Extortion as game strategy?

[unmerged(150376)]

Towards the end game, if you are the most powerful company, it is possible to extort goods, and to a lesser extent money, from the other players.

All you need is a good relationship with the "victim" and you can take everything they own. It doesn't work with ports until you've killed all their ships.

In this last game I was basically alone on the trade routes even through there were three other companies.

It's not the quickest way to win, but it's satisfying method of slowing down your opponents.

 

[BeardedHoplite]

Extortion? its simply a payment between friends!
(or whatever you have to tell yourself)

 

[Ionus]

... extort goods, and to a lesser extent money...the "victim"...killed all their ships...satisfying method...

:rofl: I like the way you think. A man after my own heart.

 

[delra]

Personally I pay AI towards the end of the game so they stay in business. Morons upgrade their ports so much they later can't even afford ships. 1700, 3 AIs left, each with 10 ships total. Makes me cry, almost. :-|

 

[unmerged(150376)]

It is an interesting AI phenomenon, go bankrupt so human always wins.

 

[delra]

In East India Company/Data/AI/misc.txt:

upkeep_ai_factor = 0.25

I changed that to 0.05 out of desperation.

 

[unmerged(150376)]

In East India Company/Data/AI/misc.txt:



I changed that to 0.05 out of desperation.

Seems to be something that should be unnecessary. Did you tell Kim about the issue?

 

[delra]

He's gone from this forum ever since he left for dev conference where they announced Privateer. I guess they haven't yet figured out a good way to tell us there won't be new patches before expansion.

I wrote a post on AI in the suggestions thread though and AI not being able to pay upkeep for buildings is among many things mentioned there. So it will be read at some point.