Buying cities

[rponton]

...OK, another question. I've also seen people mention about "buying"cities when in Democracy. How is this done? I just destroyed the roman Empire in my game with diplomats, never firing a shot. THe only other civ left is America, they are in Democracy, are not subject to bribery, and I've got 100 active diplomats with nothing to do. I've never been a great military leader, and usually beat the other civ's by subversion. I took Americas capital, but their government did not fail.

 

[funxus]

I don't know of any way to bribe democratic cities. What you'd have to do is to see if you can make them change to another gov. E.g you can try to make them attack you, which means they probably switch to fundy first. If they have a lot of units in the field, you could bribe these units and use them against themselves. If you upgrade them to spies, you could locate their capital, reduce its size to 1 (by poisoning) and then kill of the city with a strong offensie unit. They might switch to something else after that so that you can bribe them.

If you're determined not to fight them, I think your target should be to overthrow their government some way.

 

[Old n Slow]

Another tactic to try (which may or may not pan out) is to take a dozen dips & vandalize all the improvements in their largest city -- preferably inland. The city should go into disorder & may stay that way -- I don't know if the ai could recover sufficient happiness to bring the city out of disorder & I don't know if this will cause a collapse of the government as it would with a player controlled civ.

 

[ElephantU]

Diplomats and Spies are not useless against an AI civ in Democracy, they just cannot be used for bribery (at least by the human player...). They can be used to see city screens, to sabotage city improvements and production, and to "poison the water supply" to reduce city size. An AI Democracy is a very brittle thing, and under serious attack will often change government to Commie or Fundy (or Monarchy if these are not discovered). When in the city screens you can click the "Happy" button to see what is keeping the city content, then target these things (Vet Spies are the best) to knock the city into disorder. Several competitions have been held to try to defeat the AI with only Dips and Spies; search around for those threads and read up on techniques.

 

[Terrapin]

Unfortunately, rponton is stuck with diplomats. They are much less flexible that spies.

 

[rponton]

... the below message posted twice...
I cleared out the repating text.
THis post can be deleted.

Please see the post below. Be seeing you

 

[rponton]

Problem being, I hadn't gotten to espionage yet... I let up on science, turned all specialists into taxmen, switched to fundy, and with my diplomats steamrolled the romans (the largest civ next to me) as well as a few tiny ones. During my conquest of the roman civ, I took a few american cities, and then the turn When I finished off the romans, the americans switched to Democracy. I re-routed what few military troops I had to Washington, sent diplomats in to destroy everything, then took the city. Since this was the american capital I figured it would likely bust up the government (it had worked like a charm in games past.) It didn't do a thing. I have the UN, but they won't talk. I'm usually not a conquest type player, so I'm going back to my roots. I switched to Dem, set lux to 40%, went city by city assigned a minimmum required level of troops to be supported from that city, disbanded everyone else, changed all taxmen to scientists, and switched all troop/dip. production to freight. I should hit espionage pretty quick. After a few turns of celebration days, I'll start quietly building spies by the boatload. AI is stupid, and will eventually change governments, and then I'll finish them off. Next game, I'll probably wait to "attack" other civ's untill I get spies.

Last question (for today...) I don't remember, do dips upgrade to spies with leo's?

P.S. THanks to everyone who has offered opinions to all threads I've started, and continued on threads I've joined in on. THis forum is a truly excellent resource. I only know one other person that has this game, I used to work with him, and I now live 3 states away. My playing level has gone up exponentially in the last month, and I owe that completely to this site. THanks again.

 

[Old n Slow]

Yes, the dips will upgrade to spies with Leo's.

 

[ElephantU]

If possible, after getting Espionage, switch to Communism for 4-8 turns and pump out Vet Spies.

Definitive thread on Dips and Spies (links to another off-site):
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20590