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Conscript Rabbi
 
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Enlarge your land, make your neighbors flip
I have developed a technique for expansion at the expense of my neighbors without going to war. The approach is very simple and not used by the AI and not even discerned by it, so you can go about your aggression without agravating them.
I am sure that if I ever go about trying this strategy on a large scale, I might have cities flipping to me all the time, but that I haven't done yet. I have used it on opportunity.
I call this strategy 'mitnachlim', which is the hebrew word for settlers. With 'mitnachlim' we also refer to those israeli's who make their settlements in the occupied territories, right under the nose of the Palestinians and that is exactly the thing I do in Civ.
Normally, nobody would plant a city one tile away from a foreign city. But this is what I do in order to obtain the land by settlement and not by war. It takes money (exactly as with the real life 'mitnachlim', who are financed from the outside and hardly sustain themselves) and I use the money to quickly build culture in the city. It is just a matter of time that the neighbor flips to me. Of course, as soon as he has flipped, I have two cities that are too close to each other to be viable. What I do is; I drain the foreign city with workers and settlers and eventually abandon it.
On a large scale this strategy involves planting my cities on my border, as close to the neigbor as possible. And in open land, where everybody is rushing to the scene: I plant them at every open spot that is available. Then I invest in temples and libraries and I sit back to have the foreigners flip to me.
On the borders of my core land, this strategy involves a higher investment of money (all cultural buildings must be built) and the harvest is not so big in the sense of number of cities that eventually flip. The cities that I neighbor are too close to their own core to easily flip. But if they do, they are a considerable blow to the strategical coherence of the neighbor. I have found myself closing in on my neighbor until his capital. The capital never swings naturally, but having a capital on the border is ineffective for him. Needless to say, I need maximum culture in the border cities, also to prevent them flipping to the competition.
An additional point of interest in this core to core competition that I also appreciate is the amount of tiles that flip to me. I have managed to obtain resources on the border and simply minimize the amount of land a foreign city can use. In the case where I closed in on the neighbor's capital, I occupied three tiles of his sphere, thus lowring his productive capabilities. All of this is gain.
In remote areas, I can have the foreign cities flip in a matter of turns. Therefore, an area that starts out as a patchwork of nationalities, can be turned into exclusively mine if I set my mind and my money to it.
In these remote areas, I must understand that the cities I build are costing money and I must irrigate the land and have as many tax collectors in the city as possible, to minimize the upkeep.
Still, the investment is worth it. My expansion is considerable and I get to control resources galore, This in turn generates money and allows me to continue grabbing land by simply settling it.
I am sure you all thought of this, but I have not seen any post where this was layed down in a strategy.
Currently I have no access to the screenshots I made. In consecutive posts I will throw in a few samples of my achievements with this approach.
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Hypocrisy is sin's reverence to virtue
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Elite Warlord
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Game slut
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Conscript Rabbi
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Conscript Rabbi
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The core to core competition.
In the same game I find myself building next to the Persian captial Persepolis. At first I throw in a lot of culture, just to survive, but soon I begin to understand I can compete on the tiles in the Persian land and undermine the effectivity of its core.
Near_A_Capital4 is the first picture. This shows the situation at 10 BC. The outskirt city Pune seems to be too close to Persepolis to be safe. As a matter of fact, the same counts for the Japanese city Tokyo. At this point I do not give Tokyo a second thought, but in hindsight, the success is, that I close in on it with Dharamsala (Near_A_Capital5), make it flip to me and drain it (Near_A_Capital6). After which I build a new city (Leh), one tile north, closing in on Persepolis. (Near_A_Capital7). This is around 600 AD. I win the game at 1800 AD, by then, my territory has extended so far, that I could place yet another city (New Indus) on the Persian border, taking tiles from the Persian core city Pasargadea and grab a valuable tile with Rubber. (Near_A_Capital8)
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Hypocrisy is sin's reverence to virtue
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Conscript
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Game slut
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It is interesting to note that England voted for India (me) in the UN.
Veeeerrrry Interesting R.
In my experience, the cultural flip thing seems to take FOREVER (30 to 50 turns I guess, as you indicate), but maybe I'm just being too impatient?
Have you ever managed to get one of the CORE cities of an AI to flip? i.e, a capital city, or the second or third city?
Thanks for the great thread!
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tones (9/1/2009)
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Conscript Rabbi
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Game slut
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Where's Johnny!
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