Nobles' Club 299: Pacal II of the Mayan Empire

[6K Man]

IIRC a beg will always be successful against a friendly/pleased AI if 1) you haven't begged recently, 2) you don't ask for too much, and 3) your total begs haven't exceeded some value. So if you want to beg to prevent a DOW by an AI who plots at pleased (and get a 10-turn peace treaty), it makes sense to beg for something small - say, 10 gold.

You can't beg from an AI whose attitude is Cautious or worse.

I haven't had any luck demanding stuff from an AI who was plotting against me. I suppose once they feel they're strong enough to attack me, they feel able to tell me to get lost when I demand things. What does work during a war is demanding things from neutrals, so they can't be bribed into the war or vassal to the AI you're fighting.

 

[hankinsohl]

@drewisfat
Thanks for the info on demand.

>> Demanding isn't really helpful to stop someone from attacking you. If they've been plotting for a while, then they will have built up enough troops that you won't have a favorable military strength
It worked for me in this game against one of the AIs. I had considerably more strength than they, yet they started plotting. I looked at the favorable/unfavorable for each AI and determined that he had to be plotting on me. So I demanded, he took the demand and sure enough plotting stopped. So it can be useful.

 

[Whisker]

@BornInCantaloup Unhappy settler should consider career as diplomat. There is probably a nice place to set up embassy somewhere on Zara's eastern border, or maybe NE of Rome.

 

[konata_LS]

@ BiC

Spoiler :

As @ Whisker suggested, gifting a city to AC might be a good choice. AC might be plotting on Sury. But if AC's target is you, that would be dangerous.

Judging from the mini-map, it seems Zara stole the Horse from you. Elepults would be a nice solution.

 

[konata_LS]

ps : sidenote on losing the horses. I think this is a Deity difficulty thing.

Spoiler :

Yes, I think only Deity AIs expand so fast. You may find, in the previous page, some write-ups at Immortal and Emperor. Below Immortal, the player usually can peacefully build 8 or more cities, but Deity AI starts with two settlers and everything becomes insane. A "builder map" at Noble level might become a typical construction rush map if we change the difficulty to Deity.

You've also noticed the tough choice in this map: the surrounding land is not very nice, settling too early towards the jungle/desert might crush the economy; but if you don't settle it, AIs will grab it. That's also what I felt when I played this at Emperor. I really didn't want to settle too early towards jungle pig or jungle gem, but I had to do that.