Trojan Horse Strategy

[OCallison]

This technique is deigned to make you rich while embroiling the rest of the world in a pointless war. It works in mid-game or later. Find a small island. Send ships to it carrying 4 or 5 settlers. Build cities on the island. They don't need to be good ones or be located in worthwhile locations. Give the cities names that make it easy not to confuse them with your good cities (e.g., Trojan 1, Trojan 2, etc.). Now contact the other civs one by one and offer to sell them each one city. The AI is always willing to pay a mint for a city (especially if you let it grow a little before selling it). For example, I have received 2 sciences, hundreds of dollars a turn, etc. just for one city. When you're done, you will be very rich and now 4 civs are stuck on some lousy island together. It won't be long before they start fighting among themselves for control of that little island. World War III breaks out while you sit by and cash their checks.

[Willem]

Re: Trojan Horse Strategy

Originally posted by OCallison
This technique is deigned to make you rich while embroiling the rest of the world in a pointless war. It works in mid-game or later. Find a small island. Send ships to it carrying 4 or 5 settlers. Build cities on the island. They don't need to be good ones or be located in worthwhile locations. Give the cities names that make it easy not to confuse them with your good cities (e.g., Trojan 1, Trojan 2, etc.). Now contact the other civs one by one and offer to sell them each one city. The AI is always willing to pay a mint for a city (especially if you let it grow a little before selling it). For example, I have received 2 sciences, hundreds of dollars a turn, etc. just for one city. When you're done, you will be very rich and now 4 civs are stuck on some lousy island together. It won't be long before they start fighting among themselves for control of that little island. World War III breaks out while you sit by and cash their checks.

I like that one, I'll have to remember it.

[Thrawn05]

Re: Trojan Horse Strategy

Originally posted by OCallison
This technique is deigned to make you rich while embroiling the rest of the world in a pointless war. It works in mid-game or later. Find a small island. Send ships to it carrying 4 or 5 settlers. Build cities on the island. They don't need to be good ones or be located in worthwhile locations. Give the cities names that make it easy not to confuse them with your good cities (e.g., Trojan 1, Trojan 2, etc.). Now contact the other civs one by one and offer to sell them each one city. The AI is always willing to pay a mint for a city (especially if you let it grow a little before selling it). For example, I have received 2 sciences, hundreds of dollars a turn, etc. just for one city. When you're done, you will be very rich and now 4 civs are stuck on some lousy island together. It won't be long before they start fighting among themselves for control of that little island. World War III breaks out while you sit by and cash their checks.

Good idea, one problem though. The AI NEVER accepts a city in ANY WAY from me. I tried different combinations and it will never work me. If fact, Cleo went from polite to pissed in 2.53 seconds, it must be a bug.

[solo]

I think trading cities to the AI for riches was eliminated with the patch. It worked great, as described above before the patch, in fact so well, that they took away this exploit.

[vmxa1]

I do not recall the AI having all the money I keep reading about. Most of the time they are nearly broke. I am now playing a Monarch small map and often I can not even trade a lux or a resource as they have so little money. I can't recall my two diety games, but only my first few games did they have lots of money. Maybe it is due to being at war nearly all of the time.

[OCallison]

Trojan Horse Strategy, alt 1

This technique has worked for me most of the time. But as they say, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. If the computer won't pay for the cities for some reason (such as it has nothing to pay with), there is a variant to this strategy. You can build 4 cities on an island and GIVE one each to 4 other civs. This improves your relationship with those civs and they will get in a fight over the new cities most of the time. My friend used this ploy to break up a 3 way AI mutual protection pact. Obviously there is no benefit to doing it this way unless you are trying to start a war without getting in one yourself.

[solo]

True that most of the time the AI do not have much cash, but they often have enough surplus income to pay out substantial amounts in per/turn payments.