Bribery

[Palaiologos]

One thing definetely missing from civ3 is the ability to bribe another civs units into joining you.

It should not require a special unit to do that;Just contacting the unit by right clicking on it and and you would be asked if you wanted to contact the Leader of the civ or bribe the unit.

A change of allegiance was quite common in the Ancient and Medieval times and it was not always because of money.

In the Hellenistic Era,warfare was based on the change of allegiance of the army and therefore the control of the enemy kingdom.Pyrrhus conquered a large part of Macedonia simply because he was a kinsman of Alexander the Great and hence commanded respect, and because the Macedonian army was tired of the long and fruitless wars of Demetrius.

Factors such as cultural difference, the presence of a Great Leader or states of anarchy or bankrupsy could affect the money required.

Moreover there should be a way of sabotaging an enemy unit.

[Gangerolf]

yeah why not? civ2 had it...
but i'd prefer to have a spy unit do it, just to make it abit more difficult than just clicking on the unit.

[Galvatron]

Originally posted by Gangerolf

i'd prefer to have a spy unit do it, just to make it abit more difficult than just clicking on the unit.

Well in the end you would need the money to do so therefore it wouldn't be so easy anyway. Yeahh it's a good suggestion adding new special elements to the game: should I trust on a big army of heavy-hitters or follow the smart path and buy the world?

[Tiberius]

Re: Bribery

Originally posted by Palaiologos
One thing definetely missing from civ3 is the ability to bribe another civs units into joining you.

It should not require a special unit to do that;Just contacting the unit by right clicking on it and and you would be asked if you wanted to contact the Leader of the civ or bribe the unit.

Moreover there should be a way of sabotaging an enemy unit.

These are good ideas!
I'd like especially to have the possibility to buy a Great Leader (or an army) if I don't have one (I know it would be costly) so I could build the Military Academy after that.

[Caliban]

I never liked unit bribing in CivII. The computer players always had more money than me and whenever possible bribed single units and tortured me that way...

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Caliban
I never liked unit bribing in CivII. The computer players always had more money than me and whenever possible bribed single units and tortured me that way...

Yeah, but that does not not mean it would not come in handy sometimes.What about an infantry fortified on a mountain fort?.In order to dislodge it many looses would be required so why don't just pay 500 gold and persuade the fort's garisson for the nobility of your cause?

Philip II(Alexander's father for the unenlightened) said:Give a bag of gold and i can breach any walls.

Why not in civ3?

It would of course depend on many factors as i have mentioned above.

[Panag]

hi ,

if the diplomacy had a little more things inside it , then it would be nice to include bribery , ...

it would be great to bribe such and such civ to go to war , or to trade with this civ , or to embargo that civ , ....

yeah

have a nice day

[Caliban]

Originally posted by panag
it would be great to bribe such and such civ to go to war , or to trade with this civ , or to embargo that civ ,

Yes, that would be a "realistic" way of bribing.
Brings back memories of Alpha Centauri, where you could bribe the other civs to give you their voices in the planetary council.

On the other hand, this kind of bribing is already available: just give them large amounts of money and they will form a military alliance or whatever you want with your country...

[Cyclotron]

Realism or not, bribery was obviously overpowered and a severe exploit in Civ2. Increasing the monetary amount won't counterbalance that either, since you can just boost income. I think the oonly way to pull this off would have to involve a chance of failure and international incidents, like normal spy functions.

[Firebird]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Realism or not, bribery was obviously overpowered and a severe exploit in Civ2. Increasing the monetary amount won't counterbalance that either, since you can just boost income. I think the oonly way to pull this off would have to involve a chance of failure and international incidents, like normal spy functions.

Chance (and international incidents in peacetime) is a must for balancing, but I also think a new unit ability given f.eks. to armies should be in there to. That way you would have to get an army through before you could bribe any units.

The chance of bribing could be made dependent on how the war is going, perhaps the health of the unit and culture. But I also think that bribed units should keep there nationality like workers do, and they should have a penalty on there attack and defense (they are not fighting for there home) and a double penalty when used against there motherland. They should perhaps even be able to flip back (now I am getting all the flip-haters on my back ).

[Kampus majore]

That is a nice idea. So if you're a builder and don't have a lot of units at that time, but you do have a lot of cash, you can still survive!

I would also like the spy unit back. I don't like the new spying system and therefore don't use it.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Firebird
The chance of bribing could be made dependent on how the war is going, perhaps the health of the unit and culture. But I also think that bribed units should keep there nationality like workers do, and they should have a penalty on there attack and defense (they are not fighting for there home) and a double penalty when used against there motherland. They should perhaps even be able to flip back (now I am getting all the flip-haters on my back ).

Good ideas, Firebird! I like them, I like them very much!

[Galvatron]

Originally posted by Kampus majore
That is a nice idea. So if you're a builder and don't have a lot of units at that time, but you do have a lot of cash, you can still survive!

I would also like the spy unit back. I don't like the new spying system and therefore don't use it.

Yes this is something the Netherlands did to become a topranked colonial-power. The never had such a strong army to rival top-nations like Spain or France but they had the strongest economy in this time and what they can't conquer they bought think this strategy will reflect the Dutch rise to power.

[Kampus majore]

Hm, that is probably why I like it that much!

[Galvatron]

Originally posted by Kampus majore
Hm, that is probably why I like it that much!

So we should refer to it as the "Dutch-strategy" in future issues.