Nice Little Earner: Rome finances its own enemies.

[Didz]

My Eygptian campaign is rolling slowy on and has taken a new form.

The war with Rome is ongoing but with my Empire now extending from Carthage in the South west around the eastern med to the Bosporus in the North West I have no plans for further expansion as the distance to capital penalites are getting too high.

Instead I am waging a diplomatic war against Rome, using Thrace and Scythia as buffer states to do the bulk of the fighting.

The weird thing is that I have discovered that by placing diplomats with both the Brutii and the Scipii I can actually get them to finance their own enemies.

Every turn my diplomats for these two factions a ceasefire in return for a one off tribute 5,000 for the Brutii and 2,000 for the Julii. Every turn they pay up and accept and I then give this money to my Thracian Allies to pay for their war effort against Rome.

Then every turn the Roman factions declare war on me again and I repeat the process. Gaining 7,000 tribute every turn.

[Darius]

Well unless you either wanted Thrace and Scythia to overrun the Romans you might want to go easy on the demands. When creating buffer states, I like to make sure I provide only as much as seems necessary to keep my favored faction on the upper hand. Should you help too much, the buffer can end up overrunning their neighbors and then get belligerent and march into your land.

Seeing as you keep getting that money from the Romans, you may end up bankrupting them, leading to their downfall. While that may not be the worst thing, it would likely be far more beneficial if you maintain a nice stalemate between your buffer states and their rivals.

Of course on the other hand, I have often simply funded other factions for the sheer love of the challenge they can soon provide once they start to steam roll through the others and then turn to me for a decent rumble.

[Old Celt]

While I find it interesting, I think it is exploitation of an obvious AI weakness. Would real life Rome pay you like that? Surely not. If the distance to capitol penalties are too high, then why don't you simply move the capitol? If you manage your cities carefully, you should be able to easily cross the pond and attack Italy and Greece and keep those cities out of revolt. There are many threads explaining how to keep public order.

[R3dD0g]

Could the Roman core cities, even Rome itself, rebel?

It might be worth continuing the 'Rome slaps themselves' game just to see what happens.

[Didz]

If the distance to capitol penalties are too high, then why don't you simply move the capitol?

Because I am using this a natural limitation on the extent to which I can expand. I really have no interest in conquering the world and consider this to be a real weakness of the non-roman game.

Consequently I am forced to continue the war against Roman through the use of my allies rather than my own forces.

[Darius]

It is possible to get any city other than a faction's capital to expand if you work hard at it, and sometimes, even the capital, but against the AI thats really hard. SPQR however will NEVER lose Rome to a rebellion, even at 0% public order. Should you give SPQR ANY city, they will NEVER lose that city to rebellion. Not only that but giving SPQR another city will make them go ape-**** and start conquering like crazy.

[HarunTaiwan]

Sounds fun. Next game I help SPQR.

[AntiochusIII]

Yeah, thanks for the mighty Senate tip.

I, as a noble Greek of Sparta, will help the purple guys rule the world.

In my next campaign.

[Didz]

Well I'm still trying to stop Thrace (my buffer state and ally) being overrun by Rome.

Not easy, I can tell you. God they are dumb.

I have lost count of the number of times they have left their capital completely unguarded and marched their main army north only to have a huge Roman army cut across form the west. Everytime, I have to recruit a huge army of mercenaries to hold these Romans back or destroy them whilst they rush back to defend their city.

Currently trying to create some sort of neutral zone between Thrace and Rome by bribing their cities, destroying everything in them and then handing them over to one of the other surviving factions that Rome is allied with.

Not having much luck so far although one has revolted and become Rebel which is almost as good.

[_Aetius_]

I had a nasty encounter with thrace recently were they used the now for me anyway feared F???men i cant actually remember there name oops! but if youve met them youll know who i mean and agree they are fierce, they are the only unit ive seen that just keeps running even when in combat swinging that horrific weapon as they go, my phalanxs almost buckled under the pressure but like all barbarians cavalry owns them in a flanking attack.

[Patricius]

SQPR seems to start on a bribing spree of cities, rather than military conquest. Given that the ai will never attack the Senate's cities, those cities are lost to the game. Giving the Senate a city is a cheap but handy exploit if hard-pressed over that city.