Bribery really works

[Parmenion]

Wow, I can't believe it worked.
I was once playing the Spanish and in my early expansion conquered Valencia fairly easily. In the rebel list afterwards, I noticed that they were led by El Cid himself, but didn't pay any further attention to it.
Anyway, I abandoned that game soon after when the Almohad's crushed 2 of my biggest armies and I couldn't bear to see what they'd do next.
The next game I played as the English and tried bribery for the first time ever. I was tired of getting cut to pieces by the Welsh longbowmen and paid their leader 2000 florins to sell his people out. This actually worked, and I quickly made one of my princes the general for this unit to retain their loyalty. (Longbowmen in 1095AD - well ace&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
After that game was over I played Spain again and tried to bribe the Valencian rebels. Lo and behold it worked and they came over to my side for only 2300 florins. The year after I checked to see if El Cid was their general and he was - not only that but he was bloody fantastic He's now a 7-star general with great stats and a massive morale bonus for troops he leads. He's also 235 years old and never lost a battle - cool. (Oh, yeah. He looks like Charlton Heston too.)

[whiskeyjack]

hey,
Yeah bribery really does work. Its especially effective on 'heroes' such as El Cid, William Wallace, Joan of Arc etc. Bribing rebels is a great way to get a good general and some decent troops never mind the bonous of taking the province without fighting. If you're ever playing Byz in early you can basically bribe half the armies on the map, makes for an easy game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Tiwaz]

Bribing is also nice way to soften places that have suffered religious rebellion or something similar. I haven't seen too many rebels with high loyalty so you can pick one or even two best groups, buy them off and let them finish off rest of them.

Very useful when your armies are busy someplace else.

[ABG]

WoW

You have open my eyes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

Thx, havent used that before, i usually play Civilization (I, II, III, Call to Power...) and there bribing is very very expensive, so i never tried in MTW.

Lets see how it woks...

[Brutal DLX]

Bribing armies later on is also quite expensive most of the times, especially if it's a non-Rebel high command star general you're trying to bribe. I once wanted to bribe an Almohad army led by a 6 star general, but his asking price of around 70k made me reconsider.
Bribing early is of course a viable strategy for most factions.

[econ21]

Yup, bribery is very useful. Welsh longbowmen and El Cid are the most obvious. But the Vikings in Scandanivia are also tempting - invade Sweden in force so they retreat without a fight to Norway. Now you have a choice. Fight 6 units of very tough Vikings who have nowhere to retreat or add said force to your armoury, the equivalent of 6 FMAA units. Hard decision, not.

[Parmenion]

Bribing the Norwegian Vikings would be cool, except that I always play 'early' and the Danes don't get an emissary or even a palace to train them in. Thus it would be more costly to build the palace, train the emissary, and pay the bribe than it would to carry out a well-planned attack to crush them.

Don't know whether the Danes get emissaries in later periods though, so it may well be feasible then.

[econ21]

Um, well, Danes are probably the faction that has least to gain from bribing the Scandinavian Vikings as they can make their own. They are tempting for the English, HRE and Poles though who can get there quite quickly.

[Parmenion]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that it's possible even if you're another faction. It's because I have always taken all of Scandinavia within 8 years or so (as the Danes) that I assume the AI does the same. D'OH

[Jeff]

Ya know I haven't tried bribery yet either. Simply because it wasn't really viable in Shogun especially when I could get my geisha to go assasinate someone instead of spending anything. Man I am going to try some bribery tonight when I get home from work. El Cid gives me fits (of course I have only been playing for a week and a half) and I figured because he was a hero he wouldn't really be susceptible to a bribe. I guess I should read the manual a little more closely instead of just jumping right into the game.

[econ21]

I think high command leaders like El Cid are more expensive than low or no star ones, but still can be bought. Whether they are worth it varies on how many high command leaders you already have but I think most Spanish players fork out for El Cid.
There are also vices that make bribery more or less expensive. I've never lost an army to enemy bribery though, so the weak principled AI leaders are a good buy.

[whiskeyjack]

Just wondering is it possible for your army to be bribed? Its never happened to me, has it happened to anyone else?

[Jeff]

Well I started a new Spanish Campaign in Early period. I tried bribing 2 different Almohad Generals (1 a 4 star and 1 a 6 star) and both wanted over 20K florins. Not even worth it IMO. I can imagine in certain instances where it may be useful. I would have liked to bribe them both because I have my eye on Aragon first and then rooting out the Almohads 2nd so that I may have all of Spain and Portugal before venturing forth to crush anyone else. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to start bribing everyone and so I attacked the Almohads first as I wed one of my daughters to a Aragon prince. That was a mistake because within a short period of time they pretty much wiped me out. I think I should try this game on an easier difficulty. So far I have done 4 campaigns on hard and have gotten my butt handed to me each time. I will try Normal when I get home from work tonight. Maybe the price of the bribes will go down with the difficulty setting. Anyone know if that's true? I am finding that the differences between this game and Shogun are vast. I could finish a Shogun campaign inside of 2 hours on all difficulty levels and really have no problems. The techniques and tactics in this game are very different.

[Tiwaz]

They might be bit lower but still trying to bribe good general is usually very very costly. They know their value and if they have strong army to back them up...

Those guys may not just be worth it.

However strategy I often use, as I have kind of mentioned, is to bribe better rebel armies. Depending from type of rebel army you can get quite useful units. I once gained lots of spanish jinetes from one rebel faction which were quite useful in more than one occasion. But I would often recommend replacing their commander with your own skilled and loyal leader or giving them title to some land to improve loyalty since they often get some sort of vice which lowers amount of money they demand. You might lose your army to another faction unelss you took some precautions.

[Hamburglar]

Its always MUCH cheaper to bribe rebel generals instead of faction ones. Good troops to pick up are Catholic rebels because they always have a bunch of knights.

[chuachinsoon]

Just thought of a great idea for bribery. Move ze emmisary to an enemy province that has heaps of buildings. Bribe the army there and then destroy all the buildings there. This would set back their building capability by dozens of years. Doing that now to the Papacy as it's getting too strong. It's cool seeing the enemy factions moving back to peasant and basic spearman units when you've got say, chivalric knights and stuff.
Talk about a scorched earth policy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Lord Godfrey]

I have seen the AI bribe other factions but never had one of my own armies turn on me. Could be result of higher loyalty levels in my armies compared to some of the weaker AI factions at the time

[HindSight2020]

Before starting a Spanish game, I heard about bribing El Cid and tried it, and I found that it works great. During one Egyptian game, I sent my emissaries around in search of every rebel province I could find and bribed Norway, Sweden, and several other Asia provinces at 1000-2000 florin each. Then I just had to stamp out rebellions due to the difference in religion. After I was done, I didn't have to kill a whole army to take a province and then train more units to take the place of those I split off from some other province. The cost of bribing some rebel province commanders is prohibitive at times -- some costing over 25000 florins. I've seen that several times in my most recent Spanish game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Parmenion]

Last night I discovered a drawback to the bribery system. Playing as Italians in early and had been at war with both Sicily (they started it and I took all their land) and Byzantium (my choice, took Bulgaria and Serbia). About 1125AD and the Byzantines were huge and had several large armies bordering me. They had annhiallated the Turks and were holding off the Egyptians fairly well, but to expand my growing trade empire I decided I would like to have Crete, Cyprus, Malta and Rhodes under my benevolent protection. Maybe I was being naive, but after my experiences bribing rebels I thought that bribing a major faction's garrison would simply mean that the people had decided to change alleigiance (as they do in Civ 3). So I sent in my best emissaries and paid roughly 3-5K per island in one turn. Great, I thought, rubbing my hands and imagining the florins pouring in. Then the next year Byzantine armies invade Serbia, and Bulgaria and half-a-dozen factions say that they have cancelled their alliance with me...... oh no....? There wasn't even a warning message to say, Are you sure you want to cancel the alliance with the Byzantines by bribing this garrison?
It's now 10 years later and my only holdings are Sicily and Corsica. The Byzantines and the Papacy have divided my land up between them (darn pope should be on my side, I'm a good catholic Doge who puts gold, not silver in the collection tray). Serves me right I guess for not thinking properly (and for playing on Expert before I was ready for it).

As Cersei Lannister said, When you play the game of thrones you either win or you die.

[Papewaio]

I think bribing an army is a pretty obvious act of war... please my ally don't worry that I am stealing all your territory by bribes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Bribes are good and it is useful for rebellious territories like Scotland to bribe them... found they tend to have less rebellions that way... might just be having a significant force in place and no locals slaughtered to do it.

Also as far as El Cid is concerned he was a merc general who fought for anyone who would pay him.

Note that bribed generals tend to get vices which makes them cheaper to be bribed in the future... conversly those that you fail to bribe will become more expensive to do so in the future.

[Parmenion]

Yeah, I suppose it is obvious when you think about it. It's just that I had my Civ 3 head on, and it's not an act of war in that game.
That which does not kill us only makes us stronger.... oops, too late.

[HindSight2020]

I had something happen last night with one of my bribes. One of my provinces had a rebellion with two nearly full army groups. I checked on them and they were one-third Saracens and two-thirds peasants. I bribed one of the groups over to my side and then drove out the other group. After the battle, I checked the composition of my new army, and they were all peasants I don't think that the Saracens were killed. They just kind of disappeared. Not sure what that means. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[Jeff]

Well after several Campaigns on various difficulty levels I have found that he Muslim factions are the hardest to bribe in my opinion (probably fairly obvious to most of you here but I am still new to this game) and bribing rebels is just ok, still not great. I find that sure i could take the province without a fight, but then none of my Generals gain any Valour or experience, and the kinds of troops I'm getting are still not on par with what I could produce say a couple of years later. There are a lot of little nuances to this game that I am still working out. In the case of the English I can see quickly bribing Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Longbowmen and Scottish Clansman your going to get are a big bonus early on and it also takes away the need to concentrate on Britain. Thus your able to either focus your attention on beating back the French. Personally in my latest Campaign I waited to bribe Scotland, Wales and Ireland until I had boats. When I got a small fleet up and running I bribed them and then immediately went after Sweden. My income went up significantly and I started to beat back the French, man I hate their Inquisitors Bribery is obviously one of those little nuances that really pays off in some circumstances but in my opinion overall not worth the effort or money your going to spend.

[SmokWawelski]

As it was already stated, bribing rebels works if you need to fill up gaps in your army or want to get a province without causing excommunication or war. We cannot say that it is always good or always useless...

Bribing enemy units also works, but bribing allied/neutral forces and going into war over one stack of troops - not a good idea.

[MiloMoria]

Not really bribery but.....
Something I found that was nice as the Alahmods was to force a Islamic revolt and then send a Jihad after the Spanish get kicked out. I took the provience(rebels turn it over peacefully) and stayed allied with the Spanish. (Which is good considering I was at war with the Egyptians)

_Tim

[Gregoshi]

Greetings MiloMoria and welcome to the Org. Thanks for signing up and joining the fun. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[MiloMoria]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ April 17 2003,21:24)]Greetings MiloMoria and welcome to the Org. Thanks for signing up and joining the fun. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Greetings to you also, thanks for the welcome. I just bought the game so I am a bit behind the curve of most I geuss, so please excuse any foolish questions I may ask in the future.

[Gregoshi]

I majored in Foolishness in college, so don't worry about it. You'll give me a chance to put my degree to work. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[The_Emperor]

bribery is a must when starting out... Starting the English campaign I quickly bribed the Welsh (and then the Scots) over to my side within a few years, leaving me free to make war on the french

Bribing catholic rebels was also great fun when Fighting the Almos... Especially since they actually had some quite good units pop up (It was certainly better than training them myself at the time&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org The_Emperor. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Judging by all the new patrons posting in this topic, you'd think we were bribing them to join. Alas, for them, we aren't. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ April 18 2003,13:28)]Welcome to the Org The_Emperor. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Judging by all the new patrons posting in this topic, you'd think we were bribing them to join. Alas, for them, we aren't. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
hey thanks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

You may not be bribing, but the faith is being spread quicker than 10 cardinals on a field day http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif