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Sevorak
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Well...the thing to understand is that the enemy city bribe isn't like the Civ2 bribe. What the enemy city bribe is about is forking over a wad of cash to speed up cultural assimilation (in a way). If there wasn't any chance whatsoever of being assimilated before, it's highly unlikely that a bribe will help. If you want to successfully bribe cities, pick cities that are, if not likely to fall under your cultural influence, at least UN-likely to resist - that means small cities (size <=4) , civil disorder, perhaps with foreign nationalities present, and generally far away from the enemy capital. Also, have a very, very big culture - base chance to bribe depends on what they think of your culture. Only the last three levels give you a good chance - Impressed With = 20%, Admirers Of = 25%, In Awe Of = 30%.
In addition to that, use government to your advantage - check every turn to see what their government is (military advisor). If you're a Democracy chances of a successful bribe increase (dunno if it's better or worse than Communism's Veteran Spies) vs any other government in the game, just like cultural assimilation (propaganda modifier in the editor). For example, Dem vs. Rep is +5, Dem vs. Com is +10. Unless your culture is huge (In Awe Of, 3:1 or better, not likely in high level games) , your chances of bribing a Republic or Communist city will be looking around the 15-25% range...not good. However, Dem vs. Anarchy is +35, so if they go into a revolution, go after their cities with a vengeance as you'll usually get at least 40% chance. Dem even gets a +20 vs. Monarchy so that's not too bad. Communism, the other late game choice, has a -10 vs. Republic and so is not likely to ever successfully bribe (assuming you're relatively even in culture, your chance will be 10% or so). Even against Monarchy, it's just +5...not too likely, still. Same rule applies for "go after Anarchy" since you have a +25 then, but rarely else.
I've succeeded on quite a few bribes. Once, England and Japan had been at war for the last thousand years or so, and the one city I was eyeing was near three coal tiles and had just changed hands from the Japanese to the English ten or twelve years ago. It wasn't anywhere near me, but I was MPPed to both Japan and England and was trading with them so I didn't expect them to go after it, plus their thousand-year war hadn't done wondrous things for their culture. Japan was in Monarchy, England was in Republic. England then went into revolution (to go to Communism). At that time, I threw cash at that city and it went right over. It was part Japanese people, part English people, and all mine 
In a more recent game, after a six-civ coalition eviscerated the Persians in 1390 or something like that, the Persians restarted at the top of the Zulu continent, which was all tundra. No one was settling there because after the Persians died, the Zulu, French and Americans kicked off against the Aztec and the Germans (and I stayed the hell away). Anyway, a little while later I get Refining, I have four Oil tiles in my territory and immediately pillage the roads off all of them (no sense connecting it until Combustion at least, and why risk exhaustion?) . The thing is, the Persians, with their empire of four size one cities, own three more oil tiles, and while the rest of the world is spitting blood and fire at each other I figured I'd pick them up as insurance. Problem - they're half a world away and I'm not about to waltz Galleons and Cavalry through a war zone, plus it'd take forever. Just then I notice that they're in Monarchy. I open up the spy menu and start flinging cash. I happen to have great culture, having stayed out of most wars and built a lot of cultural improvements, better than the other people who are busy fighting wars and blowing up thousand-year-old temples. The Persians do not have great culture, having been boxed in early and pretty much steamrolled later. Two of the size one cities go over to me right away, they'll never produce anything but they cover two of the three oil tiles I want. One of them is three tiles away from Persia's capital, so I figure that means the capital's influence is not so important in bribes. Then again, Persia's culture was pretty pathetic and its size one capital probably wasn't exerting too much pressure either.
Anyway, that's just a couple of examples I remember, I've bribed a few more, generally cities that were succumbing to my cultural influence anyway (once I bribed and failed, and the city assimilated on the next turn anyway). Bribing is less key than Civ2 though, when you could bribe entire civilizations to death with a flood of spies. It's more a peripheral thing, a useful tool but no game-finisher.
As for planting a spy failures, once you plant and fail, you probably won't be able to plant successfully for the next six to seven turns - that's been my observation, anyway. Just lay off the spy planting for a few turns, then try again.
-Sev
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04-12-2001 14:04
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