Excellent way to control the AI's expansion without FD

[Cullhwch]

This method is really just a flagrant abuse of the diplomacy system, but you need to be absolutely loaded for it to work. As such, it is only effective when your empire is in control of 30+ territories.

First, you need to recruit a diplomat and send him to the faction that you wish to contain. Then, bribe a small army and use it to declare war on faction X. You'll almost certainly lose this army, but that's extremely unimportant.

After you've successfully angered X, use your diplomat to force them into a protectorate. This is where the money comes in. The going rate for a faction's freedom on Hard seems to be one million mnai. Anything less always seems to get turned down. This may seem like an obscene expenditure of money, but the beauty of the protectorate system is that you'll immediately recoup just about all of it as tribute. As a result, X will be flat broke, as all the money that it would have received via scripting would instead go straight to your coffers. X will be unable to train troops and will stagnate and eventually decline. Once equilibrium is reestablished, you can just diplomatically end the protectorate.



Any thoughts?

[ezekiel2517]

seems like a bit too much hassle

[Cullhwch]

After you've carved out a good-sized empire (ie gotten so large that total defeat is absolutely inconceivable), it's really pretty damn easy. Once your diplomat finds a target army it only takes about a minute to do the whole process.

[Ardri]

I normally run the money script to keep all units around 300,000 mnai, once I want to rp an extended peace between Rome and say the Aedui, I just cut the Aedui money down so that they only stay around 10,000. Without money they don't attack and when another war is ready to start up I bump them back up to 300,000 and the fight is on. Just an alternative to the method you proposed which sounds pretty effective itself.

[oudysseos]

Interesting approach, but still a bit of an exploit: the money you get from tribute is given to the AI faction by a script, so it's essentially the same thing as using a cheat to give yourself money. But if you earned the first million the hard way, at least it's not such a flagrant cheat.

[/Bean\]

Re: Excellent way to control the AI's expansion without FD

After you've successfully angered X, use your diplomat to force them into a protectorate.

Any thoughts?

Yes, actually. Anyone spot the mistake?

[Cullhwch]

There is no mistake. You don't need Force Diplomacy when you offer a million mnai. It's pretty much the threshold for "accept whatever the hell the player offers." And I used the word "force" because demanding that someone surrenders their sovereignty implies a certain level of coercion.

[Fluvius Camillus]

He is probably meaning you could FD them protectorate instead of buying them with 1million.

As an empire builder I usually reach the 1m, but will take a while though....

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Having protectorates is not advisable. They are a bit bugged and the money script really messes up the whole premise.

[Maion Maroneios]

I second this is way too much of a hassle. Better use FD, IMO.

Maion

[artaxerxes]

As a result, X will be flat broke, as all the money that it would have received via scripting would instead go straight to your coffers. X will be unable to train troops and will stagnate and eventually decline

I never actually realized Protectorate makes AI's decline. I really thought the money script gave them money that they could use during their turn, and then I would just get whatever they didn't spend themselves. And then the next turn, the same scenario would happen all over, meaning that the AI faction wasn't seriously hampered, but just gave me insane amounts of cash?
I've been using a little of protectorates as AS to keep Hayasdan and Pontus alive without having to fight them all the time. I realize the 'cheating' part of it, however, and make a point of spending all the money I get from them on something completely useless. I have a legion of Armoured Elephants in Babylon. For parade purposes. So I'm not gaining from it. But I really thought Pontus and Hayasdan could continue recruiting and expanding in different directions that me?