So when and how much do you recommend we beg from the south witches? (obviously the sooner we get the gold the better, and should I beg for shaka's 120 gold instead of trading physics for constitution and the gold?) What is the max you expect we could get?
we share borders with both (wizard city) and we begged mansa on T120 last I believe and we have begged shaka twice on T153 (both failures)
I believe it was shulec who pointed out the following forum post on the subject of "begging":
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6224468&postcount=12
Based on it, my recommendations are beg from Civs that are Pleased or Friendly:
Begging Period:
1 turn...... 5% chance they forget
5 turns..... 23%
10 turns ... 40%
15 turns ... 54%
20 turns ... 64%
25 turns ... 72%
30 turns ... 79%
35 turns ... 83%
40 turns ... 87%
45 turns ... 90%
50 turns ... 92%
60 turns ... 95%
...
You can pick any of the above frequencies. I would beg in the range 45-60 turns with success ranging from 90-95%. Beg sooner, only if you are desperate for the begging Wealth pay-off.
Amount to Beg:
Each Civ starts with 50 beg points = 25 Wealth of begging (2 beg points = 1 Wealth). For Civs sharing Borders on the same land mass, beg points increment by 6 each turn (3 Wpt). For overseas Civs, beg points increment by 2 each turn (1 Wpt). For Civs without common borders on the same Land Mass, I'm guessing, beg points increment by 2 each turn (1 Wpt); The author of the post suggested that this might be true, but didn't test this last hypothesis.
Safe Begging:
<Amount to Beg Civ> = (<Current Turn #> - Max(<Turn # of Last Successful Beg of Civ>, <Turn # Civ first met>)) x <Closeness Factor> Wealth
<Closeness Factor> = 3 for Civs that share borders on same land mass
<Closeness Factor> = 1 for Civs that do not share borders or are not on same land mass
Add 25 to <Amount to Beg Civ>, if this is your first beg of this Civ.
<Amount to Beg Civ> is in units of Wealth (aka Gold Coins).
Begging to the Limit:
I believe the following is true, also based on the above post. This is an attempt to get the maximum amount in each beg. Obviously, the Civ must have at least that much Wealth in its treasury.
<Max Amount to Beg Civ> = ((<Current Turn #> - <Turn # Civ first met>)) x <Closeness Factor>) - <Total of All Successful Begs of this Civ>
<Closeness Factor> = 3 for Civs that share borders on same land mass
<Closeness Factor> = 1 for Civs that do not share borders or are not on same land mass
Add 25 to <Max Amount to Beg Civ>, if this is your first beg of this Civ.
<Max Amount to Beg Civ> is in units of Wealth (aka Gold Coins).
I recommend the "Safe Begging" amount, since that only requires exact knowledge of the turn # of the last successful beg from the Civ.
Note that "back-fill" technologies that everyone else has (or any other technology the Civ is willing to trade) can be begged for in case the Civ has insufficient Wealth in their Treasury to accommodate the beg amount. One should know the precise Wealth value of such a technology in the current turn, before attempting such a beg unless one isn't concerned about getting every last bit of begging Wealth right now (is willing to pick it up later).
Happy Begging,
Sun Tzu Wu