Just how easy is the AI to bribe?

I've heard from a lot of people about bribing Shaka or Genghis, etc etc into DoW on another civ that you hate/ to distract them, but in my civ experience, I have NEVER been to get ANYONE to delcare war on another civ, regardless of who they where or if they where my BBF fo' life. One main thread I rmeber is "shake goes to war for 5gpt plus horses"and in my latest game, I offered him 20gpt and horses, to no avail. Even if the whole world hates this civ, I will always get "there is no way to make this work" when asking if they will declare war.

Another point I may add is that I have only once been able to get payment for DoW-ing another civ from the AI (and it was a mesley 5GPT), or buy a city from them. One example is that I offered 2500 gold and 20GTT for one of their citys, and they still refused(and I was on very good terms with them), making any diplomic negotiations between the AI impossible.

I play on prince and king, so this maybe the problem, or maybe I'm just very unlucky? can anyone help me understand how I can even start making these mad world donation war deals that everyone talk about here, if you can, thanks

I play on Prince level, so I am not representative of the best CIVV strategists.

That said, my impression is that civs are not inclined to declare war merely for what the player might offer. (I am surprised when it happens.) Generally speaking, there needs to be some underlying tension between the potential aggressor and his victim. Of course, if you are fabulously wealthy, issuing a successful bribe might be easier. It becomes of question of how many hundreds or thousands of gold you are willing to exchange for the favor.

I've only recently started playing the bribing war game, but I've generally found that this works if you're talking to a warmonger who is currently at peace (if they are at war already they will be less likely to accept), or if you're talking to someone who really hates someone else. Like, in one of my deity games I was cornered between two civs, and had no luck bribing Shaka to help me out because their army was over in the east killing the mayans. In other games I've had better luck.

It's often not about amount of gold, but about diplomatic relations between AIs already in place. Also, if you're trying to bribe one guy to declare war and he asks for an insane price, try to ask the other guy to declare war before you commit to anything. Like, I think I once asked one civ to declare war on another, and they asked for 100 gpt. I asked the other civ to declare war on that one, and they asked for 5 gpt. I took the second deal

As for cities, some cities are just straight up not going to be traded. If you have good relations with an AI, you might be able to buy a small city or a city state. Might... I've gotten deals for city states before, but usually it costs a lot of money, and the computers love their cities. If you're crushing them in a war, they will sometimes offer their smallest city for peace, but otherwise, cities are often off the table for peaceful trade deals.

The difficulty level here matters a lot, is a common strategy in Deity, but on lower levels would be difficult to pull up. Successful warmongers (AKA shaka) can be bribed easily, because they have a bigger army than anyone.

I play on Prince and King, and I find it reasonably easy to bribe out-and-out warmongers (not that I do it that often) BUT - there is a big difference between a DOW and actually doing anything about it. Like in one game when I was busy fighting abroad, Genghis started nosing about my borders, I bribed him to DOW which he duly did, but his units never left my borders nor did he attack the other civ. As it happened he didn't then DOW me and some time later I attacked him, but it was a lesson for me.
As for getting the AI to pay me to DOW - no, never managed that.

I think it depends greatly on the AI's power level. All other things being equal, it is much easier to bribe a strong AI to declare war on a weaker AI, rather than the other way round.

thanks for the input guys, but there's another part I'm still a bit stuck on-being paid by the AI to DoW their foes. as I mentioned this has only happened to me once, and no-one ever seems to want to pay me to do their dirty work, despite the fact that if I'm interested in this, I am most likely to have the worlds biggest army at this point (also, likely to have a greater military score than the rest of the world combined, no lie) for some reason, the AI doesn't seem to like me getting involved in their wars, even if its on my door step. Then again, maybe they've realized at this point I have the habit of swooping in and nicking the good cites from underneath them (even if it would have taken them about 320 turns to capture the city)

Jampine said:

thanks for the input guys, but there's another part I'm still a bit stuck on-being paid by the AI to DoW their foes. as I mentioned this has only happened to me once, and no-one ever seems to want to pay me to do their dirty work, despite the fact that if I'm interested in this, I am most likely to have the worlds biggest army at this point (also, likely to have a greater military score than the rest of the world combined, no lie) for some reason, the AI doesn't seem to like me getting involved in their wars, even if its on my door step. Then again, maybe they've realized at this point I have the habit of swooping in and nicking the good cites from underneath them (even if it would have taken them about 320 turns to capture the city)

Click to expand...

I've gotten AIs to bribe me to war that I wanted anyway before. You have to be careful while doing this though, because this forces you in to war for a certain amount of turns. It means if you capture your objective really quickly, you may be delayed in getting a nice peace treaty.

Still though, it won't happen every time. Just keep trying, sometimes it will work, and sometimes it won't.

sometimes if they have trade routes or deals with the other civ they won't break it. Bribing them early in the game, before they set up trade routes, can be effective. My favorite strategy for when Shaka is next door to me, is to keep bribing him to attack everyone nearby in the early game, until he gets trade routes. If you are the only one in range and not at war at that point, he will start trading with you purely by process of elimination. At that point it becomes easier to stay friends for the longer term.

I suspect difficulty level is a strong factor. It depends on the military power of the civs, which is just much higher on higher levels. Sorry I haven't played below emperor in ages so I'm not really sure.