enemy workers irrigate my mines w/ ROP

[Headmaster]

I'm playing a small arid island map where rivers are very rare. I managed to capture a German city which is near Japanese irrigation and started building irrigation towards my capital.

Then I signed a right of passage with the Iroquese who are on the other side of my Roman empire. At once they sent workers to my empire who started irrigating my plains. First I thought they were doing me a favor, but of course they wanted to get the water over to their pathetic desert country.

So I grabbed some of my workers and built mines along my 3-tile-border. Thought this would cut them off the water. But they just replaced it with irrigation. Two turns later they start building an irrigation square on their land, and then I'll have no more control over their water supply.

This means I will have to pillage my own tile as soon as the worker moves to the next tile (which means that I don't only lose my mine, but also my road). As soon as my pillaging unit leaves, the worker will come back --> I have to block my border.

But I don't want to block it because the Iroquese are at war with the Japanese and this war weakens both of them.

Seems like the only possibility is to crush the damn Iros. But I am a Republic and a war would take at least 9 turns. And I wanted to attack the Japs first because their land is much more useful.

Okay you can say: 'Who cares about the poor Iroquese, they are weak anyway'. But isn't it a major bug that they can actually destroy my mines? Next time I'll try to make a ROP with a civ that has a large city which gets it food from irrigated plains. Then I'll send my workers over and mine his irrigations and watch how the bastards starve

I'm posting a screenshot, maybe someone has an idea how to get him off the water but allowing his military units free trespassing...

(Wow, that's a long posting about a crappy topic, but I'm a perfectionist )

 

[Salvor]

Since you have an ROP, you could use your units to block him from getting back into his own territory by putting your own units across the 3-square border on HIS side of the border.

His worker will be stuck in your territory and will probably make more improvements for you. If you can get more than 3 units over there, you can even "herd" him to a spot you want him to work on while you go back to replacing your own mines. Later, you can call an end to the ROP and threaten to crush him like a bug if he comes back into your territory again.

 

[Headmaster]

The problem is that i want the Iros to annoy the Japs a little (who are north-west of Hamburg) and therefore have to walk through my territory. Well maybe I'll just wait until they have killed off most of their units and then crush them both

I think it would be a great feature to cut off the other's water supply. It would be great if I were able to let him irrigate his land, then pillage the tile in the blue circle and dry out all his irrigations (because then they are no longer connected to a fresh water supply). Would also be more realistic IMHO. But this would require a clever AI that knows when it's useful to pillage its own irrigation.

My map is really interesting because this is the first time I realize the strategic importance of rivers, besides hydro plants etc. . The most powerful nations at the beginning were the French and the Japanese because their capital was built on floodplains while all the others idled in their deserts...

 

[royfurr]

Oh, Headmaster-

I am NOT sure of this but I THINK I remember seeing this in a game I played a few weeks ago. MAYBE SOMEONE OUT THERE CAN CONFIRM THIS???? Please, and THANKS!!

It is that if you have a line of irrigation to get to some place you really WANT to have using irrigation, and you UN-irrigate (ie mine or pillage) one of the irrigated tiles in the "chain", you DON'T cut the irrigation of "downstream" tiles. They stay unchanged and still "work" as food sources. So its not like blowing up someones pipeline or damming someones river, and you can't cut someones water off.

I think what is happening is like when you are building something which has a required resource (like Ironworks needing iron and coal) and the resource gets cut off while you are in the middle of the building process, your still able to finish the item. The program checks for the necessary items when you start the process, and then doesn't check anymore, so you finish the item. Here, once the irrigated tile is irrigated, it doesn't check anymore to see if its still adjecient (sorry) to a water source, so you are still able to get the greater food production. Now if your victim mined irrigated land downstream of your cutoff, or it was pillaged, and then they wanted to irrigate it again, I would think that in that case, the program would again check for "is there an adjacient (dam_!) water source or a chain of tiles to, a water source?", and now they would not be able to re-irrigate the tile, since you'd cut the source. Also, new irrigations from that tile chain would probably not work. But I don't think you "dry up" actual irrigated tiles downstream by severing the chain of tiles to the water source.

Now I am not 100% certain of this, I think this is so from a previous game. (Barbs pillaged a tile in a chain of irrigated tiles to a distant city but to my surprise my city stll had full food production.) If I can find a savegame file with a place to check this I will re-post confirming or denying this.

ANYONE else got input?

 

[royfurr]

I tried pillaging a tile in a chain of irrigation to another location, and when I did, the tiles "downstream" which now could not trace a chain of irrigated tiles to a water source, STILL had the normal (ie with irrigation) food production, eg my desert tile outside of the city still produced 1 food.

I "shift-entered" a few times and still, up to 4 turns later, with the chain of irrigated tiles still broken, I had the irrigated level of food production. So apparently you cannot cut off someones water in this sense.

Not having a worker handy in that city, I could not check to see if I COULD NOT extend that chain of irrigation, DOWNSTREAM of the pillaged tile (ie on the side of the cut away from the water source). I would expect that I would NOT have been able to do so, but I would think that you could, AFTER reparing the cut (rebuild irrigation on the pillaged tile in the chain).

ANYONE else able to confirm of deny, or could test the later part of the theory out?

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Yeah, that's something that probably needs fixing. But until it is, I do it right back to them Great for a)bringing in water from a far-off river and b)screwing over their production

 

[TrailblazingScot]

The A.I probably looks back to civ2 and goes "Those were the days, when I could just create irrigation at will even in the middle of Asia and 10 squares from the nearest water"...

Iroquois were thinking with their heads when they got the "freedom of passage treaty"

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
The A.I probably looks back to civ2 and goes "Those were the days, when I could just create irrigation at will even in the middle of Asia and 10 squares from the nearest water"...

what kind of CivII did you play???

I couldn`t in mine, had to irrigate from the next source of water and man that sucked on the huge world map.....

 

[Headmaster]

Originally posted by royfurr
Not having a worker handy in that city, I could not check to see if I COULD NOT extend that chain of irrigation, DOWNSTREAM of the pillaged tile (ie on the side of the cut away from the water source). I would expect that I would NOT have been able to do so, but I would think that you could, AFTER reparing the cut (rebuild irrigation on the pillaged tile in the chain).

ANYONE else able to confirm of deny, or could test the later part of the theory out?

You can build irrigation adjacent to any other irrigation, no matter if this still is connected to fresh water or not...

 

[Jimcat]

YOU couldn't build irrigation without a water source, but the AI could.

Many a Mongol civilization was started in Central Asia surrounded by irrigation.

 

[Salvor]

Sorry if my last post wasn't clear. You don't have to block the border permanently. Just block it for one turn. The worker won't be able to continue irrigating towards his side of the border, and will move somewhere. Then you can use your units to herd him away from the border by blocking all directions but one. Once he's one or two squares back from the border, you can let his other troops through to harass the Japs and still keep his worker at bay.

Quickly send one of your own workers to re-mine the border hex and one or two others, since there's nothing stopping him from sending another worker out.

Later, after most of his military crosses your turf and is into Jap territory, terminate the ROP.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Now I know why I never agree to ROP's. What a mess!!! :crazyeyes

 

[dutcheese]

hi,

i believe if your city is actually using the tile then the AI will not convert the tile.

dutcheese

 

[TrailblazingScot]

killer...stop being a noob (people he says he will thrash me on civ3...he deserves what he gets) as jimcat said the A.I in civ2 could cheat with irrigations...

Know your game before making stupid comments in your repeated attempts to provoke me further.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
killer...stop being a noob (people he says he will thrash me on civ3...he deserves what he gets) as jimcat said the A.I in civ2 could cheat with irrigations...

Know your game before making stupid comments in your repeated attempts to provoke me further.

OK, I`ve had enough! Since you obviously aren`t capable to keep this between us, I´ll now take the next logical step!

btw: I will not stand being called a buffon by you! I offered to just forget the whole thing, call it a misunderstading (which it might have been after all - about as likely as that pigs can fly) but since you try to get people here to take sides I can only report you to a moderator.

Soory, but this really pssies me off and I won`t stand for being personally insulted. I could call you names, too, but I have manners!!

Another thing: I never saw the AI cheat in CivII, at least I simply assumed that they had irrigated from water, then pillaged. Usually I saw long stretches of irrigation and maybe one or two tiles missing - that could have been barbarians pillaging. Also I`ve often swept the desert civs away
because they hadn`t irrigated!!!

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Handbags at the ready...

 

[Jimcat]

Not to throw gasoline on a fire here, but to clarify what I saw in Civ2: I think if a civilization started the game in a "dry" location (e.g. Mongols on the historical Earth map), then it would have to go seek its water normally.

BUT, if a civ popped up later in the game as a replacement for a wiped-out civ, its starting city could get all kinds of free stuff: techs, buildings, even terrain improvements in the surrounding squares. This would result in some irrigation surrounding a city that otherwise would have no access to water. Voila, the new civ can build its irrigation out from its capital.

Looking back on it, this wouldn't be entirely unfair for a civ that started late in the game. If it had no water access, and everyone else was already irrigated, the new civ would quickly be overwhelmed by its neighbors.

 

[IronicWarrior19]

Originally posted by Jimcat
Not to throw gasoline on a fire here, but to clarify what I saw in Civ2: I think if a civilization started the game in a "dry" location (e.g. Mongols on the historical Earth map), then it would have to go seek its water normally.

Naah, they definitely cheated. Play civ2 for a few turns on the world map with the AI controlled mongol civ and watch the irrigated roaded squares pop up in the middle of nowhere... In fact, I even had a couple games with AI squares that were irrigated and roaded - with a hut on top

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Civfanatics does provide a very interesting civ2 resource: the list of A.I stupidities.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2ai.shtml

Thread on same subject: a mere 11 pages...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=43


Just in case you think that civ2 was superior to civ3