New exploit/cheat - rush build to pacify

[alamo]

I have not seen this mentioned before as a tactic, but it is something I find useful in my solo games. It does seem a bit unfair, though.

As you know, you can rush build under despot and communism. You may not have noticed that you can 'bootstrap' the hurry process to complete a building or just cull the population in a single turn. This is especially useful when you are a religious civ, so you can switch to communism/despot as needed for one turn.

Consider this scenario: You are at war with a strong cultural civ, and have just taken a city far from you capital and close to their capital. You are concerned about defection and collapsed cultural boundaries. The solution? As soon as the resistors are quelled you hurry build the most expensive cultural building available. This addresses both problems at once by giving you a culture building and reducing the pop of disloyal citizens.

You do this by first hurrying the highest shield cost item available that will consume only 1 pop. Then repeat the process, choosing the most expensive item that consumes the least pop. Eventually you have enough for the desired building, or only 1 pop left. If you run out of pop then take the next best building. After that is complete use whatever remains to get a head start on the next build order. Don't stop until only 1 pop remains.


My choice is for courthouse/library/temple/wall for larger cities, and wall/temple/library for front-line cities. I have completely eliminated the defection problem in this way, even when I am far behind in culture. An added bonus is the faster rebuilding of the city and repopulating with your citizens, since the surounding land is usually primed for fast growth. This also mitigates the problem of foul mood, since the pop is low during the next 20 turns anyway.


As I said, I sometimes have a guilty feeling after moving my troops down the road after 2-4 turns. What do you think? Is it a cheat or just an exploit?

 

[Matrix]

Mwoh. I see it more as a good tactic.

But then again, who am I? (Hey, CB? )

 

[Bamspeedy]

You'll have a ton of unhappiness with all that whipping, though.

 

[DaveMcW]

This is not an exploit.

Non-religious civs do the same thing by starving the city. In fact, even as a religious civ I would never cripple my entire empire under despotism/communism just to stop a few hopelessly corrupt cities from flipping.

I leave 1 wounded offensive unit in each captured city to wear down resistance while it starves. If a city does flip I simply reconquer it, no big deal. By the time the war ends the enemy is either defeated or their capitol is too far away for flips.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

If anybody can win the gold medal because of this, I think we should let them.

 

[alamo]

Let me be clear about the 'cheat' part:

The hurry order to complete a building will be refused at first, but after hurrying something smaller the building is now within reach. This is exploiting the 'person-to-shield' calculation at least, and circumventing the restriction.

Another thing, you can cull the pop down to 1 by hurrying and discarding the shields on a small item. This is mass murder without the rep hit.

Obviously this will not make or break the high scores that get posted here, but it may not be in the spirit of the game.

In my humble games the loss of a newly-conquered city could be a major setback, or worse if I am nursing the few surviving troops in the newly conquered city. Also, the loss of easy movement in friendly territory could be crippling in an early war.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Yes, when you rush with 0 shields in the hopper the cost of rushing is doubled. Rushing a cheaper item first and then switching to something else is not a cheat. Try disbanding a unit first and then rushing, same sort of effect and that is not a cheat either.

Your too worried about culture flips, and if you want to protect against them like this it's your choice but it's probably easier to leave a single offensive unit outside the city and just win it back if it flips.

Daves advise is good also.

 

[alamo]

Yes, those are good points.

The bootstrapping works beyond the first shield effect, though. Usually you get a shield in the same turn that resisters cease.

I have starved down cities too, when I was non-religious or in a comfortable lead with many productive cities.

However, starving down a city on size 12 takes 11 turns, with no buildings to show for it. More importantly, it occupies your army, either parked inside or just outside.

At least now I know this is not a tactic widely used.

 

[civ_steve]

You've already run some risk of the city flipping while calming down the resistance. You can't rush until the resistance is ended, but you can disband units; this is a faster way to build that cultural improvement.

Something else you can do is bombard the city into submission prior to taking it. The goal is to reduce the population to 6 or less, and reduce all defender's hp count to 1 (ideally). This can be viewed as a faster form of starving, and it reduces the city defense bonus that the defenders receive. Joining workers or settlers to the city after will also reduce the likelihood of it flipping, as your citizens will outnumber the native citizens.

I've used the "progressive" pop-rush under despotism in a few cases, early on in my game. I'm surprised Firaxis left this capability in, if their intention was to limit pop-rushing to 50% of the city's population. I wouldn't consider it exploitive, due to the other options available to you, and because of the Government switch you'd likely be doing to employ it.

 

[DaveMcW]

Be careful joining workers to newly captured cities. They do not affect the culture flip formula, they only eliminate the reputation hit if you abandon a city where your citizens outnumber the foreign citizens.

In fact, massive pop rushing after you join workers is an illegal exploit.

 

[Ribannah]

It is not an exploit. In fact, it is very stupid. You throw away (at least) two turns for your entire empire by switching governments, just to remedy the off-chance that some irrelevant periferial city may flip back. And it STILL might.
The easy solution is to pay a little cash and build a temple.

In the very beginning, it can in exceptional cases be a good tactic to rush partially (eg to a spearman and then finish a settler), but the difference will rarely be significant.

 

[thefrenchzulu]

Who cares about reputation hits in the GOTM's? Disband the city and use the cheap labour. Building a new city is much better option, as you don't end up with poorly placed cities.

(Few wonders are really useful, but I do keep cities with really useful ones, normally the Art of War. I never build this myself as it is far more useful on another continent you are trying to conquor.)

The few other improvements you might capture is not as good as those maintenance free workers!

 

[alamo]

thefrenchzulu, I am suprised to hear that you discard wonders. Doesn't the extra culture add to your score?

I also like to look at F7 and see all the wonders with my color. Maybe that's an outdated Civ2 habit.


It occurred to me that I could join captured workers into the conquered city to do even more rushing (but not in GOTM, of course).

 

[ProPain]

When you conquer a wonder insteas of building it you don't get any culture from it. That goeas for any city improvement as far as I know.

On the whipping. I whip temples in despotism when I conquer a city. Great way to reduce cult flipping. But I only whip once, meaning I will sacrifice 2 citizens in one whipping but never2 citizens in 2 whippings. Thats because I think you will get unhappiness turns per whipping not per citizen. In other words killing 2 at once doesn't get as much unhappiness as killing 2 citizens in 2 turns. Am i right or wrong here?

Furthermore I agree with the french zulu. Don't need the city? Raze it, collect the workers and build a new one with your own settler. If you do want it, pacify it and station an offensive unit next to it. When it flips, conquer it back, reduces pop by 1 also. I also have the impression cities don't flip easily when there's no unit in them. Very strange, but I've seen more people noticeing this.

ProPain

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by ProPain
Furthermore I agree with the french zulu. Don't need the city? Raze it, collect the workers and build a new one with your own settler.

That would explain for the 400+ foreign workers I usually have in most of my game.

 

[thefrenchzulu]

Originally posted by alamo
thefrenchzulu, I am suprised to hear that you discard wonders. Doesn't the extra culture add to your score?

I also like to look at F7 and see all the wonders with my color. Maybe that's an outdated Civ2 habit.


It occurred to me that I could join captured workers into the conquered city to do even more rushing (but not in GOTM, of course).

Culture don't add to your score and you don't get culture for capture wonders.

One of the reasons I don't build to many wonders. Also you don't want to win by culture when milking the game and also you don't want useless terrain that might result from to much border expansion.

I you look at some milked games you will find most cities with only 10 culture points! Reason is that you need to sell temples to keep under 100k culture.

For good milking city placement is also key, so AI cities normally useless.

 

[Yndy]

tfz, moonsinger and propain: of course your strat is used to maximise the score and it also involves building settlers that advance with your army to replace the cities that you raze (R&R). It is also helped by the fact that you are used with playing harder levels than monarch and that you are a good player in general.

alamo and those amazed by the things written by the guys above: it's good strategy but don't try this at home. Not before you know that you can easily win the game.
Wonders are good! Yes you can do without them but think before disregarding them.

 

[thefrenchzulu]

Originally posted by Yndy
tfz, moonsinger and propain: of course your strat is used to maximise the score and it also involves building settlers that advance with your army to replace the cities that you raze (R&R). It is also helped by the fact that you are used with playing harder levels than monarch and that you are a good player in general.

alamo and those amazed by the things written by the guys above: it's good strategy but don't try this at home. Not before you know that you can easily win the game.
Wonders are good! Yes you can do without them but think before disregarding them.

I don't raze cities with wonders immediately, unless the usefullness has seized. I do plan cities around it for later destruction if needed.

I do only build one ancient wonder and that is the Pyramids. I do normally rush this and also place it where it would do the least culture damage.(Surround it with other cities not close to mountains or tundra.)

Attacking with vast number of settlers have been documented by Moonsinger, but I have always used that. The zone of control will render enemy roads useless to themselves and stop counter attacks with non mounted units. (AI normally counter with archers that can be eaten by horsemen)

I use to build the Great Library, but that equals some 40 warriors that cna be upgraded to swordsmen. 40 Swordsmen in stack of 5 will kill basically any AI at this level!

I have documented my strategy here to keep my iron city disconnected from my empire, thus building JW in all my cities for central upgrade. With low level of early science you can create 2 swordmen this way every turn, more than what any AI can stop.

I cleaned both close continents with a vast quantity of swordsmen. You just need good road works. I only built charriots for later horsmen and knight upgrade. Got horseback riding just before destroying the last Zulu city, their contribution towards my war effort

 

[God]

I don't this is an exploit. I've used it several times before and it seems fine to me. I always thought people did this type of stuff.

Wonders- In the ancient era the only one I will try to build are the Pyramids. I only keep mass city effecting wonders when I capture them, like Sun Tzu, Hoovers, Bach's, and Leo's.

 

[civ_steve]

thefrenchzulu posted

Culture don't add to your score and you don't get culture for capture wonders.

Then the only reason to raze the city is to get free workers, or to rebuild cities with better placement. There's no culture gained from the Wonder, so having it will not cause a cultural victory. I'd think you'd keep the Wonder, unless you thought you needed the workers or better city placement. IMO

thefrenchzulu posted

I do only build one ancient wonder and that is the Pyramids. I do normally rush this and also place it where it would do the least culture damage.

Rush the pyramids? I assume you mean quickly, not through any of the 'Hurry Production' methods?