GIFTING A CITY ~ to make allies after you've captured an enemy city ....

[eiseike]

I've tried this stratergy and it works everytime , its about gifting a city to a friendly civ. to make them even more happy with you ( so happy you can bribe them into war with another civ you dont like which keeps both of them in check )

So when to gift a city ?? ~when you take over another hostile civs city ( no matter what size ) and all that extra maintenance will hurt your income & research....... instead of just razing the whole city which really is a waste if you're clever.

Best thing is , its funny the when the friendly civ. gets the city they have to pay all that maintenance cost ! , it really makes slows their growth down ! > and also when they eventually go to war a little further down the track because they love me so much and I tell them to - that new cuty you gave them will be a decoy for the enemy on your border instead of directly enoying you.

It works so well , even abnoxious rulers like Tokugawa will become very friendly !! .

Plus if the friendly civ. you gift it to is not at war currently with that hostile civ. iy will stop your enemy ftrom quickly taking back the city from you if you're weak after siege.

And heres another dirty trick ..... I've dont it every game with great success >
build a settler and establish a city at the outskirts of yours where a hostile civ. is ( or just one that might oneday be ) and gift the new founded city to someone you want to make friends with.......... BUT the trick is to found the new city on a really RUBBISH spot in desert or something. ALSO because the new city you give will be far away from the friendly civ. that gets it , they`ll pay huge mainenance costs and it will really cripple them !.

[ZargonX]

Actually, that gives me a great idea to try. Early conquest followed by gifting all the cities to the current leader and economically crippling them... could be fun!

[John-SJ]

Great ideas! I will tries this as well!

I predict that by the end of this week there will be a new exploit called the "City Gift Exploit".

edit: Nothing like killing 'em with a little kindness, eh?

[eiseike]

I should add also , that just building new rubbish cities and early on and gifting them is the most effective stratergy I've found. > I think the AI doesnt care on the size of the city , but just counts it as 1. So gifting so many times they love you , and the more rubbish cities the more mainenance they pay .......... then make them go to war.

So if the civs along your borders are contantly fighting eachother they dont get any ideas to attack you , but if they do their army is extremely pathetic.

[Cort Haus]

I did this with some conquered cities in AU100-A. Not so much for the distances, which were not huge, but for the diplomacy. Not only did I get love, I got more votes.

[Volstag]

Depending on your setup, you can "gift" the city, and then absorb it culturally later in the game....

[Blake]

I refuse to gift cities because it just oozes exploit.

I'll only gift cities when it doesn't suspend disbelief. If another civ has been partially conquered by a 3rd party, I might liberate the conquered cities and gift them back to the rightful owner, instead of keeping them.

Unfortunately the AI doesn't recognize when you're returning their original cities, it'd be nice for that special case to get some brownie points because it's a pretty magnanimous thing to do.

[platypotamus]

In my current game I pulled some incredible political manuevering to get Gandhi and Mao involved in a huge world war with everyone, all while I had peace. It looked like this:

Mao Vs Gandhi and Hatepshepsut (sp?)
Gandhi Vs Mao and Peter
Peter vs Gandhi and Saladin

Montezuma and Mansa Musa: Dead Already (neither at my hand... ok, neither FINISHED at my hand)

Me: Peaceful prosperity!

It caught up to me later (50 or so turns) when Mao declared war on me. I've bounced back, conquering a city of his that originally belonged to Gandhi. I've been wanting to gift that city to Gandhi to pull him back into the war (he's starting to get ahead of me on research and culture, and I don't like that), but Gandhi still refuses to talk to me due to my constant urging of others to invade him

Being a trade and diplomacy monger is really fun. I can't wait to try crazy stuff like this on a duel-sized pangaea map with 18 civs :-p

[Enigma_Nova]

I'd go more for a Duel-Sized Tiny Islands map with 18 Civs so you can be the FIRST to talk to people and get 'em to go ballistic at each-other.
Plus, a Gifted City on a 1-tile island in the middle of absolutely nowhere can really help anyone stagnate

[Quillan]

Originally posted by Blake
If another civ has been partially conquered by a 3rd party, I might liberate the conquered cities and gift them back to the rightful owner, instead of keeping them.

In my last game, I was sharing borders with Tokugawa, with Rome right on the opposite side of him. Rome was getting the worst of the war, and I was ready for some expansion, so I joined in when Caesar asked me. Along the way, I captured three former Roman cities. On one out of the three, I had three options when I captured it:

Install a new governor
Burn it to the ground
Return it to its former owner (Rome)

I chose the third, and it went back to Rome with its former cultural borders intact. In the other two cases, I had to give it back to Rome. It didn't keep its old borders, and had to go through several turns of resistance. I don't know what the criteria is for this third option.

[cal_01]

Once the Chinese were picking on the Americans, so I (being Isabella) decided to crush the Chinese cities and gift them to the Americans. Then, I decided to destroy the French (who were also picking on the Americans) and I gave those cities away too!

The funny thing about that game was that everyone converted to my religion (Buddhism), until the Chinese went Christian in the mid-late game. How's that for the Spanish Inquisition!

[Ithkul2]

beating the game on hardest dif on duel should be possible with this approach.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Quillan


In my last game, I was sharing borders with Tokugawa, with Rome right on the opposite side of him. Rome was getting the worst of the war, and I was ready for some expansion, so I joined in when Caesar asked me. Along the way, I captured three former Roman cities. On one out of the three, I had three options when I captured it:

Install a new governor
Burn it to the ground
Return it to its former owner (Rome)

I chose the third, and it went back to Rome with its former cultural borders intact. In the other two cases, I had to give it back to Rome. It didn't keep its old borders, and had to go through several turns of resistance. I don't know what the criteria is for this third option.

Wow - this looks very interesting... i'd really appreciate any further information on this...

[MoonWolf]

Originally posted by Ithkul2
beating the game on hardest dif on duel should be possible with this approach.

Hehe, then you must first be able to capture enemy cities or get your settler across the land before the AI builds there

[Russian_King]

very nice! ima try it!