How do city states use gifted units?

[Surgeon]

Do city-states conquer and keep new territory?

I have seen a city state with two cities. It may have been the city they took could not be razed.

 

[Johan de Witt]

You can gift units immediately by using the unit gift icon - but only in the city state's territory.[...]

Like YosimiteMark said before... This is untrue. You can gift units from anywhere on the map. I do think that it just takes longer for the state to get them, but I'm not sure.

You cannot click on the unit when there is a civilian unit on the same square, so be sure to move your general/settler/worker before gifting your unit.

 

[ignite]

It always takes three turns, from my own experience (I tend to check up on when they receive the units I give them), for them to receive the gifted units. The units can be anywhere, as mentioned -- your territory, enemy territory, open territory, allies' territories... I tend to gift all the junk units that militant city-states give me, but occasionally I'll gift better units if a city state is being attacked... which tends to happen when you go to war with a country and every city state you're allied with declares war on that country too.

 

[Cyberian]

during war:


when you move units in a wring way blockading other units movement paths

- gift them away

when a unit is in a hopeless position and ready to be destroyed net turn

- gift them away

when a unit takes too long to move to attack

- gift them to the front

 

[ackblom12]

I seriously love making proxy wars on other continents. In one of my games I ended up with Florence owning most of a continent after I had spent half the game gifting units to them.

Fighting wars on 3 fronts and never having to step foot on the enemies continent? Glorious.

 

[spoooq]

This all sounds like an interesting way to global reach, with very little effort required.

Gifting units that are about to be destroyed... nice.

 

[Fascion]

Similar to Rune's experience, yesterday I was doing a duel game to get a feel for raging barbarians and a win via the Utopia Project. One city-state was at war with the other Civ in the game and I didn't want to wreck relations, so I went the route of gifting units instead.

My first gift was a destroyer, which I parked outside of it's territory before manually gifting. It went on to crush what it could of the Civ's incoming forces, but it couldn't quite reach inland far enough to hit the siege units bombarding the city. So...

My next gift was a single MechInfantry. After the three-turn delay, it showed up and quickly put the opposition in it's place. Then, just as Rune has shown, it went on a rampage. In a matter of 20-25 turns it had taken and razed some four of the rival Civ's cities and quickly put him in danger of being knocked out.

I'm still not quite sure if it would have taken it all the way. Because I was so hell bent on a social win, I decided I needed to step in and take out the out-of-control unit. None too soon, either. Poor ol' Washington was left with just his capital and one other city. Scary stuff!

 

[Bhruic]

Like YosimiteMark said before... This is untrue. You can gift units from anywhere on the map. I do think that it just takes longer for the state to get them, but I'm not sure.

No, it's entirely true, you just didn't understand it. As I said, there are two ways to gift units to city states. One is to open up the city state diplomacy window, and select the "gift unit" option. You can do that anywhere. The other is to use the individual unit's "gift unit" icon. This can only be done if you are within the boundaries of the city state (or whoever you want to give it to).

Bh

 

[Johan de Witt]

Ah, my bad

 

[Ahriman]

So, you can do it from anywhere with a three turn delay, or do it instantly from within their borders.

Is that right?

Do both methods have the same diplomatic effect?

 

[Fascion]

So, you can do it from anywhere with a three turn delay, or do it instantly from within their borders.

Is that right?

Do both methods have the same diplomatic effect?

Correct.

If you gift them manually within the borders of the city-state, they receive the unit at that moment, but are unable to use it until the beginning of the next turn (similar to upgrading your own units.)

When you gift a unit through the gifting option on the city-state's talk option, the unit will immediately disappear. After a three turn delay (after gifting, having all human players end their turn three times) the unit pops up somewhere inside their territory where it can be used for the actions of that turn.



As for the diplomatic ramifications, I don't rightly know. In my game, Washington didn't seem to get too bent out of shape about it. Heck, he even accepted open borders with me after losing four cities to my gifted units, allowing me to get in there faster and 'resolve the problem.'

Does anyone know if there is an announcement in multiplayer when you gift a unit to a city-state using either method? If so, then I can't help but imagine it has some sort of an effect. If there is not, then it's just a matter if it's one of those things that AI just "knows" even though they shouldn't, like settling cities in areas they couldn't possibly have explored, but getting called out on settling too close to them for it.

 

[Seven05]

Well, you guys are figuring out how I conquer so much territory without making any enemies, I let my little minions do the dirty work and then I move in with settlers before their borders take it all.

For the full effect, declare war on the civ your CS minions are destroying and get in their with some fast units and pillage everything you can for more gold to use to get more city state allies.

 

[Grotius]

Hmm, I have been trying to use the gift option on the city-state-talk screen, and no matter where I click on the military unit, nothing happens. Perhaps my targeted city-state had reached its limit of units?

As for diplomatic ramifications: I'm particularly curious whether both methods (i.e., gifting inside the CS's territory, and gifting via the CS's talk screen) improve your Influence with the city-state.

 

[Bhruic]

If a unit has used up all its moves for a turn, you can't gift it.

Bh

 

[Sable]

You can gift a unit to a city state from =anywhere= on the map, simply by clicking on the city state and choosing 'gift unit' then finding the unit on the map and clicking it. I often use the units that military states give me to supliment the army of any city state that I think could use the help. There does seem to be some sort of upper limit to how many units they can have though. Also there is a bug that a unit gifted to a city state, but still during the transitional period, does not remember it was gifted during a reload. So if you save-reload during play, make sure not to gift any units during this time.

City states do NOT raze capitals, including other city states. They sometimes don't raze a city if it is close enough to their borders, but I don't know what the specifics on this are. Either way you get the new resources they acquire, and any perks associated with them (including additional research) if you have the patronage policies.

OH, I see. Yeah, I did a reload, and the unit got dumped right back into my possession. That's good to know, though if the city-state is reasonably close, my feeling is that it's faster to embark the unit over to the city-state. Thanks for clarifying