Quirks, Exploits, Loopholes, IMBAs: Any I Have Missed?

[JohnYoga]

Hello Folks,

What BNW Quirks, Exploits, Loopholes and IMBAs Did I Miss (or are out-patched and no longer work)?

1. Maritime CSs: With an alliance, you get +3 food in your capital and +1 food for every other city you have. This can be a bit unfair if you have a wide Civ. Yes, other players, including the AI has the advantage of using this with the Maritime CSs, too, but, this is not my point - it seems like an IMBA function.

2. Click on Honor SP, have archer outside of each barb encampment - kill the barbs that spawn for culture bonus, but don't knock off the encampment, you also gain XP, which can make your Archers fairly powerful early game, if you do this a bit much...

3. When at war: Pillage a tile, fix it with your worker for gold, then pillage the tile, then fix it with your worker for gold, rinse and repeat I read somewhere that you can pillage your own resources (and repair them for the same gold loop), but, I don't think this is possible? I haven't tried this, either.

4. Sell everything to a Civ, gain gold, etc, then go to war with the Civ, get it all back (once you conquer)

5. Buy-off CSs for their alliances right before the UN meets to win diplo victory

6. To get "free" Worker, especially during early game, where they are "turn expensive", DOW a CS, steal their worker, then declare peace.

7. I don't understand the "research blocking" technique, where you have the game aim to give you the tech you want when a research agreement expires. Someone please explain...

8. If Austria, and at war with a Civ that is closer to an allied CS, then it is to you, gift your units to that CS, then buy that CS - it will teleport your troops to the battlefield, so to speak

9. This is a nasty MP thing that I just read about, and I don't know if it works against the AI, as I have not tried it (or plan to): Player A trade offers to Player B (another MPer, not AI),Player B modifies the trade-request to whatever he wants to steal from Player A; Player B closes the trade window, reopens it, sees Player A's proposal, and accepts it. For some weird game glitch, Player B now has all trade items he placed in his modified list.

10. Any others?

Again, they don't have to be "evil" game glitches like #9, they can be anything you have found to be, for lack of better words: Exploits or Outlier advantages. Your comments can also pertain to certain Civs you feel are unnaturally IMBA, for instance. As an example, playing Poland seems IMBA to me; I have an easier time at winning with it.

Thanks,

Marc

 

[Peter Sagan]

If you got Consulates in the Patronage tree (gives you +20 influence resting point) and swear to protect a CS it will reach 30 so you've got an infinite ally.

 

[brasaelal]

Sorry... what's IMBA?

 

[lindsay40k]

If you got Consulates in the Patronage tree (gives you +20 influence resting point) and swear to protect a CS it will reach 30 so you've got an infinite ally.

Not in BNW. Protection gives you +5 influence.

 

[lindsay40k]

3. When at war: Pillage a tile, fix it with your worker for gold, then pillage the tile, then fix it with your worker for gold, rinse and repeat

With Pyramids and Citizenship, certain speeds make this cycle terrifying. I surrendered in a MP game when a bunch of units were pillage-healing AND attacking for every turn of a siege.

4. Sell everything to a Civ, gain gold, etc, then go to war with the Civ, get it all back (once you conquer)

You need a Declaration of Friendship to receive lump sums of money, now, so you've either got to time this a few turns before DoF ends or else take a major diplo hit.

10. Any others?

Settle second city near a CS to use as a whipping boy (preferably a rubbish one with little to offer other than their luxury). Use Honor to hunt barbs to please other CSs, try to get Statue of Zeus. Use Warrior Code to Citadel within two tiles of whipping boy, stealing their resource. DoW to steal their worker, and have units play musical chairs in the citadel. Get a Medic 2, a Shock 3 Cover 2 March Siege swordsman, and two Range Logistics archers. This elite squad will destroy most armies and capture any capital that does not have the Red Fort, a Military Base, Artillery or an air force.

As Shaka, hire Landsknechte and get them up to Buffalo Loins. Then promote them to Lancers. Your already OP army is now pretty much unstoppable without bombers or battleships.

 

[Browd]

Sorry... what's IMBA?

Imbalanced

 

[JohnYoga]

Sorry... what's IMBA?

I am sorry I did not spell it out, it stands for "Imbalanced", as if to say "That unit is IMBA!". The unit, feature, method, and so on, is too strong and needs to be nerfed.

Regards,

Marc

 

[joncnunn]

2. Click on Honor SP, have archer outside of each barb encampment - kill the barbs that spawn for culture bonus, but don't knock off the encampment, you also gain XP, which can make your Archers fairly powerful early game, if you do this a bit much...

Maxes out at 30 XP.

3. When at war: Pillage a tile, fix it with your worker for gold, then pillage the tile, then fix it with your worker for gold, rinse and repeat I read somewhere that you can pillage your own resources (and repair them for the same gold loop), but, I don't think this is possible? I haven't tried this, either.

You can't pillage resources in your own territory. You can do that in enemy territory to gain health.

4. Sell everything to a Civ, gain gold, etc, then go to war with the Civ, get it all back (once you conquer)

With BNW requires DOF to get cash now at all.

6. To get "free" Worker, especially during early game, where they are "turn expensive", DOW a CS, steal their worker, then declare peace.

And completely uses up the "free DOW' so you'll get war monger if you DOW anybody else.

7. I don't understand the "research blocking" technique, where you have the game aim to give you the tech you want when a research agreement expires. Someone please explain...

Obsolete with G&K if not a very late patch to Vanilla which changed RA to median value . (BNW has since changed this to min value)

8. If Austria, and at war with a Civ that is closer to an allied CS, then it is to you, gift your units to that CS, then buy that CS - it will teleport your troops to the battlefield, so to speak

Takes a few turns to teleport and also the city state has a chance to disband on arrival.

 

[JohnYoga]

I appreciate the comments thus far, keep them flowing, please.

And, let me add some others' comments...

These comment snippets are from "Juan" and "Redmond Jennings" over at Carl's Strategy Guides - Ideologies (thanks guys!):

Redmond Jennings:

Order: Extreme boosts to happiness is good for warmongering and/or lack of luxuries, this also promotes prioritizing factories and power plants which mixed with the boost to mines and quarries you can pump troops or build wonders like crazy.

Also,cheaper buildings help if you have a crappy economy,and the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" tenet can help you ge that final push to Cultural Victory.
Order seems overpowered, all that production and happiness means a city that doesn't have much Food on tiles will compensate with food buildings(hospital,granary,etc) or with a powerful trade route from any of your other cities.Also,that 25% science bonus to factories can help overcome the science penalty (-5%/city i think) if you go wide,so can still be a strong science victory contender.


Juan:
Autocracy for the first time (inappropriately, as Poland) and Blitzkrieg, reduced costs and extra experience helped me blitz through Greece and Japan. I had lots of strategic resources by then but in other cases that tenant would have also been huge. And Clausewitz's Legacy is just murder; you could win with a technologically backwards army with it and the other fascist tenants.

Their comments were truncated for brevity.

With Regards,

Marc

 

[asura_]

3. - I did a similar thing while at war. Cities kept attacking the same units, so I moved a few workers to the siege zone, made my military pillage tiles for health and workers were repairing them for another health bonus in a few turns.

 

[JohnYoga]

Maxes out at 30 XP.


You can't pillage resources in your own territory. You can do that in enemy territory to gain health.


With BNW requires DOF to get cash now at all.


And completely uses up the "free DOW' so you'll get war monger if you DOW anybody else.


Obsolete with G&K if not a very late patch to Vanilla which changed RA to median value . (BNW has since changed this to min value)



Takes a few turns to teleport and also the city state has a chance to disband on arrival.

Thank you, joncnunn.

Marc

 

[tetley]

More:

1) I believe there is an exploit for the Patronage finisher so that they gift you GP every 3 turns?
2) Instead of gifting units to a CS to help them survive, send in your own units as "peacekeepers", to disrupt the attack. The AI may have 20 units ready to go in, but because your own cavalry is sitting in the way he can only send 5. The CS survives. And rips the enemy army to shreds piecemeal.
3) peacekeeper disruption also works protecting major civs, especially with open borders or if you yourself are technically at war with the victim
4) late-game, you can sell puppets to weakling civs whom you have influential tourism over. Re-taking them carries very little penalty.
5) station scouts and workers on top of archaeological sites, so the AI can't take them. Actually, you can use any unit you don't need at the moment--even GG or other archaeologists.
- corollary: you can dig for 3 turns and keep the archaeologist.
6) you can archaeologist steal the same as worker steal
7) don't have a city eligible for Petra/Macchu/SydneyOH/Disney Castle? Settle or annex a city that is, and trade route hammers to it. (GE's don't work very well in that situation)
8) after you complete a "build a road" CS quest, undo the road and the quest might come back
9) road & railroad spam your "friends" whom you have open borders with

Come to think of it, some of these are perfectly fair, I think.

 

[JohnYoga]

More:

1) I believe there is an exploit for the Patronage finisher so that they gift you GP every 3 turns?
2) Instead of gifting units to a CS to help them survive, send in your own units as "peacekeepers", to disrupt the attack. The AI may have 20 units ready to go in, but because your own cavalry is sitting in the way he can only send 5. The CS survives. And rips the enemy army to shreds piecemeal.
3) peacekeeper disruption also works protecting major civs, especially with open borders or if you yourself are technically at war with the victim
4) late-game, you can sell puppets to weakling civs whom you have influential tourism over. Re-taking them carries very little penalty.
5) station scouts and workers on top of archaeological sites, so the AI can't take them. Actually, you can use any unit you don't need at the moment--even GG or other archaeologists.
- corollary: you can dig for 3 turns and keep the archaeologist.
6) you can archaeologist steal the same as worker steal
7) don't have a city eligible for Petra/Macchu/SydneyOH/Disney Castle? Settle or annex a city that is, and trade route hammers to it. (GE's don't work very well in that situation)
8) after you complete a "build a road" CS quest, undo the road and the quest might come back
9) road & railroad spam your "friends" whom you have open borders with

Come to think of it, some of these are perfectly fair, I think.

Thank you for taking the time to write the above, Tetley!

When you get a moment, can you please explain #9 in a pinch more detail/with an example?

Thanks, Marc

 

[tetley]

You can build roads in your friends' territory, they get stuck with the maintenance. But build where they benefit YOU, not them. Don't connect their cities--connect your side of the border to the other side. Roads to nowhere. You zip right through, he pays the tab.

 

[Browd]

Note that what tetley describes requires open borders with the other civ. DOF with that civ is neither sufficient nor needed.

 

[tetley]

You can do it with CS friends and that's actually more common. Hence my generic term "friends".

One reason why I never disband workers.

 

[Browd]

You can do it in a CS even without friendship, but you will get the trespassing penalty.

 

[lindsay40k]

More:

1) I believe there is an exploit for the Patronage finisher so that they gift you GP every 3 turns?

I think I recently read that this is patched away.

 

[lindsay40k]

Here's one: the AI perceives four highly promoted units to be a weak army. If you've got some March melee and Range Logistics ranged, you can effectively invite invasion to farm more XP without getting diplo penalties for DoW.

Bonus: make sure they DoW on you by sending your GPro to use its last shot on their Holy City. The AI hates this.

 

[reddishrecue]

Bonus: make sure they DoW on you by sending your GPro to use its last shot on their Holy City. The AI hates this.

What is GPro?