Kill any scouts you find in the first 10 turns

[civzombie]

Its fairly common to, in the first few turns, encounter a scout belonging to a neighboring civ with your starting warrior.

If the scout is on open ground, or if you can declare war and via zone of control force the scout to move onto open land, consider just killing the scount. You can usually one shot kill a scout on open lands with a warrior. Often with zone of control you can ensure that he won't get away even if he survives the first shot. The key for this tactic is to either find the scout on open ground (or in a position where you can force him onto it), otherwise you might have a hard time ensuring that the scout dies.

I started doing this as montezuma, but then I tried it with a lot of other civs, and what I have observed is the following:
- killing their scout will net you alot more goody huts. The starting map is just littered with these, but often your neighbor pops a good portion of them. If you kill their scout within the first 10 turns or so, expect to find more than usual.
- related to the above, killing their scout will net you more gold from discovering city states
- there seems to be a decent chance that the target will sue for peace some time letter, getting you more gold
- since you ran into the scout within 10 turns or less, the target civ is likely to be close. Close civs typically seem to turn into an enemy under the current diplomacy system anyway (penalty for sharing borders, settling near us, etc.)

 

[aimlessgun]

Do you get a general diplo bonus with everyone if you're declaring war a lot? Or is it just conquering cities that gives you the universal penalty?

 

[Zyphen]

I've declared war just to pick off enemy units, and you still get a diplo penalty for "warmongering."

 

[aimlessgun]

I've declared war just to pick off enemy units, and you still get a diplo penalty for "warmongering."

Yeah in that case killing scouts could be a terrible idea if you wanted a peaceful game, or if you didn't want to get dogpiled too early

 

[pickle]

but could be a decent tactic if you are planning on being a warmonger anyway

 

[civzombie]

Chances are this early in the game that no civs know each other. So the odds of this incident reflecting badly on you are low (I don't think your reputation preceeds you with the AI, or it doesnt seem to in my experience anyway... maybe someone who is more familiar with diplomacy can chime in).

Of course, yes, that risk could be the cost of this strategy in some cases.

 

[Pouakai]

It only is a penalty with people you know.

 

[troytheface]

the evidence is clear- Kill All Scouts

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm leaning...strongly...towards turning city ruins off consistently anyway. They're even more than huts in terms of balance and their outcomes having nothing to do with playing ability whatsoever. V reduced the amount of stupid luck influencing the outcome of the game - keeping it that way by disabling broken features is a plus.

When I get pikes or better it's too hard not to just go for the killshot on a very weak AI capitol early in the game X_X.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I turn off ruins most of the time, now.
First game I was just trying to figure out how to play, and I decided to reduce the # of civs to 4 on a huge map.

Some turns later, I was attacked by mech infantry.
And I thought I was teching well with my chariot archers.

 

[Paeanblack]

The upsides of popping AI scouts (more ruins/early XP/better relative army strength) seem to far outweigh the downsides (exploring units slightly wounded/rep hit)

For me, this has been true on most game settings and difficulty levels, even on Deity.

If I think there are still ruins to be found, I generally kill AI explorers. Once the ruins are probably gone, I'm more likely to let the AI live, since they are probably based further away, and I may want a longer-term trade/research partner.

 

[Bleser]

Some turns later, I was attacked by mech infantry.
And I thought I was teching well with my chariot archers.

WOW, it sucks that happened to you, but man, if I got that lucky through city ruins then I'd be steamrolling everything just for the fun of it. Then I'd turn off city ruins from that point on.

 

[HermannLombard]

It only is a penalty with people you know.

Hmm...early on in my current game I pissed off Siam as in "the world shall know of your treachery!" (Some people just can't take a joke.) At that point I had not encountered any of the (surviving) AI civs, since they were overseas, but they all call me dishonorable.

 

[zimmah]

hmm i thnk this works better in singleplayer.

if you do this in multiplayer, then you might get whiped out by the combined forces of everyone who is near you.