benefit from donating a unit to one of the AI's.

I think there should be a mercenary feature or something of the sort. Like you can make a trade agreement with a neighboring nation that for 200 gold pieces you'd sell them 2 warriors (just and example).

Why can't you sell off soldier units or if you even donate a unit to another AI why doesn't it increase your standing with them ANY? No "thanks for helping us" Kudo's or thanks for your gift or any other benefit to your relationship with them.

I also don't like how cities appear in the trade discussions. I have played games where I'd cheat and use the gold cheat and have billions and I've yet to ever find a enemy AI willing to trade away any of their cities for any price. I'd even offer them a ton of gold and all of the Technologies they lack (12 or more) and they still refuse, even if the city is small.

Plus I think it'd be interesting if you could trade cities. For example, you got two cities on islands between the continents and they both supply the same mineral while an enemy AI is in the same shape, why can't you just say "hey if you give me that City I'll give you this one in trade".

Has anyone ever:
A)Donated a military unit
B)Ever got an AI to trade away a city

 

[keshik22]

I've had similar experience, I could never trade a city from the AI. I've never even had an AI consider one of its cities tradeable (i.e. their cities are always red in the trade interface) except when I'm at war with them. As far as I'm concerned the AI cities displayed in the interface are only useful for checking the number of cities that AI has.
Same with gifting units - never done it, never had a unit gifted to me either.
Just a thought - say, an AI that you're at war with is attacking a city of a friendly AI, and you have some of your units in that city. Would the enemy AI have to kill your units to take the city? I assume they would have to. When your units are defending in the friendly AI's city, would they get the benefit of the city defences?

 

[jessiecat]

I've had similar experience, I could never trade a city from the AI. I've never even had an AI consider one of its cities tradeable (i.e. their cities are always red in the trade interface) except when I'm at war with them. As far as I'm concerned the AI cities displayed in the interface are only useful for checking the number of cities that AI has.
Same with gifting units - never done it, never had a unit gifted to me either.
Just a thought - say, an AI that you're at war with is attacking a city of a friendly AI, and you have some of your units in that city. Would the enemy AI have to kill your units to take the city? I assume they would have to. When your units are defending in the friendly AI's city, would they get the benefit of the city defences?

I'm sure they would. The only time I've gift units is when my scout has
finished exploring. Rather than march him home to add to city defence
(not much use!), I gift him to some neighbour who's friendly with me. Can't hurt and it might improve relations a bit, like gifting resources.

 

[KMadCandy]

As far as I'm concerned the AI cities displayed in the interface are only useful for checking the number of cities that AI has.

that's a really weird thing about OCC games. you never see the list of AI cities, since you can't trade for them because you can't ever have another city. if you don't know the map, you have no idea how many cities they have .

I've never even had an AI consider one of its cities tradeable (i.e. their cities are always red in the trade interface) except when I'm at war with them.

in the most recent save from the current ALC (caution: many screenshots in this link!), washington has a city that isn't redlined to Sisiutil. it's actually white with (Liberate) after the name. it's very very close to S's capital, and quite far from wash's, so that has to be why. when i was checking out the save of course washington said "we can't do that" when i asked what he wanted for it. but it wasn't redlined! that's the first time i ever remember seeing a city not redlined during peacetime. and they've never been to war, that city has always been washington's (altho it's a very new city). kinda funky.

 

[King Flevance]

The only time I have ever gifted is in team games. And usually then, its workers. Only rarely have I ever gifted non-worker units.

 

[BigDaz]

I supplied an ally various military units when he was under heavy attack. It seemed a good way of supporting a friendly country without declaring war. I recieved no real thanks for it even though it helped him win which is a bit disappointing. You're right there doesn't appear to be any benefit to giving units away.

 

[MrCynical]

In BtS I'll occasionally use this to boost a new colony (e.g. giving them a few workers). Beyond that though it's rarely useful.

 

[Thanny]

I had made the mistake of demanding capitulation from Bismarck in a game configured for conquest-only victory. After a couple of wars, all he had left were two cities on an island with the next largest player.

So, I gifted 20 MA's with CR3 to that player, as close as possible to Bismarck's cities, just before I declared war. Couple turns later, he got rid of Bismarck for me, and a few dozen turns after that, I got rid of him.

 

[moorie678]

wow neat, I will try this in my next game. One thing that I can add is that, Russia had open borders with Alex and I didn't, her border was right next to my city and I could not attack him without declaring war on russia when he was barraging my city. So i am guessing that they need to declare war on you to take that city if you have units in it with open borders, not sure tough. One funny thing that happened is that I had a war allie, he captured a city I had units healing in it then couple rounds later I forgot I had like 10 cavaliers there and signed a peace treaty, during anarchy I could not get them out without declaring war and I couldn't declare war before 10 turns, alex declared war on me, I couldnt get an open borders agreement so I lost two cities that I could have salvaged with the help of those units. GRRRR HAD TO RELOAD..........

 

[Dynamic Cow]

There is a situation where handing over units is a good thing, and that is when you eish to spread your shrine religion(s) into civs with whom you have open borders, and who has theocracy. Just march those preachermen into the heathen nation, donate them and watch them get to work...

Well, you actually can't see them, but they do work. So donating is not quite as useless as it seems.

It's worse when I accidently happen to donate spies to my enemies, though.

 

[LemonJello]

So far, I've only gifted workers to my newly formed colony. They were done repairing the damage create when I took the island by force and I didn't want to waste a transport to pick them up since I was occupied with grinding the Greeks to dust beneath the wheels of my war machine.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I always give units to my colonies, as well as backward vassals. ALso, if a rival civ is attacking a friendly neighbor, I'll donate some top notch units to them.

 

[ZB2]

In one of my very first Vanilla games, I was playing as Japan on the 1000AD Earth and found it greatly in my interests (Whilst not at war) to save Asoka from Arabian Extinction by gifting Musketmen in his last city at the very tip of the Indian Subcontinent.

It ended up breaking the back of the Arabian Horsemounted Invasion and the stockpile of Musketmen, armed with a later attack by myself reclaimed the Indian Cities.

IF ONLY AI RECOGNISED THE GIFTING!!

Like a Diplomacy modifier!! "+1 You aided us in war." "You gifted us units in wartime."

 

[Gooblah]

I only gift units in the event it helps me. Lets say I'm aiming for a Cultural Victory. Alexander hates Bismarck's and my guts and is high in power. I am on the coast of our continent, and Bismarck lies between my land and Alexander's.

(i.e ////::oo) where / is Alexander, Bismarck is : and I'm o

Alexander declares war on my friend Bismarck, who is a buffer state. He is no match for the Greek War Machine, so I gift to him a few units. He now has the defensive capabilities to force Alexander into a stalemate, protecting me while not seriously tipping the power scale.

Thus, gift units to a buffer state to keep em alive long enough for you to achieve a victory.

 

[Matty R]

I once played a game where I gifted Hatty all of my old units as soon as they became useless to me. It was as an apology for stopping her civ from advancing in the early stages, when I deliberately placed cities near her newest ones then culture-bombed (if thats the phrase) them, flipping her cities. She was trapped in a tundra/snow wilderness by myself to the North and Tokugawa to the North-West, with lots of metals but very little in the way of food. So when Tokugawa tried to wipe her out I provided the vast majority of her military and kept bribing Tokugawa to end the wars.

We eventually annihilated Tokugawa together and she took most of his land.

I like to keep as many civs in play for as long as I can, so if I see a civ being hassled by more advanced civs I'll give them units to help defend themselves.

 

[JJ Boston]

I don't use gifting much in singleplayer, but I will use it in multiplayer quite a bit. If my friend has war declared on him and I have a few spare units, I might donate some to him, or sell them if I'm feeling opportunistic. We've even used great people to balance out a lopsided tech swap before.

Of course, this is all based on the honor code, which makes things more interesting.

 

[bestbrian]

I've gifted units to backwards "buffer" civs to keep an aggressive civ from my territory. I've also had cities ceded to me by a civ in peace agreements (usually useless cities that I didn't really want) and ceded them to a friendly civ as a buffer.

 

[Morgrad]

The AI gets heavy discounts to upgrading units - so I've been known to gift.... say.... 15 horse archers and 1000 gold to a neighbor, then trade him military tradition for a declaration of war. Or 15 axemen, 1000 gold, and chemistry to declare war.

You know, something like that.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I quite often gift missionaries: for instance it immediately reduces unit cost. Every little bit helps...

 

[cybrxkhan]

If there are really out of date units, or units i really have no purpose for, i'll just give them away for free. Like a scout I find in the reinessance when I already explorered the entire continent, or a lousy caravel when my entire fleet is already battleships and destroyers, for example.