Screw your ally during war and get away with it

athorpel · November 22, 2002, 18:00

Recent game Latest patch. Warlord level. I am the Persians. Late game, modern era, large continent on two continent huge world. My allies on the continent are China and Babylon. I have right-of-passage agreements with both allies. The enemies are France and Russia. I manage to take all Russian cities before my allies grab them. I am not as lucky with the French cities. China takes five of the weakest. I get the other ten or so. I'm greedy and want all of the French cities. I seemingly have two options. I can wait for a culture flip or I can war on the Chinese when we are finished picking apart the French. But an evil idea percolates in my brain. Here’s my train of thought. I am taking these large cities and having massive numbers of resistors. I have to garrison them heavily to quell the resistance quickly and it is making me nervous. For two or three turns those conquered cities are vulnerable, first to culture flipping back to the French, second to Espionage by one of my ostensible allies. Then I remember that I'm a Democracy and am immune to propaganda, I'm covered. China is a communist state in this game, has been for a long long time, they aren't immune to propaganda. I've already bought off one or two of their cities. I have found that cities close to culture flipping are more susceptible to propaganda. From reading posts here I have seen that resistors have a large influence on the chances of culture flipping. Those French cities that China grabbed before I could, those cities should have resistors in them, French resistors, right? At least for one or two turns. They should be close to flipping on account of it, right? They should be cheap to buy off because of the resistors and unhappy people, on top of the reduced population that the combat causes. Why should they go to the Chinese or back to the French? I want them. I think I have a really good chance at buying them off. I actually manage to buy off two in time, before the resistors disappeared. Why only two? the idea didn’t occur to me until too late, the other three cities had already been in the possession of the Chinese for several turns. The propaganda didn’t work on them, yet.

What makes this tactic work? Besides having a spy in the Chinese capital for those that can't help but crack wise.

In summary->

Reasons for propaganda to work more than it would otherwise:

The cities being propagandized have a different nationality than the owner,
and apparently the more different the better.
The cities have resistors in them.
They might even have some unhappy people in them.

Reasons for the propaganda to be cheap enough to afford:

Most if not all of the city improvements are destroyed.
The city lacks any culture, being reset to zero on being conquered.
The large part of the population might have died in the combat, low population.

For all those folks that have given up on espionage, this strategy just might be painless enough to use.

joncnunn · November 22, 2002, 18:16

I've just never had initate progranada work at all in Civ III. Something to do with the fact that overall culture ratio is very important with initiate propagana, and if I have that much culutre I don't have the cash for initate proganada while if I have the cash to afford it, I don't have the culture to make it successful.

Minmaster · November 22, 2002, 19:18

u can screw the ally by getting an RoP and placing a whole bunch of units at major chokepoints, borders, naval blockade, and prevent the AI troops from ever getting out of their own territory. u can do this with bunch of outdated units, scouts, or even bunch of slave workers. that is if u want to fight the war yourself and not let the ally take the enemy cities u want, but then this will probably take a lot of units to accomplish. also u can simply redirect ally troops by opening a hole in ur line and all their units will move towards that hole and when they are 1 tile away, close it and they all move elsewhere. u can repeat this to baffle AI troops.

candybo · November 23, 2002, 14:29

What I do sometimes is: Set my ally up, such that his units keep jumbling back and forth. In the meantime, his cities get taken by a common enemy, whereupon, I go get those same cities, without too much fuss...

athorpel · December 19, 2002, 14:59

Minmaster,
I have been using the ally unit blocking tactic in my most recent game, it's sad to watch the AI be so lame. Though I used it keep them safe more than anything.

As an update, I used the ROP agreement with China to place 3 to 4 modern armors right next to every one of their cities. Yes, ROP ends, one turn of combat, war over, no more China.

I always get the biggest sense of accomplishment from figuring out the small rules based advantage grabbers.
For example, invoice switching for cheap rush built military units, or building railroads on the water, or carvan stacking to rush build wonders, all from Civ 1.

MiloMilo · December 19, 2002, 16:25

Civ1! For a second I didn't know what the heck you were talking about.

Advice: you didn't need to wait for the RoP to end before attacking. Declaring war while within another nation's borders is just as bad. I think you'll find that in that game, even though you waited for the RoP to end, everyone else will still refuse to sign one with you from now on.

DaveMcW · December 19, 2002, 16:41

If you are worried about no one signing RoPs, get an RoP with everyone right before you attack. You then have 20 turns to abuse the RoPs as much as you want.

athorpel · December 19, 2002, 18:37

MiloMilo,

Oh they signed ROP's alright. The Greeks signed and died. Then the Japanese did the same after my MA horde healed up.

The very turn the ROP agreement ends (doesn't have a number in front of it in the diplomacy screen) you must declare war and declare it formally right after making sure the ROP is terminated in the active agreements part of the diplomacy screen. The AI cannot get a chance to tell you to get out of his territory or you will take a reputation hit.

MiloMilo · December 21, 2002, 15:16

Ah, so the reputation hit happens when they ask you to leave and you don't? I thought you get one just by declaring war with units already in their territory (ROP or no ROP)... interesting...

DeepO · December 22, 2002, 20:42

Quote:

Originally posted by athorpel
I have found that cities close to culture flipping are more susceptible to propaganda. From reading posts here I have seen that resistors have a large influence on the chances of culture flipping. Those French cities that China grabbed before I could, those cities should have resistors in them, French resistors, right? At least for one or two turns. They should be close to flipping on account of it, right?

First of all, I haven't used propaganda much at all, after the first few games to test it out. It seems it's in most of my games less costly to take the city by force. But maybe I should revisit the propaganda thing, as it likely has changed over the patches as well.

But, you could be right that cities on the brink of cultural flip would be more susceptible to propaganda, it does make sense. However, don't you mix two flippings here? I can imagine that if you pressure a city, you have an easier propaganda campaign there... what sounds not right is that if the French (with their resistors) are pressuring a Chinese city, you would have it easier with propaganda... I can only guess that the French have that advantage, and not you.

DeepO

Zero · December 23, 2002, 02:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Minmaster
u can screw the ally by getting an RoP and placing a whole bunch of units at major chokepoints, borders, naval blockade, and prevent the AI troops from ever getting out of their own territory. u can do this with bunch of outdated units, scouts, or even bunch of slave workers. that is if u want to fight the war yourself and not let the ally take the enemy cities u want, but then this will probably take a lot of units to accomplish. also u can simply redirect ally troops by opening a hole in ur line and all their units will move towards that hole and when they are 1 tile away, close it and they all move elsewhere. u can repeat this to baffle AI troops.

I would rather own a territory between fueding parties and sign ROP. According to the AI reactions, doing that will make me a god. They will never ever declare war on me again. (As I have accidentally found out in "Long distance Relationship" Map)

athorpel · January 7, 2003, 16:34

DeepO,

The resistors are one more modifier for the propaganda attempt (one more number included in the equation), my understanding of how this percentage chance is arrived at only involves one equation to determine this % chance. I seem to remember someone posting the actual equation, or something close. I don't remember which thread. This implies to me that it does not matter who the resistors are mad at or where their allegiences lie, as far as my propaganda attempt is concerned their existence just increases the % chance of success for me or anybody.

MiloMilo,

I think the fact that I took out the offending civilization completely means more than the pseudo ROP breaking as far as reputation is concerned. Being the party to declare war is worse than having it declared against you. I have read these things in this forum but I have seen it in my last game also. The biggest reputation hit happens when you raze a city to the ground. Do that a few times and nobody likes you. Sorry if I seem to be repeating what you have already read. I just finished the above mentioned monster huge game by a conquest victory. I just couldn't quit. I think the year was 1862. Victory was assured centuries earlier, I just felt compelled to see how the game played in the late game. I had never researched every tech before.

Pet peeve with the space race/ship screen: If you build the last piece of the ship, the space ship screen pops up, you can only get out of it by hitting the launch button. What if I don't want to launch it right then? Not an option. Designer assumptions of player preferences can sometimes make me want to say bad things.

theNiceOne · January 10, 2003, 07:23

Quote:

Originally posted by athorpel
The very turn the ROP agreement ends (doesn't have a number in front of it in the diplomacy screen) you must declare war and declare it formally right after making sure the ROP is terminated in the active agreements part of the diplomacy screen. The AI cannot get a chance to tell you to get out of his territory or you will take a reputation hit.

You will take the rep hit by doing it this way as well. Declaring war while having units inside enemy territory is considered RoP rape regardless of whether you have RoP or not, and regardless of how you declared the war.

athorpel · January 10, 2003, 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by theNiceOne

You will take the rep hit by doing it this way as well. Declaring war while having units inside enemy territory is considered RoP rape regardless of whether you have RoP or not, and regardless of how you declared the war.

I guess all the trade I was doing was keeping the other civs gracious. Or maybe it was because I had alliances or MPP with almost everybody else when I attacked the next victim. It just didn't seem like I took a reputation hit, no status changes that I could see. It could be the version I am playing. Which is 1.29f, PTW 1.14f may be different.

Also certain civs were beholden to me greatly because I would give them military tech if a nasty neighbor had it and they didn't.

DeepO · January 10, 2003, 22:54

Quote:

Originally posted by athorpel
The resistors are one more modifier for the propaganda attempt (one more number included in the equation), my understanding of how this percentage chance is arrived at only involves one equation to determine this % chance. I seem to remember someone posting the actual equation, or something close. I don't remember which thread. This implies to me that it does not matter who the resistors are mad at or where their allegiences lie, as far as my propaganda attempt is concerned their existence just increases the % chance of success for me or anybody.

Well... I remember that thread well enough, I was quite active in it. Look here .

I don't understand fully what you want to say, but resistors only count in the CF formula towards their original civ, and not to someone else. A French city, captured by the Chinese, is not more prone to flip to America because there are a bunch of French resistors in... it could only flip to France faster. I don't know, but my guess is that propaganda works similarly.

DeepO

roadcage · January 12, 2003, 23:00

I believe that athorpel is suggesting that the resistors reduce the propoganda price enough to be worthwhile.

For the moment, I am not going to worry about the 'why' and instead look for an opportunity to 'try' this little number out.

athorpel · January 13, 2003, 11:00

roadcage,

That IS what I am talking about roadcage. I am only talking about propaganda and how resistors affect the percentage chance of success and as you mentioned, the price being worthwhile.

DeepO,

Yes, resistors only affect CF probabilities for the resistors' civ and not someone else's. My proposition is this, resistors are a significant factor in propaganda attempts, they act like unhappy citizens on steroids if you will when it comes to propaganda attempts.

DeepO · January 13, 2003, 11:12

Again, you could be very right, but you seem to miss the point I'm trying to make: resistors don't count double when their nationality is different from the civ who's chances are calculated, so why would it be with propaganda?

If a city has 10 Chinese resistors in it, those resistors want to return to China, and not to France, as it will be equally bad than America (if America is the current owner of the city, and France the one using propaganda). Logically speaking, the propaganda costs / chances will be calculated per civ, and not per city alone.

DeepO

Shr3dZ · January 14, 2003, 18:47

Quote:

I can imagine that if you pressure a city, you have an easier propaganda campaign there... what sounds not right is that if the French (with their resistors) are pressuring a Chinese city, you would have it easier with propaganda... I can only guess that the French have that advantage, and not you.

Hmmm this might be a good way to get back your OWN cities faster than trying to take them back by force... just buy them back. I must remember this.

As for the topic of propaganda in cities with revolters. Lets say you had 5 conent French, and 5 resising - If you tried propaganda on that, perhaps you only have to flip the 5 content since the other 5 are resisting... maybe they just dont count, who knows.

athorpel · January 15, 2003, 16:07

For whatever reason, those cities seemed awfully cheap to propagandize with those resistors in them compared to a typical non-resisting city. They flipped on the first attempt also.

I am going to push prolonged warfare in my current game to the point the AI will have to switch to communism or monarchy. Then I will attempt this propaganda technique again on a more systematic basis. Investigate the cities beforehand, count the types of citizens, write down how much I paid, etc.

I want to compare same size cities, one with resistors, one without resistors. Obviously, current and previous owner will not be my civ.

I will post the results here.

My original intent for this thread was just to foster a rethink of propaganda attempts.
I hope I have done that.
But dang, now I'm real curious to see whether what I observed in that Persian game is repeatable.