One blatant exploit that works very well for expansionist civs is to stick scouts on top of resource squares in enemy territory, thus preventing the AI from building roads to it, and denying them the resource. Obviously quite a useful thing to do. And since the unit doing it is a scout, it can stay there for a long time before getting the 'remove your forces or declare war' message.
So, how about letting workers displace scouts. If a worker 'attacks' a scout in the workers territory, then the scout is forced to retreat to an adjacent square (as long as there is one available), without a decleration of war. This allows the AI to peacfully gain access to its resources without altering the (intended) functionality of the scout. You might even limit the worker displacement to only occur when the scout it on a known resource, and/or only let the scout be displaced once per turn (I can imagine some odd muli-player exploits otherwise where people use workers to teleport allies' scouts all the way across their territory in one turn).
Any chance of seeing this implemented at some point?
Oh, and while I have your attention (*if* I have your attention, that is), is their any possibility of implementing a feature whereby players can name regions on the map (e.g. mountain ranges, rivers, major battlefields or whatever amuses the player)? Speaking for myself (and probably for others who've mentioned it in the past) it would increase immersion in the game noticably - I say this having been surprised how nice it's been to rename elite units when they produce leaders - it adds to the game very well. Of course, I have no idea how much work would be needed to implement this in the graphics engine/game data, and it may well be prohibitive given the number of things being worked on for PtW or other projects But we can live in hope.
And PLEEEEEEASE get the spelling of Heidleberg right...
(note the lack of any letter 'u' in the word).
