Gifting units to be slaughtered

[bode404]

I've recently thought of a crazy strategy, about build a lot of weak units, giving them to an AI, then declaring war in the same turn and slaughtering them all with stronger ones, in order to get XP and GGs.
Has anyone tried it before? Is there a reason for it not to work? I still didnt try it out...

 

[hoopsnerd]

I've recently thought of a crazy strategy, about build a lot of weak units, giving them to an AI, then declaring war in the same turn and slaughtering them all with stronger ones, in order to get XP and GGs.
Has anyone tried it before? Is there a reason for it not to work? I still didnt try it out...

That doesn't sound like a very effecient strategy... why don't you just upgrade the weaker units and kill a civ that already has weaker units? I think it would work if you wanted to cripple an enemy with War Weariness by building the SoZ and gifting him the units after he attacked you and then destroyed them immediately, but the logistics of that dont make it a viable strategy anyways -- wouldnt it be much more effecient to capture cities while you make GG pointsand XP?

 

[Phrederick]

That'll give war weariness, since it'll have to be in their territory if you attack in the same turn. The AI won't always accept units, either, although I don't know how they determine when to accept gifted units. It would also obviously only work with civs you have open borders with.

Other than that, I don't see why it wouldn't work. It seems a little cheap so I'm not going to be doing that in my games,

 

[BronzeAge]

What a rediculous waste of maintenance if you are just going to slaughter them anyhow.

 

[Silence101]

I would be more worried that the AI would upgrade the units you gifted into stronger ones - that, and the wasted production on units that you're giving away.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Sounds like an interesting idea, I frequently give my obsolete units to vassals so they can waste money upgrading and maintaining them and it also helps them improve their power rating as they never build up for a war unless you drag them into one.
As long as you declared in the same turn as you gifted them they wouldn't have a chance to upgrade them.
Isn't it a little cold hearted sending your troops into a foreign land, telling them they now serve another nation, and then killing them for being a traitor

 

[Silence101]

Oh, gifting and attacking in the same turn - I never thought of that before. That's an interesting idea. I still don't think I'd ever do it, though. I could see me attacking and beating the units I gifted, but then AI comes in with their real units against my healing stack and slaughters them all before I have a chance to promote them.

A little cold hearted to kill your own gifted units - yes... but this is Civ. Since when are we concerned about ethics?

 

[bode404]

Yeah, it really doesnt sound too much effective, but I found it quite different.
Attacking only the real enemy seems to be better.

However, does War weariness determines how willing to stop a war the AI is? If so, after raising his WW high enough, you could make him pay you something big for making peace, especially for rich and peaceful civs.

 

[SevenSpirits]

What a novel idea! How about gifting them your stack of worker units before you attack, then taking them all back at once? If this affects the AIs perception of who is winning the war, that means free techs for you.

 

[axident]

Interesting idea. I usually gift obsolete crap to vassals (AIs get cheaper upgrade costs), or better yet, have them perform happy-making duties in my away-from-the-front cities. But I can see how you might get away with gifting a ton of slow units to another civ right at the border and then DoW and collateralling/attacking them to death.

Is it efficient? No.

Can it give you some GG points? Probably yes, though not a significant amount if they are obsolete, as each unit will probably only put up token resistance = 1 xp each.

Seven Spirits had a nice comment about workers, too.

 

[oyzar]

this sounds like it could used as a nice "exploit" to vassalize AI. Since the AI determines who wins a war by who have killed most units. If you gift him say 10 warriors then kill them all with axemen before taking 1 city of him he would prolly vasalize right away.

 

[torsoboy]

Yesterday I had three galleys left from ancient times, so I gifted them to Saladin and immediately sunk them with my privateers.

 

[axident]

Yesterday I had three galleys left from ancient times, so I gifted them to Saladin and immediately sunk them with my privateers.

NICE! You didn't even have to declare war!

 

[Airefuego]

that privateer trick is gold.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Is it efficient? No.

Why not?
The only thing I'd think about gifting would be warriors/archers and maybe the odd spearman/axemen depending on the era perhaps a wandering scout if you still have one exploring anywhere. If I'm not in Hereditary Rule anymore then they're pretty much useless and too expensive to upgrade IMO especially how you may have the odd no XP unit from pre-barracks MP.

Can it give you some GG points? Probably yes, though not a significant amount if they are obsolete, as each unit will probably only put up token resistance = 1 xp each.

Sure you might not get many GG points but the unit XP is just as good I think, just choose an attacker with 1 XP needed to level.

 

[axident]

Why not?
The only thing I'd think about gifting would be warriors/archers and maybe the odd spearman/axemen depending on the era perhaps a wandering scout if you still have one exploring anywhere. If I'm not in Hereditary Rule anymore then they're pretty much useless and too expensive to upgrade IMO especially how you may have the odd no XP unit from pre-barracks MP.



Sure you might not get many GG points but the unit XP is just as good I think, just choose an attacker with 1 XP needed to level.

You might as well do the military xp point factory like in the other thread then. I tend to dump my obsolete units into cities for the scare factor, or gift them to vassals. This trick would net you a one-time xp bonus at the expense of having to DoW, but on the other hand you might get some stuff to extort as well. So it's okay but not as efficient as the military xp factory and not gamebreaking.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

You might as well do the military xp point factory like in the other thread then. I tend to dump my obsolete units into cities for the scare factor, or gift them to vassals. This trick would net you a one-time xp bonus at the expense of having to DoW, but on the other hand you might get some stuff to extort as well. So it's okay but not as efficient as the military xp factory and not gamebreaking.

I gift my obsolete units away to vassals also. But sometimes when you don't have a vassal this could be a useful trick, as long as you are going to declare war anyway.

I might give this a go for a bit of fun, but for the most part it just feels wrong. No offence to the OP for coming up with this though . Ideas is what CFC is all about

 

[hoopsnerd]

I can't believe that many of you think that this is some kind of great idea... I just can't see myself doing this. Giving the AI more troops instead of upgrading them to add to your stack? That sounds insane to me... What difficulty/speed/mapsize are we all playing? I play Emperor or above on Marathon/Huge.

 

[axident]

I can't believe that many of you think that this is some kind of great idea... I just can't see myself doing this. Giving the AI more troops instead of upgrading them to add to your stack? That sounds insane to me... What difficulty/speed/mapsize are we all playing? I play Emperor or above on Marathon/Huge.

I play Emperor or Immortal, Normal/Standard. What's your point? You WANT to blow gold on upgrading crappy warriors and archers?

 

[hoopsnerd]

I play Emperor or Immortal, Normal/Standard. What's your point? You WANT to blow gold on upgrading crappy warriors and archers?

Yeah, I do want to "blow" my gold on crappy warriors and archers, I get it free from the AI anyways.

Edit: Oops, I go on tanjents too easy.

To answer your question, my point is that the speed you play at probably (ive played Normal speed once in my life) has a huge impact on whether this is a smart strategy. It also probably has a huge impact on whether or not to upgrade your troops. I always upgrade mine because my "friendly" AI friends don't seem to mind donating gold to my cause every so often. I'm a big proponent of spending the gold that's in your treasury -- the time value of money seems to hold no weight in civ, so it seems most effecient to spend it on things that can benefit you immediately. What the hell is your savings account going to get you? Granted - once it's real late in the game and I'm running Universal Suffrage, then I'll sometimes save gold to rush buildings in under-developed cities and whatnot, but otherwise I find gold totally worthless EXCEPT for upgrading troops, rushing buildings, and running a spending deficit for research. If anyone would like to help me improve my strategy in this regard by making suggestions I'd be willing to listen. I'm trying to break through to diety so every little bit would help...