Selling the Alphabet

[Verrucosus]

Answering a few questions that have come up about the game situation:

- Arrian: My army consists of archers/phalanx units with no option to upgrade at this point. However, I have started to research Machinery, so I'll need money to buy a few crossbows.

- couerdelion: Louis' wealth is amazing indeed. Either he popped even more gold from villages than I did or he was beaten to a wonder - I chop-rushed the Parthenon rather late, so that could be it.

- Calvin Vu: I haven't started on Literature yet. My military is a little weak at this point, so I moved to the lower branch after getting Currency and Code of Laws. I'm afraid I didn't describe the geography very well in the first post. In the north (from west to east) are the Aztec Empire, Egypt and Mongolia; in the south (again west to east) Japan, France and India. I'm exactly in the east, so India is a buffer between me and Louis.

For my specific situation, most of you have supported the "sell" option, and I certainly more inclined to take it than I was at first.

The more general comments indicate that the Alphabet enjoys a special status in most people's mind, but there is not as much reluctance to trade it away (or sell it) for a good price as I had thought. The various observations about the AI's trading habits are extremely valuable in this context.

Anyway, I have a lot to think about before I continue the game (which probably won't be before the weekend).

[Aginor]

Re: Perhaps I should clarify what I think you are saying

Originally posted by couerdelion


At first reading I thought you felt it was a good tech to trade. However your explanation suggests rather that you would trade “other” techs for the lower order techs and THEN trade Alphabet, hoping to trade it several times and relying on the fact that this will be a valuable tech – though why the AI doesn’t then research it if it is so valuable is beyond me.

One problem with trading with one-nation-then-another approach is that I’ve noticed the information on the diplomacy screen remain unchanged even if the tech you have just acquired would reveal a more advanced tech that you might also want (you can’t acquire Currency and then find out that your rival also has Calendar).

1) If you have Alphabet and they don't, you can propose tech trades where they cannot. Thus, you are sitting in the strongest position relative to determining what people have and don't, and also get first move in the trade situation. As a consequence of getting there first, you can swap around your lower order techs to fill in gaps so that you can trade Alphabet for higher order techs where you have not met the requisites.

2) Now that you've opened up the costly stuff, it makes sense to start passing Alphabet around for other costly stuff. The basic objective is to fill in as much of the Classical as you possibly can.

3) Wait one turn after a tech trade and the next order of techs will become available to you. Ex: I haven't even researched Meditation. I want Lit, but it isn't happening without Polytheism. Answer: Trade off, say, Ag. for Mysticism. Next turn Polytheism comes up as an option for the AIs to trade. Trade Writing for Polytheism. Now we're in business, as Lit can be researched (and relatively quickly at that). Start on the GL and pass around Alphabet, angling for Horseback Riding, Monarchy, Mathematics, Iron Working, Construction, Calendar and Currency. Filling in things aggressively, you should be able to limit the AI's ability to trade significantly, get most of the Ancient/Classical techs, and force the AIs to largely independently research the Classical techs.

The computer strongly believes (with reason) that Calendar and Monarchy are the strongest early techs. The AI isn't so hot at judging what is and isn't a good trade, nor can it strategize terribly effectively on how best to get what it wants in trades and simultaneously screw over the other AIs. As a consequence Alphabet is more valuable to you than it, and the programmers recognized this and made their decisions with this in mind. Also, unlike you the AI does not generally beeline much. It understands that some techs are priorities, but does not, say, race up the tree to Rifling. Instead it focuses on following consistent build and research patterns throughout the course of the game because the designers are capable of programming the AI to behave according to certain tendencies but are not capable of teaching it how to recognize complex strategically advantageous situations available through beelines (which often vary from game to game).

Thus, the comp gets production advantages to compensate.

[joncnunn]

Highly Valuable techs such as Alphabet should be traded on your time, not the computers.

The fact the one of the other AIs already has the Alphabet means you monopoly is broken, it's now an open.

I'd even be considering selling it during my turn if I thought I could get 2000 gold for it even without a monopoly. With the monopoly broken, it becomes a virtual nobrainer for me.

[Just_Matt]

Alphabet vs. Oracle (and free tech)

I'll admit that beeline to Alphabet worked well. As Qin I was able to trade Ghandi for 3 techs and the other two civs are well behind us.

Question, has anyone seen that you can't get Pottery without Wheel, even though it shouldn't be a requirement? I've seen it a few times but just started tracking the problem.

>> Edit - Prince / Epic

[Quillan]

That isn't a bug. That's the way it's designed. You must have The Wheel, and either Fishing or Agriculture before you can research Pottery. In the in-game tech tree, all the arrows are OR gates. The mandatory requirements are shown as an icon in the upper right hand corner of the box for the desired tech. In this case, if you look at the Pottery tech, you'll see the icon for The Wheel in that corner, with arrows leading in from Fishing and Agriculture. The tech tree poster is clearer. If your game didn't come with the poster (I bought the Collector's Edition, so I don't know if the poster comes with the standard copy), 2K has it available in pdf form here:
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads/civ4-techtree.zip .

[Aginor]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Highly Valuable techs such as Alphabet should be traded on your time, not the computers.

The fact the one of the other AIs already has the Alphabet means you monopoly is broken, it's now an open.

You know, I felt that way for a long, long time about techs like Alphabet. However, once you start playing on levels where you have no chance of keeping pace in techs early, there's no reason to try to maintain a monopoly on anything that can't kill somebody else or keep you from getting killed.

Trading is a vital part of the game because you simply cannot outresearch the field in most games. My rule of thumb is that if the Wonder has gone up, the tech is fair game. The only exception is key defensive techs - I'll gladly sell an offensive tech for a comparable defensive tech if I have no intentions of fighting that player and if the player I am or will be fighting with has little chance of successfully tech swapping for my tech once it is traded away, but I sell defensive techs to no one.

Letting an AI get Alphabet independently cuts down on your trade options quite a bit, because he gets first crack at selling it rather than you. It leverages the research balance in the favor of that player, and costs you the potential of trading with that player, and others, for things that you could use.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Aginor


You know, I felt that way for a long, long time about techs like Alphabet. However, once you start playing on levels where you have no chance of keeping pace in techs early, there's no reason to try to maintain a monopoly on anything that can't kill somebody else or keep you from getting killed.

You introduce a very different context when you start moving into the realms of Emperor to Deity. For a start, you may not even be the first to get there. Even so, with any luck you'll have other trade options if you know enough civs so should still leave Alphabet to last.

With these tech requirements for trading, one of my old strategies from CivIII has gone in the early game. This was to spend 0% in research and simply buy them from other civilisations - who got them at 60% cost so valued them less highly than I did. Maybe after Alphabet and Currency, the same thing could work here although you will also be limited by civs not selling some techs. Even so, you should have a healthier bank balance.

Just a thought. This strategy will probably only work at Monarch and above though would be more effective at the highest levels where the arbitrage is greater

[Blake]

On Monarch difficulty I usually get a good headstart on literature and then trade away Alphabet, the turn advantage from trading it is great, I often need to round out the worker techs and get Iron WOrking and prehaps Mathematics to speed my progress to Construction.

couerdelion, the buying techs strategy is no longer possible. various gameplay mechanics make it too expensive to do. One of the largest factors is that now techs are traded at (approximately) full value regardless of how many players have the tech, this allows you to trade the same tech multiple times giving much higher profits, it also means techs stay expensive to buy with gold. The other factor is that the AI's are stingy when it comes to trading/selling techs they only recentely purchased.

[Mr Justice]

ya i'm all for trading techs.

but it is situational and does sepend on how you play. but 1150 is a lot of money, and imo will be better used by a human player than the AI, so no matter what id consider trading for that money, aside from mabey giving up astromony.

plus some techs should not be traded to maitain monoply as stated above.

however one thing i do notice is that often i dont have oppurtunity to freely trade with other civs due to "misunderstandings" in our foriegn relations. religion plays big factor her too.

lately ive playing incas at monarch (god i luv those quecha. they dominate the early game), and have managed to maintain tech lead and ive been stingy with the tech trading. better keep em bbackward so that i can roll over them nps. in my current game my quetcha are still usefull at 490AD (epic speed)

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Blake
couerdelion, the buying techs strategy is no longer possible. various gameplay mechanics make it too expensive to do. One of the largest factors is that now techs are traded at (approximately) full value regardless of how many players have the tech, this allows you to trade the same tech multiple times giving much higher profits, it also means techs stay expensive to buy with gold. The other factor is that the AI's are stingy when it comes to trading/selling techs they only recentely purchased.

I was pretty sure that the tech was not devalued with trades as with Civ3, but it's good to know for sure. But the AI often doesn't have much gold to offer for a tech. It's much fairer in trading techs, but if it has no techs to trade and only a paltry sum to offer, I hold back, waiting for a larger sum to accumulate. Don't sell techs too cheaply otherwise it will cause tech acceleration and loss of your advantage, which is bad. Nothing's worse than having techs, but can't build the units or buildings allowed by those techs. So, holding back alphabet trade is a way to delay tech development, while collecting other techs in the process.

Whether I trade a tech depends on factors such as how badly I need the gold, how much the offer is, how stategic the tech is, what my relationship is with the AI, can the tech fall into the wrong hands. I frequent the diplomacy screen to see what techs are available and how much gold is available. The sums can change quickly. It would be nice to have a screen overlay as used in previous Civ versions showing how much gold the civs have. Probably in the lower right hand corner with score should be gold.

So, tech trading is good overall, but tech selling should not be done too cheaply. Tech trading monopoly is even better, as long as it can be maintained. As soon as another civ has alphabet, it's time to sell, the monopoly is over.

Aginor - What is a defensive unit at one point in the game, may be an attack unit in an earlier part of the game. My riflemen are attack units, since Isabella only has crossbowmen, longbowmen, macemen, and horse archers. I will never forget the Civ3 game where an army of 160 riflemen came to invade me.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Answering a few questions that have come up about the game situation:
- Calvin Vu: I haven't started on Literature yet. My military is a little weak at this point, so I moved to the lower branch after getting Currency and Code of Laws. I'm afraid I didn't describe the geography very well in the first post. In the north (from west to east) are the Aztec Empire, Egypt and Mongolia; in the south (again west to east) Japan, France and India. I'm exactly in the east, so India is a buffer between me and Louis.

Anyway, I have a lot to think about before I continue the game (which probably won't be before the weekend).

Personally, I never research Currency and just trade for it. This leaves you in a hard spot since you might lose the GL in this trade. But then it gives you another option. Since Louis has a lot of gold which he is willing to part with for techs, you can sell him something else, like Currency or CoL. It doesn't have to be Alphabet. A lot of times when they ask to trade a tech for Alphabet, I just trade them some other techs and the deal is still good.

[Just_Matt]

FYI, I never default accept what the AI offers. I always clear the table, put up the tech they want, and ask them what they'll give me for it. I'm often surprised because they bring more to the table than I would have asked for.

Also, it's way faster to let the computer add in AI gold.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Aginor - What is a defensive unit at one point in the game, may be an attack unit in an earlier part of the game. My riflemen are attack units, since Isabella only has crossbowmen, longbowmen, macemen, and horse archers. I will never forget the Civ3 game where an army of 160 riflemen came to invade me.

Absolutely the case when there is a tech disparity. Further, I upgrade my Ancient and Classical era citybusters (3x City Raider promotions) to Riflemen and assign them the really dirty jobs (cleaning out garrison Grenadiers in max culture cities and such), so you can get some mileage out of what otherwise would be a unit that would be used to hold cities, chokepoints and key resources.

With that said, in a parity situation inexperienced Riflemen and such remain effective only in a defensive capacity. Trading Rifling if you're conducting combat operations is problematic due to the sharply increased unit attrition you are likely to begin suffering in a parity situation - and in my experience the tech earned for the swap generally is not worth the hammer cost of replacing the lost units.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by couerdelion
You introduce a very different context when you start moving into the realms of Emperor to Deity. For a start, you may not even be the first to get there. Even so, with any luck you'll have other trade options if you know enough civs so should still leave Alphabet to last.

I can still pretty consistently get there first on Emperor on a pure beeline...it's a problem above Emperor. The happiness restrictions are just beastly for research, and Slavery really can't keep up with the demands of infrastructure. Still, since most civs aren't in a tremendous hurry to get there, you're usually OK.

The real problem at the highest levels is the prevalence of times when the AIs all have the beeline techs and you have nothing to trade BUT Alphabet. Then you're stuck trading for multiple low cost techs to fill in the prereqs and hoping you don't get screwed by the AI(s) you trade Alphabet to before the next turn where you can get some real value for Alphabet comes up.

[VetLegion]

Does anyone know whether a tech that you trade to one AI during the AIs turn can be traded away to other AIs by them on the same turn? I am a little bit hesitant to trade to AI when they ask me for something on their turn because I think that they can trade it away before I get the chance to offer it to others. Can they?