arms trading.

[C. Free]

you can't buy or sell arms. what the hell? this would be great for propping up somebody you need.

[Shogun Gunner]

A game feature deemed to easy for the human player to exploit against the AI.

[C. Free]

let the ai do it, too.

[Modo44]

The AI is dumb enough to sell workers. That's bad enough, really.

[gunkulator]

True, but in Civ2 you could gift advanced units to the AI. I'd recommend making it horrendously expensive for the human to buy advance units from the AI, but going in the other direction would be a good idea.

[Rhothaerill]

They're not going to change it for Civ3 now. They're basically done with it after the C3C v1.22 patch. Any new features (or old as the case may be) would have to be considered for Civ4 not Civ3.

[Shogun Gunner]

There is a thread in the Civ4 section that addresses this. Lots of people are for it, if it can be done in a way to not compromise SP games. (read: dumb AI)

[Paddy]

yeah it would have been fun to have it

[Vince278]

[MrWhereItsAt]

What do you mean by this? Selling/exchanging troops with another civ? This shouldn't be difficult to implement, as it was in SMAC. Perhaps Firaxis decided it wasn't such a good idea for some reason in Civ3. For example an ally could gift someone half a dozen defensive units and have them instantly appear in their last remaining city, preventing conquest. This would be rather unbalancing, I feel. If gifted units change ownership without changing position, you couldn't gift units from inside your own cities, and since you can only gift units that are outside, you'd need to somehow have a way of gifting the exact unit you wanted to gift, so you'd need some kind of map-based gifting screen or option. And if you were trying to gift multiple units in a single trade then you couldn't just click on a single unit and use the 'gift to' key. And if you had a key to gift a unit, how would you gift units that had already moved?

As you can see there are quite a number of issues with this feature, and I imagine it would take rather some thought and coding time to get such a small addition sorted. But then perhaps they have some ideas now, and something like it will be in cIV.

[punkbass2000]

Also it would probably be fairly easy to exploit the AI unless some general restiriction like the one on city-trading were implemented.

[Kataphraktoi]

but if they had an airport that is possible and realistic.after retaking the area with your units,you could even gift all the cities back to him

you could only gift units that were in cities and then only in diplomacy MWIA,although i never used this option

also,if you sent an advanced unit over,you could reverse engineer abilties\options it had into your own units courtesy of the unit workshop IIRC

[Cookie Monster]

I loved being able to create special units for export in SMAC. I wish they had this feature for Civ3, hopefully for Civ4. Are you listening Meier?

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
I loved being able to create special units for export in SMAC. I wish they had this feature for Civ3, hopefully for Civ4. Are you listening Meier?

I doubt that Sid has little direct contact with the sofware developers, it seems to me he's semi-retired from the gaming world. Even if he is working with Firaxis, it is certain that he is not checking the fan sites for comments, as it is rare to see a Firaxian on the boards these days.

[Tattila the Hun]

Perhaps gifting would require working trade route... Also, perhaps one could mark, in city view, the units that are "available" for gifting. Also, depending on tech level, the appearing of the units would take some turns.

(Though, if military strength would be measured in manpower and equipment, you could send, hmm, "volunteers" to aid in the strugle, to be armed by the receiver, or material aid, used by the receivers nationals, or both. In my idea, in peace time you don't usually have an army, just a number of manpower depending on your birthrate/average age/conscription rate/budget, and anything from crossbows to tanks mothballed.
Someone declares war, and depending on your military readynes, you can summon a number of units to the border. One could have huge army with average equipment, like China, or smallish army with 1'st rate equipment, like the US...)

[dexters]

The AI issues needs to be addressed.

Unit trading is a major feature. If the AI can't do it, it stands the ruin the game. Whether it be Civ4 or 5.

There's a very good reason unit trading was not included in Civ3 . Widespread exploitation.

[gunkulator]

I dunno. I never found unit gifting to be that much of an exploitation in Civ2. IIRC, Civ2 didn't allow you to trade units for something else. You could only gift them. The AI also had the option of rejecting your gift. You weren't allowed to dump obsolete units either.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by gunkulator
I dunno. I never found unit gifting to be that much of an exploitation in Civ2. IIRC, Civ2 didn't allow you to trade units for something else. You could only gift them. The AI also had the option of rejecting your gift. You weren't allowed to dump obsolete units either.

In Gal Civ it certainly is. I remember a few major exploits that were detailed (one included gifting a Ranger to a Civ that was at war with a third party. The player had surrounded the third parties Starbase (located on a resource) with constructors and 3 Rangers. One Ranger was gifted to the second party. The second party killed the starbase and the player got the resource and a very powerful starbase in one turn without going to war with the third party.

If arms trading were to be implemented it should only be from capital to capital (Like it currently is with workers) anything else could lead to a very easy and powerful exploit.

[dexters]

Even if its capital to capital, a weak Human players could still make an AI's ability to capture or wipe out another Rival AI difficult if not impossible by continually gifting units to the capital.

I'm solidly in favour of a unit trading mechanism if it is done so under tight constrains. Perhaps a system closer to the current Civ3 Spy system where there is substantial gold cost related actions performed. If this is implemented to the gifting of units, it should tone down and prevent the potential of massive exploit by humans.
Gold costs should also be done on a per unit basis to prevent 'dumping' of units and or to discourage mass trades if gold penalty was imposed on a per trade basis.

For example a doubleX gold penalty for gifting units (per unit) in times of war will make it costly to exploit the system by gifiting a losing AI large amounts of units.

A gold cost based on distance and technology level of the AI civ. If the AI has no Mech Inf, it could cost substantially more to gift them that unit, or maybe even impossible.

A gold cost based on resource. If humans decide to gift an AI lacking rubber some Infantry, there is a gold charge in addition to the base cost (per unit).

The 'base' gold cost of unit trading would also be scalable based on the size of the 'gifter's' economy. This would make it feasible to gift units in the ancient era and still do so in the modern era when the economy is obviously much larger and more productive, without unbalancing the game by making ancient era trades prohibitively expensive, or conversely, modern era trades increadibly cheap.

This also prevents another potential exploit I see, which would be to get lots of high gold producing cities to generate lots of gold to artifically 'deflate' the cost of unit trading. With a scalable 'base' cost, the more gold you produce, the higher the cost of trading, negating the exploit.

I'd like the AI to be able to do the same. I'd jump for Joy if some of AI civs decides to gift me units in my time for need.

Edit: Of course, I'm not expecting a patch for C3C to add this in. This is mostly just talking about what could happen in Civ4

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by dexters
Even if its capital to capital, a weak Human players could still make an AI's ability to capture or wipe out another Rival AI difficult if not impossible by continually gifting units to the capital.

Making it more difficult for the AI to kill off backward civ's is the main purpose of arms trading, this is certainly not an exploit. The one problem is that the AI rarely tries to eliminate another AI, the AI's try to gang up on the human player(s), especially if they are weak.

I'm solidly in favour of a unit trading mechanism if it is done so under tight constrains. Perhaps a system closer to the current Civ3 Spy system where there is substantial gold cost related actions performed. If this is implemented to the gifting of units, it should tone down and prevent the potential of massive exploit by humans.
Gold costs should also be done on a per unit basis to prevent 'dumping' of units and or to discourage mass trades if gold penalty was imposed on a per trade basis....

I have to pay to give units away????

If this system is implemented I would DEMAND my mony back for the worthess piece of $%&&^**%%** that it would be.

I'd like the AI to be able to do the same. I'd jump for Joy if some of AI civs decides to gift me units in my time for need.

Don't hold your breath, if its anything like resource trading they would only give you 100g for a Modern Armor, but would demand at least 1000g in return for one.

Edit: Of course, I'm not expecting a patch for C3C to add this in. This is mostly just talking about what could happen in Civ4

Regardless of your wishes, C3C is fini. It would only be in CIV

[dexters]

Making it more difficult for the AI to kill off backward civ's is the main purpose of arms trading, this is certainly not an exploit. The one problem is that the AI rarely tries to eliminate another AI, the AI's try to gang up on the human player(s), especially if they are weak.

Untrue. I've played enough games and watch enough debug games to say this for sure. AI doesn't care if its human or AI they declare war on. This has been established for a long time.

Arms trading should add 'diplomatic' depth, and not be given as a blank check for humans in particular to run roughshod over the game by throwing units every which way. Making it harder for the AI to kill backwards Civ has to be the worst reasons to want this feature because we all know its going to be the humans doing all the trading and the AI getting exploited.

Hence my suggestions for constraints. I've observed with the Civ3 spy system that high gold costs have essentially nerfed the 'spy army' exploit of Civ2 where you buy up an enemy Civ with impunity. Not everyone liked it, but it closed a very large exploit.

Don't hold your breath, if its anything like resource trading they would only give you 100g for a Modern Armor, but would demand at least 1000g in return for one.

Exagerrations. AI has a trade bonus even on the lowest difficulty level. It's a stacked benefit against humans, but the underlying trading mechanism is sound and rational. I've gotten large amounts of GPT gil, +techs +lump sum on luxuries from AI all the time, even on Emperor.

In the case of unit trading, 1000g per unit sounds about right for you to trade to the AI. I don't really care how much it costs you to get a unit from them, as long as they can perform it. But 2000g sounds about right. :P

Regardless of your wishes, C3C is fini. It would only be in CIV

Read again what I wrote.

[conmcb25]

Lets hope we get a decent system to do this for CIV 4

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by dexters


Untrue. I've played enough games and watch enough debug games to say this for sure. AI doesn't care if its human or AI they declare war on. This has been established for a long time.

This is impossible to discern in a debug game and even more so in a regular epic game. The only way to really be able to debuk this is to do a controlled experiment which would be rather impractical as you must control more than 100 variables. Futher I have not an experiment or scenerio to prove or disprove my assertion. I should note that the 'AI gang-up tendency' is in the late industrial to modern game, its not usually noticable before then.

Arms trading should add 'diplomatic' depth, and not be given as a blank check for humans in particular to run roughshod over the game by throwing units every which way. Making it harder for the AI to kill backwards Civ has to be the worst reasons to want this feature because we all know its going to be the humans doing all the trading and the AI getting exploited.

Hence my suggestions for constraints. I've observed with the Civ3 spy system that high gold costs have essentially nerfed the 'spy army' exploit of Civ2 where you buy up an enemy Civ with impunity. Not everyone liked it, but it closed a very large exploit.

I agree there should be some limits on it but making a person pay to give something away is not something I am likely to agree to. A limit could be placed on number of units per turn or that the trade can only occcur in the capitol (like workers). I also think that the AI should be programmed to take advantage of Arms trading as well. Imagine a players surprise if they are suddenly confronted with 10 coscript MI's when they are launching an attack against a Civilization they thought their lesser.

Exagerrations. AI has a trade bonus even on the lowest difficulty level. It's a stacked benefit against humans, but the underlying trading mechanism is sound and rational. I've gotten large amounts of GPT gil, +techs +lump sum on luxuries from AI all the time, even on Emperor.

In the case of unit trading, 1000g per unit sounds about right for you to trade to the AI. I don't really care how much it costs you to get a unit from them, as long as they can perform it. But 2000g sounds about right. :P

Of course they were exagerations but not as large as you apparently believe. The main reason I made that statement is how the AI values workers. (min price to sell:$50, max price to buy:$13) If arms trading were to be implemented it would have to be a fairer system than the one currently in place. (I alsways buy workers from the AI, but I'll never sell them for a lousy $13)

Read again what I wrote.

I did. You said that you weren't looking for it to be implemented before CIV. I simply pointed out that it couldn't be implemented before CIV. A matter of sematics; perhaps, but truth nonetheless.