Dealing with Tribute Demands - Term 4

It’s 880 AD, and we’re 4 turns from discovering Astronomy. This will allow us to trade with the Persia/Aztec/Zulu continent with the potential for Ivory, Spices, Furs, Gems as well as large gold per turn deals. Persia’s current 51 gpt deal expires in only 4 turns, so that will be up for grabs. Egypt will also trade us 54 gpt for Banking!

So should we reconsider our stance to tribute demands for Civs we have valuble per turn trades with? Our current instructions are:

Tribute Demands:

• Please reject all tribute demands from Persia, Aztecs and Zulu.
• Please reject all tribute demands from Russia unless the demand is trivial (10 gold or less and/or a territory map).
• From other countries, pay all tribute demands that do not exceed 40 gold or 2 gpt. If the demand exceeds 40 gold, 2 gpt, or includes technologies, or cities, reject the demand.

It would be annoying to refuse a 2 gpt demand and lose 51 gpt as a result as is the case with Persia at the moment, so perhaps we should consider paying demands to these Civs such as we pay to most of the Civs on our continent, or maybe pay just the most trivial as we do to Russia? Another option may be to pay up to a percentage of the value of the per turn deal for example.

There is also England the most backward and isolated of all the Civs to consider, unless we get a valuable per turn deal should we reject all their demands?

One final question - where do we stand with respect to demands for luxuries and resources? We have spare Saltpeter, someone's bound to demand that (Germany doesn't appear to have any) and it's not currently covered in the instructions!

Thanks to tao for raising this.

As I already said in another thread:

Starting in the next turnchat, I expect us to trade for luxuries with the Persian continent civs. We may also trade technology to Persia (or others) for gpt.

Please consider that refusing demands might brake trade routes and/or kill deals. We should avoid that if we can by giving petty cash and/or maps.

I would not give techs or resources.