Is it worth it to poison the water supply?

[Mixam]

In the game I am playing the Egyptians were pissing me off so I forced them to declare war on me. I had a good defense at a goon choke point closer to their city then mine. So I have some spys at the chokepoint too. Any time a good unit came along I would bribe it and recieve a non unit which I added to the pile.

Then I switched to fundi and decided I was gunna kill them. So I have 9000 or so gold and there is one city in the way of me killing the capital to make bribing cheaper. So I send in a spy see how much it costs and it costs 3500. So I send in 11 spies and knock the city down to a size one then buy it for 150 Over half my spies (all vet from commie) survived so I figure it was a good deal. But now the city is size one and it will be many years b4 it can really help with my war effort.

Next I take out the capital after I used spies to remove city walls. Then I proceed to knock out the happy improvements from the remaining cities till they will go into civil disorder. These cities were about size 10 average and each cost approx 500 after throwing them into dissorder. This war took four turns cause one of the cities wasn't connected by roads

So basically I am asking peoples oppinion on this. Is it worth it to poison a city way down to make it real cheap to bribe. I mean if it is in the way it seems to be a good idea but what about the loss of production you would have had if you hadn't poisoned the city but bought it for a premium price?
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Mixam (edited May 02, 2001).]</font>

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I would say no, for just the reason you point out; if you have enough spies to poison a city down to size one, you surely have enough to tear down the walls and take it by force. The exception, I guess, would be if you had a well-defended democratic city, in which reducing population would reduce the number of units it could support. But in general, I've never seen the point of poisoning.

EDIT: I just thought of an exception: I could imagine using it if your objective wasn't war but just the taking of a key city -- say, one with a desirable wonder in it. Never thought of that before. Hmmm...

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited May 02, 2001).]

[Mixam]

Thanks Rufus

You made me think of another way in which poisoning is good to do. Say if you want to take some cities without starting a war. That means you have to pay the 2x gold so there is not an international incident. Sometimes this costs an aweful lot of money...

But does the AI you take the city from get mad at you whether you pay double or not? Is it just that paying double lets you keep you reputation with the other AI?

[Alexander's Horse]

Makeo tried to poison me into submission. But in fundy even a size 1 city supports 10 units.



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Founder, Dear Leader and Great Helmsman of PROT -the People's Republic of Topics www.delphi.com/prot1

[East Street Trader]

Paying double leaves your relationship with the city's (former) civ intact.

There must be an application there - the WoW case is one, another might be when you want to take in a city to improve the defensibility of a border which you expect to stay there for a long time. Maybe there are two cities inconveniently close together. You can block incursions by diplos and spies in such cases by putting non combatant units in the way - but that ties up the non combatant units. So a poisoning campaign followed by a cheap buy-in sounds good.

In general I haven't employed poison much either, up to now anyway.

I used a spy to nuke an enemy city for the first time recently. Surprised myself by quite enjoying it. The city had three nuclear missiles in it and I didn't have the wherewithall to take it. First spy got caught before the event, next one blew the place to smithereens.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

It's fun to poison the neighbors' cities into submission. In war games, I often have several spies per city - in the late game, this means hundreds of them. They get bored! I send them to the front, and target a huge city. Poison it down to size one, and bribe it, all in one turn. For 150 gold or so, I get:

• Several units
• Every darned city improvement known to that civ
• A place to heal my battle weary troops
• A nearby base to which my spies return

Over the following turns, I sell off all the improvements, raking in the cash. I keep the walls and barracks. With my army saturating the hinterlands, the AI won't be able to slip a diplomat thru to bribe it back.

Sure, I'd score higher if I took the city while size 15, but this is more fun. For strategists, tho, I agree that doing this is a bit counter-productive to the overal game.

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"There is no fortress impregnable to an ass laden with gold."
-Philip of Macedon

[drake]

Man, that is such a dirty rotten tactic...........I definetly frown upon such methods.......unless of course it's just against the ai, then I suppose its ok. However, I suggest you never do it in a multiplayer game, as a human player wouldnt be as forgiving as the ai after screwing them over like that. For doing such things your attitude should be adjusted to "dirty rotten scum of the earth"....most dispicable

[Mixam]

Well I finished the game that this post pertains too. I had more fun playing it then I have had in a long time of civin'. I remained relatively peaceful throughout the game. All my military campaigns were fast and brutal I don't usually play like this but I had decided to give it a try. The reason I had to poison a city down to size one was that I needed to get by that city to take out the capital. Worked quite well actually.

The french died even faster than the previously mentioned egyptians did. Paris was in a bad location and I took it over by bribing some barbs near Paris giving me a few non legions and a Catapult from the Celts. Bye Paris! But blue came back on an island off my coast 2 turns to find them and one to kill them.

The babylonians were right beside me like the Egyptians but with them I didn't have the advantage of a choke point. So I milked them for tributes till they turned Icy and declared war. They had 4 cities. Took out the capital with 3 vet catapults protected by 3 vet legions in a fort i had just rushed beside the capital. Then in with the spys to buy the remaining 3 cities. One turn to kill them.

White remained in the top position till they tried to steal tech from me and I declared war. Almost killed them in 3 turns but they had two hidden cities up by the poles. Killed them with vet bombers vet armors and a whole lot of vet spies to take down defense.

I was now too close to orange to suit them and now supreme after killin white so orange switched to fundy and surprise attacked me. Took out their capital and bribed my way through them in 4 or 5 turns (some of their cities weren't even connected by roads).

Now left with only the chinese. I had been peaceful with them the whole game cause they had the best city to send my caravans to. Would not have minded making the trip to AC but they insisted. They kept sneak attacking my transports and their guards so I decided to kill them. They made their next big mistake by building the manhattan project. Now normall I don't like to nuke but I had alot of money and no sdi yet so I figured kill him quick or you are gunna be getting nukes up the ass. He had 8 cities so I rush built (using incremental rush building) 8 nukes was to take him out in one turn. He messed that up by bribing one of the cities I had just built a nuke in so I now had only 7... 6 after nuking the city he bribed to get it back. So I nuked all but 2 of his cites cam in with some spies and a couple armors to take all the cities but realized damn but there are two cities left so I can't just run in claim and go to the next one. So I ended up placing 3 armor in 3 cities and using the spys to guard the other 3! The partisians almost took one of the cities back but not b4 I could build a fanatic. I just realized that even though when you just take over a city you can't rush buy units, you can rush buy an improvement that costs twice as many sheild as the unit you want then switch to the unit. Well at this point i had alot of money Anyways rushed 2 more nukes and 2 paratroupers and took out the last 2 cities.

Not one of my wars lasted more than 5 turns! I wish that I had saved the game regualarly so that I could have made a log. I used so many things in this game I had previously ignored. Mostly nukes, ship chains and poisoning the water supply.

Edit: Yes english is my first language and yes I know my grammer is crap in this post but I am very tired. Maybe i will fix it when I wake up.
[This message has been edited by Mixam (edited May 02, 2001).]

[Xin Yu]

You can try to poison the capital to size one, tear down the wall if necessary (i.e., if there are too many defense units inside and you don't want to kill them one by one), then destroy it. This will make sure the civ cannot move its capital. Then you can bribe other cities cheap. Have your other spies ready to bribe as many cities as you can the same turn, before the civ has a chance to build another palace (destroy courthouses for cheaper bribing price).

Works if the civ is not democracy. It may not be the best strategy, but certainly an option.

A question: when bribing multiple cities, is it cheaper (in terms of total cost) to start from smaller cities, or bigger cities?

[SlowThinker]

Xin Yu,

quote: Originally posted by Xin Yu A question: when bribing multiple cities, is it cheaper (in terms of total cost) to start from smaller cities, or bigger cities?

The key are paragraphs 3.2 and 3.1 of "Info: diplomats and spies" thread (if they are true):

The order of bribing don't have an effect IMHO...

(I don't consider rounding errors. I suppose you bribe within one turn, there is no capital, no city is in disorder, dips only or spies only or vet spies only...)
[This message has been edited by SlowThinker (edited May 02, 2001).]

[ancient]

mixam what difficulty level whas that game at? a ai only having 4 citys is scary,,

[Mixam]

Ancient: I play on Emporer, 7 civs, raging hordes. The reason green only had 4 cities was that with the exception of the chineese we were all on the same continent. Green ended up right beside me stuck on basically a peninsula. I built my first cities as close to him as I could so I had more room to expand. I did that to yellow too. I wasn't left with much room but I did fairly well being stuck between 2 civs. I only had 8 cities till I started killing them.
PS. Welcome to Apolyton

Xin Yu: Is this a question to which you already know the answer and are just asking it to make us think? Actually I never thought about it b4. I guess it comes down to how much money you get from each city. I think but am not sure (never checked) that when you take an AI city the money that you get comes outta their treasury. Now if the money you get from taking a city is related to the same things as the money it costs to bribe a city there would be no difference IMHO. But I don't know. If you really don't know I will attempt to find out


[This message has been edited by Mixam (edited May 02, 2001).]

[Xin Yu]

I have thought about it but never tested. Suppose two cities A and B only differes from each other by population, then

Bribing cost = constant* (population)* (1000+Treasury)

Thus, if we bribe A first:

Total cost = constant* [(population_A)* (1000+Treasury) +(population_B)* (1000+Treasury-Punder_A)]
=constant* [(population_A)* (1000+Treasury) +(population_B)* (1000+Treasury)]-constant*Treasury*population_B*pupulation_A/(Total Population +1).

Bribe B first gives the same value.

So, there is no difference in bribing cost. However there will be a difference in money you get from getting the city. Bribing a big city first gives you more.

Things will be more complicated when A and B differ from each other in other aspects in addition to population.

[Mixam]

Well while on the subject... Is it just population and the treasury that effects the cost of bribing a city or does the number of city improvements or number of wonders in the city effect the cost? I mean with the exception of the courthouse which doubles? the amount it costs. Also if there is a spy in the city can the attempt be thwarted or cost more? Is there a thread somewhere on this. I don't believe I came across it in the thread diplomats and spies in the gl.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

quote: Originally posted by Mixam on 05-03-2001 02:40 AM Well while on the subject... Is it just population and the treasury that effects the cost of bribing a city or does the number of city improvements or number of wonders in the city effect the cost? I mean with the exception of the courthouse which doubles? the amount it costs. Also if there is a spy in the city can the attempt be thwarted or cost more?

Here's what I think I know: Population, size of treasury, number of defenders, and distance from the capital are the four things that initially affect the cost of bribing a city; this is why, when going for the kill, it's effective to take out a civ's capital before you begin bribing other cities (in the absence of a capital, a city's distance is computed as maximum distance from the capital), and why it's always best to try to bribe from the side of the city that's farthest from its capital (you can save hundreds of gold this way sometimes). Spies and diplos in the city reduce the chance of success slightly; vet spies and diplos reduce it more; don't know the exact odds, but at this place someone surely does . Vet spies also reduce the cost of bribing by, I believe, 25%. One thing I don't know: if you're keeping a spy in a city in the hopes of preventing bribing/sabotage, should she be fortified?

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited May 03, 2001).]