Author Topic: do you ever bribe other factions in diplomacy? (Read 1620 times)

bvanevery · « **on:** January 14, 2017, 07:31:43 pm »

Like to make a Treaty, instead of telling them "Why, my goodwill and friendship", you offer them money or tech. I never, ever do that. Totally rubs me the wrong way. So, I have no idea if there's something effective or valuable about such actions. I doubt there is, because the AIs aren't all that bright militarily. An AI faction needs to be giving me something to be of benefit to me, not the other way around.

I have paid off AI factions, to get the warmongers to leave me alone when I'm weak at the beginning, but that's different. Especially with Morgan, if they don't ask for too much money, it makes good business sense to just hand them a pittance. A corollary to that, is not to keep large cash reserves around, so that they can't ask for large amounts of cash to pay them off.

gwillybj · « **Reply #1 on:** January 14, 2017, 07:59:04 pm »

I do it frequently, as long as the result is beneficial to me, of course.
There are many ways to go about it. Some might cause you some kind of deficit immediately, but in the long run it was an excellent move.

bvanevery · « **Reply #2 on:** January 14, 2017, 09:20:56 pm »

Well what kind of specific great stuff did you get from your bribe?

Lately I'm playing on these 256x128 maps. We're all sufficiently isolated, that frankly any faction could do anything and it wouldn't matter. On a standard size map I might be more concerned. Actually I wonder how my current "skills and attitudes" hold up on standard size maps now. Previously I found that dealing with the Caretakers and Usurpers could be a real bear. But with my forest and minerals based early game economies now, maybe they can't do so much to me.

I prefer the factions to bribe me. Deirdre gave me a hell of a good one to attack Cha Dawn, in the current game I'm playing. First off, an alliance when otherwise she was the most powerful faction in the game and wouldn't have remotely considered it. Also, 275 credits and Doctrine:Loyalty. The Command Nexus wasn't done yet. I didn't get it, I let Yang complete it, so eventually I'll own it when I trash him. But he's benefited an awfully long time from it. Anyways that long term alliance with Deirdre has been very useful tech-wise and wouldn't have happened ordinarily.

Bearu · « **Reply #3 on:** January 19, 2017, 02:48:12 am »

Quote from: bvanevery on January 14, 2017, 07:31:43 pm

Like to make a Treaty, instead of telling them "Why, my goodwill and friendship", you offer them money or tech. I never, ever do that. Totally rubs me the wrong way. So, I have no idea if there's something effective or valuable about such actions. I doubt there is, because the AIs aren't all that bright militarily. An AI faction needs to be giving me something to be of benefit to me, not the other way around.

I have paid off AI factions, to get the warmongers to leave me alone when I'm weak at the beginning, but that's different. Especially with Morgan, if they don't ask for too much money, it makes good business sense to just hand them a pittance. A corollary to that, is not to keep large cash reserves around, so that they can't ask for large amounts of cash to pay them off.

The ability to bribe the factions depends on the faction, but the general reason remains the gifts improve temporarily the mood of the faction towards the briber.