Help! This has been bugging me. What is the discount rate used by the game for tributes versus one off payment?

[PortorNorton]

I know I know, I am a lurker that recently created an account just to ask this question.

I'm not sure if anyone had asked this but a quick search didn't seem to dig anything up. Would really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction.

I noticed there seem to be a discount rate attached to the tributes. I was wondering what is that rate. Because otherwise it would seem prudent to always give money in terms of tributes, due to the inflation factor of money as a result of the (at the minimum) population growth rate and expansion rate of your empire. If the discount rate is lower than the summation of inflation rate, wouldnt it be always more beneficial to deal in tributes at all negotiations?

Thanks! Was trying to diplo with certain factions and had to keep reloading the game to find out what is the amount that the AI is willing to accept and came across this thought.

[SandraDevilGirl]

Thats the only thing that have been bugging you in this game?

[PortorNorton]

Haha No! But I guess its the one that bugs the most and the one that I cant seem to find any help on. The community has been really great in breaking down the mechanics of the game such that every time I had a query, a search on the forums was able to yield the answers. However, I couldn't seem to find any on this particular problem.

Did some testing on this. On the same turn, I tried to buy a territory from an ally with varying amounts of gold in my treasury. This forced the AI ally to offer me different terms (The exact scenario was me buying fangorn as silvan elves from Rohan. By saving and reloading at the same turn, and by queuing additional buildings, I was able to change the amount in the treasury at the time of negotiations with the AI).

I received the following of-fers: 7800 * 5 turns , 5550 * 7 turns,2050*19 turns

which works out to 39,000; 38,850; 38,950.

Hence I realised that the AI will not increase amount merely because I am doing a tribute. This is gamey in the sense that it helps for all negotiations to lower your treasury drastically at the point of buying something during negotiations, hence the AI will take pity on you and allow payment by installments, not taking into account growth in future periods.

However, the question remains, during negotiations where I have to offer amount to the AI, it seems that I cant follow the above rule. The AI will accept 25000 lump sum payment from me to him but not 250*100 turns. And thus my query remains for cases where I am trying to give money away, there still seems to be a discount factor in place. Or is there a scri-pt that prevents the AI from accepting very long period tributes? Because it also helps to prevent wars (AI will lose the tribute if they declare war on me), which historically is how weaker states prevent larger states from attacking.[/SPOILER]

[Duke of Metz]

I don't know if there is a specific or linear discount but I generally always try to buy peace/map info/territories from "bad" factions (or good if playing an evil faction) using tribute over a rather lengthy time period. The AI will almost always declare war back on you before you pay out the tribute if you are allied to another good faction - I don't think this plays a part in it's decision to declare war.