Paying extortion, is it ever worth it?

Clarification. By the time the second round of demands came I had a few starfighters. At all times I had heaps of constructors in the military build queue and could therefore roll off warships in every planet immediately, rather more than enough to destroy any fleet any AI could send. No one had battle axe tech by then.

I never pay. It's suicide. Expecially because they often make outragous demands, like 1300 BC when my balance is -400.

Umh, yes. I was astonished at how much they demanded and astonished at how soon they were back for more. (I thought the Civ3 AI was greedy!). It seems I better get those warships rolling of the docks very quickly.

This AI greed will probably make the very early game more interesting for me. I find once I have a decent navy the AI leaves me alone (at least at the low levels I play at).

It's rarely worth it because the AI's demands are so irrational (and aggravated by the bug that allows them to demand money you don't have and then get ticked off because you don't pay it).

I do pay the extortion when I find myself in the position of having a strong economy but behind on my military tech. I can postpone their invasion indefinitely this way and either get them happy with me or get my own defenses in place before they come back for more. But, when I have a weak economy there's simply no point. Paying the tribute is going to destroy my ability to improve my infrastructure and defenses, and not paying it is going to result in the AI probably kicking my butt. I'll take the 'probably getting my butt kicked' versus 'definitely destroying my economy'.

I believe there are reasons to give in to the demands at times. Here's the situation that I'm in right now:
Drengin hate me and are nearby, Arceans are at war with me but far away, Torians are friendly, but weak and far away, and the Altarians are warm and nearby. I don't remember what the yor are, but they aren't a big player anyway.
The altarians, drengin, and arceans all periodically demand tribute, but the demands are quite different. The drengin demand star systems, or thousands of credits, while the altarians ask for something like 200 credits. I pretty much have to refuse the outrageous demands of the Drengin, but I always pay the altarians. I'm close to becoming "Good" and I'm hoping to have an ally against the Drengin. If I refuse the altarians now, I'll lower relations with them. Of course, I'm farther into the game than starfighters (just got dreads).
If you want to cultivate friendships with a more powerful civilization that keep their demands under control, paying tribute can be useful. Silly demands usually mean there just going to invade as soon as you run out of money anyway, so don't bother.

I never give in to tributes where they ask for planets or money that would put me seriously in the red. But I am open to contributing some loose change and techs to their galactic conquest funds.

However, with diplomacy being more effective in 1.04, I gift tech to raise relations out of hostile. Rather effective if you have diplo bonuses.

redshift

Good points you make there. Now that I think of it one race (it was one of the "good" ones, can't remember which) did make demands that were not too outrageous and your idea of paying them off to get an alliance later makes good sense (costly alliance but may well be worth every cent over the long run). The Drengin did make demands so utterly outrageous that I would be unable to resist them if I paid. The other race made demands that were merely absurd.

I didn't play that game long so I don't know how things would have panned out, just wanted to have a peek at a diplomatic aspect of the game.

I will pay the tribute to buy time if I know I'm about to bring a signficant force online. I remember having to do it once or twice. By the time I was expecting a third demand attempt, it never came because my forces came online, and my military was enough to give them pause, do the extortion thing can help you out in a pinch. Not sure about the absurd numbers myself. Maybe I've just got lucky and that the demands they made weren't to egregious.

SeanB

RayChua

Do you mean something along the lines of "give them a moderate gift now so they don't demand a big gift later" to keep them off your back and maybe even co-operate with you. A twist on the Civ3 strategy of give your neighbour presents to keep him off your back while you build up to conduct a bit of "oscillating warfare" against him? (I gather from your other posts that you play Civ3 so may know precisely what "oscillating warfare" means).

The only oscillating warfare I'm aware of (and this is a bit of cheese) is to stack a huge force around a target civlization. They tell you to back off...you ignore them. They declare war. You smash them. You sue for peace and extort them. You leave your ships there, they start another fight...repeat as necessary.

Is that osciolating warfare (I already know its cheese)

Peter,

I played Civ 3 for a while (not hardcore). Not familar with this particular strategy though.

Keeping out of wars in the early game is key. Problem with demands from AIs is that you can't choose what to give. I would have much preferred it if the AI could open up the diplo channel and requested for a tribute but letting us choose what to offer up.

So what I would do is to refuse outrageous tributes but later followup on hostile AIs by gifting them stuff that I can better afford, like techs. I have managed to bump relations up from hostile to cool (skipping wary) by gifting middle era techs with about a +%50 diplo bonus (+10 racial,+40 diplotrans).

forceinfinity

"Oscillating warfare" is a Civ3 term which actually refers to taking down TWO civilisations. You build up, attack one civilisation, grab some cities and extort stuff for a twenty turn peace treaty. You immediately attack the second civ and do the same to him. As soon as the 20 turn teaty with the first civ expires you attack him again and extort heaps more (or destroy if you can't extort lots).

Oscillating warfare was possibly a bad analogy. At the beginning of a high level Civ3 game the AI starts with extra units so you have to be nice to him for a while until you can build up enough force. (Pat him on the head saying "nice doggy" while you reach for that big stick). Similarly in Galciv you might be nice while you reach for the stick.

RayChua

LOL I find getting into early war is extremely desirable in Civ3. I was thinking that it is also desirable at the lowest levels of Galciv, I tried it was good. I expect strategy would need to change very significantly if one were to try the higher levels. (A very successful Civ3 chieftain strategy may be suicidally foolish at Emperor level because the game is so very different. Probably same for Galciv?)

Peter,

"Rushes" are still good to take out/suppress the weaker majors and all minors. My concern is avoiding war with the stronger ones.

Most definitely, Peter. Fool and Incredible are worlds apart in Galciv.

The amount the AI demands ignores the map type.

On a tiny rare, 1300 credits is a laughable amount.

On a gigantic abundant during the resource grab phase
which is about when they start asking, its still
laughable

I do on the other hand pay out 200-500 ones which
are still semi common, and of course I gift mucho
to hostile AI's just to aviod the entire sickining
demands.

Btw, I dont know how it is on easier levels, but AI's
will at times skip the tribute demands and go straight
to war on masochistic.

It is kinda funny when ur sitting at -400 credits
and 4 ai's in 3 turns demand 1000+ each.

RayChua

Do the AI majors take out the minors ASAP. I would rather leave the minors alone but if the AI gobbles them up I would need to do the same.

(So far I have only played tiny maps at the two lowest difficulty levels so the minors have been quite capable of fending off the majors. LOL in my first game, at fool, the minors were the big boys)

Staffa

On the lower levels the AI has yet to declare war on me and only demands tribute if my fleet is really teensy weensy. I did get a message that the Drengin were trying to destabilise me at the second lowest level though.

Some people say the majors gobble them up pretty fast.
On tiny maps ive seen it happen as early as frigate
and as late as dreadnought. On gigantic maps
ive never seen it happen before dreadnought.

I wouldnt call that terriable fast, but I dont trade
with minors and I think it is a waste to do so.

I trade with a civ I dont want to be fighting, trade
improves relations ALOT, I mean _ALOT_, so I always
pick a civ it would be really painful to be fighting
and trade with them.

I tend to eat up minors when they cease to be useful
for tech trading.

Yes, its a brutal world. I go for minors as soon as they outlive their usefulness. I like their nice big worlds. In maso, they are in constant danger of being assimilated or invaded.

Unlike some who gripe about this, I like it when minors get trade goods (and wonders). It is easy to trade for TGs with tech with a strong diplo advantage.
[Message Edited]

Oh yea, totally agree, minors building tradegoods =
free tradegoods for me!

Note: Free = trading techs that all the major AI's
have long possed and have no real value except to a
minor.

Paying the extortion can certainly also be helpful to avoid a two front war, which can be far more costly in the long run. I will occasionally follow up a succesful extortion with an additional tech gift (or better yet, a tech bribe to attack my attacker) to keep them off my back while I take care of business.

One thing that I've noticed is that it's very dangerous to stay in the red for long in the pre-AMM days, since it seems a clear bug that the AI's will demands hundreds or thousands of BC's when you're in the red already, but I have never seen a demand that put me in the red. In those cases, they'll either ask for less or ask for tech (or a planet, but that's easy to refuse). In any event, it seems much easier to stay out of unintended wars if you maintain a positive balance.

One of the most annoying things is that
you can get about 4 AIs to demand 1000s of credit in a single turn, and I can't get them to tribute me over 100 credits when the tables are reversed.

I rarely pay tribute unless it's a small amount.
As soon as I get the first tribute request, military goes to %100.

That's the only way to survive it, 'cause they just use your cash to buy ships to destroy you with.

Heh. I think the Drengin once called me up and asked for Sol system. Hmm, let's see... how about "no"?

Hey, the drengin once asked for sol in a tiny rare
when sol was my only system

So far I've only had the Drengin extort me for money. They did it several times early on in my current game. I gave in... most of the money demands were steep but not bank-breaking, and I really didn't want to get in a war. Demand for tech is no biggie; I out-research the AI anyway and often it takes several techs to make a good trade anyway.

Once I built up some military ships and the Drengin got caught up in a war they haven't been threatening me.

Bruce