An Occupation

Kaos XIII · June 7, 2003, 15:08

We all know about the “ROP Rape”, but what if instead of attacking, you just sit there and occupy their lands. You bring in Workers, to build fortresses on top of Mountains. Occupy strategic resources, with roads already on them, of course. Will they be more likely, to accept your tribute demands? Will this prevent the AI from declaring war, if your spy failed? In the Modern Age, war can be very tedious and make the IBT time, very, very slow. I want to know, can war be averted by occupying their land?

dexters · June 7, 2003, 16:01

Kaos, ROP aid (as opposed to rape) is a known variant of the "Big Brother" strategy.

I use it occasionally, especially in HUGE games where the AI really runs in two packs by mid games. Winners and losers. If you want to check a powerful neighbour but don't want to go to war with them, there is an entire set of strategies you can employ which includes gifting gold, techs (pretty standard) but can also extend into getting an ROP and moving in your units to help said AI.

I'm going off topic here but I'm on a roll so let me finish my train of thought my man

A variant of the gifting strategy is the loan/banker strategy. If weaker AI Civs can afford to pay you gpt for something, anything... remove that thing, and instead replace it with a lump sum payment. You can usually earn some interest on it.

(ie: AI pays 10 gpt for 20 turns = 200 gold you give lump sum of 185 gold. 15 gold interest). The advantage of this trade is that while the AI has to pay you and tying up their gpt income may not be a good idea in every case (that is, you may want them to use it for units) an injection of a large lump sum up front can help the AI not only pay you but build up their infrastructure so that it actually earns more money.

This is a good way to help out an AI while not giving it to them for free.

Cruddy · June 8, 2003, 01:53

Hmm, only tried this a couple of times a long time ago. It never worked for me - I always got told to leave (AI Civ cancelled the ROP and wouldn't extend it).

I must have been doing something wrong.

Mind you, I will often let strong AI Civs go through my lands on their way to a war (No ROP) on the other side of my territory - kind of a "Little Brother" strategy.

It's even funnier if you can block them on your land and they get attacked by a different AI civ.

Kaos XIII · June 8, 2003, 15:42

Hmm, thanks for the info. I didn't know about the "big brother" and "little brother" strategies.