possible war strategy, exploit?

[benzy54n]

In my latest game on a huge map i have been playing an evil merchant empire. I usually have a small amount of ships on hand though. Well if i do come to blows with a civilization i will usually trade my techs to get ships from friendly civilizations. I usually have a lot more techs than everybody else (playing on subnormal). Well to get to the point. I was thinking if someone was playing the money or technology game and they wanted to take out a civilization they could just buy a good amount of their taget's civilization's fleet. I mean i was trading like 5 techs for maybe 10 dreads. With the money aspect you could also give them alot of money over an extended amount of time but just use their ships in the next couple of turns to wipe them out without paying them because you are at war. I was just wondering what people thought about this. Sorry if it was brought up or discussed before.

[Eric S]

it works and has been done. Don't know if the AI is better at avoiding this at higher levels..

[Harry Seldon]

Your tech must be rocking if you're trading for dreadnaughts. I had two civs that were Close without being allies and I couldn't get them to give me dreadnaught or battleship tech for any price and a ridiculous trade for actual ships. I fixed their rosy little wagons with a Terror Star, though. He he!

[Trifna]

No idea with dreadnaughts since I always killed all my opponents before getting any deadnaught built, but I know that once I bough yor's entire fleet with techs and I took 4/5 of his planets with HIS fleet and HIS transports full of HIS troops. Was playing on normal difficulty.

Maybe this is changed in GaCiv 1.02 though.

[LDiCesare]

Trading techs is in fact extraordinarily efficient. In my game, I get about 2/3rds of my income from techs I sell away. I managed to sell some techs for a good price to a minor civ I'm at war with. I don't know whether a civ at war against me would accept selling its ships, but it does sell its money. That's on normal AI. I don't know if brighter AIs are more careful when trading with would-be or declared enemies.