Declarations of Friendship

I never except early game DoFs for this reason. It is an AI scam to forward settle you. You accept a DoF and then they take the spots you were planning on settling. I don't accept any DoFs until I settle all the important locations I intend on settling. I only accept early DoFs from Civs on the other side of the world or Sweden.

 

I just don't like having to waste gold on an RA, plus usually you are ahead of the AI in any case.

 

Depends on the difficulty setting.

 

I had something work once, but it may have been circumstantial and coincidence. Not sure.

Signed DoF w/ somebody, forgot who. At the time, my GPT was abysmal, something like 7GPT, but I was about to tech banking and compass for two more TRs and banks, so it was about to get better. Anyway, a "friend" asked for 2 GPT, which I accepted because I knew my economy was about to pick up. Every time it expired, he prompted a renewal and I accepted, so late-game when I'm making about 500 GPT, he's asking for a renewal of 2GPT. The point is that (possibly) since I continued renewing the original request, he never asked for anything else, so I got the diplo bonus for giving him peanuts and he never asked for anything more than peanuts.

 

They never ask me for GPT, it's either a free luxury or they want about 30% of my treasury.

 

Well, one additional perk of early DOF is selling embassy for 35 gold then buying embassy for 1 gpt. But being able to sell an early lux for 240 gold is pretty valuable.

Even with a weak AI, RAs offer a good ratio of gold:science conversion. Plus you might have Porcelain Tower. Also, no one is forcing you to sign an RA.

The first gift was a good deal. But unless you had no other trades going, the renewals do not get you a diplo boost. So if you wanted that buff, you would have been better off gifting an iron or horse as needed. You are just looking for the light green “traded recently” diplo boost. You cannot get that more than once.

 

Thanks beetle, but I think you missed the point. The point was that the civ in question never asked for anything more, i.e. when I was making 500 GPT, he didn't ask for 125 GPT. Now this may just be coincidence, or he may have been "locked out" from bumming lunch money off of me since he had an active "help a friend out" deal. They never ask for a second handout before the first one expires (even single turn lump-sum trades have a "deal ends" turn about 30 turns in advance in the diplomacy screen, presumably for this reason.) Perhaps since the deal being renewed was a "bumming money off a friend" deal, renewing it meant that he was still considered to be benefitting from a "bumming money" deal and couldn't ask for another handout because of it. By changing the deal to gifting a horse instead of 2GPT, it could possibly be considered cancelling a handout deal and starting a new, regular trade deal, which means he could try to scam again. But I dunno for sure.

 

I had not considered that, so thanks for the explanation. Why is it not worth anything to avoid having your AI DOF partners asking for handouts? If the request is too much, just say no. Half the time it is a lux I forgot to trade away or truly trivial amounts of gold. Well worth the bright green modifier for 30+ turns. Or I decline with zero repercussions.

But now that you mention this, and since the begging really cheese some players off, it may be the case that regular gifting of useless resources is enough to hold the requests. If you are already gifting 2 gpt, will the AI never ask for 200 gpt? It certainly seems worth experimenting!

 

The AI won't ask for more than the rate of 51gold per 2 gpt, or 240gold per lux. It's very useful for getting extra gold when the AI is willing to trade full value. If they won't trade full value, you'll know they're in danger of backstab or won't continue the DoF. Also I don't think it makes any difference whether you do the many individual trades or if you do the trade at once, except when the individual trade rounds up/down. For example the famous 2gpt for 1 resource trade.

 

You should also consider that the AI exchange for gpt rounds down so if you are getting 7gpt for a luxury you are really getting shafted.

Sell just 1 horse/iron or embassy with that luxury and you'll get 9gpt...

If you sell the embassy by itself you only get 1 gpt so you can get more gold if you bundle things together. Its not a huge difference but it is noticeable and if you want to play to your best then these things are recommended

 

I am all for these little tricks, but the default lux for 7 gpt plus a separate single resource for 2 gpt is still 9 gpt. Bundling gets you nothing extra.

 

It does with the embassy