Recycling Blitz

[Aeson]

Recycling is one of those dead end techs that doesn't offer that much seemingly. Recycling centers can't completely wipe out pollution, and the bad pollution is population based anyways. So why spend the research here?

One answer is that Recycling is a very powerful conquest tool, especially on higher difficulty levels were your culture might be lacking. To quell resistance in a size 20-30 city of a civ with more culture than you is a very hazardous undertaking. This is where Recycling comes in.

After you have Recycling, every sold improvement gives back shields as well. These high danger culture cities will invariably have plenty of improvements left after you capture them. Use the shields from improvements to rush settlers even while in resistance. As long as the production box is full the settler will still be produced on the next turn.

Since cities never flip on the first turn, this makes it easy to keep hold of your new territory. Move the Settler to the tile towards enemy territory while the captured city is still there, then disband the captured city (sell off the rest of the improvements first) and build your new city in enemy territory, pushing their borders further back. Now your Tanks/Modern Armor are one tile closer to the next city than they would have been otherwise. And your new city will be culture free, with no resistance, greatly decreasing the chance that it will flip back.

Your Armies are now free to continue the conquest, instead of stuck trying to repress an uprising. It's almost as effective as a ROP violation, but without the reputation cost.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Aeson
After you have Recycling, every sold improvement gives back shields as well.

Is that the trigger? I never knew (and often wondered) why I get only gold most times when I could definitely remember getting gold and shields at other times.

Excellent tip that I haven't seen anywhere before.

Catt

[Theseus]

Aeson, are you really Jeff in disguise?

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Theseus
Aeson, are you really Jeff in disguise?

If I am, I certainly would hope for a free copy of PtW!! And I shouldn't have had to pay for CivIII in the first place... And how in the world didn't I make it onto the beta test team?!?

[sugar daddy]

Originally posted by Theseus
Aeson, are you really Jeff in disguise?

if he was, would he be giving us useful information??

[Theseus]

No comment.

[sugar daddy]

only joking.

for the record : I love everybody at Firaxis for giving us this marvellous game they call Civ3; destroyer of boredom, social life and relationships.

now if you'll excuse me I'll go away...

[Theseus]

Aeson, I was sure you were on beta. For a while you disappeared, and I figured that was why.

OT: Did you find a reference to the Recycling benefit somewhere, or did you just figure it out?

Lemme see if I got this right:

1. Capture big city.
2. Sell most costly improvement immediately. Set to build Settler.
3. Next turn (no flip): Settler is built. Disband city. Build new city.

I did not know that cities never flip on the first turn.

BTW: Deep Blue = IBM chess computer

[jshelr]

My thanks. Will apply this advice in Egypt. Soon.

[Aeson]

Ah. I knew that! Just thought you were talking about a person and didn't make the connection. I'm a terrible chess player btw.

Your ordering looks right. You can use your own pre-built settlers to achieve the same thing before recycling, it just isn't quite as efficient. Does allow for faster overall conquests though to not have to wait a turn. One of the reasons to always keep a few settlers around.

OT: Did you find a reference to the Recycling benefit somewhere, or did you just figure it out?

I always wondered why sometimes I got shields and others I didn't when disbanding improvements, finally decided to figure out why. Mainly because I wanted to work this tactic into my current game.

It probably is documented somewhere in the manual and in some of the posts here, but I haven't seen it. In the editor I just looked for any option on techs or governments that would fit the bill. The only one that looked like it might fit was the "Enables Recycling" advance option that is of course checked for Recycling. I ran a little test to check and that was the trigger.

I did not know that cities never flip on the first turn.

I've never had a city flip on the first turn. It may not be 100% reliable, but if it isn't, it's very very close to it.

[The Thing]

How do u disband a city fast? Just starving the population takes a lot of time.

[DeepO]

Great tactic! Not exactly suited for all purposes (wasn't it so that disbanding a conquered city is a bit of a diplomatic attrocity?), but very powerful. I'll certainly try it out.

DeepO

[WarpStorm]

You disband a city by chhosing it from the menu. It happens isntantly with no diplomatic penalty. The city just disappears (no settlers/workers).

[Nakar Gabab]

And there you have it, kids: It's good to recycle!

[Barfus]

Very nice.....i was playing a gamre recent;ly where the AI was all along my southern border, i mean a really long stretch. I didnt have the resources to hold cities without losing ground. It was really turning into a war of attrtion, so i was trying to move fast and wipe them out. So, for the most part, I was razing cities along the way, with the intent to rush settlers after the peace and send em south. but almost immediately, my allies were doing the same, so at best it would have been a motley assembly of cities down there. But youre tactic looks pretty sound. Any ideas on how to wring just a little more from the cities before you cut em loose? It just seems like such a waste.

And also, would you do this if there was say, a wonder in that city? I really dont think I would...Unless it was outdated or something.

[dawidge]

If you want to keep the city, but aren't concerned about the existing structures, you can use this to pump out the indigenous population (which will start starving, anyway, in most circumstances).

[Fitz]

Originally posted by Aeson
I've never had a city flip on the first turn. It may not be 100% reliable, but if it isn't, it's very very close to it.

Pretty sure I have lots of times, since 1.21f too. So I would say it is considerably less than 100%.

Do you typically have a very large total civ culture compared to your enemies? IF so, you would rarely see flips period, so the odds of it happenening on the first turn would be low too. In addition, if you typically keep lots of troops in a newly captured city (to heal for example) and then move them out later (ie when they are healed) then you'll aslo see more chance of a flip.

Lets do a quick rough flip chance estimate (very rough, just for an idea). Both assume you leave 5 troops inside to heal, and the first assumes you have double the enemy culture, the second triple. Four times closer to the enemy capitol, 30 citizens, 9 squares in enemy territory (ie 3 sides of the fat Xs outer portions) Citizens in resistance (I'll guess 15 until you geive me a realistic number). More enemy culture that yours. No WLTKD or Disorder.

Chance of flip #1: ((15+15*2+9)*2*1*1/2 - 5)/500 = 10.8%

Chance of flip #2: ((15+15*2+9)*2*1*1/3 - 5)/500 = 6.2%

If those numbers look reasonable, maybe yer right, maybe yer rong about a first turn flip. IIRC you are a pretty heavy conquer, so I can assume that you would be in this situation more than 10 times per late game, and certainly you would probably have noticed that first turn flip after ten games.

[heidlejohn]

Can a city flip while it is still in resistance? The first turn the city is almost always in resistance and may be in resistance for a few more turns after that. I don't have any specific information but maybe cities will NOT flip while they are in resistance.

Anyone know?

[Purple]

Originally posted by Aeson
Move the Settler to the tile towards enemy territory while the captured city is still there, then disband the captured city (sell off the rest of the improvements first) and build your new city in enemy territory, pushing their borders further back.

The only flaw in this scheme (a good one, BTW) is that when the captured city (CC) disappears, the enemy's cultural borders usually expand in the direction of that city. So, you can't always build a new city in the place you desire.

However, you can anticipate this to a certain extent by growing a new city at the same time you starve the CC, providing you can find a suitable site at least two tiles away.

As for competing with other civs from newly "cleansed" territory, the resultant jumble of cities makes easy pickings on the edge of your empire, as they are probably hard for the other civ to supply.

This raze-and-rebuild strategy is especially attractive, since the AI doesn't seem to build in optimal locations, so a little rearranging is definitely desirable.

Thanks for the nugget about Recycling increasing yield from sold improvements!

[Fitz]

Given that you are almost certainly already at war with them, I don't think that slapping down another city inside their borders (and thus declaring war) is too big a problem, especially since you are doing it to advance your borders so yer armies can take them out.

[Aeson]

I have never seen a culture flip on the first turn. Usually my civs have decent culture, but playing mostly at deity I'm never one of the leaders until late in the game. I've conquered 1000's of cities in 7 months of playing, never once lost one to a flip on the first turn.

Can a city flip while it is still in resistance?

Yes they definitely can. Resistors count double in the number of foreign nationals part of the culture flip equation IIRC.

[Purple]

Originally posted by Fitz
Given that you are almost certainly already at war with them, I don't think that slapping down another city inside their borders (and thus declaring war) is too big a problem, especially since you are doing it to advance your borders so yer armies can take them out.

You're right, of course. I was thinking of an instance where a third (friendly) civ was in the neighborhood. When I razed my enemy's city, the third guy's borders expanded into the area I wanted to build in myself.

Building new cities inside another civ's cultural borders is very satisfying, whether to initiate a war or as part of an ongoing military campaign.