Removing bribing entirely.

[Khorak]

Can it be done? I'm so beyond sick and tired of it that I just want to carve it out the game like the cancerous piece of crap it is. Even with the 1.2 patch it just doesn't work because the computer is quite happy to pull vast amounts of money straight out its arsehole with which to rob any settlement with less than say.....twenty damn units in it, at any point the AI considers it appropriate.

It's like you're expected to just forget what a faction is and isn't capable of economically after we've actually played with it. It's worst with the Roman factions, who will with incomparible glee pull out of a giant bag of holding all the money required to build and maintain enormous armies whilst still having enough to build up their cities and bribe whatever the hell they want away from you, with but their crappy starting provinces plus one unless it's the Scipii.

If I can't even do this one little thing then damn it all I'm just going to go back to MTW again.

[The Stranger]

i like to see the old bribing back where you could bribe, cataphracts and other kind of units from the enemy. it was fun waiting for the golden hordes to come and then let my english diplomat bribe those barbarians and end up with 2 full stacks of mongol warriors.

[therother]

It should be possible.

Find this in the RTW/data/descr_character.txt file:

type			diplomat

actions			moving_normal, diplomacy, bribe 
wage_base		50

and remove bribe.

[Khorak]

It didn't work. The Julii decided to buy a settlement and a general with a thousand man army after but a single turn of testing.

I would have thought such changes should take immediately, but would new games have to be started for it to work?

[therother]

Never tried it, so I don't know. You'd certainly have to restart RTW.

[Old Celt]

This works for me: set campaign difficulty to medium. Not only does that solve the bribery problem, but it puts a halt to armies coming from nowhere when you know there were no resources to build them. I can understand the desire to play battles on VH, but for campaign difficulty, what's the attraction? You are just signing yourself up for abuse IMHO.

[Khorak]

I am on medium difficulty. I've never played on the higher levels because I didn't want the computer getting 'cheat' advantages. Which is something of a dead hope, the Romans, much like history I suppose, don't have any concept of fair play.

[therother]

I've now tested it on a new game, and it certainly seems to work. I tried to bribe a fellow diplomat, within 3 influence of my diplomat, and the option did not appear. I tried to bribe various Gaul armies, none of which I was allowed to bribe. I tried to bribe a rebel settlement, again no option.

[Old Celt]

I am on medium difficulty. I've never played on the higher levels because I didn't want the computer getting 'cheat' advantages. Which is something of a dead hope, the Romans, much like history I suppose, don't have any concept of fair play.

LOL! I found that hilarious!! Well I don't know what to tell you. I've never had anyone other than a diplomat bribed since going to 1.2. Do you keep spies in your cities? I always have at least one spy in each city. I also keep some assassins around just in case. My policy is to assassinate any diplomat who hangs around my land more than a turn without making some kind of legitimate offer to me. I've frequently seen them try to bribe my cities on the frontier, but they've always failed (so far). Maybe some of the other players can shed some light on what's happening.

[Khorak]

Great, have to start a new game. Gonna be a chore getting the Gauls to that bloody level again....

[Quietus]

How often do you get bribed? How big are your armies? How many provinces do you have? Just wondering since I never get bribed.

Hypothesis: frequency of bribery is proportional to total army size.

[Oaty]

Heres how bribing should work for cities. It should be based on distance to capital and the cultural difference. This way Barbarians would not have a chance to bribe Italian cities or Greek cities in the heart of the empire.

Heck the distance to capital shoud be the same for troops. Imagine a legion getting bribed right outside of Rome.

The only new decent bribing tactic I've seen by the A.I. is now they will try to bribe islands instead of attacking them.

[therother]

Great, have to start a new game. Gonna be a chore getting the Gauls to that bloody level again....

Just tested a saved game, and it works too. I should mention that I changed the wages of the diplomat to check if the file is parsed at startup, deleted the reference to bribe under the named character section of the file, and deleted the map.rwm file for the research mod I was using. Whether any of these things would make any difference, I don't know, but I mention them for completeness.

[Malachus]

Anyone who wants to get rid of bribing obviously hasn't played as the Seleucids... any expert will tell you that when playing as the Seleucids, bribing is second nature seeing as you'll be at war with Armenia, Parthia, Egypt, Pontus, and Greece... in my current campaign, Numidia as well. Surely you can say "oh no, the Seleucids don't have to bribe. You can win with them without bribing." Try it and tell me how your campaign turns out. I'd surely like to be proven wrong.

[Khorak]

How often do you get bribed? How big are your armies? How many provinces do you have? Just wondering since I never get bribed.

Hypothesis: frequency of bribery is proportional to total army size.

Well my latest game I have all the starting Gallic provinces (as the Gauls...obviously), plus Lugdunum, Massilia, Samarobriva and Iuvavum. I constantly got the 'congratulations, you are the baddest mofo in the world! Yaaaay!' notice.

And now I've reached the point, having brutally massacred two Julii full stacks of mainly Hastati in a row, they've pulled another full stack out their voluminous behind and decided they should also bribe one of my cities away from me.

First, they bribed Iuvavum. There were six warbands and barbarian cavalry in there, but the city only has a thousand people, so I wasn't too badly annoyed. Yes, they were pretty much laughing in my face because they still only had their starting provinces and Segesta with which to fund their enormous military buildup and bribing endeavor but what the hey. I reloaded. I had a general nearby, I rustled up another four warbands and unit of cavalry as mercenaries and rammed the lot in Iuvavum. Bribe that you Italian pricks. So they didn't. Next time they decided to just skank Narbo Martius instead. Four thousand people, four warband units and a general. Great. Thanks. Reload. Shove the 'roving barbarian killer' stack in Narbo Martius along with the Iuvavum measures. Bribe that you Italian pricks. So they didn't. They skanked Massilia instead. Two thousand people and four warbands.

I've been trying to replicate this incredible money making feat for an entire GOD DAMN day now and you know what? I can't do it. It's just not happening when I only have the two starting cities and Segesta. They don't even have bloody Caralis! The Carthaginians have kept it somehow!

[Khorak]

Anyone who wants to get rid of bribing obviously hasn't played as the Seleucids... any expert will tell you that when playing as the Seleucids, bribing is second nature seeing as you'll be at war with Armenia, Parthia, Egypt, Pontus, and Greece... in my current campaign, Numidia as well. Surely you can say "oh no, the Seleucids don't have to bribe. You can win with them without bribing." Try it and tell me how your campaign turns out. I'd surely like to be proven wrong.

What are you talking about? I immediately do my damndest to roll over Susa and abuse the hell out of siegeing, letting the computer splatter itself all over militia hoplites in the streets until such time as I'm building units a little bit better. It's a very long way from easy but it's not like I really care.

I don't play the Seleucids often anyway.

[Quillan]

That's really strange. I don't think I've had more than 2 cities bribed, total, in all the various campaigns I've played. I can't say why you'd be getting it constantly.

However, I have noticed the "Pull unlimited money out of my ass" thing several times. I played a Gaul campaign once, where the Julii were in a similar position, with just Arretium, Ariminum and Segesta, yet managed to put together 2 full 20 unit armies and still amass over 70K denarii in the treasury, at least according to the financial rankings. It makes me wonder if the AI pays maintenance. In my current campaign, as the Julii, I own a large part of the Aegean (Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Kydonia, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Sardis and Pergamum), Salona, Segestica, Iuvavum, Tara and all of Gaul. The Bruti have managed to take Apollonia, Larissa, Thessalonica, Byzantium and the other Thracian city (the name escapes me now), and Campus Gepidae. Yet, for all the small size of what they own, they still have the largest army in the world. I'm supporting a 20 unit field army + reserve units in Asia Minor, a 20 unit army near Numantia, 3 full 20 unit armies in Germania on campaign, plus reserve units and garrisons, and they've got a higher ranking military than I do. I have no clue how they can keep building.

[Khorak]

That's really strange. I don't think I've had more than 2 cities bribed, total, in all the various campaigns I've played. I can't say why you'd be getting it constantly.

The Romans always just seem to hit a 'bribe threshold' from my perspective if I don't allow them to brutally expand like they normally do beyond their starting provinces and one rebel province they go for every single time at the start.

As the Gauls, Narbo Martius is preferred (in fact I see the Julii buy Narbo Martius one in every two games or thereabout), as the Greeks it's Thermon, as the Macedonians it's Bylazora and if I perform a German southern expansion they'll go for Iuvavum.

The problem playing as barbarian factions is that most settlements have a small enough population that the AI seems to feel it can 'get away' with it, as if I'm some kind of gibbering retard who it can fool into thinking it is playing 'perfectly legit guv'. As such if I ram so many units in a target that it thinks it might be pushing it, it just buys another place. So then I have to get into the enormously boring situation of building God damn hordes of assassins or yay, wandering one of the knuckleheaded morons about the place killing pathetic rebels by the hundred until he can actually perform the task of killing a defenceless diplomat on my own territory....and he'll die of old age soon anyway so I have to do it all over. Sorry, thought I bought a game called 'Total War'....

Simple solution? Uh....how about realism? Realism as in, "Why can't I just openly slaughter the visible agents of a faction I'm at war with?". I'm at WAR. It's the ancient world, there is no diplomatic immunity! If I don't want a Roman diplomat in my territory cause, y'know, I'm at WAR, then I send about thirty massive guys with real sharp swords and send his head back to Rome with a message saying their diplomat couldn't talk his way out of that one! Not one retard assassin to do it all sneaky like who will only walk into a guard and go "Oh! Sorry, didn't know you were there, can I kill your master?".

[Es Arkajae]

Anyone who wants to get rid of bribing obviously hasn't played as the Seleucids... any expert will tell you that when playing as the Seleucids, bribing is second nature seeing as you'll be at war with Armenia, Parthia, Egypt, Pontus, and Greece... in my current campaign, Numidia as well. Surely you can say "oh no, the Seleucids don't have to bribe. You can win with them without bribing." Try it and tell me how your campaign turns out. I'd surely like to be proven wrong.

I've noticed lots of iplomats trying to bribe my cities as the Seleucids but none of them have succeeded. I haven't really seen it a a problem, the only time I've been seriously inconvenienced by AI bribing was when Spain bribed Corduba away from me, I had to call off my attack on Carthago Nova to retake the city. I don't know where Spain got the money.

Whats more annoying me at the moment is the fact that Egypt won't accept becoming a protectorate, they're about to be reduced to one city the bastards and they still won't give in!

[Quietus]

Khorak, do you ever get bribed playing as Romans? You said you have the biggest army in the game ( so that could be a trigger).

One last questions. Can you tell me the general size of the Rebel stacks in your current game?

[HarunTaiwan]

Playing Germany, I had the SPQR bribe a few of my cities...and the Brutii, too.

It was funny since at the same time my stacks were taking their Italian possessions.

Damme was bribed several times, but revolted once back to me. When I finally got around to taking it back, the nice Romans left me a coliseum.

Bruti held the province in northern Russia till the very end...it was their last province.

[The Stranger]

i'm busy saving money for AoM 3 and Rise and Fall

[Brutus]

Currently playing as Britannia on M/M, having already whiped the Julii from Italy (they only own Caralis now), but never got any bribing attempts, I seem to be the only one who bribes on the map... However, the Brutii have only some landlocked provinces in the Balkans and still they have more cash ánd more armies then most other surviving factions combined So íf they start a bribing campaign my barbarians will probably never get at Rome's gates...

[Sinner]

Khorak, I feel your pain, but forgive me for saying that was a very funny and entertaining rant. Thank you for lightening up my working day.

As a note, I've found that stationing a diplomat in a settlement tends to stop it being bribed, even with a garrison of just one unit.

[Bhruic]

Odd. In my three latest campaigns, I've had 2 cities bribed - both under the same circumstances. In fact, both the same city (different campaigns). I was taking out the Brutii, took one of their cities, left a token defence and marched to the second. Got the first city bribed away from me.

I did discover an interesting trick tho'. Diplomats can't bribe a city with no one inside (which includes queuing up a unit). So I reloaded, moved the army just outside the city, and produced an assassin and killed the diplomat.

I have noticed plenty of diplomats trying to bribe other cities of mine, but they never do so. I just assume that means they don't have the money.

Bh