Valuable early game trades

[Thalassicus]

Just in case anyone overlooked this, civs will trade you up to 50 gold for open borders (depending on how friendly your relations are), incredibly valuable in the early game.

With an average start of two nearby friendly and two neutral civs, the total gold income is approximately equal to clearing 1 barbarian encampment every 4 turns, over the duration of the 45-turn agreements. It'll vary depending on how isolated you are, but this does highlight a disadvantage of a city-state-heavy, civ-isolated start location.

Very few civs will refuse to trade open borders for gold in early game. I think Washington is the only one I've noticed. Make sure not to forget this once you get Writing!

Also, be sure to trade away any strategic resources you're not using for lump-sum gold. Even if you go to war, the payment was up front, and they're stuck with units with -50% combat penalties after the resources are revoked. Leaders appear to give a large bonus if you trade away your last unit of a strategic resource. It's common to get 200-300g for just 4 horses if that's all you have.

 

[Slinko]

very good advice. I had not thought of trading open borders for gold.

 

[ccubed]

Anybody got some rough figures for how much other civs will pay for junk towns? Say you settled some frozen wasteland spot, or one right next to another civ that might cause diplomatic tensions. I vaguely remember being able to do this is Civ IV, although back then, with the way culture expanded, it was easy to gift a city and then get it right back due to culture creep.

Just wondering if this strat works in Civ 5.