Unwanted War? Stubborn AI? Give em a city.

[Meatlord]

Greetings fellow strategists,

I have been in several wars with technologically superior civs, wars that I would lose if allowed to continue. The problem? The civ AI is not interested in peace, or demands one of my key cities as tribute. This may be an exploit but in 3 cases I have switched the key city with a city of population 1 in a poor location in exchange for the peace treaty. The AI went for it in each case. This appears to be a great way of securing peace in desperate circumstances.

 

[yoshi74]

Not a solution for a long time. Once the world is settled every city you give away is a city you can never get back by settling a new, and therefore no way of future expanding without war. Surely a option which can save you at a time, but not the kind of peacekeeping strategy when going for a victory .

 

[Ray Patterson]

that really depends on which victory you're going for yoshi... seems a sound thing to do when going for cultural victory (after you've build your cathedrals and thus no longer need your temple cities). Sure the outlook isn't good, but it's better then trying to defend yourself with inferior weapons and numbers.

 

[Meatlord]

This is definitely a mid game strategy... used at times when your science and money may be low due to over-expansion or conquest and you are in danger of losing some key cities or resources. Giving away a city no matter how small in the early going is too costly, in the end game you likely wont be in this position anyway.

 

[Gufnork]

This is also a reason to build cities in less than desirable places.

 

[Tactician Zhao]

a formidable tip, and good last resort, perhaps.. it is a failing of mine to regret the sacrifice of resources (units, cities) unless there is no proper alternative

I do think if I ever did such a thing, and I might very well give it a try when I need to buy some time, I would make it a goal to recapture the city when possible.. I tend to be very meticulous with my city planning, so I rarely have a "crap" city unless it is to grab a resource or to cut off someone elses expansion (both having useful purposes, but could easily be non-factors later if the resource expires, or the cutoff was successful)

 

[kobo1d]

Another time you might consider gifting a city is if it is costing you $$$ in maintenance. If you have a nigh-useless city eating up 10% of your income, why not gift it to the most distant civ you know? Preferably on another continent. Poor Bismark never saw it coming!

 

[chinesefireball]

I have no idea if this would work or not, but....

What if you gifted the AI one of your established cities that is in the middle of your empire already surounded by your culture. As that city doesn't keep any of its culture when given away (as far as I know - pure speculation), and it is in the middle of your culture cities, shouldn't it flip back to you fairly quickly? So that way wouldn't you imprive relations, and the only loss to you is loosing the city's production for some turns (ok, maybe more then some)

Would this tactic acutally work, or do civs turn nasty on you after you culture flipped one of their cities.

 

[majk-iii]

or even better (if you have enough space between your core-cities) ...put up a brand new tiny city inbetween your culture-giants and gift it right away.
It'll flip even sooner, and even if it doesn't, it shouldn't be able to "steal away" many, if any, of your "working-tiles".

 

[Roland Johansen]

Maybe you're just using the following diplomacy bug:

"From the bug report center:

Bug: In diplomacy, you can get whatever you want.
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open diplomacy.
2. Demand whatever you want (cities, techs, etc.).
3. When the AI proposes a counter offer, it is the same as you demanded.
4. Accept the offer to gain what you wanted."