Anyone know how badly an embargo can truly cripple AI?

[northernscribe]

Got my first embargo last night, against ethiopa. They're the only civ that my tourism isn't rising on (it's rising slowly, very slowly). Just wondering if the embargo will get their culture down. I'm thinking they may not be able to pay patronage to cultural city states now, may have to focus on economical improvements instead of cultural ones, but curious to see what anyone else's experience was. Their reaction to the embargo by the way, was to propose a resolution to repeal it (I thought they'd try to embargo ME, haha!). I have enough delegates at the WC where, with a little horse trading, I can guarantee the passage or failure of any ONE resolution, so I'm not worried about the repeal. It just seems like it SHOULD be a crippling consequence, but would like to hear about it.

 

[Cerzi]

The problem I had with embargo was that it means you're unable to get the +25% tourism bonus for having a trade route. I embargo'd Alex because he was being a pain in the ass, and by the end game he was the only one who I hadn't become influential over, despite not being particularly impressive culture-wise.

He chose a different ideology as well so I had a negative tourism bonus all of lategame, ended up having to crush him with my military in order to win the cultural victory! I feel that if I didn't embargo him I would've won culturally much easier.

 

[apocalypse105]

It doesn't cripple them but it can stop a AI for winning a culture victory and spread religion

 

[theadder]

I've had experiences that are two edges of the spectrum.

In one instance the AI went from perhaps +600 gold/turn to +400 gold/turn, which didn't matter much.

In the other instance the AI ended up at -100 gold/turn, which presumably resulted in a lot of disbanded units. This AI was severely damaged by a neighbouring civ that was in the prior era. Eventually it won, but it took an awfully long time, and some of its cities were burned. This was pretty helpful.

Although it's not explicitly on topic, I've had good luck combining this with banning the primary luxury resource available in an AI's territory. In one case, this resulted in an almost immediate ideology switch, because it cancels a lot of trade deals. This gives it two problems to deal with in fairly quick succession.

 

[northernscribe]

Interesting notes. Yeah my artillery is bombarding its satellite city as we speak. I'm reading that most AI's are picking Order. So maybe I'll choose Order as an idealogy (I'd prefer freedom, but..) to get the bonus. I'll try banning luxs but now Siam is buying up all the city states for delegates (*&^%!!!).