Gifting units to be slaughtered

[axident]

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...

Er? Why do you have piles of money lying around in the first place? Do you usually have a big surplus even with slider at 100% science? You can hit up friendlies for gold sometimes, but that won't net you enough gold to upgrade lots of warriors -> infantry or anything big like that. If I had a big stockpile of gold, I'd only use it to upgrade stuff that could provide a big bang for the buck, like HA->Cavs or CG-promoted crossbows->machine guns during emergencies. Gold can be used to lubricate trades (including trades to tell someone to war with someone else), fund deficit research, pay off bullies, purchase buildings under UniSuff, building corporate branches, etc. I think JJ or someone else did a calculation on how efficient it is to upgrade and apparently it's more efficient under Marathon? Or maybe I have that backwards. But it's not a great ratio or anything on Normal. Also, I thought Marathon was the speed of choice for those who want to run over the AIs early because your units don't go obsolete as fast... in which case you won't have much need to upgrade many of them, or even if you do, by that point you probably have half the map anyway so why are we talking about this.

P.S. Speaking of efficiency, it's more efficient to upgrade troops by sending them to vassals which get big discounts on upgrades... though in practice this usually doesn't work out too well because the AI sometimes won't upgrade them, and sometimes you don't want them to get too big of a military as they might even capture an enemy city that you didn't want them to capture. Still, I gift them anyway. Less maintenance for me, higher combined power rating for us, and maybe the AI will use them where I want them and not ignore me when I ask them to attack city X!

 

[hoopsnerd]

Er? Why do you have piles of money lying around in the first place? Do you usually have a big surplus even with slider at 100% science? You can hit up friendlies for gold sometimes, but that won't net you enough gold to upgrade lots of warriors -> infantry or anything big like that. If I had a big stockpile of gold, I'd only use it to upgrade stuff that could provide a big bang for the buck, like HA->Cavs or CG-promoted crossbows->machine guns during emergencies. Gold can be used to lubricate trades (including trades to tell someone to war with someone else), fund deficit research, pay off bullies, purchase buildings under UniSuff, building corporate branches, etc. I think JJ or someone else did a calculation on how efficient it is to upgrade and apparently it's more efficient under Marathon? Or maybe I have that backwards. But it's not a great ratio or anything on Normal. Also, I thought Marathon was the speed of choice for those who want to run over the AIs early because your units don't go obsolete as fast... in which case you won't have much need to upgrade many of them, or even if you do, by that point you probably have half the map anyway so why are we talking about this.

I play marathon for realism, not so i can be cheap against the AI . Yeah, usually if I have any warriors laying around they got upgraded to macemen or axemen or swordsmen during that era when i had a little extra cash. I usually upgarde them 1-2 at a time (as needed) so I dont need piles of cash to do it -- plus I dont normally build many military units early (as few as possible, usually) so the ones that survive are usually veteran.

This is what's great about CFC, I can compare my games to yours and vice-versa.

 

[axident]

I play marathon for realism, not so i can be cheap against the AI . Yeah, usually if I have any warriors laying around they got upgrade to macemen or axemen or swordsmen during that era when i had a little extra cash. I usually upgarde them 1-2 at a time (as needed) so I dont need piles of cash to do it -- plus I dont normally build many military units early (as few as possible, usually) so the ones that survive are usually veteran.

This is what's great about CFC, I can compare my games to yours and vice-versa.

Hey if it works, it works, more power to you. I'll try to find that thread by JJ I think it was, talking about how upgrade costs don't scale up 1:1 with turns. All I know is, it's somewhat expensive to upgrade units on Normal!

 

[hoopsnerd]

Hey if it works, it works, more power to you. I'll try to find that thread by JJ I think it was, talking about how upgrade costs don't scale up 1:1 with turns. All I know is, it's somewhat expensive to upgrade units on Normal!

Yeah -- it is TOTALY expensive to upgrade a warrior or archer to infantry or rifleman. I usually have most of my archers upgraded to longbowmen well before that because I tend to play with a lot of AIs so I need to be well defended with the fewest possible troops. I want my power graph to be big and my unit cost to be small -- seems to deter those senseless (through another AI's massive territory) AI attacks on a crowded map.

 

[Larklight]

, and sometimes you don't want them to get too big of a military as they might even capture an enemy city that you didn't want them to capture.

You can ask them to attack a particular city, and they'll do it, even if it's suicidal.

You can eve use this against war allies whom you don't want to get the cities. Tell them to attack a city a bit further away when they're just at the city gates. You have to be careful, I think, that the city they're at isn't en route to the next one, in which case the might attack ti anyway.

Incidentally, is it worthwile gifting units to the lossing side ever? I had instigated a mass-war on the other continent: Suliman + vassals vs Catheine and Hya Capac, but Suliman started to win. Clearly, I didn't want him to gain control of a continental block, so I started to gift units to the other side.

Was this worthwhile?

 

[hoopsnerd]

You can ask them to attack a particular city, and they'll do it, even if it's suicidal.

You can eve use this against war allies whom you don't want to get the cities. Tell them to attack a city a bit further away when they're just at the city gates. You have to be careful, I think, that the city they're at isn't en route to the next one, in which case the might attack ti anyway.

Incidentally, is it worthwile gifting units to the lossing side ever? I had instigated a mass-war on the other continent: Suliman + vassals vs Catheine and Hya Capac, but Suliman started to win. Clearly, I didn't want him to gain control of a continental block, so I started to gift units to the other side.

Was this worthwhile?

Whoa, that was the most worthwhile post I've ever heard if you'll tell me how I can command my vassals to attack a particular city .

 

[Larklight]

Whoa, that was the most worthwhile post I've ever heard if you'll tell me how I can command my vassals to attack a particular city .

Why Thankyou! Always happy to help.

Go to the start talking to them, and then it's under 'discuss soemthing else' I think. Then 'we'd like you to attack...'
Unfortunitly there is no option for 'attack the massive stack outside my Capital'

Yeah -- it is TOTALY expensive to upgrade a warrior or archer to infantry or rifleman.

While in practise eon-spanning upgradeas aren't worth it, in theory they're more effient, as you pay per additional hammer cost plus a flat rate of 20 (so one big jump is better than many little ones) However, in practise you can't afford to have rubbish men hanging around.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Why Thankyou! Always happy to help.

Go to the start talking to them, and then it's under 'discuss soemthing else' I think. Then 'we'd like you to attack...'
Unfortunitly there is no option for 'attack the massive stack outside my Capital'

While in practise eon-spanning upgradeas aren't worth it, in theory they're more effient, as you pay per additional hammer cost plus a flat rate of 20 (so one big jump is better than many little ones) However, in practise you can't afford to have rubbish men hanging around.

Where's the smily for bowing down? I officially love you, Larklight. I can't believe I didn't know about that -- and I consider myself a veteran player. Wow, finally a use for vassals... can't thank you enough.

On a side note, I also didn't ever research what the rate is for upgrading units. The flat rate is only 20gp? 20gp sounds like a small price to pay for the upgrade of any unit at any time to me -- just to prevent my production cities from having to 'waste' additional hammers on more troops when they can put my massive economy to work instead.

 

[Larklight]

Where's the smily for bowing down? I officially love you, Larklight. I can't believe I didn't know about that -- and I consider myself a veteran player. Wow, finally a use for vassals... can't thank you enough.

Made my evening Well, if you wanna realy make my evening, my paypal account is...

Oops, sorry- I'm not sure what the cost per hammer is, but it's that plus 20 extra- hense why it costs to turn inf. into SAM inf., rather than paying you

One gold per hammer seems likely though. Or even 2-3, since that's the exchange rate in other places.

Very nice sig. btw- I used that one quite a lot in conmversation with a freind, but could never quite remember it

 

[SevenSpirits]

It's 20 + 3*hammer difference.

For example, warrior (15) to axeman (35) is 80.

This is at least true on Normal speed.

 

[Airefuego]

I like this idea because it's funny to imagine... gift, then slaughter!

But it is clearly an exploit, and probably not great management either.

If you have many excess out-of-date troops, and can't afford to upgrade them, you should probably have deleted them years ago. Or if you can afford to keep them, keep them to upgrade later. XPs aren't THAT hard to come by! Plus the strat is going to delay your real war attack by a few turns. Personally I prefer to strike for the enemy capital instantly, rather than mess around being sophisticated!

 

[Cer]

But it is clearly an exploit, and probably not great management either.

I won't call it an exploit unless somebody shows me that you can get some benefit out of it. If you gift units and then declare war and kill them on the same turn, you'll be the one who gets hit with war weariness, not the guy that you gave the units to... because they'll be on his home turf.

 

[Silence101]

I honestly don't think it's a huge exploit either - unless the units are just uber-obsolete, you run the risk of weakening your attack force to a degree. I'd think that the more experience points you end up getting, the more you run that risk - and the person you attack may follow up with a real army before you have a chance to promote / regroup. (Unless you just gifted workers - but do you even get experience for capturing workers?) Either way, it may be an occasional viable strategy, but unless there's just something I'm missing, it doesn't seem to me that the benefits largely justify the time and labor to the point where I'd make this a part of my regular war strategy. Again though, it may be a good tactic to keep in your bag of tricks for occasional use.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I won't call it an exploit unless somebody shows me that you can get some benefit out of it. If you gift units and then declare war and kill them on the same turn, you'll be the one who gets hit with war weariness, not the guy that you gave the units to... because they'll be on his home turf.

This makes me want to enact an elaborate plan where I gift the units in a culturally contested area I don't control, then declare war, then either use a culture bomb capture the enemy city whose culture it is with double-move units.

THEN attack those warriors.

Of course, you'll want to have the Great Wall as well for the bonus within your borders.

And no, this is not a good idea.

 

[SevenSpirits]

(Unless you just gifted workers - but do you even get experience for capturing workers?)

You do not get experience from workers, but you might trick the AI into thinking you're winning the war much more than you are. I don't think anyone has posted whether this works or not yet.

 

[Silence101]

Plus the strat is going to delay your real war attack by a few turns. Personally I prefer to strike for the enemy capital instantly, rather than mess around being sophisticated!

Exactly - good point. When I declare war, I typically want to strike strong and fast before the target Civ has time to adjust.

 

[Silence101]

You do not get experience from workers, but you might trick the AI into thinking you're winning the war much more than you are. I don't think anyone has posted whether this works or not yet.

I guess maybe I don't see the value of that - I mean you're either winning the war or you're not. You either take 5 cities from them or you don't... and if you do, I don't think that 3 or 4 workers you recaptured is going to make a big difference. And I probably wouldn't declare war just to fool the AI into thinking I was dangerous in order to grab an extra tech. <-- EDIT: Most of the time I wouldn't do that... granted, there may be a time and place for that kind of tactic.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

"For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven."
- Ecclesiastes

Sometimes I have workers waiting around for railroad duty, if I had a war planned I guess I'd try and do the worker recaputure thingee.

 

[axident]

You can ask them to attack a particular city, and they'll do it, even if it's suicidal.

You can eve use this against war allies whom you don't want to get the cities. Tell them to attack a city a bit further away when they're just at the city gates. You have to be careful, I think, that the city they're at isn't en route to the next one, in which case the might attack ti anyway.

Incidentally, is it worthwile gifting units to the lossing side ever? I had instigated a mass-war on the other continent: Suliman + vassals vs Catheine and Hya Capac, but Suliman started to win. Clearly, I didn't want him to gain control of a continental block, so I started to gift units to the other side.

Was this worthwhile?

They sometimes but not always attack the city I want them to attack. I'm not sure if you have to keep doing it every turn or if they remember... someone said that the AI basically forgets everything from turn to turn except what kind of vic they are pursuing and if they are preparing for war against someone.

 

[MestreLion]

A little side-track here... as for WW, you get almost NO WW from troops defending within your cultural border. It means that, as far as WW is concerned, you will get much more WW from killing your ex-troops on enemy territory than he is going to get by defending and losing thse units on his cultural borders.