Does Tech Trading Inhibit AI Empires?

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

I recently re-enabled tech trading in one of my Civ II games, and noticed that, unlike games where I disable tech trading, the result were no large AI empires.

Perhaps it was just the game itself — after all, each game is unique from the other — but whenever the AI got a technology, it immediately traded it to another AI-controlled civilization for something it didn't have. And if it was allied with another AI civilization, it instantly gave the advanced knowledge, even if the other AI was noticeably "lesser" than its partner. The end result, I observed, were rather small AI empires, because a *dominant* AI or two was never allowed to develop due to the sheer amount of tech trading. And this was playing with: Germany, Romans, China, Aztecs, Carthaginians, India and the Draka (a civilization I created from the Zulus).

In other words, I believe that AI tech trading inhibits the formation of gigantic, continent (or more) sprawling empires. Since I get a kick out of letting the AI build up to the point where it presents a decent challenge into the modern era, I'm not so sure I enjoy having tech trading enabled. The only real plus I can see is that if two AI nations ally against the human player, they'd be able to trade knowledge, thus augmenting each other (or one augmenting the other, if there's a greater disparity in tech levels between the two). This cannot happen if tech trading is disabled ... but at the same time, I'm facing a significantly larger AI empire in such games. Combined with the self-limitations I play with, it makes for a pretty good game, IMO.

Any thoughts, folks?

Gatekeeper

[Bloody Monk]

It would be hard to say Gatekeeper. You have changed your rules scheme so completely that none of us play the game you play. So any experience may not translate. One thing is for sure though, a one-sample trial is not instructive. In "normal" game-play, results can vary greatly. AI tech trading is usually a good thing for the more expansion minded civs; they can grow quite large if they are not "pruned" regularly.

Try it a few more times and see what happens.

Monk

[Gatekeeper]

Oh, I'll certainly play a few more times with tech trading enabled, but I haven't changed the hard coding of the game, so it's really not that much different than what you would experience, BM. I suspect the biggest differences would be found in our playing styles, not so much any "tweaks" I've made to rules.txt file (invariably, the tweaks have actually improve the AI's ability to make my life miserable).

Gatekeeper

[Grigor]

The AI does seem to make decisions based on its (weird) analysis of the situation in the game. If you slow your science to 30%, the AI will slow its science rate too. If you expand mercilessly, the AI will try to expand also. And if you limit your empire, the AI will do so as well. The mimicing aspect is probably modified by the civ type (aggressive, expansionist, etc).

I suspect that the lack of large empire formation has more to do with the size of your own empire in that game than the tech trading aspect.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Gatekeeper,

In my experience, I don't think that tech trading impedes the AI's expansion. Based on your past posts, I gather your AIs are not perfectionist - i.e you've tweaked them to be mainly aggressive/expansionist?

It would be interesting if an AI that was 'programmed' to be expansionist at the expense of science, would lose its expansionist urges after science was forced on it. But unlikely.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... if you want big AI empires, ToT gigamaps are the way to go

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Grigor
I suspect that the lack of large empire formation has more to do with the size of your own empire in that game than the tech trading aspect.

Hmm. I disagree, because in games where I had tech trading disabled and I remained a moderate-sized nation, other AI nations expanded greatly. Yes, these nations were mainly the expansionist types, but now in this tech trading enabled game, even the expansionist nations are relatively moderate in size. I suspect it's due to the fact that all nations, due to tech trading, are relatively even in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities, and have been so pretty much throughout the game. The Carthaginians were conquered in 1505 AD, and the Romans fell in 1901 AD, but that's it. Those poor Romans; they were picked apart from the north by Germany, from the south by the Draka (Zulus) and from the east by India. That seems to be Rome's fate no matter any game I play. But I digress.

Gatekeeper

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Gatekeeper,

In my experience, I don't think that tech trading impedes the AI's expansion. Based on your past posts, I gather your AIs are not perfectionist - i.e you've tweaked them to be mainly aggressive/expansionist?

Nope. I've left their attributes the same as vanilla Civ II. I added "aggressive" to the Sioux modifier, and turned the Zulus into the Draka (making them a rational, militaristic, expansionistic nation). Oh, and I turned the Greeks into a bunch of women (Amazons), but left their attributes the same. The thing is, there are still perfectionistic civs out there (Germany, Japan and India come to mind immediately). Speaking of Japan, for a "perfectionist" civ, they sure like to expand!

It would be interesting if an AI that was 'programmed' to be expansionist at the expense of science, would lose its expansionist urges after science was forced on it. But unlikely.

Yes, it would. I bet the Civ II programmers worked some good tricks into the code. Has anyone ever been able to talk to the Civ II programmers, to see what they put into the hard coding to make the AIs do what they do?

I've said it before and I'll say it again... if you want big AI empires, ToT gigamaps are the way to go

Heh. I've got a gigamap or two and use them from time to time. It sure does make for interesting games, especially when I use the Northern Hemisphere gigamap (tough games!).

Gatekeeper

[Straybow]

Yeah, if only ToT had an interface as bright and cheery as SMAC's.