Will Civ4 allow unit donation and/or selling?

[Navyman]

I loved the ability of using a smaller country to keep a more powerful country busy in a war by donating high tech units to the smaller country. Provided a lot of breathing room...

[Cookie Monster]

I hope they have this feature too

I used to love exporting units in SMAC(X) to another faction that was getting beat up by a bigger faction.

[MattPilot]

i too hope they have this feature!

[Kuciwalker]

Not as far as we know. Judging by the diplomacy screens, I doubt it.

[Gramphos]

On the feature list on 2k games website it reads

Team Play - Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading, and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.

Now, what does that mean?

[Cookie Monster]

Excellent!

[Navyman]

Gramphos got a good eye...

How does one lock an alliance?

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Navyman
Gramphos got a good eye...

How does one lock an alliance?

Probably meaning the same procedure for setting up a game with locked alliances as in CivIII.

[Kuciwalker]

It sounds like that may be a "Team Play" only thing, though.

[Wise Ass]

I don't know, if the code is already built into the diplomacy model it would be a huge overlook by firaxis not to put it in standard games. It will be available by the second patch

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well exactly. To have unit trades in ANY part of the game means the coding must be there-so it wouldn't take too long for the geniuses in the modding community to add Unit trades to the standard game-assuming its not already in from the get go !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Shogun Gunner]

Wasn't there a lot of concern about this feature potentially being a big exploit?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Not if you have a halfway decent AI, Shogun!!
I have pointed out that a very simple algorithm could be used to determine what value-if any-an AI civ will place on any unit you try and sell/give to them. If you ask for more than this, then they will refuse and-possibly-even take a much dimmer view of you as a trading partner. Both of these factors could be incorporated to essentially abolish the exploit factor of this feature.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Shogun Gunner]

Okay, I don't say it's not possible, but getting a decent AI is the key and I'm not holding my breath for this in Civ4.

Certainly there's clear logic in your post -- it's the way a human would think in a PBEM/MP game. However, it must be very tough to program the computer to think like a human or it would have delivered already.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

You don't need to get it to TRULY think like a human. Just for it to 'ask' certain questions, like:

1) how many hammers did the unit take to build?

2) how many resources did it take to build?

3) What tech level is the unit relative to my current tech level?

4) What is the maintainance cost of the unit?

5) Did the unit require any population to build?

6) Does the selling civ have the same culture group and/or religion as me?

7) What is the strength and movement rate of the unit?

8) How many promotions has the unit recieved?

9) Am I currently at war and-if yes-how many civs am I at war with?

The answer for each of these questions would be in the form of a + or - point ranking, modified by the relevant civ traits of the leader. If the final ranking is a negative number, then the civ won't take the unit-even as a GIFT (and routine attempts to offer such units will start to infuriate the leader). If its a positive number, then this number (as a factor of the civs economy) will be the maximum value the civ will attach to said unit-give or take around 10-20% say. If you offer it for less than this, then your reputation with the civ will greatly improve. If you offer it for much more than this amount, then the civ will refuse, with repeated offers hurting your repuation.
That doesn't seem too hard to me!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.