How do I steal 2 CS workers without influence hit?

[FilthyRobot]

Hey Guys,

I've seen players do it (via stream) where they have take 2 workers, had 2 war decs and not lose permanent resting influence with any CS!

How are they doing it? What's the key component?

Time? How many turns in between?
Location? How far away from the CS?
Same CS or different CS?

What's the trick here?

 

[Moriarte]

Hi.

You might do that, but the downside is you won't be able to receive 15/30 gold from the rest of unmet CS. Much simpler to grab two workers from the same CS.

Best CS to steal from is the one, which has luxury resource in it's 3rd ring. (sometimes second ring will work too) The trick here is to be out of line of sight of CS when you position your scout/warrior for a snatch.

Look at this picture:

Spoiler :

You know Sydney will want to improve horses. So, position your scout where the trading post is, 2 tiles to the north east from Sydney's borders. In about 10 turns there will be another worker for you there.

 

[FilthyRobot]

Hi.

You might do that, but the downside is you won't be able to receive 15/30 gold from the rest of unmet CS. Much simpler to grab two workers from the same CS.

Can you explain that more?

I see players take 2 workers from 2 different CS and not take a permanent reduction in standing and I want to know how.

 

[Moriarte]

You will get permanent reduction in standing, but only with a cluster of city states. I don't know the exact mechanic. The way i think it works - city states within certain proximity "know" that you made a declaration of war on one of their own, so you get reduction in influence rates, yet other city states on the map remain unaware and you will not get influence reduction with them. On top of that you will stop receiving any further "welcome gifts" from future CS encounters if you make 2x DOW. Don't quote me on this one though. Just my impressions..

 

[FilthyRobot]

You will get permanent reduction in standing, but only with a cluster of city states. I don't know the exact mechanic. The way i think it works - city states within certain proximity "know" that you made a declaration of war on one of their own, so you get reduction in influence rates, yet other city states on the map remain unaware and you will not get influence reduction with them. On top of that you will stop receiving any further "welcome gifts" from future CS encounters if you make 2x DOW. Don't quote me on this one though. Just my impressions..

Anyone have any idea about how many tiles or how long?

 

[Makavcio]

I usually pick a city state before meeting anyone else or any other city state, and use it for farming experience and workers. I don't think it's hurting me in any way even when civs met later on become allied to the city state or offer them protection. Such acts don't seem to be affecting wars already in progress.

So, all in all, just pick one city and focus on it. Just make sure its terrain can support your tactic. What Moriarte gave as example is almost optimal but you can also use faster units to move out of cs's sight and then closer again, or you can use the fact that the worker will have to spend all his movement on a hill/forest/jungle if it's on his way to safety of the city.

If you are a total arschloch, attack a city state with borders developed to the 3rd ring and with an improvement there, capture their worker, pillage the improvement and instantly rebuild it with the captured worker. You can easily ~10 gpt from this exploit per worked tile while spending only a fraction of this sum on the additional unit. On a side note, a pillaged improvement is an even better trap than an unimproved luxury resource.

 

[JamesCivFan]

It's a bad, bad idea to declare war on two different CS. You can declare on one CS AND one Civ. But never 2 CS. As Moriarte said, it's best if you steal 2 workers (or more) from the same CS.

Remember, you don't have to make peace immediately. In BNW, the influence with the CS you DOWed goes back to normal even while you are at war with them. This has been tested numerous times. So, keep being at war for a handful of turns, steal 2-3 workers, and then make peace. Your influence should be close to 0 now (coming up from the negatives) and they will probably even put up a quest for you. I have personally tested this on both Immortal and Deity a lot of times and it works wonders. I do it in every single game I play.

 

[Resipsa]

It's a bad, bad idea to declare war on two different CS. You can declare on one CS AND one Civ. But never 2 CS. As Moriarte said, it's best if you steal 2 workers (or more) from the same CS.

Remember, you don't have to make peace immediately. In BNW, the influence with the CS you DOWed goes back to normal even while you are at war with them. This has been tested numerous times. So, keep being at war for a handful of turns, steal 2-3 workers, and then make peace. Your influence should be close to 0 now (coming up from the negatives) and they will probably even put up a quest for you. I have personally tested this on both Immortal and Deity a lot of times and it works wonders. I do it in every single game I play.

I wish you could "like" or "upvote" posts. This is good advice

 

[Buccaneer]

It's a bad, bad idea to declare war on two different CS. You can declare on one CS AND one Civ. But never 2 CS. As Moriarte said, it's best if you steal 2 workers (or more) from the same CS.

Remember, you don't have to make peace immediately. In BNW, the influence with the CS you DOWed goes back to normal even while you are at war with them. This has been tested numerous times. So, keep being at war for a handful of turns, steal 2-3 workers, and then make peace. Your influence should be close to 0 now (coming up from the negatives) and they will probably even put up a quest for you. I have personally tested this on both Immortal and Deity a lot of times and it works wonders. I do it in every single game I play.

I assume you would get your 3rd and 4th worker this way? This certainly wouldn't be your first two workers because I don't think CS gets workers out early enough.

 

[Resipsa]

I assume you would get your 3rd and 4th worker this way? This certainly wouldn't be your first two workers because I don't think CS gets workers out early enough.

Its for workers number 1-4 on deity and probably immortal too. They come out faster on Deity around turn 6-10 and probably turn 20-25 on immortal. However if they have a sea lux they might build a fishing boat first. the faster you steal them the faster they build another worker and not an archer/warrior.

 

[JamesCivFan]

I assume you would get your 3rd and 4th worker this way? This certainly wouldn't be your first two workers because I don't think CS gets workers out early enough.

Yes. That's correct. My first worker is usually hand-built. It comes on ~T25. That is unless I am really lucky with ruins and I have enough gold to rush-buy one. Otherwise I will keep my money and depending on the cities I have, I will either buy my last worker (after getting 2-3 from the CS) or a library in one of my cities that cannot build it in time for the NC.

EDIT: @Resipsa, Thank you for your comment! And to be honest, it has happened to me to get the 1st worker from a CS, but you have to be on Deity where the CS production is higher, and it has to be very close to your borders. This doesn't happen to me that often... Having a close AI neighbor with open terrain, though? Now, that's a blessing. They have the worker from T1, so you can steal it pretty easily. Oh, and they always ask for peace a few turns later if you manage to escape with their worker. As a bonus, it has happened to me sometimes that they even ask for a DoF! I was speechless when it happened. Someone in these forums said (I think it was ElCee) that the AI's behavior if you declare war on them super early is like how ants act if you create turbulence on their ant colony. They go all over the place not knowing how to act and what to do.

 

[Ryika]

EDIT: @Resipsa, Thank you for your comment! And to be honest, it has happened to me to get the 1st worker from a CS, but you have to be on Deity where the CS production is higher, and it has to be very close to your borders. This doesn't happen to me that often... Having a close AI neighbor with open terrain, though? Now, that's a blessing. They have the worker from T1, so you can steal it pretty easily. Oh, and they always ask for peace a few turns later if you manage to escape with their worker. As a bonus, it has happened to me sometimes that they even ask for a DoF! I was speechless when it happened. Someone in these forums said (I think it was ElCee) that the AI's behavior if you declare war on the super early is like how ants act if you create turbulence on their ant colony. They go all over the place not knowing how to act and what to do.

When playing below Deity I'd even deny their peace-requests and use them to train my units and to keep them in their city, so that you can expand more freely. If you manage to pick off their first round of units (which can be really easy or quite tricky, depending on the terrain), you've got an exp-farm for the rest of the game.