Extorting cities from the AI

[Pacioli]

Is there a formula to estimate how many cities the AI is willing to give you (extort) during peace negotiations? Does the AI treat the fact that you have won unit vs AI unit battles or your capture of the AI's cities differently during peace negotiations? Seems the capture of the AI's cities should be of more value, but how much more? Can you extort cities from the AI solely on winning unit vs AI unit battles or must you capture some the AI's cities?

 

[CKS]

I don't know about a formula. However, you don't need to take any cities in order to extort cities in peace deals. I think it is solely a relative power decision. I seem to remember a game of the month (G/C/SG?) with an isolated start where someone (Aeson, maybe?) got cities in a peace deal without ever having attacked the other civ.

I can say that the AI doesn't value resourceless pop-1 towns significantly more than workers (both at about 110 g), so if a civ has small towns it is much easier to get towns than techs. Sometimes the presence of a resource seems to drive the cost up, but sometimes it doesn't. I don't know if this is because of strangeness in the value of resources or if the apparently resourceless towns I'm comparing it to actually have resources that I don't know about yet. (If the AI has little gold, there isn't really a way to find out the cost of a town.)

 

[Pacioli]

Once again thanks for the information CKS!

I seem to remember a game of the month (G/C/SG?) with an isolated start where someone (Aeson, maybe?) got cities in a peace deal without ever having attacked the other civ.

I recall vmxa speaking highly of Aeson. If you remember the game, please let me know. If not, then at least I know it is possible.

 

[CKS]

It was COTM 9, and it was Aeson who did it. He mentions it in post 40 of spoiler #1, and goes into some detail about his understanding of the mechanics of extorting in post 63 (or thereabouts).

His strategy in this game was to extort a town on the far-away main continent, jump his palace there, and perform a massive teleportation of troops by donating a town to an AI civ, in order to test the power of this forbidden exploit.

 

[Hellfiredoom]

His strategy in this game was to extort a town on the far-away main continent, jump his palace there, and perform a massive teleportation of troops by donating a town to an AI civ, in order to test the power of this forbidden exploit.

This made me smile just at the sheer genius and audacity of it. But why is this considered an exploit? Maybe my definition of exploit (learned from other games) is off. To me, if no game mechanics are "worked around" then the strategy is legal. Is there a list of agreed upon exploits somewhere I can read?

 

[Hellfiredoom]

Well I did some further searching on "exploit" posts, and found this one regarding Palace Jumps as exploits. Interesting that two-thirds of respondants believe PJs to be an exploit:

Palace Jump Exploit Poll

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks for the links CKS and Hellfiredoom.

 

[Pacioli]

Is there a list of agreed upon exploits somewhere I can read?

The HOF FAQ lists a number of allowed/disallowed exploits for HOF submissions. The same is true for GOTM.

 

[Hellfiredoom]

I'll check those out, thanks!

 

[Bartleby]

It is actually possible to demand cities when at peace. Obviously it works best on lower levels when the AI is not already much more powerful than you...but an extra couple of towns before 1000 BC is still a useful boost.

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks Bartleby for the info.

 

[zenmonkey12]

I only but recently succeeded in demanding the gift of a city when asking for a peace treaty. it was in a game of Rise and Rule, playing the Japanese. I had gone to war with the Greeks to secure a source of Saltpepper. I had a wide tech lead on the Greeks, so during the war, my Samurai were fighting spearmen and archers. I finally decided to get a treaty after capturing all but three of the Greek cities (including the capital). I asked and got a city with the treaty - though the town had a population of only one and was located on the continent's interior in the center of a huge jungle.....

I've never had this happen before, and chalk it up to nearly wiping the Greeks out as well as a superior tech lead.

 

[nvm]

I found out that AI is more willing to pay you 18gpt than to give an useful city, even when you could take it at that turn...


Of course, the AI easily parts with cities on the other side of continent in middle of a jungle.

 

[ThinkTank]

There was also SGOTM 8 - Hydrophobic Americans. Rule number 1 was: "You will build no boats. Seaborne units are all disabled for America." Rule number 2 was: "You must win by Conquest." And no, it was not a pangaea map. I can recommend the thread by team Team Wacken.

 

[CKS]

SGOTM 8 was interesting, and I think everyone tried to extort as many off-island holdings as possible. Mostly I think we tried the "gift cities, declare war, retake cities" plan to make the AI think it was losing.

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks for the links ThinkTank. I would have never thought it would be possible to win a game by domination with those constraints.

 

[CKS]

That game was easy. Try getting your rival Gandhi to launch a spaceship as early as possible while staying at war with him (SGOTM9). That proved impossible.