[BNW] How many units needed for gunboat diplomacy?

How many units (land and naval) do I need to make this tenet work?

I'm trying to raise my influence in Brussels. They have 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery and 1 Privateer. I have 8 Infantry near their boarders and Tenochtilan is near them with 2 bombers, but still they're not afraid.

I can't put more units there because my war against China is far away and all my units are envolved. I could build more units, but right now my gold depends on gold from killing units (Honor tree).

I had no idea I needed so many units... but I still don't know how many!

Another question: does 'pledge to protect' from other civs makes it more difficult?

Please help!

Both overall ratio of your miltary to all other civs that have pledged to protect him and the strength of your military near him are factors.
In addition, if someone has previously bullied him, it raises the threshold (each time). If someone fulfills the related quest for a gift to recover, the threshold further increases.

Units the CS has is also a factor. It's harder to bully a militaristic CS for example as they tend to build units. Aircraft seems to have no effect.

I usualy dont bother with the bullying, I just like placing my units on the border and watching the CS flip to allied status. I wish I had a precise way of calculating what was needed. You really just need to keep checking up on it.

In some cases, you start getting influence quickly with only a couple of units, other times it takes a lot. I find this social policy less reliable at deity because the AI will build such massive armies. It does still work pretty well at emperor though.

Bottom line is... I have to be 1st in military strenght.

Well, I have 2 main armies conquering the pangea, each with 10 or 12 land units and a few units garrisoned in cities. Since the AI is terrible at combat and my units are highly promoted, those 2 armies are enough for a domination victory.

I'll have to build a 3rd, a 4th and a 5th army with 10 units each, in order to TRY to get the benefit from this tenet!!

Gunboat diplomacy and Clausewit's Legacy (spelled wrong?) are the reason I wanted to pick Autocracy so much.

Autocracy never again.

It's a balance between units and techs. Go to CSmenu, demande tribute. First line demand a tribute must be in red. Mouse over this line and a menu appears. It tells how is your influence. One line is your current global military strength, the next you strength 8 hexs near the CS.

If this CShave infantry and artillery, you'll need rocket artillery and X-com or Mechanized infantry to use gunboat diplomacy. Also, naval units are cheap to increase you influence with gunboat democracy.

It's 8 tiles? I thought it was 5?

Anyhow, I absolutely do demand tribute, unless I would lose some key quests. You get the influence back in 3 turns.

I love GunboatD, but my biggest problem with it is it works best when you already have the game won. Prior to that (you know, during the part of the game that really matters), I still like it, but I don't let it dictate my strategy. As in I don't say, "oh, I like Manila, so I will send my units over there". My units need to be seeing action. Wherever they happen to be, ally some nearby CS there. Also, it's good to war some CS by way of them being allied to someone else. Strip them bare. That doesn't accrue much warmongering, you farm some xp, and when you peace deal their ally, your units are already there and you get an easy tribute. You can do the reverse as well, especially with GunboatD's bullying bonuses (i.e. demand tribute just before you DoW). You are setting up for a DoW anyway--just station your units by the CS instead of the major AI's border (which you don't want to do anyway). If you're lucky you can wait a few more turns and ally them--and then you DoW. That CS is now on your side--not theirs.

brasaelal said:

Bottom line is... I have to be 1st in military strength.

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Thanks for following up.

tetley said:

I love GunboatD, but my biggest problem with it is it works best when you already have the game won.

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Glad to read that caveat, I have not had noticeable effects from GBD at all. I have not been able to understand your appreciation for it.

It's 8 tiles? I thought it was 5?

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Well, that's my main problem! I thought GBD worked entirely passively.

Just to be clear, and to spotlight my ignorance: So I still have to position units just like I would for tribute demands?

I hardly ever have spare enough units for tribute demands, so I doubt I can make Gunboat Diplomacy work for me.

Yeah, you have to position units for it. But I never go that far out of my way to do that. Like I said, I like to go to war with CS by way of DoWing their ally. Taking down all their units is low-risk. Then once you peace-deal them (even if it's just straight up peace-for-peace), you've got a few CS easy to demand tribute from. And you're just healing your units...5 hexes away from their borders.