Guide for Beginners on High Difficulty: Selling Military Access
This is mostly written for new players who have not appreciated the power of the technique, and for the keeners who insist on squeezing out every penny out of the AI legally (but probably not ethically). Welcome inputs.
I guess a lot of people may call selling military access to willing AI neighbors an exploit. (So is selling open borders to other Civs in Civilizations.) On lower difficulties you can always get away without them. However, selling military access provides much needed initial boost for the top difficulties. Besides, military access still has to be sold carefully so to avoid nasty troubles later.
Summary
- Selling military access is a significant additional income especially in early game. It still generates a steady stream of income from neighboring clans until they turn against you.
- Declaring war on the buyer causes diplomatic penalty to ALL clans.
Whom to sell
- Neighbors who have direct access to your territory. When you offer the access their willingness would be "High", so you can bundle up the deal with a payment demand.
- Neighbors whom you DO NOT plan to attack in the near future. If you attack anybody who bought your military access, you face a diplomatic hit to ALL clans. That includes the case when you are forced to war that clan by your ally.
- Neighbors who will be wiped out immiedately in the end turn. Load the auto-save and sell the military access for eternity, which means 1 turn.
How
- Turn 1: Sell the lowest 5-turn access for about 400-600 koku. You can probably squeeze some additional cash from establishing trades.
- Turn 2: Sell the 10-turn access for about 1000-1500 koku.
- Turn 3: Sell the 20-turn access for about 1500-2000 koku.
The reason not to sell 20-turn access at the beginning is that the AI might not have enough cash/willingness to pay. But if you really need cash that badly, why not?
After that, every few turns come back and re-sell the 20-turn access for about 1000 koku. The military access date will not be extended by 20 turns, but simply reset to 20 turns.
After expansion, you might acquire new neighbors and who are willing to pay to visit your new acquisition. As long as you don't plan to attack them, this is always a good idea.
*Never sell the indefinite access (since you can keep selling the 20-turn access forever) unless the buyer clan is about to attack you, or be eliminated in the end-turn.
How to spend the income
- Hire lots of Ashigaru and mop up your top-priority enemies while the AIs are still relatively weak.
- Get agents. Build temples and hire monks. Demolish temples, build Sake Den and hire ninjas. Demolish Sake Den, build markets and hire the secret police. Agents are just great.
- Get some ships to secure and profit from nearby trade nodes.
Concerns
Q: Suddenly my military ally has indefinite military access to me! Can't sell anymore!
A: This is because you are fighting the same enemy. When that condition disappears, you can sell again.
Q: Will the AI suddenly declare war on me while his army is right beside my defenceless capital?
A: EDITED: they can certainly do that! So it might not be a good idea to sell military access to a clan that has no other possible enemies but you. Even you did, there are some possible ways to prevent it from happening. Load a save before they declare war and:
(1) Cancel their military access. This will bump all their armies out of your province and incur a diplomatic penalty between you and that clan, but apparently not to anyone else (at least the impact is not visible). OR
(2) Do something to make them like you a lot more, such as marriage, cash, alliance, etc. This will likely delay their attack.
(3) Create enemies for them, such as bribing them to break alliance with some other neighbor.
When you are desperate, hostage and infinite military access are powerful bargain chips. But they definitely have their drawbacks. The latter is probably better.
Q: Will the AI be more likely to declare war on me?
A: Doing so will greatly damage its reputation. Probably not. But hey, AI is stupid.
Q: Will I make a jail for myself if I run out of place to expand? Then I will have to pay for military access.
A: Ship your units to jump across your buyer. Or use monks/missionary to incite rebels to take over your target province, followed by your own merger without any diplomatic penalty (yes, that qualifies for another exploit).
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