Advanced vassal strat

[zanthus]

An improvement on the "vassal" system:

Normally using the vassal strat involves selling a civ atech for insane amounts of gold per turn. This hamstrings their gold and independant tech research, making them dependant on you for all of their tech, like a feudal vassal. Unfortunately, this deal is cancled after 20 turns, limiting the amount of gold you can earn per tech. And every 20 turns, you have to trade a new tech to keep he deal going.

Instead of just selling a tech for gold per turn, I started including a luxury in the deal. I was able to keep the deal going well after the 20 turn limit. That way, in my current game, I was able to keep the French paying me a ton of gold per turn for one incense. This works better because you don't have to continually trade a tech to a civ every 20 turns. This way you can get even farther ahead in the tech race and get a lot more gold per tech than with just the vassal system.

Any ideas/improvements/comments on this system?

Diabolically yours,
zanthus

Ha! Ha! Ha!

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting post.

I had a similar experience in my current game. I traded a tech to the Japanese along with dyes for 30 gold per turn. They must really need the dyes because even though the 20 turns have long expired they are still paying me 30 gold per turn.

I'm going to try to ask for much more gold the next time I offer a deal like this. There's money to be made out there!

[Arrian]

I have a feeling that the only reason the AI doesn't call you up and cancel the deal is that it thinks the whatever/turn for whatever luxury is a good deal, and would actually pay more, were you to demand it. Try cancelling the deal and asking them what they will pay. You may find they will pay even more than they are under the current deal.

Making per/turn luxury deals, I think is the best way to cripple the AI's tech research. That way, you're not giving up tech or vital military resources, but you are still draining their treasury.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Very true, I always cancel and offer it again. This will yield more income. They want those luxs for happiness. IT also means they will be loathed to go to war with you and lose them.

[Arrian]

Exactly. The best way to turn the rest of the world into "vassals" is to grab as many luxuries as you can. Of course you want access to as many types as possible to keep your people happy without being dependant on other civs, but monopolies on luxuries is where the money is.

If everyone is dependant upon you for luxuries, you will make tons of money and the AI will be less likely to attack you. You can ruin everyone else's science rate with per turn deals and race ahead.

-Arrian

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I just stumbled upon this last night. I asked what each leader would give for a tech - most offered a world map , a lump sum, and a large amount per turn. For one, thinking they needed to be persuaded, I tossed in some dye. Boom, they coughed up the gold then! Some 20g/turn, and it's only 1050ad! My scientists are very pleased with these developments...

[Skeletal Dragon]

Actually, the AI will give a LOT of GPT for luxuries/resources, no matter what the age is. I think it was during the Industrial age, and I could give Iron + Ivory for about 70+ GPT a turn! Wow!

Usually, if it doesn't cancel the deal, it usually means u can get more for it. But in some unusual cases, when the AI tries to cancel a trade deal (such as luxury + GPT for my luxury + resource), I can counter-propose with a higher GPT! Wierd...

[Cookie Monster]

Good points Arrian!

It didn't occur to me to cancel the deal and renegotiate. Must be my own laziness I guess. I'll give this a try.

[Arrian]

Glad I could help. You will be amazed at what the AI will pay for certain things. More money than you think they have.

For instance, last night I decided to sell some tech. The AI's were all well behind me and many of them were getting antsy about it... "annoyed" I think it's called. So, I sold medicine all around. Most of them had very little to give me in return, as I was already draining them by selling them luxuries. But the Americans, out of NOWHERE, gave me 30gold/turn. This is circa 1500 AD. That's not bad. Then again, when I think about it, I'm selling 4 luxuries to England. 2 of them for 15 gold/turn, the others for a bit less. That adds up too.

-Arrian

p.s. Skeletal: I too have noticed some oddities when deals get renegotiated. I was selling horses to the Greeks for 6gold/turn. They were advanced enough to build Cavalry (though not nearly enough to harm me) and I felt they should pay more. The deal had gone well past 20 turns. So I cancelled and tried to up the price. The best I could get was 3 gold/turn. How odd.

[kmill25]

Originally posted by Arrian
p.s. Skeletal: I too have noticed some oddities when deals get renegotiated. I was selling horses to the Greeks for 6gold/turn. They were advanced enough to build Cavalry (though not nearly enough to harm me) and I felt they should pay more. The deal had gone well past 20 turns. So I cancelled and tried to up the price. The best I could get was 3 gold/turn. How odd.

Maybe they already had a large supply of calvary units and felt that they probally wouldn't make more. I know for a fact that if I'm importing horses and then say I no longer need them at that moment, I would pay less for them.

[Aeson]

How to cancel trade agreements?

This has caused me no end of frustration, as I can't seem to figure it out on my own. I should've asked long ago, just wanted to find it on my own (hasn't worked) I guess. How do I cancel trade agreements?

*feels like such a newbie*

[Arrian]

Aeson,

Click on the button that gets you to existing agreements (I forget what it's actually called... there's the "new" screen, which is the default, and then next to that an option for the "old?" agreements). Once you have that up, you should see something like:

8gold/turn-------------------------------------horses

Click on that deal and it will bring it up into the "new" screen (the negotiating table). Then click on both things (horses and 8gold/turn) and they will disappear, like you would do to take an offer off the table normally. You've just cancelled the deal.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Thanks Arrian, finally found it. It was just staring me in the face all that time....

[vmxa1]

It is "Active" for existing trades.

[David Weldon]

Renegotiating

Here's a few things I've noticed about renegotiating trade deals that might be of interest to someone:

First, the value of luxuries is related to the size of the empire. I haven't done enough testing to know if it's size in cities or size in citizens yet, but beware in the late game if there is a war and the empire you're trading with gets "downsized". You might renegotiate expecting to increase profits and get quite a surprise...

Second, be wary of renegotiating with a country that currenlty has very little gold/turn. What seems to happen is that as soon as you cancel the trade, they re-allocate their science spending (if the gold you free up is enough to let them move up at least one notch). Then when you offer a new trade, you get stuck with the max gold/turn that they're producing after the re-allocation. It sucks!

Finally, you can really hamstring a civ by trading them luxuries early in the game (this keeps their science low and the extra happiness doesn't matter too much), and then once you've got them dependent on you switch the luxury trade to a gold/turn for tech trade. By the middle game you're getting 3 or 4 turn techs, and the 20 turns that you get paid for a one-time tech keeps them in the dumps. Basically the idea is to secure some amount of gold/turn with luxuries that don't really matter while you're behind or even, and then make them use entertainers to keep their cities happy once they have large cities and you get a lead.

If you don't do the luxury trade early, then they may not have enough gold/turn for your techs later (because they spend it on science instead), and they also are more likely to attack you before you've built up an unstoppable empire. Of course, see point 2 for possible problems when making the switch...