Why is giving cities as a gift not appreciated

[Artur0]

I conquered 6 out of 12 American cities and after war ended I gave them all back (actually I didn't need them, I was strong enough I wanted to have a capable country somewhere close because of mighty Greeks next to be, and they were bad a*s). They declared war on me in first place because I told them to get the f*** off my land. And they were still furious at me... well, my question is, why are they not willing to give a single gold or even a world map for any city at all? Now they maybe have a chance to survive but without those cities (for which they would give absolutely nothing) they'd be doomed, in 100 years nobody would remember them anymore... They could be at least happy

 

[Hawkster]

This was done to fix an exploit in early releases of civ - whereby a player would caputre cities then sell them back to the civ for lots of gold/techs then go and recapture them and repeat.

 

[apparition]

I gave away a city for the first time last night. No strings attached but they loved me so much I pretty much got what I wanted from them susequently. And now I have a buffer in a good place.

 

[Sarevok]

never works. i give them back only when it is to my own advantage, which is rare.

 

[Dr Tiny]

in a recent game I was egypt in alliance with carthage, greek and rome agaisnt the warmad celts. Carthage lost their capital city which I retook back and then gave to Carthage no strings attached. Hannibal pretty much worshipped the ground I walked on at that point and was even polite towards me for 2 turns when I invaded his kingdom

 

[Spike59]

I never give back cities. It doesn't do any good. If I have a city I don't want I give it to someone I want to make nice to.

 

[DaveMustDie]

The only time I give away cities is during war and I think an ally needs a foothold near the enemy. Other than that I don't see much use to it.

 

[Gainy]

This was done to fix an exploit in early releases of civ - whereby a player would caputre cities then sell them back to the civ for lots of gold/techs then go and recapture them and repeat.

I didn't think of that one... I thought it was because you could buy cities off the AI if you went to renegotiate peace treaties.
Maybe it's both

 

[Strider]

I've gave far-away cities to some of my ally's (cities that will be useful to them, but are currently useless to me)

 

[Smellincoffee]

I used to give away cities when playing a "big brother" game- when you attempt to make somone else win. I was trying to let France win by domination. I was propaganda-flipping cities, capturing them, culture-flipping them...and giving them all to France. I won in the end. Diplomatic.

 

[Phoenix]

Smellincoffee - why would you try to make another civ win though? I don't normaly give cities out at all unless they are miles from my empire and completly useless (which is rare as I can normaly use them as a foothold).

 

[The Economist]

Well you might want to make another civ win if you thought there was a "communal victory", as there was in Alpha Centauri, but there isn't such a thing in Civ 3. So yeah, there's no reason to do that, really. Although I guess maybe for some it might be interesting to try it just because it might be fun to take a civ that was weak and make it very strong and sort of win vicariously through that country, just for kicks. But with Conquests out I don't think anyone's that bored yet that they have to resort to such things