To Trade or Not to Trade?

[Thundermace]

Trade with everybody. Of the 20 factions in a R:TW game, only one is reliably your friend - your own. The other 19 are enemies.

This might look like an argument to not trade with anybody, but consider - when you make a trade agreement, 1 out of every 1 friendly factions benefits, but only 1 out of every 19 enemy factions benefits. Trade with everybody, and you benefit from 19 trade agreements, while your enemies only benefit from 1 each.

In other words, while your trade agreement may make one of your enemies stronger, it also makes you stronger, keeping you even with the faction you agreed to trade with, and lifting you above the other 18 factions. And for the faction you just agreed to trade with, well, there are 18 other factions you can trade with to put you above that one.

You couldn't have said it better, Praetor Rick!

If you actually can "Give Region" successfully you've done far better with the Diplomacy than I have.

I wouldn't say I do well with Diplomacy -
Howeverq recently I have been giving provinces that I don't need strategically (and ones that would present a pain in the *** in long term). The key is to give a certain ammount of money (say 5000 d.) along with the problematic province. Note that before that I exterminate populace and destroy any destroyable building in the settlement
Hehe, no wonder most of my leading generals gain traits like "Destroyer" or "Exterminator"

[Quirinus]

I generally trade with everyone and anyone, even one I know I'm going to backstab in the next few turns. Why not make a quick buck off them in the meantime? There are Romans and Greeks and Gauls, but gold is colour-blind.

While it's a pickle that the other faction also makes money from trade, consider this: you can usually spend the cash so much more intelligently than the AI does.

For barbarian factions, even more so. Their problem, I find, isn't a lack of money, but a lack of population. In a way, pumping them full of cash is a good thing as it encourages them to depopulate their cities faster. Kind of an exploit, I know, but hey. I'm bringing civilization to their muddy little hovels.

[Praetor Rick]

I generally trade with everyone and anyone, even one I know I'm going to backstab in the next few turns. Why not make a quick buck off them in the meantime? There are Romans and Greeks and Gauls, but gold is colour-blind.

While it's a pickle that the other faction also makes money from trade, consider this: you can usually spend the cash so much more intelligently than the AI does.

For barbarian factions, even more so. Their problem, I find, isn't a lack of money, but a lack of population. In a way, pumping them full of cash is a good thing as it encourages them to depopulate their cities faster. Kind of an exploit, I know, but hey. I'm bringing civilization to their muddy little hovels.

I prefer to play *AS* barbarians, and spread squalor, public disorder, and poor personal hygeine across the world. "Your puny civilization is no match for my vast barbarian armies!"

But yeah, AI barbarians are way dumb when it comes to depopulating their settlements to build their crappy all warband armies. Guys, at least put a few units of peasants or something in there for variety!