Incite a Revolt !

[Warlord [KC]]

I use to play on the standart way conquering the enemy cities by force. That is because I always don't have enough money to "Incite Revolt".
It is too expensive. Sometimes more than 70000 ! So, how can I Incite anything under these conditions ? How do you do, Starlifter ? Shadowdale ? Is your empire so good economically that earns this amount of money ?

Thanks !

 

[Bud2998]

I may not be Starlifter or Shadowdale, but I know a few ways to make cities cheaper. Buy from the side farthest from the capitol. It may reduce the amount to buy it significantly. Also, poisoning city water supply would make it cheaper, but I personally don't recommend this. Also, conquer their capitol city. It'll seriously decrease the price for it. Hope that helps a bit.

 

[starlifter]

I use to play on the standart way conquering the enemy cities by force. That is because I always don't have enough money to "Incite Revolt". It is too expensive. Sometimes more than 70000 ! So, how can I Incite anything under these conditions ? How do you do, Starlifter ? Shadowdale ? Is your empire so good economically that earns this amount of money ?

70,000 gold is not possible to raise via taxes because of the MGE gold limits, but you can get that much with freight.

However, I would not spend that much. Expensive cities simply die by the sword. And any democratic cities must get the sword, since they can't be bribed.

Yes, most large map economies can get that kind of gold. But it would severely stagnate other projects to spend that much on a bribe. Maybe 75% of my mad/late game money goes into RB and PRB improvements, to accelerate growth and science and taxes.

There are lots of techniques, but they have one thing in common... a large number of large cities.

I may not be Starlifter or Shadowdale, but I know a few ways to make cities cheaper. Buy from the side farthest from the capitol. It may reduce the amount to buy it significantly. Also, poisoning city water supply would make it cheaper, but I personally don't recommend this. Also, conquer their capitol city. It'll seriously decrease the price for it. Hope that helps a bit.

LOL, You don't need to be a S & S to have good advice. Personally, I learn from people all the time too.

Yup, all your suggestions help cut the cost of a bribe.

There are some other, more nefarious tricks you can use, too. First is to use a spy to sabotage their courthouse. This cuts the bribe cost by about 40%, depending on form of government and distance to capital. Always try to get that courthouse, otherwise it is money down the drain.

Another thing is to sabotage a key happiness improvement, like a cathedral. Make sure the sabotage will cause the city to become unhappy... sometime you have to nail the Colosseum and/or bank/marketplace too. When the city goes into revolt next turn, the cost will drop by 50%.

Yet another thing is to wipe out all the units. Cost will drop by another 50%.

If you 70,000 city has all these techniques used on it, the price drop to:

0.5 * 0.5 * 0.7 * 70,000 = 12,250 Still expensive, but lots cheaper.

 

[allan]

If you take all the units out of a city, why bribe it? Why not just move in and TAKE it?

The reason I do bribe sometimes is to take over the units in the city, so that I don't have to put my own defensive units in there (even if the old units are inferior, prior to auto Leo's will upgrade them). Also saves firepower for other, bigger fish....

Actually, I tend to bribe a lot in peacetime, when I must not only subvert, but also avoid sabotage out of a chance of being discovered and bringing down my democracy or republic.... And I generally won't spend more than 10 grand on a city as a rule.

Of course, in war you can sabotage any religious structure (cathedral or temple), because these things are destroyed anyway when you incite revolt, so might as well destroy them BEFORE you bribe and get the discount for disorder....

 

[cpemma]

If you take all the units out of a city, why bribe it? Why not just move in and TAKE it?

You then get to keep all the improvements. The spy bribing should check out first if it's worth it.

 

[starlifter]

If you take all the units out of a city, why bribe it? Why not just move in and TAKE it?

Several reasons. First, there is often not a unit that CAN take it. Vet Stealth fighters and Vet Battleships (I use both a lot) cannot take a city.

As Allan said, the main reason is to keep all the improvements. I calculate the value of the useful improvements I'd get before bribing, though. In some cases, I'll bribe... in others, use force.

There is one more reason. In late game, money is often flowing like a river, and even RBs can't spend it all. My main goal in taking a city is to get it fully up to speed and producing freight/units as soon as possible. Even taking 6 turns to instant RB, or 12 turns to PRB, is 12 turns of doing something like making a spy or freight.

In my games, to keep the river of money flowing, I've just gotta have cities that have commodities left to produce. Often my big ones are drained, and can only make food caravans. So I look to the newer ones, and even PRB the freight if necessary.

Yeah, I know... some of this may not even make sense... but the big picture is that to get money and science flowing like water, you gotta get cities up to speed quick, and one way to do that is by taking enemy cities intact with a bribe. Killing all the occupiers of that city cuts the cost in half, and I don't usually care about the AI units from mid game onward... I bring in the best vet units of my own to defend anyway. Or actaully, I often defend with the Might Spy or Freight, if the city is not frontline!

 

[amadeus]

I'm the Josef Stalin of Civilization. I roll my troops into cities, sell all the improvements, and just build units from there. I'm usually fundamentalist, so my minions can work for me, and when I'm done, I starve them.

 

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by starlifter
Several reasons. First, there is often not a unit that CAN take it. Vet Stealth fighters and Vet Battleships (I use both a lot) cannot take a city.

Well in this case then why not just take the city with the spy? You have to have a move left in order to bribe the city so if there are no more units you should just take it with the spy and then move your bomber or battleship or whatever in to defend it.

 

[starlifter]

Well in this case then why not just take the city with the spy? You have to have a move left in order to bribe the city so if there are no more units you should just take it with the spy and then move your bomber or battleship or whatever in to defend it.

A spy cannot take a city... it can only bribe it. When you try and move a spy into an empty city, the spy menu will appear. Dips, Spies, Caravans, and Freight are incapable of taking enemy cities. All other ground units, plus choppers, can take cities, though.

BTW, a spy can bribe a city 100% of the time with only one third of a movement point. A ground unit with 1/3 point and no road/RR/river is not guaranteed to take the city 100% of the time. So a spy is a "sure thing", even at the end of it's movement points... and I do often make use of this .

 

[duke o' york]

Well I'm glad I posed that as a question as I was just speculating. I did try and take a city with a caravan last night and failed, so I should have realised at the same time that a spy wouldn't be successful either. Annoyingly, I lost the majority of the trade when I took the city the next turn, but wasn't too bothered as I got quite a nice lump sum.