"Combat Settlers"

[Inverse Icarus]

Panzer dropped me this idea, and it's been buzzing in my head, so i figured I'd bring it here. But, credit where credit is due, thank you Panzer.

Building a city in another civilizations land is an act of war, but it can be done. So, if you're already at war, what do you have to lose?

The main idea here is that when you build a city in the land, regardless of their culture, you are guaranteed the 8 tiles surrounding the city, unless those tiles are from the 8 tiles surrounding one of their cities. I don't know about you, but i see that as potentially very powerful. First off, it gives you critical road access in the middle of enemy land. if the 8 tiles you claimed were hills or mountains, that could be a huge advantage. second, this could be done on/near critical resources. if you built a city on their only source of iron, they have to take it back. After they take it, it will presumably be razed (you didn't design the city to grow to size 2 or have culture), and the road to the iron will be cut. not to mention that you could HAVE that resource for the city (rush some musketmen while stealing a saltpeter?).

i've never tried this. has anyone?

[Aqualung71]

Yes, I have occassionally taken the opportunity during a war with a bordering neighbour to plop a settler down if there's a resource nearby that I particularly want. You need to make sure it's not too far from your capital, or else garrison it heavily and don't let it grow too much, to make sure it doesn't flip.

[vmxa1]

Yup I use it when I am in a position that I can. I like the ability to gain access to road or rails the most.

I don't get much use out the deny resource as they is most important in the early game, where this is harder to use.

[PeaSoup]

keep in mind that if you do that during peace time, it's considered breaking an ROP, which will make it hard to sign ROPs with that and other civs for a while.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by PeaSoup
keep in mind that if you do that during peace time, it's considered breaking an ROP, which will make it hard to sign ROPs with that and other civs for a while.

of course. thats why these are "combat settlers", that would mvoe in with your troops, and at a critical time, plop down a city to give you advantages.

i am really interested in trying this against a person in a MP game.

[Rhothaerill]

I have seen it done in a democracy game and it proved very effective. The other nation did not expect it at all and our team was able to steal a march on their cities a lot quicker than they thought we would.

FYI, that happened in the PTW ISDG and is old news by a few dozen turns so it's safe to talk about.

[Zanzin]

I didn't know you could build a city in enemy territory....in fact I'm sure I tried it in my last C3C game and the build city option just wasn't there...??!!?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Thriller
Yes, I have occassionally taken the opportunity during a war with a bordering neighbour to plop a settler down if there's a resource nearby that I particularly want. You need to make sure it's not too far from your capital, or else garrison it heavily and don't let it grow too much, to make sure it doesn't flip.

Bigger cities reduce the chances of flipping if it is your city.

Sorry to be a party-pooper but I don't think this strategy is applicable that often anyway. You would only build close to the border, and let's face it if you're at war you can easily take cities close to the border and get all the advantages the built city would have. You wouldn't benefit from the resource until it was connected to your network anyway. If it's denial your after this can also be attained more efficiently with conventional methods.

I have done this, but only after considering conventional methods first and concluding they were somehow inappropriate.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by PeaSoup
keep in mind that if you do that during peace time, it's considered breaking an ROP, which will make it hard to sign ROPs with that and other civs for a while.

Who is going to have an RoP?

[PeaSoup]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Who is going to have an RoP?

Shrug.. I find them useful for extra income when you sign with a smaller civ

[DrSpike]

I sign them often, for attitude reasons.

[jshelr]

There is a long and glorious out debate over at fanatics about settlers being exploits used this way. the thread is about the effective use of artillery by moonsinger. i won't try to summarize, but it's a must-read thread.

i think settlers are a legit offensive weapon with a large number of very effective uses.

[Rommel2D]

I had this used against me in my first PBEM game. It was used to conceal the contents of my opponent's SoD and turn the tables on the attrition situation. My musketman had a mountain pass locked up, but suddenly there was an enemy camp behind him with their units healing up and he had to "advance in a different direction" to lick his own wounds.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
of course. thats why these are "combat settlers", that would mvoe in with your troops, and at a critical time, plop down a city to give you advantages.

i am really interested in trying this against a person in a MP game.

Using fort cities/combat Settlers is one of the most potent tactics in the arsenal of a strategist against other human players.

As Rhoth mentioned, as Minister of War I used this technique in the PTW ISDG to great effect during a very early (Pre-Chiv) Medieval war. Apolyton used 3 of these cities to help dismantle GCA, killed ~18 units which wouldn't normally have been in range of attack and gained superior strategic positioning each time.

[Arrian]

It can be done amphibiously too. PTWDGI, GS vs. Vox. The Inchon/Inchoff operation.

EDIT: To elaborate, we dropped 2 loads of troops (mainly pikemen) with 1 settler in each behind enemy lines. The main group (Inchon) was dropped on a key hill tile that was adjacent to a 1-tile isthmus.

This had the effect of cutting Vox's army off from their homeland, and also cutting off their iron supply for warrior -> immortal upgrades. They were forced to try and break Inchon. Despite doing rather well in combat (I think they did a bit better than the "expected" battle results), they couldn't break back through, and we resolved the war in our favor.

-Arrian

[mad-bax]

This technique is widely known, but not widely used IME.

You can actually move wherever you want in one turnwithin enemy territory by this method (as long as you don't have to rail too many tiles). You just need lots of settlers.

The technique is as follows.

Settle a town.
Rail the next tile in the direction of travel if needed.
Move a settler onto the new tile
Disband old town
Found new town
Rinse and repeat.

If you have more time you can join a worker to the old town and disband 30 shields into it. This way you can convert the old town into a settler. Doing this means that you cannot travel an infinite distance in one turn however.

The main use is to push back enemy cultural borders to get your units (usually including arty) within range of the target, and to cut off a resource by poaching. However I have used it once to destroy a space ship. IIRC it took around 15 settlers. I was able to move an arty stack and a dozen or so tanks to the offending capital in a couple of turns.

It is an exploit however, and is on the RBCiv list.

EDIT: Unrelated to the original post... when I used this technique I used tanks and Infantry even though MA and MI were available. When I got to where I was going I rushed a rax in the final town and was able to upgrade the stack on the following turn with instant healing. I also generated 3 leaders (I think) in the attack and so headed home with 2MI armies and an MA army, all fully healed. The AI were not interested in attacking this stack. I was able to win by 20K within 10 turns of this.