Bribery Advice Needed

I'm playing as Spain, it's around 200 BC. My "friendly" neighbor Rome just started forward settling on me and spamming his usual units. I'm about 10 turns from Chivalry, and I have an X-bow in each of my 4 cities as well as 2 Chariot Archers. I've got about 500 gold, 300 faith saved up (Holy Warriors), and +15 happiness so I can trade away the last copy of 3-4 resources and be fine. Only strategic resources are 3 horses (with more coming soon). No iron until city #5, which I plan to plant in about 15 turns.

I've been trying to get Caesar to DoW each of 5 different civs, to no effect. I've offered to declare war with him. I've offered him everything, but no dice. He has his eyes set on sending his top-ranked military after my wonder-laden capital.

I called up Harold Bluetooth (strong army, just to the south), and he wants no part of war with Rome.

Ditto for Shaka, who I've already partnered up with for a quick skirmish against the aggressive-settling Shoshone.

I tried everything with nearby Dutch and Ottomans. No sale.

I keep reading how some of the Deity players bribe off approaching armies (this game is on Immortal), and I've had success doing so a few times, but am having absolutely no luck. All I need is Caesar off my back for another 20-25 turns and my Conquistadors should be able to handle him.

Am I doing something wrong or am just doomed to join his empire?

(Lake Victoria was 7 tiles from my capital, so I've got a really fun game going….would be a shame to suffer a setback like this).

Well, if Rome is really strong in the army department, its gonna be tough for anyone to DoW them. Also, if Rome is trading with the other AI, its less likely again. Also, if the Roman cities are not great, then the other AI might not want them much.

You need to make them enemies first, then make them dance.

Has anyone denounced Rome? Can you denounce them? sometimes thats all it takes and then everyone is at Romes is surrounded by enemies.

Or, why not pay Rome to war against old Harold bluetooth? same difference right?
Or, just get two other AI fighting. One of them will weaken, then Rome will want to attack them just because they are weak. You just want them off your back for ~20 turns, so it shouldnt matter how it happens.

I hadn't tried denouncement. I was worried that might provoke the war sooner? I'm going to give that a try.

Also, I don't think it would be very difficult to get Harold to DoW the apparently weak (only 3 cities) and conveniently located (shares a border with Rome and Denmark) Ottomans.

the main factor of when they are going to attack is the relative strength of their army compared to yours.

Another thing: betrayal is a big penalty. Dont do it. The AI probably wont let themselves be bribed into a betrayal either. So if Rome has DOF with others, that makes it real hard to bribe iether party into a direct war against thier friends. The personality of the leaders comes into play here. Shaka for example can be a real a backstabber. I always find Harold to be pretty reliable though.

Its been my experience that denouncing seems to delay an imminent war, not cause it to happen faster. Having your units near the border can also help delay it from starting. The AI seems to worry about the element of surprise being lost.

again, I would kick start a war between others. Let one of them become weak and Rome may denounce them and eventually attack.

give me $100 and I will answer this

JeSuisNapoleon said:

the main factor of when they are going to attack is the relative strength of their army compared to yours.

Another thing: betrayal is a big penalty. Dont do it. The AI probably wont let themselves be bribed into a betrayal either. So if Rome has DOF with others, that makes it real hard to bribe iether party into a direct war against thier friends. The personality of the leaders comes into play here. Shaka for example can be a real a backstabber. I always find Harold to be pretty reliable though.

Its been my experience that denouncing seems to delay an imminent war, not cause it to happen faster. Having your units near the border can also help delay it from starting. The AI seems to worry about the element of surprise being lost.

again, I would kick start a war between others. Let one of them become weak and Rome may denounce them and eventually attack.

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Well, nothing worked and Rome took my capital. I decided to go back to a save I had from around turn 50 and replay it as a learning experiment. I played it identically to make it fair. When Rome exposed a settler, I nabbed it, and used my scout-Xbow and some chariot archers to wreak havoc on his unprepared spear/ballista advances, got some goodies in a peace settlement when he appeared to be about ready to produce legions, and waited for my Conquistadors.

I used some of your advice and had Bluetooth DoW the Turks, which proved very helpful, as Rome and their BFF Turks DoW'd me right around 0 A.D. This time I was more ready, and I took his first city 1000 years later and am ready to march on Rome with my shiny new Tercios and some seriously experienced ConQ's and Trebuchets.

I've managed to keep Shaka off my back by agreeing to DoW the puny Shoshone several times (I haven't fired a shot at them yet).

If I can catch up in tech now, I should be able to roll for awhile as I'm pretty sure I can take Rome quickly them steamroll a few more cities to render them impotent for the rest of the game. Rome still has the #1 ranked army, but I think I've got them. I am curious how Rome can continue spamming an army while still taking just about every wonder?

One last question regarding betrayal: I do plan on doing a U-turn and taking out Shaka next, but am currently friends with him and fighting a common foe. I'm thinking I should sue for peace, wait for Shaka to take a city, denounce him, and then DoW. Will this avoid the appearance of betrayal?

MarauderCH said:

give me $100 and I will answer this

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Will you take $150 instead?

Getting Rolled on Immortal seems pretty difficult to me. I think I have played about 10 Immortal games or so and I think the only way this is possible is for players to focus on wonders and other things instead of building up an Army. You really do not need a huge army either to defeat your close neighbors on this level. I suggest working on attacking them early instead of letting them decide when to attack. Do things like your doing on your 2nd try like stealing settlers and such. On Immortal it is very easy to cripple your AI neighbors by stealing workers and settlers and such. Ofcourse it depends on what your trying to do and how you like to play but I find alot of people are too worried about catching up to the AI tech rate in the early game. You can not get away with half the things on Deity that I do on Immortal but in all honesty I think you just need to be more aggressive early on and you will never have any trouble on Immortal again. Once you have more space and wiped out an AI or 2 the game gets very unbalanced (IMO). In my Immortal games I am always amazed at how small the AI's armed forces are compared to Deity play.

About the Bribes. I find it is harder to bribe up the AI to war compared to Deity, just like the AI has a ton more gold to trade on Deity compared to Immortal. Also the AI on Immortal does not expand nearly as fast so they are not having border issues like they do on Deity. Deity strategy doesn't work the same on Immortal but the good news is that the AI is alot slower in all departments compared to Deity so you have alot more time and can make many more mistakes.

Fluphen Azine said:

Getting Rolled on Immortal seems pretty difficult to me. I think I have played about 10 Immortal games or so and I think the only way this is possible is for players to focus on wonders and other things instead of building up an Army.

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Bingo! Sometimes I get a start (lucky hut) that draws me back to wonder-mongering. In this game, I wasn't too bad, but did get GL after stepping on the writing hut turn 15 (I will usually go for it if I can complete by turn 35 on Immortal).

As for the rest of your comments, I was unaware that the difference between Deity and Immortal was this great (when it comes to AI tactics). I always enjoy the early game and found that Deity took a lot of Civs' strategies away because of the early handicap. I'll go Deity from now on (had planned to anyways) and will be interested to see how much "smarter" the AI is.

As a side note, most of my games are on huge maps and vs. 12 civs, so I'm guessing that changes the pressure quite a bit. I'll make that change as well.

I do agree about the early aggressiveness. Many of my bad games are a result of a passive early approach where I give the enemy time to spam. It's usually because I'm still wary of BNW's warmonger penalties, but also because of tactical style that avoids losing any units if possible. I generally pick an opponent off piece by piece when i could take a city sooner if willing to suffer a few casualties (this is a hangover from my pre-BNW preference to marathon games).

Thanks for the comments.