Originally posted by lorifromsf
For trading . . .
Sometimes I want to sell a tech this year, but my current luxury deal expires in two or three years. I should be able to offer an extension during my negotiations (“I’ll give you Steel for 500 gp and you extend my wine delivery another 20 years).
There should be an option of having a pop up appear when 1) when you are first able to trade with a civilization and 2) when a commodity appears that you currently don’t have (The Persians have extra silk. Why don’t we trade for it?).
For trading . . .
Sometimes I want to sell a tech this year, but my current luxury deal expires in two or three years. I should be able to offer an extension during my negotiations (“I’ll give you Steel for 500 gp and you extend my wine delivery another 20 years).
There should be an option of having a pop up appear when 1) when you are first able to trade with a civilization and 2) when a commodity appears that you currently don’t have (The Persians have extra silk. Why don’t we trade for it?).
Some other ideas on trade.
1. The "20 turns for everything" model is a one that doesn't always fit. Allow deals for shorter periods, but probably need to restrict things to 5 turn increments.
a. Maybe I want iron from France so I can build my Immortals right now, but I know I can get my own supply of iron in 5 turns. Why can't I negotiate a deal shorter than 20 turns?
b. Maybe my trading reputation is less than great because of broken trade agreements in the past (not my fault, of course). Why can't I rehabilitate my reputation by making, and scrupulously keeping, short-term deals? Of course these deals would have to be really sweet for the AI to take a chance, but that could be part of the cost of doing business.
c. Maybe I wouldn't mind the AI sending units across my territory to get to a battle for 5 turns, but I don't want to let them traipse all over my land for the next 20 turns. Why can't I offer them a 5 turn RoP?
2. Rather than only being able to enter into negotiations for resources with one civ at a time, why not allow an open market once a certain tech (call it 'International Trade') is achieved. This would allow the civ with IntTrade to have open negotiations with all of its potential trading partners by declaring "I have furs to trade. What am I bid?" or "I'm in the market for coal. Let's hear some offers." Of course you can do this now, sort of, by going to each civ individually and seeing their deals and then going back to the best offer. What IntTrade would allow is to do this more easily, and secure better deals because the other civs know they are in competition. Only civs with IntTrade would have knowledge of the other offers. Private negotiations would still be possible. IntTrade combined with Espionage would also allow a small wonder called 'Trade Mission' which allows the civ to possibly 'listen in' on trade negotiations involving civs where you have an embassy and an option to step into the negotiation to interfere by offering a better deal ("France is offering 10 gpt for your coal? I'll give you 250 gold up front.") or possibly making one of the parties an 'offer they can't refuse' ("That's a really nice city you have there on my border. It would be terrible if buying Espionage made something bad happen to it."). Maybe make the chance of listening in fairly high but the chance of interfering somewhat less. Having a Trade Mission would also lower the probability of other civs listening in on or interfering with your negotiations.
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