Make your allies strong!

[aaronflavor]

Maybe this has already occured to everyone but me, as its fairly obvious. But as I have just realized it, it seems like a potent strategy--with possible downsides.

First, you need to have a few allies for which you have a significant tech lead over by mid-game. These allies should share your religion (or like you for some other reason), and appear likely to stay that way. You also need a few enemies that you'd like to get rid of, who you can convince your allies to not trade with.

Simply, gift all of your extra technology and resources (the more, the better) to all of your allies. Depending on where you stand, its quite likely to move them up very near to the top of the score list. Congratulations! If you have at least two allies, you have probably created the strongest alliance on the planet. You'll also get a +1 or +2 "provided us with technology" and later on "provided us with resources," further cementing your relationship with your allies.

Obviously you'd only want to do this if you are still far ahead of your allies in terms of commerce and production due to land area or something else; otherwise you could make them more powerful than yourself. You'll also want to make sure they are not trading, directly or indirectly, with your largest enemies.

Has anyone else tried giving away all of their tech to their allies for free? Has anyone ever had problems due to doing this, such as an ally turning on him later in the game?

 

[lawren65]

Simply, gift all of your extra technology and resources (the more, the better) to all of your allies.
.......
Has anyone else tried giving away all of their tech to their allies for free? Has anyone ever had problems due to doing this, such as an ally turning on him later in the game?

Yes, I've given away technology for free to potential allies and I've had those allies turn on me later. I don't think the AI places too much value on technology gifts. Still somewhat useful, but for you allies to be helpful against your competition, you have to give quite alot away.

One gifting you can do that's very powerful is to give away powerful miltary units. In one game I was the leader, elisibeth was 2nd and khan was constantly declaring war on elisibeth. when khan's war started to take a turn for the worse, i propped him up by giving him a few well placed machine guns and a stack of obsolete (for me) cossacks. It created quite a headache for elisibeth and allowed me to run away with the lead. When working with someone two faces like khan just be careful to giveaway mainly defensive units.........

 

[sdogg691]

i am trying that strategy at the moment giving away every tech i get to my ally the chinese. then when he has advanced military go to war against an enemy. i stopped this tactic when i had given him about 15 techs and he would still not go to war against saladin

 

[ElJojo]

You have to keep a common ennemy that's the difficulty. Because if your allies don't have anymore ennemies to conquer, then you will become their competitor and eventually their ennemy. So you have to balance that.
I also think it's better to wait for them to ask. They are really pleased when you give them a tech they asked, so it's better not to give them all.
Giving them one by one is better also because you can check their progress.

And, finally, it depends of who you are helping. If you help Gengis with military tech, he will attack someone, so it can be useful. If you help Gandhi, he won't attack anyone, he will just become bigger (which can be useful if you need his votes for the UN). I guess you should always know why you need your ally, diplomacy, religion, war etc...

 

[aaronflavor]

Well, I've noticed that you should never give away all of your techs to someone, because you may need some "collateral" to bribe them later. No matter how much you've given them in the past, they won't go to war for free.

Also, while you probably won't make your enemy more powerful than you if you pick good allies, its rather easy to make your allies (and yourself) more powerful than all of your enemies. I don't really think this is a good thing.

In addition, it is apparently not practical to get the AI to perminantly stop trading with someone. If you bribe them to stop trade, they will just start it up again soon after. I am not sure if they will keep getting -1 modifiers each time this happens, but at any rate, it becomes very expensive. This is important, because it makes it difficult to keep your technolegy from "leaking" to your enemies.

I wish the trade system were more sophisticated and allowed for more complicated treaties and agreements...

 

[Grimz101]

I wish the trade system were more sophisticated and allowed for more complicated treaties and agreements...

same lmao, where is my occupation button (forcing open borders lmao) and im making peace, they making 0 gp a turn! i should be able to demand gold so they become negative lmao, not their spare income..and 10 turns of deals is kinda bad, sure no war for 10 turns, but still should be able to extort money from them treaty of versailles style, or occupation style on the German industrial mining places , or limit their army ect . Thats the only thing lacking in the game i think, diplomacy!

 

[Viper Daimao]

whats the best way to gift a civ units if they dont have open boarders with you? you can gift subs without open boarders. So i guess you'd have to get them to agree to open them up. I guess the standard options are switching to same religion, favored civics, or war ally.

Ive gotten a negative 4 for trading with their enemy, any way to find out for sure who this is, or is it just from rejecting their request to stop trading with someone? Can I get that to go away by stopping my trade with that enemy?

 

[jerVL/kg]

Ive gotten a negative 4 for trading with their enemy, any way to find out for sure who this is, or is it just from rejecting their request to stop trading with someone?

On the Foreign Advisor screen you can click on each individual face and it will show you how every other leader feels about them. (Or you can ask each one of them, "What do you think about..." but that takes a lot longer.) I think you only get the penalty for trading with their worst enemy, so if Montezuma's annoyed with Isabella, Napoleon and Haptsheput, but furious at Mansa Musa, then you only get penalized for trading with Mansa Musa.

Refusing to stop trading with their enemies gives you a completely separate penalty.

when khan's war started to take a turn for the worse, i propped him up by giving him a few well placed machine guns and a stack of obsolete (for me) cossacks.

Did they remain cossacks when you gifted them, or did they switch back to cavalry??

 

[Glinka]

Simply, gift all of your extra technology and resources (the more, the better) to all of your allies. Depending on where you stand, its quite likely to move them up very near to the top of the score list. Congratulations! If you have at least two allies, you have probably created the strongest alliance on the planet. You'll also get a +1 or +2 "provided us with technology" and later on "provided us with resources," further cementing your relationship with your allies.

Not a good idea. Several of your opponents have invisible characteristics that make them constantly suspect as allies; so you can give Montezuma everything you want, he will still demand more, and eventually make war on you, regardless. Meanwhile Tokugawa will thank you, creep up on you, and attack when you can least afford it.

What's more, gifts are not incrementally noticed by the AI. If you give one tech or five to an AI who has a strong negative reaction to you, that benefit will still wear off just as readily. And you also have to deal with the fact that the AIs are furiously trading techs behind your back. Anything you give to a current friend will almost certainly be used either to advance a very amibitious AI, or as a bribe to an extremely ambitious AI that hates your guts.

 

[lawren65]

On the Foreign Advisor screen you can click on each

Did they remain cossacks when you gifted them, or did they switch back to cavalry??

They remained cossacks. For some reason elizibeth didn't notive the funny hats and blame me. AFAIK, I received no penalty with elizibeth for gifting the units to khan (I did recieve penalties for trading techs and resources)

BTW, I watched the battle for a while and he used the stack to recapture one city, but then he didn't do too much with the stack; they mostly stayed
in town. I was hoping the stack would start up a massive offensive on his part, but at least they kept elizibeth from gaining more ground.
-joe

 

[Viper Daimao]

"And you also have to deal with the fact that the AIs are furiously trading techs behind your back."

hmmm, that would be a neat mod, to show all the trades and stuff AI's do with each other.