The Secret Power of Loans

[limitedwhole]

Loans are a very often ignored aspect of RTW diplomacy, but also coincidently one of the most powerful aspects. By trading tribute in exchange for a lump sum payment you allow yourself an aggressive expansionist policy that will pay for itself and make the tributes seem trivial. As well, you may either cancel the tribute payments or start a war with the tributee in order to cancel these payements if need be. This will create a diplomatic faux pas but war alas always does.

It is important to note a few obvious things which foretell the importance of these deals. One, money in hand is always worth more than money in the future, quite simply because you can build NOW rather than later. It is worth noting that this has the opposite effect having a duel edge or which both blades are shapr against your opponent. Rather than building now he is forced to build later which will be of little effcte when you armies are at his gates.

One tip for extracting loans is to package them with trade deals. Very often loans will be difficult to get, but trade is important to the various weakling empires of the world so much so that they will grovel to your demands. Simply propose a loan with a nation that you are not at trade with and they will likely counteroffer with a trade aggreement. Counter yourself by packaging "what they want", the trade arrangement (you both want this but don't you propose it) with what you want, the loan.

VEry simply you can easily pad you accounts with up to 6000 denarii in the first 5 turns allowing you a much more aggresive building and production staretgy allowing for faster expansion, while weakening your "allies".

[Ciaran]

Interesting idea, the question is, does it work? Theoretically I´d say yes, but then theoretically the diplomatic maneuvres in Froggys RTW guide are supposed to work as well...

[Wishazu]

i`ll try this next time im on my singleplayer campaign. Thanks for the inspiration

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Wow, I've never even thought of the loaning business...

[Avicenna]

I've tried that before, but only small-scale. Do tributes get cancelled if you go to war with them?

[Severous]

I gained Corinth via promise of paying regular tribute payments to Macedonia. I went to war a turn later.

The loan tactic is a neat idea. Like it.

[limitedwhole]

Thanks for the replies. It is reliable. PAckaging with the trade agreement worked 5 times in a row, first Macedon, then Greece, then Carthage, then Gaul, then Greece again. I was able to get 1500 lump sum form each for 100 per turn for 15 turns when packaged with a trade agreement. You might do better if you get down to the nittygritty and don't ming reloading, but you definately don't want to blow one of these agreements.

Needless to say if you get 1500 in loan, 1000 map and 2500 alliance you have created a major capital swing.

This money in my current campaign not only allowed me to build a crap load of DIPS and Biremes as well as producing buildings en mass, but let me have the funds to bribe a macedinian army near corinth (no general) in order to destabilize the peninsula and lead to a Greek Macedonian war. With Greece lacking Thermon and Syracuse, they were in dire straits once the MAcedons sent down reinforcements and at my mercy to cancel the war via an alliance. I then proceeded to send forces to Rhodes under the cover of this war, leaving Athens vacant ecept for a governor. Gotta love creating wars between other factions.

[limitedwhole]

Oh yeah, just then Thrace declared war on Macedon. Yum Yum. Everyone hates eveyone but me and I can do whatever I want while they fight each other. YEah! Gotta get a DIP up to Thrace and Dacia Asap.

[Alexan]

I usually make ppl pay me some amounts of denarii to attack another faction just before I will declare war on them...its like getting the armies' cost to 0 and even get some free units.

[Ciaran]

Thanks for the replies. It is reliable. PAckaging with the trade agreement worked 5 times in a row, first Macedon, then Greece, then Carthage, then Gaul, then Greece again. I was able to get 1500 lump sum form each for 100 per turn for 15 turns when packaged with a trade agreement. You might do better if you get down to the nittygritty and don't ming reloading, but you definately don't want to blow one of these agreements.

Needless to say if you get 1500 in loan, 1000 map and 2500 alliance you have created a major capital swing.

This money in my current campaign not only allowed me to build a crap load of DIPS and Biremes as well as producing buildings en mass, but let me have the funds to bribe a macedinian army near corinth (no general) in order to destabilize the peninsula and lead to a Greek Macedonian war. With Greece lacking Thermon and Syracuse, they were in dire straits once the MAcedons sent down reinforcements and at my mercy to cancel the war via an alliance. I then proceeded to send forces to Rhodes under the cover of this war, leaving Athens vacant ecept for a governor. Gotta love creating wars between other factions.

I´ve tried it, too, and managed to get a 5000d loan from Macedonia, to be repaid in ten turns. Getting a loan without paying interest, however, won´t work in most cases, but if you offer, say, twelve to fifteen turns of tribute, you can get a loan from allies easy enough.
Factions that are not your allies seem to be rather reluctant handing out loans, though.