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finbar
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Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy
Jan 1970
time: 06:12
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Barbarian bribe cost relates to the unit you're bribing. They're set prices, so to speak. Horsemen, from memory, cost 20-something, and so on up the scale, with chariots, archers, etc, costing more. From memory, barb Legion cost about 110 gold. I'm sure someone will remember the exact figures. Barb units become NON units if, when you bribe them, they're closer to another civ's city (or a barb city) than one of your own cities. The real value in bribing 2-movement barb units is your opportunity to chase the barb leader who is usually nearby.
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debeest
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My question is about NON-barbarian units, units from other civilizations. My experience is that they cost hundreds of gold pieces to bribe. I consider them too expensive to bribe as a standard form of defense, but lots of people seem to do exactly that. What am I missing?
I'll reiterate my frequent observation: the Scrolls of Wisdom are wrong, wrong, wrong. The formulas are not correct and not even really close to correct.
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East Street Trader
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London, United Kingdom
Jun 2000
time: 05:12
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In general I share your experience and, as a result, rarely bribe AI units.
I can add to the exceptional cases though.
Sometimes a unit is found wandering far from home and can then be a cheap buy. (A point that may play a part in Tonic's preference for caravan heisting  ).
If you have Leo's, and there is a very small backward civ around, it's antique units will be cheap and will soon turn into something more useful. In fact, in the extreme case of a civ still producing warriors in the midst of armour/howies/mobile infantry (which I've seem two or three times) you can work a variation of the recruiting station outside a barbarian city tactic. Warriors are always a cheap buy as compared to riflemen (so I am sure that Tonic is right to think that, like the bribe cost of a barb, initial unit price is part of the formula). In fact, even without Leo's the price is worth it if the units are always "none" because you can use them in the cases where you occupy choke points and have need of a second unit to double up as protection against bribery. I often find myself tying down diplos and spies that way and an antique "none" warrior will free those units up.
Warships are good tagets. No doubt that's partly because they are often far from home but can also be because a single powerful warship can decisively change the balance of power in a particular theatre. I've cheerfully paid a good four figure sum for a battleship before now - and picked up several cities to expand a tenuous beachhead as an immediate result. This is particularly true if you are a democracy, don't have Shakespeare's Theatre and the nearest coastal town to the bribe site belongs to the AI. Once bribed the ship will be a "none" and that's very valuable in such conditions. On some maps a merchant ship is worth paying a high price for in such a case.
Sometimes an antique explorer will turn up in a remote location late in the game when his ability to work well with alpines makes him a good buy.
Lastly, there are cases where the fact that the bribed ex-AI unit gets to move in the turn it's bribed (a familiar point in the context of bribing barbs of course) can be enough to decide an otherwise close battle and thereby prevent a potentially costly counter attack.
A point of technique which this thread has made me realise I have been overlooking is that if the AI's bank balance is a factor in the price then, during the period in the game when it can be done, it would pay to try to extract tribute before sweet-talking the unit. A point which probably applies in the commoner case of bribing cities too.
An oddity that I've noticed is that an approach to bribe settlers produces the most exorbitant prices of all. I've seen some four figure demands. I suspect that partisans are also a premium price. Quite appropriate, I think, that those units should be more loyal.
Bye the bye, I've speculated whether the distance of the bribing diplo/spy from the enemy capital is relevant to the price (as in the case of cities) but haven't been able to demonstrate that it is (but that may be because nearly always being so far from the target's home means that a couple of squares can't make a difference) and also whether the price advantage for a spy over a diplo and a veteran spy over a greenie (again in the case of cities) applies. Anyone know the answer?
[This message has been edited by East Street Trader (edited November 08, 2000).]
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debeest
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East Street, those are all excellent points, many of which I hadn't considered and will have to remember. But I raised this question because so many people seem to take it as a matter of course that they'll bribe any enemy unit that comes around to make trouble, relying on that as a major part of their homeland defense instead of military units. I find that the price is usually in the range of 6-10 gold per shield-cost of the unit, and you can buy your own units a lot cheaper than that. What makes it worthwhile as a standard form of defense? Come on, I know you people are out there! Fill me in!
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Hawkman
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Pioneer and Builder
Jan 2001
time: 05:12
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Against the AI, I typically pay about 90-100 gold for bribing a Horseman unit and about double that for Elephant and naval units; warriors are even cheaper, but I dislike their lack of mobility. Best to approach these units when they are far from home and near another civilization.
The cost may seem high to some but with Leonardo's Workshop these NON-affiliated units will promote to very effective assets, with no maintenance costs. Without LW it's not worth bribing a lot of units, but a few NON-affiliated ships (especially Frigates) are very nice to have.
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debeest
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Once again I'm amazed at how much people know about this game. Thanks for the info, especially you, Tonic; it will certainly come in handy. We haven't seen a lot in this thread from people who regularly rely on dips for defense, and I'm still skeptical that it's worthwhile to bribe AI units most times, but EST and others pointed out some useful exceptions. I like the warrior recruitment center notion. Like others, I've found that settlers are disproportionately expensive; that makes sense, since really they're just mobile cities. My experience with AI caravans has been that they're never less than 400 gp, and I've chosen not to pay so much for something I can build myself for about 100; but I'm going to have to give it a try, to see whether it's really worthwhile to let someone else build it for me AND make the trip.
[This message has been edited by debeest (edited November 11, 2000).]
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SandMonkey
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I have been working on this since I read this thread, but I can't agree with the numbers that tonic gave.
I am using ToT, which could obviously account for numerical differences. When I first tested my numbers, I gave the AI 750 and 1000 gold and found the bribe cost of both of those amounts for a riflemen.
I set up the equations, using tonic's variables:
G = (y + x*C)S
204 = (1000x + y)40
176 = (750x + y)40
The numbers I dervied were:
x = .0028
y = 2.3
Beforehand, I had gone through and gotten G for when C equaled 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 175, 200, 250, 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 gold. I plotted these on my graphing calculator and then tried ot fit my previously derived equation [ G = .0028*C + 2.3)S ] to those points, but the line only fit the two points I had used to get the equation.
If anyone can tell me how I can fit an equation to this I would be very grateful... I can't remember the "line of best-fit" command for my calc, but I don't think that is what I want anyways (it's a TI-83 plus).
I found a couple other things though.
- Government has NO effect on the price to bribe..
- size of the capitol has NO effect on the price to bribe.
- I found that, on a straight line (squares with touching sides), when the unit is greater than or equal to 10 squares away, distance from capitol no longer has an effect. Square 1 is the most expensive, and it decreases until you reach square 10, and from there on it stays the same for as far away as you go.
For anyone interested, I attempted to find if there was a common point for the x term. I used the equation:
x = (G/S - y)/C
Since I already had G, S, and C, I tried it. I used random numbers that I had already derrived, but this way proved inconclusive. The numbers from 10-100 crossed at the same point, but then all the numbers after that began crossing at different points. Could there be another variable that chages with C? Say, when C = 0-100, then z = x(1), or when C = 101-200, then z = x(2).
Let me know what ya think, everyone.
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07-11-2000 08:11
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