3.5 KiB
Ordinary bribe controls
26 October follow-up: quiet Mentat payments are now allowed after opening collection, with their receipts deferred to the next turn's actual opening. This supersedes the original blanket Mentat restriction.
21 September 2026. A connected prototype exposes the existing authoritative ordinary bribe action beneath the table. This does not complete negotiation, Leader Skills or expansion acceptance.
Payment and controls
Choose a non-allied recipient and a positive whole amount, then explicitly pay. The payer loses spice immediately. The recipient's share is deferred until the next Mentat Pause; it is not current spending money. The public chronicle records the amount and recipient, while the panel exposes only its owning seat's supply and incoming escrow. Self/allied targets and Inflation Double remain prohibited. Bribes are allowed out of turn at otherwise open boundaries, including Mentat.
These preserve the existing rules and Bureaucrat source contract. The official November FAQ, p. 9 places paid bribes in front of the recipient's shield until the next Mentat Pause. Chat messages and verbal promises do not themselves transfer spice. Emperor gifts to allies remain a separate power.
The separate public deal record can capture a two-to-six-human offer, unanimous acceptance and mutual release. Its optional immediate payment uses this native action on final acceptance; written terms do not automatically transfer spice or enforce future promises.
The server derives the owner's limits from existing uncommitted spice, excluding sealed bids, paid support, Banker spending and other reserved costs. Existing Truthtrance completion checks further constrain voluntary spending on isolated copies; this projection does not commit actions or live continuations. The target-specific Bureaucrat guard can cap unsupported combinations below five. Supported payments use the existing saved redirect/allow decision. A pending response, decision or forced continuation disables the payment controls.
The client retains an invalid amount or removed recipient as a disabled draft rather than silently changing a payment. The explicit action uses existing request/version handling: concurrent or stale submissions cannot debit twice. After an uncertain result, reconcile the game before making another payment. Only committed game state survives refresh; unsubmitted form drafts do not.
Verification and remaining work
Focused tests cover out-of-turn transfer, JSON escrow/collection, private owner budgets, target and integer validation, phase/response restrictions, auction reservations, max/max-plus-one Truthtrance spending, Bureaucrat continuation and rendered controls. Production HTTP checks exercise concurrent duplicate payment, stale rejection, refresh and private views; existing Bureaucrat SQLite and all four legal AI response tests remain applicable. Source-bound checks, browser observations, preservation, independent review and Git delivery are retained with the private checkpoint.
AI seats can receive and later spend bribes through ordinary resource handling; existing Bureaucrat choices remain legal. Automated negotiations and strategic bribe initiation wait for the post-feature AI stage. Textual deals are not automatically enforced. Complete negotiation, responsive/assistive acceptance and all legal expansion combinations remain open.