Ever Steal A Canadian Province?

[unmerged(26044)]

I just got an idea, it occurs to me that almost any civilized nation with a seacoast and a colony can mess up the UK's plans in Western Canada. Just look for a province that's about to finish its last claim building, land a bunch of divisions on each building, declare colonial war on the UK, claim the colony for yourself and steal the prestige. Then sell your colonies to someone (most likely the USA) and the war will end by stalemate. The UK might bear a grudge, though. Has anyone tried it yet?

I suppose you could do the same with African colonies or Pacific islands, it just seems like Canadian colonies would fetch a better price.

Playing as the USA, I've done the above procedure to the Russians with Alaska a couple of times, except I kept it and gave it statehood.

Seems kind of like an exploit though. A smart colonizer (human or AI) would land a division or two in the colony near claim-time to prevent just this sort of thing.

 

[Orm]

It has "EXPLOIT" written all over it.

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

But it is a classic exploit.

 

[Tjuk]

Yeah, claim grabbing is as old as the game itself and a big exploit, as the AI never does it. I still can't get myself from doing it, though. :rofl:

 

[unmerged(26044)]

I've been thinking about it some more, and it seems to me that a good way to discourage indiscriminate claim jumping is to associate the prestige gain not with the formal claim of a colony, but with the completion of a claim building. This would ensure the prestige always goes to the builder, regardless if the claim is stolen later. Claim jumping is still worthwhile if you want the sell price or actual use of the colony.

 

[Kagernaut]

FYI, you can steal a claim building while its still being constructed....so that idea won't fix it completely.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

Yeah, claim grabbing is as old as the game itself and a big exploit, as the AI never does it. I still can't get myself from doing it, though. :rofl:

I had couple of times when the USA and Argentina AI grabbed Claims from me intentionally when I was playing against them as Mexico and Chile.

 

[Orm]

I had couple of times when the USA and Argentina AI grabbed Claims from me intentionally when I was playing against them as Mexico and Chile.

Then the US and Argentine AIs are the only ones in the game that know how to do it, which seems odd. It probably just looked intentional.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

Then the US and Argentine AIs are the only ones in the game that know how to do it, which seems odd. It probably just looked intentional.

May be but for the first time I saw something like this. Usually AI units just cross Claim without stopping. However, in both my cases something was completely different.

2 Argentinean units immediately from the beginning of war moved its units directly to my claims and stopped there, claiming two colonies. Why out of 8 (6 theirs) possible claims they decided move directly into mine?

In the USA case American units also moved directly into my claims and stopped but that time I was expecting and took their claims at the same time so they couldn’t claim colonies we were claiming claims from each other for a while till I grabbed all but didn’t claimed colony. However, it was enough and after that Americans lost interest in grabbing claims.

In both cases I had one claim in each colony and after grabbing them AI could claim entire colony. If these two cases were just an accident then it could happen only once in a million times

 

[Neslepaks]

I just got an idea, it occurs to me that almost any civilized nation with a seacoast and a colony can mess up the UK's plans in Western Canada. Just look for a province that's about to finish its last claim building, land a bunch of divisions on each building, declare colonial war on the UK, claim the colony for yourself and steal the prestige. Then sell your colonies to someone (most likely the USA) and the war will end by stalemate. The UK might bear a grudge, though. Has anyone tried it yet?

I suppose you could do the same with African colonies or Pacific islands, it just seems like Canadian colonies would fetch a better price.

Playing as the USA, I've done the above procedure to the Russians with Alaska a couple of times, except I kept it and gave it statehood.

Seems kind of like an exploit though. A smart colonizer (human or AI) would land a division or two in the colony near claim-time to prevent just this sort of thing.

That, and taking south east Asian land for trade, is how I united sub-saharan Africa under the Transvaal flag with but two cav divisions.
It felt kinda gamey though.

 

[Dysken]

FYI, you can steal a claim building while its still being constructed....so that idea won't fix it completely.

Just land right before it is finished and capture an adjacent one, once it IS finished you can waltz over there and claim it .

 

[Kagernaut]

Just land right before it is finished and capture an adjacent one, once it IS finished you can waltz over there and claim it .

Thats the idea, yeah.