Stupid Civ Tricks

[Coase]

Post your stupid Civ tricks here: legal exploits, neat effects, head-scratching quirks, or the like.

I'll start it off:

I NEVER LOST SIGHT OF THE LAND
A pretty impressive feat, to be sure...almost too impressive...

The first player to circumnavigate the globe gets a +1 movement bonus for naval units. But did you know that you can do this without building a single naval unit? I found this out in a rather surprising manner. I was playing an isolationist game on a standard map and hadn't bothered to go outside of my own territory, let alone sea exploration. Then all of a sudden, the event pops up telling me I've been the first to navigate the globe! Turns out that I had traded maps enough times with so many AI players that I could trace an unbroken path in the ocean across the globe. Even though I hadn't built a single ship, I pieced enough of the other civ's maps to make the whole connection.

I guess the world is flat.

 

[mr foolhardy]

The first day I had CivIV I decided to start up a game with no AI opponents just to get used to the game mechanics. As soon as my first warrior was completed, a message came up saying "CONQUEST VICTORY".

Fastest conquest ever!!!

 

[Sadan01]

When in diplomacy, if a civ you have good relations with wants a tech or resource but you don't want to give it to them, and at the same time, you don't want to have a '-1' put against your name, then do the following:

1. Demand appears on your screen.
2. Select to negotiate the deal
3. Once the screen has changed, choose to EXIT the negotiations with no hit on your reputation.

What do we consider this? An exploit? I dont do this all the time in single player however there have been times where a close friend wants iron (or another critical resource) and I dont want to give it to them. I use this to get out of the negotiations.

I plan eventually to start playing succession games (and GOTM when that starts), so need to know if it is officially classified as an exploit.

 

[Lord Chambers]

A barbarian galley appeared and wrecked five nets across three cities, severely cripling them. I built up two galleys to get what I thought would be a secure victory. Well, it beat them both. When I built the next galley, instead of waiting for two buddies, I decided to lure the barbarian away. Since I had no nets to pillage he was just sitting off the coast, waiting to magically be informed of nets across the down continent to be rebuilt. I sailed my galley toward him, then away. I went down to the south pole where there was a little 7 tile island, and just sailed around it in circles. The barbarian kept chasing me!

I'd have been satisfied with just that, but after two loops it disappeared. I had vanguished the barbarian galley without even fighting!

I plan to try the lure method if sea barbarians show up in my next game, since you really can't do anything to win sea battles besides having 3:1 or 2:1 power in numbers (or a tech lead).

 

[lauer]

What do we consider this? An exploit? I dont do this all the time in single player however there have been times where a close friend wants iron (or another critical resource) and I dont want to give it to them. I use this to get out of the negotiations.

I plan eventually to start playing succession games (and GOTM when that starts), so need to know if it is officially classified as an exploit.

I personally consider this to be an exploit and I'm ashamed to admit that I use it all the time. I've done this in past CIV incarnations too ... Allthough fixing it will make my games harder, it should in my opinion be fixed in an upcoming patch.

 

[Mythrl]

I personally consider this to be an exploit and I'm ashamed to admit that I use it all the time. I've done this in past CIV incarnations too ... Allthough fixing it will make my games harder, it should in my opinion be fixed in an upcoming patch.

I've done this too although never checked if it had an effect for sure but suspected it did. In my defense I generally find it's a good idea to check if they have something worth making a trade for anyways.

 

[LAnkou]

well, don't know if it's a real trick, but, i wanted a diplo win and as i wasn't very commercial, my neighbours didn't want to vote for me...
So i try to get high pop and have my own vote be sufficient...
when i see this wouldn't be enough, i nuke them till my pop was sufficient...

that's quite strange to get a diplo win after using nukes!!! (about 30 nukes)

 

[lauer]

I've done this too although never checked if it had an effect for sure but suspected it did. In my defense I generally find it's a good idea to check if they have something worth making a trade for anyways.

That's how I found out about this: trying to get the AI to sweeten the deal ... nothing appropriate available ... EXIT and bingo no -1 for "you have refused to ..."

 

[Sadan01]

I personally consider this to be an exploit and I'm ashamed to admit that I use it all the time. I've done this in past CIV incarnations too ... Allthough fixing it will make my games harder, it should in my opinion be fixed in an upcoming patch.

I agree with you that hopefully it will be patched. Although, in a similar vein to the RoP rape in Civ3 (which obviously doesn't exist now for the player in Civ4), we could essentially "agree" not to do this during diplomacy even though the feature lol is still there in the game if playing GOTM or a SG game.

I'm sure before long a thread of unacceptable/acceptable "exploits" will be listed.

Edit: Removed reply to Lauer. Read Lauer's post incorrectly. Late in the day here in Aus (for me anyway )

 

[Ederratic]

It may not be working as intended but I don't consider it an exploit simply because you cannot expect the same treatment from a computer player. The AI starts to request help when influence is slightly green. Naturally, if you refuse, you become the bad guy. But as a player if you request help from the AI it is bound to fail unless your influence is high(Only worked when I was +10 on them).

If AI requests and you refuse you are the bad guy for "not helping a friend".
If you request and the AI refuses you are the bad guy for "making an unreasonable demand".

My favorite trick is to use an early "culture bomb" to flip neighbor's cities. When choosing the site for a second or third city try to place it near an opponents city(not the capital). Then rush to discover Music as quickly as possible to get the free Great Artist. Put him in your new city and command him to create his/her great work. 4000+ culture points later and the cultural boundary will balloon, enveloping the neighbor's city and severly crippling their settlement efforts without actually doing anything bad. So long as you aren't on a negative foothold with the civ(they may declare war) the worst thing you can expect is a little negative influence due to the close borders. Probably only works well on the easier difficulties, good on cramped continents...

 

[snepp]

Unless my memory is really failing me, aren't there 2 types of tribute demands? One being the "hard" demand that can either be accepted or rejected, and the "soft" demand that can be accepted, rejected, or renegociated/exited?

 

[Shigga]

To gain the +1 movement bonus for rounding the globe with one of your units, you DO NOT have to connect the "trenches" in the fog of war with each other- you can accomplish it by moving on a tile on the same vertical line on the map, regardless of how much fog of war is in between vertically.

Kinda stupid imho...

 

[BearMan]

well, don't know if it's a real trick, but, i wanted a diplo win and as i wasn't very commercial, my neighbours didn't want to vote for me...
So i try to get high pop and have my own vote be sufficient...
when i see this wouldn't be enough, i nuke them till my pop was sufficient...

that's quite strange to get a diplo win after using nukes!!! (about 30 nukes)

Hahahahah ! That's mean !
Nevertheless, I guess it is a valid tactics :
"somehow, the other countries didn't show up at the meeting"

 

[baboon]

When in diplomacy, if a civ you have good relations with wants a tech or resource but you don't want to give it to them, and at the same time, you don't want to have a '-1' put against your name, then do the following:

1. Demand appears on your screen.
2. Select to negotiate the deal
3. Once the screen has changed, choose to EXIT the negotiations with no hit on your reputation.

What do we consider this? An exploit? I dont do this all the time in single player however there have been times where a close friend wants iron (or another critical resource) and I dont want to give it to them. I use this to get out of the negotiations.

I plan eventually to start playing succession games (and GOTM when that starts), so need to know if it is officially classified as an exploit.

That even worked in CIv3, although it has more impact now. I do it as well, it's just being polite not to say no but to try something else first

 

[Sadan01]

That even worked in CIv3, although it has more impact now. I do it as well, it's just being polite not to say no but to try something else first

Well in real-life, if you were offering me a trade and I said, hey, lets negotiate, turned around and walked away and never came back with a "better" deal, wouldn't you think that was rude? It would put a -1 on our ongoing friendship? Yep .

You are right about more impact. In Civ3 as we all know, the A.I. really could not have cared less whether you were on your best behaviour with them or not. Now, it does matter if you do want to have an enduring friendship with another civ. I think Firaxis are on the right track with the new diplomacy. Makes the game even more interesting.

 

[segawang]

A barbarian galley appeared and wrecked five nets across three cities, severely cripling them. I built up two galleys to get what I thought would be a secure victory. Well, it beat them both. When I built the next galley, instead of waiting for two buddies, I decided to lure the barbarian away. Since I had no nets to pillage he was just sitting off the coast, waiting to magically be informed of nets across the down continent to be rebuilt. I sailed my galley toward him, then away. I went down to the south pole where there was a little 7 tile island, and just sailed around it in circles. The barbarian kept chasing me!

I'd have been satisfied with just that, but after two loops it disappeared. I had vanguished the barbarian galley without even fighting!

I plan to try the lure method if sea barbarians show up in my next game, since you really can't do anything to win sea battles besides having 3:1 or 2:1 power in numbers (or a tech lead).

Not sure if everyone has experienced the same, but I found that when I took a barbarian city, the other ranging barbarians (in or near my border, so that I could see) just disappeared on the same turn. This might explained what happened in your case.

 

[Shillen]

Uhm there's no reason to click the re-negotiate choice. You can flat out refuse the deal with no rep hit. You only get a rep hit if they demand something for nothing and you refuse. And in that case you don't even get the option of negotiating.

 

[lauer]

Uhm there's no reason to click the re-negotiate choice. You can flat out refuse the deal with no rep hit. You only get a rep hit if they demand something for nothing and you refuse. And in that case you don't even get the option of negotiating.

Ah ... I've never dared to test this. Will do next time. Thanks!

 

[Shillen]

To contribute to the thread:

Diplomacy is a bit more complicated than it seems. You can't just add up the + modifiers and subtract the - modifiers to determine how much an AI likes you or how much an AI likes another AI. There seems to be some other hidden factors. For instance I've seen an AI that was "Pleased" with another AI even though the sum of +/- was -5. Meanwhile I've seen AI's be "Annoyed" with another AI when they had a +5 relationship. This can often lead to me trading with an AI that is an enemy of another AI when I didn't even realize they were enemies beforehand. Basically the more important thing to look at is the pleased/cautious/annoyed/etc message and ignore the +/- stuff.

 

[Kazak]

Another trick with diplomacy that I used is to bribe the AI. If I see an enemy army marching towards my borders, I know the war is upon me because I was "culture bombing" the AI. I only have 1-2 defenders, whichis not enough to deflect the enemy. So what I do is offer some worthless resource to the enemy as a gift. Most of the time it makes the enemy rethink the war and turn back. That gives me 20 turns to build up defenses, or build my own army to crush him.