The AI will not trade for a Tech it is researching

[Cort Haus]

I had always assumed that if I have a tech, and the AI has the prereqs for it, I can trade it away. Not so in my current game (1.52, standard continents. Monarch).

After spending most of new years day trying to work out how civs with half my GNP and twice my military were apparantly out-teching me, it seems that if the AI is researching a tech, I cannot trade it to the AI, or even gift it. This doesn't seem right to me.

For example, an AI has Physics, and I have Railroad, so I think maybe when AI has Steam, I'll be able to trade Railroad for Physics. No chance. The AI completes Steam, then immediately starts RR - and no possibility of trading. I found this very annoying.

Another example - an ally needs a military tech and is researching it, but are badly pillaged and will never research the tech in time. I cannot gift them the tech. No way is that right.

Is this intended? Has this always been the case? And are AI's prohibited from trading a tech to another AI who is researching it in the same way?

[Enigma_Nova]

It's just a case of the AI being optimised not to make a stupid decision and failing miserably.
This is probably done to prevent the AIs from getting mass cash by being slightly ahead in tech, since one will research the first tech in the chain, then the next tech in the chain, and will continue selling until it can't sell no more.

[Bill3000]

Think about it - if you were in their situation, and had a monopoly on a valuable tech, wouldn't you do the same?

Perhaps there can be an option to allow trading for less valuable techs, but still, the player usually exploits this to get a tech lead very easily.

[snoopy369]

I think Cort is trying to say that it's not physically possible to offer the tech... not that the AI won't accept it.

[Bill3000]

In Civ3, it was physically impossible to do the same with the AI's cities if you weren't at war or some other similar reason - it's kind of a matter of convinience in this case, no? (Of course, it was extended to other things in Civ4)

Or would you rather it being offerable, but the AI still won't accept it?

[Jamski]

Well, I won't normally trade for a tech I've already put beakers towards - its wasteful.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Bill3000
Think about it - if you were in their situation, and had a monopoly on a valuable tech, wouldn't you do the same?

Perhaps there can be an option to allow trading for less valuable techs, but still, the player usually exploits this to get a tech lead very easily.

No Bill, you misunderstand. This is not about the AI refusing to trade away a monopoly tech, it's about the AI being unable to trade for (or recieve as a gift) a tech it is researching.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Jamski
Well, I won't normally trade for a tech I've already put beakers towards - its wasteful.

I understand this, but you'd be happy to recieve that tech you were researching as a gift, right? Or even as an overall favorable trade? The mechanics do not permit this.

The other thing is that it creates the impression that the AI has more thech than it has. In my example, I complete Railroad hoping to trade it, but as I can never trade either Steam or RR to an AI on that research path it looks like the AI has RR if it has only 1 beaker down on Steam.

This flipside to this confusion is that by very careful monitoring, it is sometimes possible to work out which tech an AI is researching if you already have it. Combined with close checking of the AI-AI 'Our trades have been Fair' ledger you can sometimes see who's trading what with whom.