Stealing from the Treasury

[Halion]

There're oft times midgame one or more of my AI opponents has a lot of cash, sometimes more than 1000 gold according to the trading screen, but I don't want to trade for it, and the max I can normally beg is 90-100 when pleased or friendly. But I WOULD like to have it.

Has anyone had success with sending spies over to steal from AI treasuries. How much did you get? I'm not sure if it's cost effective.

 

[cain3456]

It depends on how much the AI has. I don't think I've ever gotten as much as 100 at one time, but it can be helpful when you're running low on cash and high on espionage.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Spies only steal the treasury of an individual city AFAIK. If you can trade a semi-backfill or militarily useless tech for it all I say go for it, 1000 gold will more than pay for deficit research or military upgrades. Don't not trade just because you want to stay 10 techs ahead.

 

[CaF]

I'm pretty sure that Oneleggedrhino did some playthroughs using heavy espionage, including tons of spy missions to steal money. I think he ended up stealing around 200-300 gold per mission in the very big AI cities. The mission itself is pretty cheap, so it should be worth it.

 

[Seraiel]

200-300g from 1 mission is a lot, I tried it in one game, and never got over 100 from rich Mansa.

 

[s.bernbaum]

The problem is definitely figuring out where the money is. I tried it in one game and after getting a mere handful of coins from several cities, gave it up as too much trouble. You don't know how much the treasury of a city holds until after you steal it.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

Money in a city = (Civ's total money) * (Population of that city) / (Population of entire civ)

That's population points, I think. So a size 8 city has 8 population. Just to be clear.

So, target a big city. Any big city will do. Just make sure you have good espionage multipliers.

Or keep an AI hanging around with just 1 city left, and you can still steal hundreds of gold from them. My latest game (Hatty elephants war) had me stealing 300-500 G at a time from a thoroughly-crippled Ragnar.

Not sure what's a good target? Send a spy, select espionage mission, and mouseover the "Steal Gold" mission. It tells you how much, and the odds of success, before running the mission. Or, better yet, look at the costs to steal gold on the espionage adviser screen. High cost = Either lots of gold, or bad espionage multipliers. (Not sure which? Check the cost of city visibility or a revolt or most other missions, which only vary based on espionage multipliers. That lets you see which cities are good targets in general.)

 

[JBryan314]

Most of my money (that I don't produce myself) is begged from friends or traded to me in exchange for a garbage (or old) tech. In fact, it's odd that sometimes I'll offer a trade to a friend, that they'll turn down. Then I'll ask for them to "spare this for a good friend" without even leaving the screen. And they usually give it to me. Idiots.

 

[yturk39]

My guess is relatively higher population cities with good production and commerce multiplier buildings would make the better places to try these missions. Try it when you see the production tile improvements actually being worked.