Befriending City-States.... wait for 500 gold?

[Sherlock]

Any reason you should save up to give 500 to a City-State rather than doing a '250 gold now' and '250 gold later' deal?

 

[Atlas627]

Its more efficient, also if you can't get the 2nd 250 before you lose friendship, then you get less turns of friendship out of it overall.

Also I would rather know I can afford all 500 sometimes without splitting it up accidentally beforehand. For example, if I spend the first 250 but then NEED to buy a unit or building or RA with the 2nd 250, I will waste a lot of that 250 on influence in the 0-30 range because I can never follow it up. I would rather have tried waiting for the 500, getting to 400 something and then being forced to spend the "2nd" 250 so I never waste the "1st" 250.

 

[James T]

Also the game has built-in economies for larger gifts. 500 gold nets you more than 250 twice will net you, and 1000 gold nets you more than 500 twice.

 

[chazzycat]

if giving 250 will get you to "friend" status that'll open up the quests, so it's not necessarily a cut-dry situation. If its a cultural CS you also will get some culture earlier, and sometimes thats more important than gold efficiency.

that being said I still end up waiting for 500 the majority of the time.

 

[headcase]

if giving 250 will get you to "friend" status that'll open up the quests, so it's not necessarily a cut-dry situation. If its a cultural CS you also will get some culture earlier, and sometimes thats more important than gold efficiency.

that being said I still end up waiting for 500 the majority of the time.

Agreed with this.

Gold value of gifts goes down over the long-term, but probably wouldn't drop by the time you had the 500 gold to give.

Cultural arguably has the best "friend" benefit. Every point of culture can be quite helpful early on. The 2 apples for capital for maritime is all right also but not as much as culture.

A nearby friendly (or perhaps neutral\irrational) CS might be good to give 250 to in the hopes that they'll ask for a road.

Another reason to wait is that you might go kill a barb encampment that pleases a different CS, and only need 250 to ally with them.