Quote Originally Posted by Deus ret.
seriously, do you, my fellow posters, have real success in that? Whenever I want to "buy" a city, it

a) has to be in the early game stages or they refuse outrightly no matter what I offer....in reasonable boundaries, i.e. I won't give up 3 provinces for 1, and
I do all the time, but I alter the game to start with 5 million denarii with what ever faction I'm playing as. And change it too 10000 or 50000 when starting another. I also cahnged all the civilized factions militia infantry units to have a build time of 0 (meaning you can build 9 in 1 turn) and have 120 men in a unit.

Quote Originally Posted by Deus ret.
b) the price is usually horrible. not 10.000, more towards 100.000 denarii. For an average settlement, that is. Is there a way to lower these rates for it really doesn't pay of this way?
You can get a city for 10000 but the faction has to be in dire financial straits to let one go for that little. The AI has a simple philosophy on this sort of thing. "If they want it they're gonna pay, ohhhh how they're gonna pay."