Captain to General

[Gaius Magnus]

I'll try bribing less in the next campaign just for the sake of seeing some men of the hour.

How much do those generally end up costing you? Over 50,000? I have a hard time getting enemy or rebel generals to go for the cash.

[Celt Centurion]

How much do those generally end up costing you? Over 50,000? I have a hard time getting enemy or rebel generals to go for the cash.

From Celt Centurion,

What I have noticed is that Faction leaders and Faction Heirs do not even have a "bribe" option. I imagine that their office makes them unbribeable.

That brings us to a second possibility, "how much money you have in your account. Say, you try to bribe a family member late in your turn, and you only have, perhaps, 5,100 Dinare. A lot, yes, but maybe not enough for him, and whoever is with him such as a spy or assassin. He will make some comment along the lines of "our friendship is not like cheap goods bought in the market, even for your gold. He just insulted you by subtley telling you that you are not rich enough for him. But, then you go and "take" a city, butcher everybody in it, and have about 30,000 dinare. Try to bribe him again, and you will usually find that his price is a little bit more than what you had earlier. Another possibility is that his "bribe" option will no longer exist.

Bribes are also a good way to get rid of an approaching enemy army when you are laying siege to one of their cities.

My favorite use of bribes is as a Roman faction bribing another Roman faction, and usually, the whole army comes over to your side.

A drawback to bribes is getting a "plague carrier." I have learned the hard way to check on each group I bring in to insure they are not carriers. You don't want to bring them into a city to retrain them if they are!

Instead, I prefer to use them to harass enemy armies. Sometimes, I just out and out discharge them to keep them from accidentally infecting another army or worse, a city.

[pezhetairoi]

I use bribes to weaken an enemy before going in with conventional invasion forces. Egypt is my favourite bribe target, because I hate their chariots full-stop. Romans bribing Romans are also an impressive exercise in money politics. I don't bribe enemies coming to relieve cities because I fight battles of annihilation, which means if they attack me, all the better. I am saved the trouble of an assault.

Bribing is a very useful tool, but I seriously doubt that any such usefulness will be possible in the 1.2 universe.

[player1]

What I have noticed is that Faction leaders and Faction Heirs do not even have a "bribe" option. I imagine that their office makes them unbribeable.

And what I notced that AI is dumb, as well as "cheating bastard", so it can try to bribe faction leaders and heirs. Of course, it is automatic failure, and your leader gets benefiots of improved loyalty (useless) and honesty (good) traits.

When we are at it, I think I saw AI diplomatics sometimes get into bribing frenzy, when tring to bribe something they have no money, and then again and again and again, just giving freeby trait bonuses to whatever governor is in the city.

[pezhetairoi]

believe it or not, Egypt is currently bankrupt in my Armenian game (I looked at the faction rankings) but it's still trying to bribe my diplomats. Like as if I don't have 5 more waiting to replace the one that's taking their economy apart anyway.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

believe it or not, Egypt is currently bankrupt in my Armenian game (I looked at the faction rankings) but it's still trying to bribe my diplomats. Like as if I don't have 5 more waiting to replace the one that's taking their economy apart anyway.

No offense intended, as I love skulduggery -- ahem -- diplomacy myself (as well as espionage and an occasional killing), but:

Do you even BOTHER to construct armies? Or has cash flow for politics supplanted the need for anything but town watch and garrison peasants!

Sun Tzu would be proud of you.

[Slicendice]

Despite what many believe about breeding generals and adopting and promoting all of it is fairly random. The AI will produce generals for you as you need them. If you lose a lot of generals or expand your territory quickly the AI will fill in the gap in leadership for you with adoption and promotion. You may notice that sometimes you cannot bribe a rebel army with a general. The reason is because you already have the maximum amount of generals allowed. Next time you use a captain as an offensive force keep a Diplomat with them and he will reduce the chance of your army being bribed. Works on cities as well.

[blurd01]

i got a guy adopted into my family yesterday which had 4star comand rating and was only 25years old. think it was through a battle where i was outnumbered 1:3 (1k:3k) and he gained me a heroic victory. after that battle i was given a chance to adopt him where i duely complied. people say that when a captain is promoted to general he would remain with his army but i dont think its true as i've finished scipii, juilli, greek and egyptian campaigns(now on carthagians) and my generals adopted or married into the family all appeared in my capital. unless i've never gotten a captain promoted i think a promoted captain would still apear in the capital as a general.

[pezhetairoi]

HEEHEE Seamus, I can see why you threw that challenge at me. :-P Of COURSE i have armies. As Armenia now I have three fullstacks and three more half-stacks running about at Turn 60, and as Greeks I actually, at the height of activity, had 11 fullstack armies and 20 diplomats (mostly bribed) running around.

I'm not just a bribing machine, you know... I'm all for the Integrated Diplomacy approach... sure diplomats are fine for defensive frontier duty, but on attack you always need the arms cos that's the fundamental language of mankind. :) But as you may have read I take up your challenge.

[Caius]

Other Question:
for why a Captain when he was adopted he always is founding to many men of the hour?There are too many Captians to adopt, but they never figthed