bribing non-barb units

[Ming]

quote: Originally posted by East Street Trader on 11-09-2000 06:07 AM GIncreased sophistication in bribery and corruption will racket up the need for careful stacking in MP I guess.

Will racket up the need? Heck, only fools or desperate people move units unstacked in MP after writing is discovered

[Blaupanzer]

Ming, that also means your units tend to die in pairs, yes? Yes, EST, spies and vet spies get different prices than diplos. Not sure how the 15-square distance works. I've got another civ on either side of me in a current game. Using shortest count to the capitol, the price seems to keep going down beyond 15.

[tonic]

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by East Street Trader on 11-09-2000 06:07 AM</font> From Blaupanzer's post I take it that the number of squares is counted in a line from the spy/diplo through the target to the capital? Because of the similarity to the position with bribing cities I'm now starting to think the discount in favour of spy over diplo and vet spy over greenie will also hold.

There is an important distinction between bribing an AI unit and an AI city. When bribing a city it is important to place your diplo/spy at a square furthest away from the AI's capital to minimise the cost. In bribing a unit, it is the position of the unit (and hence its distance from its capital) that determines the bribe cost and it makes no difference on what square your diplo is!

Edit:
Regarding the counting of squares from the capital, I used "approximately" in my post advisedly as there is some variation depending on the direction you count. For a location directly vertical, I've found it could be about 17 squares. The 15 squares are counted horizontally. Worth a few more tests I'd reckon.

[This message has been edited by tonic (edited November 09, 2000).]

[East Street Trader]

For corruption purposes you have to distinguish between counting horizontal/vertical and counting along a diagonal (more corruption diagonally).

Hard to figure how there can be a distinction between horizontal and vertical though.

Are you testing in straight lines, tonic, or with some irregular lines?

[tonic]

EST: Straight lines. I'll clarify the distance factor a bit more when I have the time to do some more runs. The corruption aspect you mentioned may be a clue as well.

[debeest]

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).]

[Mercantile]

i often wondered why cities cost different gold from different angles, i couldnt' ever put my thumb on it.... thanks for the info guys and keep up the good work

[SandMonkey]

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.

[tonic]

On the premise that a picture speaks louder...here is a graph of M with the minimum as defined previously ( M=2.05 + 0.0028*C ) shown by the lower dark line. The maroon line shows that both M and the slope are increased at a closer distance to the capital. One would expect a family of curves based on distance as parameter. The "curves" are quite linear.

____
The second graph shows the effect of distance on the birbe-cost. It's some sort of power function decay. I've checked that the critical point for the minimum cost is > 15 ie from 16 squares onwards for diagonal squares and > 10 ie from 11 onwards counting vertically or horizontally. Obviously there is some difference between the 2.42 version I use and the ToT used by SandMonkey.

[This message has been edited by tonic (edited November 13, 2000).]

[N35t0r]

WOW!

Good job!

I would never had figured that out by myself.

(wouldn't it have been easier asking Bryan Reynolds or whoever? )

[Shogun Gunner]

Can we get that in a PowerPoint presentation? I want to bring this to a meeting with my boss on Monday.

[tonic]

Just use the skill you've developed in serious civing - no challenge at all to transfer these to Powerpoint

[Shogun Gunner]

Seriously, Tonic. That's pretty incredible. It's obvious you are a master of civ!

[tonic]

Thanks for the compliment but I'm basically a simple theorist. Look at the Grandmaster thread for the real masters of the game! And also the more thorough work of the SGs in the "A for Alphabet" thread.

[Mercantile]

i am in the middle of a small map game and i have bribed many of my opponents units, and to be honest, although it is costly, its been worth it. I have been able to put up perimeters quicker and take the war to my opponents, instead of letting them come to me while i build up my cities. Slow expansion on purpose and alot of barbs. I have truly bought many mercenary armies from the ai and the barbs and reaped huge rewards for it. As units become better, they go up astronomically in price, and alas even my coffers ran dry. Oh well, looks like its campaign time for the Traders again

BTW those graphs, awesome