OCC ally gift oddity

[Legman]

I've recently taking up playing OCC games again after finally getting my CivII CD working. I'm going through the old comparison games and I'm currently playing the # 7 game, the one with the polar start. I'm doing fairly well I think, but here's my real point:

For the last 30 odd turns, I've obtained gifts of gold every turn from my two allies, typically 150-200 gold from the Romans and 50-75 gold from the Spanish. I'm at war with the other 4 civs, although I seldom have any contact with them. But it seems to have sustained my two alliances, so no need to change that.

Now, it's 1878 and I'm bringing a bribed Engineers unit back to Beijing onboard a Transport, and I encounter a Viking Caravel. Just to play it safe - and since I have a treasury of >6,000 gold from all the gifts - I pay the Vikings 350 gold for a cease fire. And guess what: The same turn when I go to the Spanish to get my annual gift of 50 gold, they demand I declare war on the Vikings (well, duh!), I refuse, ask for a gift, and they give me 150 gold! Next turn, the same: Demand I declare war on the Vikings, and when I refuse, they triple their usual gift!!

I know there's more to obtaining gifts and tribute than meets the eye, but this I've never seen before. Has anyone else?

Additional info: Beijing is size 16, I'm leading in technology, currently researching Miniaturization, I have but one military unit, a Musketeer stationed in Beijing - so no military presence on rival civs' continents, and I must be last on the powergraph, but obviously haven't checked since I'm still playing.

Any thoughts on why refusing to follow an ally's request will suddenly lead to the ally tripling their annual gift? It can't be coincidence because for the past 30 turns or so, the Spanish never went past 100 gold, and most of the time stayed on 50 or 75.

[Legman]

Forgot to mention that I'm keeping a detailed log of the game, so any additional info on the gift pattern can be easily provided if need be.

I've also saved 22 of the last 30 turns, so I can pretty much reconstruct the game too, but nothing much is happening anyway, besides me building Freights, getting gifts - and discovering new advances at the startling rate of one every eight turns.

But this is a polar start. Good game though.

[SilverDragon]

That's odd. Maybe the AI thinks that if they're nice to you you will attack the vikings.

[SCG]

my guess would be that in the last few turns the Spanish dropped a notch or 2 in the overall power rankings. Its possible that your cease fire with the Vikings had a minor effect on that, just as possible that it didn't. In my experience, The AI seem more likely to gift more when they percieve themselves to be relatively weaker than those around them, and (i think) gold plays a role in the calculations. Btw, do you have an embassy with the spanish? perhaps they recently obtained some gold, possibly via the vikings?

Incedentally, what are you doing with a 6000+ gold treasury? You could be rushbuying a lot of useful stuff with that - taking only 1 turn to build stuff. Heck, you could build 2 wonders from scratch in back to back turns with that much cash. I'm assuming you have taxes at 0% or at least have science maximized in terms of turns/advance and threw the rest in taxes or WL?

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*