What to do with 'bad' cultural overthrows

[mavraam]

I get a lot of cities because my high culture caused a revolt. Sometimes they are great acquisitions, sometimes they are more of a drain then a gain. I used to refuse the bad ones, then I got a better idea. I always accept the revolts.

Then if I like the city, I keep it. If I don't and I am on good terms with the previous owner, I offer to sell it back to them. (I love selling them something they rightly owned in the first place!). If I have bad relations with them, I sell it to one of my allies, then it acts as a buffer between me and my enemy! Either way, I get someting for nothing. Last time I did it, I got chivalry when I was right in the middle of a war with the previous owner. Just in time to start cranking out knights and overwhelm my oponent!

 

[Dragon2]

Have you been able to do this after installing the patch? That seemed to put an end to my city sales.

 

[Random Passerby]

Yeah... the AI now seems to only consider swapping cities in exchange for a peace treaty, although there might be other circumstances. What's really annoying is that if there's any non-peace-treaty item on the table, it reverts to "They would never accept such a deal!" The other day I was beating on the Germans for a while, I swiped or razed about 5 cities (half their empire--it was an early war), then they sued for peace. They were willing to cough up 2 cities, but if I demanded 3 it would only be "close to a deal"--wanting that 3rd city, I put some of my less advanced tech up, and lo and behold, suddenly my offer is unacceptable.

I still usually find excuses to give away cities to my allies, even if I can't get any payment for them... those 95% corruption all-desert cities on my worst enemy's border do a lot more for me in the hands of my friends than in my own.

 

[Psychlone]

I have to disagree with you folks. Any city is to be liked, solely for the territory squares it occupies, which affects power and score. A city might not produce effectively, but it's still not really a "drain." Even those corrupted cities can be made productive in a limited way, with patience. Using various techniques you can actually get some improvements set up in them to make them useful.

Use workers to clear forests for the shield bonus, this helps a lot. If there aren't any forests, plant them, then clear them. Sure you can only do it once per square, but it still helps a lot.

Send obsolete units like warriors, horsemen, and archers to these towns and disband them to eliminate maintenance costs as well as add salvaged shields to the city's production.

Use the trick of a city with a granary going from 6 to 7 population, and turn food into shields. Let the city grow to 7, draft a rifleman, disband him for shields. A rifleman disbands for 22 shields or so, and you'll grow to 7 pop almost every turn. So, there will be a lot of unhappy citizens there- big deal, the city wasn't producing very well anyhow, right?

I have even at times had better cities cranking out units they can make one per turn, and sending those units to be disbanded for shields. It's inefficient, but it will manage to make that "useless" city get the improvements built in a timely fashion to become a contributing part of your empire. If nothing else, build a hospital, let the city grow large, and use the surplus of population for draftees, scientists and taxmen.

Just because a city is inefficient in shield production does not make it worthless.

If the city is poorly defensible due to outrageous distance and it comes under threat of attack, THEN give it away, just to keep your enemy from siezing it, and any units present there will instantly appear in your capitol.

 

[lothian]

So why do you accept the cities then? Just let em know you dont want it.....

 

[mavraam]

Originally posted by lothian
So why do you accept the cities then? Just let em know you dont want it.....

Because if I take them and sell them, I get something, sometimes a LOT. If I turn them down, I get nothing. Seems pretty straight forward to me!

 

[Skulker]

I would never turn down a city no matter how bad it is. At the very least you can rush build the cultural improvements and use it to A. win over more enemy cities B. increase your empire's culture production. Not to mention the strategic and scoring issues...