A Bribe is a payment demanded from another Civilization or Space faring empire, ones that have a relationship of yellow face or below with your empire or civilization. Some civilizations or empires will demand that you give them a sum of money in return for peace between their civilization or empire and yours. Though seemingly unfair, your civilization or empire cannot demand bribes from others.
Space stage[]
Tributes[]
"For guaranteeing your future security, you will now pay us (amount of Sporebucks). "
- Warrior empires demanding tributes.
Most other empires that have a relationship of yellow or below with you will demand bribes occasionally, unless the said empire is at war with your empire. Paying the money does nothing to the relationship bonus but refusing to pay will apply a relationship penalty. Although it does diminish overtime, it's rather slow and it's possible the said empire will ask for bribes again before the penalty wears off, which can eventually lead to an orange face or worse. Zealot and Warrior are the most common empires that demand bribes, but Bard, Scientist, Shaman, and Ecologist empires are also known to demand bribes sometimes, although much less often than the aforementioned two. The Grox also demands bribes, but it's extremely rare.
The amount of money that empires demand increases with your badge rank and the difficulty of the game, it can easily go over 2 million Sporebucks at Omnipotent rank on Hard difficulty.
Gifts[]
"We treasure your friendship. Please accept a gift of (amount of Sporebucks)."
- Diplomat empires offering gifts.
Despite the fact that your empire cannot demand bribes, it's still possible for your empire to receive tribute from other empires if your empire is strong enough. As long as the relationship is above orange, they will pay 10,000 Sporebucks to you occasionally and slowly gain the "We value your friendship" relationship bonus. And when the relation face reaches green, they'll usually wish to form an alliance with you (at which point the "We value your friendship" relationship bonus starts to diminish slowly). This is commonly seen among Trader, Bard, Scientist, Ecologist, and Diplomat empires.
- Interestingly, if the relationship bonus cannot reach the green face because there are some negative modifiers that don't diminish overtime and the player chooses to not furthermore improve the relationship bonus, they will keep paying the tribute without asking for an alliance, which effectively grants you infinite extra (though negligible) income.
Civilization stage[]
"It's time to show us proper respect. We demand (number) Sporebucks."
- Other civilization demanding tributes.
Though rarer, occasionally Civilizations will demand money to keep an alliance forged between the two civilizations or simply avoid wars. In this case, the bribe sum wanted is usually a low amount of money to pay. The alliance will simply be diagnosed with a negative relation bonus to the alliance. It should be noted that paying tributes this way counts as "gifts", and thus will give the "Your Gifts" bonus.
Sometimes, an AI-controlled civilization will ask you to stop your trade routes with another civilization or declare war on them. The player can choose to "demand money" when accepting their request, although doing this will only give small boost to the relationship bonus.
Trivia[]
- There is a glitch in the Space Stage where other empires will send you a transmission declaring tribute while you have a positive reputation (blue face or above, and only applies to Warrior and Zealot empires) with them. Due to this factor, the game removes the transmission as it's impossible for an empire to demand tribute from you. However, it still counts as a tribute demand, and the transmission noise still appears. Because there is no way to pay this tribute, a reputation penalty will appear with that empire, stating you refused to pay them tribute, even though you weren't given a tribute demand in the first place. This penalty will diminish over time, but it's more than likely that they will demand tributes again before this penalty wears off.
- The Grox empire sometimes demands the tribute with the transmission coming from near the Galactic Core (where their homeworld locates), which is normally inaccessible without allying the Grox. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to do any negative impacts on their relationship bonus if you ignore it.
- Each archetype have their own unique messages for demanding tributes/offering gifts. However, most of them are normally impossible to see in-game due to the nature of each archetype.