I don't understand where this view comes from that it is exploiting the AI. The AI does not hesitate to steal my workers.
Yes, it does. I can have my worker 3 tiles out from a city with no defending units...and an AI scout won't declare war and swoop in to take it. When the AI starts doing that, you might have a point.
Pillage is not just about healing. It is about gold.
How much gold does it actually get you? I seem to recall it giving like...7...gold per pillage. Which means you're spending 2 units worth of upkeep to pillage that per turn. Seems that would be barely gold positive.
Or am I misremembering and it's far more? I rarely pillage because I don't want to repair all the tiles and don't need the health.
Also, to be fair, this is the first time I've seen anyone talk about the gold factor -- the thing focused on is the healing during offensive far.
The fact is that it makes no sense in terms of lore to heal another civs tiles. Imagine the Russian army cleaning up a farm and making it workable again, then razing it to the ground as per their original scorched earth policy. And repeating this.
Oh, I know. Never said it did. Just said it seemed to be much less common and much smaller of an advantage that early worker steals. The concept itself is insane.
I take it from this that you aren't much of a warmonger at all. I often have 30+ workers, almost all of whom will be at the front line because there's almost nothing for them to do back home.
I don't generally warmonger, though, though when I do I tend to do so efficiently. Like wiping out a Civ with 2-3 Rocket Artillery and a few SAMs. Or 2-3 Artillery and some Calvary. Or 3-4 Crossbowmen and a Knight or two.
Obviously that's less suited (aka not suited) to clearing a map of 7 capitals in a 100 space turn. Normally I wind up deleting workers because their upkeep is just draining my gold otherwise.
That's why I asked you whether you condemn it in the same terms. You ought to, if you are being consistent. It's completely broken.
*If* you can convince me it's broken on the same level (and depending on what the pillage gold is worth I might wind up being convinced) I'll happily condemn it in the same terms (or close to it). The reason I say "or close to it" is because, like I said, it's not relevant in every single game like worker stealing is.
Also, on a somewhat related note, I'll also point out this only works on Quick/Standard. On Marathon, for example, it takes 8 turns to repair a tile normally and 5 with Liberty/Pyramids. But worker stealing, if anything, is even better on Marathon.
I don't think the act of worker stealing is an exploit, but the way the AI behaves afterward can be considered an exploit.
A good way to describe it.
- I don’t see it being advocated (on these forums) as a basic core strategy worthy of emmulation. (It is more just something people make others aware of.)
Indeed.
