King Of All Exploits

[cambovenzi]

The Exploit:
Buying Regions with a tribute, and then canceling the tribute on the same turn.
Not even the 1st year of the tribute is paid until after you end your turn.
This basically allows you to take regions for free.


Many of you probably already had this figured out for years, but i just pulled off this exploit/tactic masterfully, and thought i'd share.
ill explain.

Background Info:
Playing as the scots on vh/vh.
Already took over England, and had a small base in the mainland of europe.(Bruges)
I teched up my income a little bit as i was putting the finishing touches on england, so my economy was pretty solid for that early on.
i had about 20k florins.

Potential Problem:
i noticed france had a very powerful army.

Solution:
I sent an emissary to see the french in Paris. They owned Bordeaux, Rennes, Rheims, Marseilles, Metz, Angers, and ofcourse their capital, Paris. (in short, pretty much the whole of the france region)
i offered a tribute of ~20k florins for 3 turns, and successfully bought every french region aside from their capital.
Then i Canceled the treaty right after.
My next turn, i assaulted the last remaining french province.(paris, which shared a border with bruges) BOOM. faction destroyed.


End Result:
i go from one province, with a stronger faction bordering me, to owning the whole area in just one turn. For FREE.


potential side effects might be a reputation hit, and an economic issue if you arent prepared to take on all the new armies/provinces.

thoughts?

[FactionHeir]

As I replied previously, you'll suffer a great rep/rel hit with people and the bought settlements won't have a garrison, so you'll be losing them quickly again to rebels.

Aside from that it works, but is it really fun to exploit the already poor AI like that? :P

[cambovenzi]

wow i didnt even realize the same idea was on the 1st page.
was about 4:00 in the morning here.(was a little tired)
anyways, its pretty ridiculous, and worked extremely well.
i even had some pretty solid garrison units in the "free" territories.

[Prussian to the Iron]

ive known about this forever, but i have never actually used it. (prefer to cheat until i can overwhlemingly overpower them.)