Would this work , Give Bad cities to Rival Civs

[Spawnbob]

You know every civ has them those cities that are poorly placed, lack any real benefit and are just a drain on the rest of your civ.
Is there a real benefit to simply giving these away to a potential enemy civ and not to a friendly civ.
the 1st reason is that you would maybe satisfy the target civ lust for war at least in the shortterm, but more importantly those cities that are a drain on you would then possibly be a drain on that enemy civ.
I wouldn’t give a civ a city that although poor as a city held some strategic placement in it's placement but maybe you could create a whole load of uneconomic cities in the wastelands of the world and give these away to drain your opponent

 

[zebomba]

Works like a charm. I do it all the time.
It mixes nationalities too, so if they ever decide to fight each other, there will be a bit of smoke over their cities.
Those useless cities also prevent expansion over their area.

 

[Troyens]

I have put together many a deal involving trade and gold, deals that were acceptable. As soon as I tried to give them a city or two the deal was OFF!

The AI seems loathe to accept gifts of cities from my experience.

Maybe I'm wrong. (?) But that's my experience.

Civs will only give me cities in a deal if I have almost destroyed them in a war, and then they will only give a crummy useless, distant little city or two.

 

[Jimmicus]

City trading was 'fixed' in the patch. See elsewhere on the pages for details of why. To summarize though, the computer was giving too much away in peacetime for crummy cities pre-patch. Now you can only negotiate for them as part of a peace deal.

You can give cities away for free at any time. I do this to improve realtions with other civs and also to deny a city to an enemy who is about to over-run it by giving it to a friendly third party.

 

[Cerryl]

Troyens, I had the same experiences, they don't like to take cities as gifts, from being furious to gracious towards you, I couldn't get them to accept one.

I've had better luck bullying a city off a rival than giving him one.

 

[zebomba]

That's odd. I have the patch 1.16 and they still accept gifts.
Just make sure only the city you want to give is on the table.
Whether it's an exploit or not, it works. But I guess it's not a bug, if you ask me, wanna a city? I'd say, sure, why not.
And if it ever doesn't work anymore in future patches, then I'll raze cities.

 

[Kerneth]

I've never had any problems giving crummy cities away to other civilizations. Last game, I was at war with England and they'd built a huge swatch of cities in a tundra region separating us, as soon as I took one over I'd give it to one of the other civilizations. They seemed pretty happy about it.

 

[Sodak]

The AI is happy to take a city as a gift. If you crush a neighbor, they may give you 6 of their last 8 lame towns for peace. Ration those 6 out to other civs, it's great PR. Those little putz towns in the tundra that will never grow beyond size 2 are easy to part with, if you ask me. Of course, they could be sitting on oil... O well, just reconquer them later.

 

[Kefka]

One time I gave one of my poor lousy near border cities (Distant was the name) that I bet I would have gone to war with them over that lousy city to the english as tribute and five turns later that same city flipped back to me
who am I to argue with the people of Distant

 

[LeroyJr]

In my current game I was in second with Persia, the French in sixth were right next door and the first place Egyptians were just on the other side of the French. After a nasty, nasty battle with Cleopatra (mainly fought in France) we finally had peace. Joan was upset with me for signing a peace treaty two turns after she allied with me vs the Egyptians. Cleo put a massive hurting on the French while I was out of it.

The second I discovered Military Tradition the combo of Leo's Workshop and Sun Tsu War Academy kicked in as I upgraded 30 Knights to Cavalry and went after Egypt with a massive army of Cavalry and Immortals. I would take a city. Move all my wounded in and any healthy units on to the next town. As soon as my units were healthy again thanks to the War Academy I would move them out and toss the vacated city to the French. Joan was very happy to get these cities, especially the French ones. I meanwhile did not have to waste my troops defending them and continued on the attack until the Egyptians were left with little slime towns in the tundra plus Thebes and one other large city.

Giving the cities to the French worked great as J of A loved me and I did not have to defend them so could continue to just march forward. Razing them would have meant my units could not utilize the War Academy to get healthy again. I lost about 10 units while wiping about 30 Egyptian cities out. A couple of times the cities reverted before I could vacate so I just razed those SOB's out of spite when I took them back again.

 

[ProPain]

In my experience throwing in a city as part of an already acceptable deal (or as a part of any combined peacetime deal) won't work. The same civ will be happy to take the city as a gift when offered solely. This works great. You can improve your pr and give cities away that are on the verge of being taken by a more dangerous civ. I also give away cities that are bound to be taken by one of those barb uprisings of 30+ horsemen. Just take out the last defender, give the city away, wait for the barbs to destroy the defender and totally drain the other civ's coffers instead of yours. After that take the undefended city back with the waiting defender I love that one.

ProPain

 

[whstaff]

Is it just me, but I've had no problem getting pruductive cities in tundra. I always rush build a harbor and make sure the city is close to fish or whales plus a game- fur-ivory resource and hopefully a river. Once RR is in the city becomes pretty good, never one of those 96shield/turn powerhouses, but good enuff to pop out a battleship in 10 turns, which ain't nothing to sneeze at. It's amazing how often those tundra citys are close to a resource like Al or U , oil, and sometimes rubber. Rubber in the tundra, boy is that stupid.