Gifting Units

[greenday_234]

In all the Civ games I play I tend to pick one civ as a friend of mine and work on relations throughout the entire game. My question essentially boils down to this situation. I want to form a coalition with China and invade Germany (Chinas neighbor) and then gift any cities I gain to China. However I certainly want China not only to be able to defend itself but also to lead the battle as well. So in my infinite wisdom I figure I will gift somewhere in the area of 25 infantry and 5 artillery to china and then pay them an additional 75 gold per turn in order to pay for the additions that they may make to their militiary. Now my question is A. Lets say they don't have the tech to build infantry what happens to the gifted infantry that I give them B. Will they actually use the infantry I give them.

Thank you

[greenday_234]

sorry also forgot I worry that China will just disband most of them, is there anyway of monitoring the size of their forces? or do I not have to worry about this at all? Also will gifting forces and giving cities to china earn relations points?

[djpsychonaut]

I don't think there's a problem with gifting them a more advanced unit than they are able to build. I believe this would work the same way as when you lose access to a strategic resource such as Iron, your Swordsmen don't just up and disappear -- you just can't build anymore of them.

I think if you overwhelm them with 25 units and their economy can't support that many units, then the AI will start to disband them. There are many ways that you can monitor their military strength though and gift them units over time. One way to do this would be to monitor their position relative to the enemy by hitting F9.

Another way to do this would be to have some of your own units at their border cities and you just keep track of the number of units in your line of sight. You could even have a scout unit. and I mean this in the loosest sense, it doesn't literally have to be a Scout, any unit could act in the capacity I'm speaking of.

You can have your "scout" trail one of their unit stacks as they advance into enemy territory, just plant it on a hill or something. If you keep your scout unit far enough away from the battle, then the AI will likely recognize your ally as the bigger threat and ignore you.

[mook85]

Watch that you don't cripple your friend with upkeep from units (which they'll disband) and cities (which they won't). In fact, you can earn yourself major points with other civs by gifting them conquered and pretty much useless border cities while crippling them financially.

It's evil.

[Hauptman]

Ive actually not noticed a faction hit from a city gift, Cautiose remains cautiose and i see no new + in the breakdown. But it does still put that drain on em.

[Calvin Vu]

I gave the AIs some units before (nowhere near 30 units though). The units were much-better than those from the AI it was fighting with but then it just sent those few odd units against the other AI rather than starting a full offensive campaign and those units died pretty quick without doing much damage. I suppose that solved the support problem .
If the AI does the same thing with 30 units then I'm sure they can capture some cities. I don't think I ever have so many spare units just for offence myself.