Trading Strategic Resources

[theDragon]

Hey ya'll, I was wondering what all your thoughts were on trading Strategic Resources. I am playing Ultraman's Home World mod, and so I wound up smack in the Middle East ( OIL!) So I have control of the excess Oil reserves. I'm the third largest Civ (1st is Greece, 2nd is Iroquois) and I was just wondering your thoughts on trading Oil to any of the smaller Civs for gold, personally I am inclined to hog and horde all the Strategic Resources to myself. But I like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Here's the latest that I know of who has the Oil:
ME:3
Greece:1
England:1
Russia:1
Iroquois:1 (may have a cultural victory for this one in a while)
NONE:1 And one in Alaska that I have sent a Settler to take.

So yes I would be very interested to here what you all have to say about this little situation. And how to trade Strategic Resources if at all. THANKS! You guys rock!

[Barinthus]

I normally hog stragetic resources to myself and refuse to trade those out.

But occasionally I'll trade a resource that is no longer leading (e.g. horses when I have saltpeter). And if I'm playing on a huge or large map, I'd consider trading with a civ that's far away from my current sphere of influence. I will not trade with a civ immediately next to me unless I'm desperate for something that this civ can offer me for the resource. I definitely will never trade it with a civ I plan to invade.

[vmxa1]

It would be rare for me to trade oil or rubber. Those allow the making of real war machines.

Of course the AI will not be happy with you not sharing, but whats new?

[Arrian]

I typically do not trade key strategic resources to any halfway decent AI civs. However, if there is a very small, weak AI civ that has a luxury for trade, and they will cough it up in exchange for the strat resource... I may do it. After all, if they're really weak, how many [insert unit type here] can they really build anyway?

It looks like all the major players in your game have access to oil, so you cannot deny it to them w/o taking it away by force. Therefore, if you can get a decent return, I see little reason not to trade the oil to weaker civs (unless you're gearing up to invade them for some reason).

-Arrian

[punkbass2000]

I trade strat resources all the time, but then, I'm a nice builder who gets along with the AI . REally though, obsolete resources I always send out the whoever can cough up a reasonable amount and often gift'em to civs to all the civs on the other continent that I hire to attacke the dominant civ.

[Modo44]

First, I often have a small empire early on, so having the one Horse, Iron and Saltpeter is great already. More often than not, I have to buy some.

But if I do have some to spare, I try to sell them to someone, preferably a civ in need of help against a bigger neighbour. I use the resources like I use cash - I "give" it to some AIs in order to keep them alive longer, while I stay out of the war.

Of course, selling Iron to the Persians, or Horses to the Iroquis is not an option, except if they are really small and in danfer of getting smashed badly.

[justjake73]

I trade to a peaceful AI, because they usually do not go to war with me - especially when doing so will cause hteir war machine to become crippled.

[Ljube]

Usually I connect saltpetre early or unintentionally and then trade all of it so I can still build cheap spear. Oh, I forgot to mention, I don't connect iron until I'm ready to attack (have cranked out enough warriors). If the iron is connected by pure chance, I'll trade it in a second.

Later on, I’ll trade oil with great pleasure because those who lack oil are usually my proxies. The same applies to rubber. Coal is another story. I don’t trade that under any circumstances, except to my very distant satellites whom I have for some reason become very fond of (I tend to love babes like Theodora).

[eris]

Some of this is repeat of excellent notions given so far.

Trade strat for lux with a small weak (especially island-bound) empire: Sure, any time.

Trade strat with smaller of two empires at war: Especially if they are on a diffferent continent or something, I love this trick. It doesn't change the overall results, since the weaker empire may not get the chance to build too many of the newly availabe military units. But the conscript units the AI seems so fond of will always be the new unit. It may not save the smaller empire, but it will make things more painful for the big empire. That works for me.

Trade strat with a neighbor: Never. Well, hardly ever. Generally, connected neighbors get little or nothing from me, unless we're trading lux for lux, which tends to keep them from getting aggressive. One time, and one time only, I have traded a strat to a neighbor. They had made a couple of demands and I had gotten away with refusing so far, but I just didn't have the military at the time to deal with them and another uppity neighbor at the same time. In desperation I arranged a deal for a significant strat that incidentally was fairly profitable. But it kept them from interfering while I went and trashed the other neighbor. 20 turns later, it was a different story, much different. But the whole thing was a violation of my usual "Bad Neighbor" policy.

Trade obsolete strat: To any sucker that will take it and for whatever profit I can get. They all haggle with me viciously enough that I feel no guilt at all taking whatever trade advantage I can arrange.

And one variant that no one has mentioned so far...

Trade strat that enables an empire to build railroads: No. Nyet. Not gonna do it. Not gonna go there. I don't care how good a friend my trade partner may be, they can stay a poor friend. This is because they may someday be an enemy. In fact, I bet they are plotting against me right now, even as I type.

[Barinthus]

Those backstabbing ******!

In my current epic game, there are 16 civs and my empire is so huge that I border on about 7 civs. The rest are far away.

I noticed that tech research has not been going good so I decided to trade away techs to speed up the research. So basically I'd trade techs with distant civs and I'd trade luxuries with neighbors to keep them from attacking me. Except for that one I plan to invade sometime soon .

[Solomwi]

In the right situation, I'll trade coal to a civ I plan on absorbing soon, so that they can help me build my railroads in the newly conquered territory.

[Barinthus]

That actually made me giggle, the brilliance of it

[joncnunn]

Actually, if the AI has lots of gold and the resource allows new units that existing ones can be upgraded to, one turn may be all they need to upgrade their army and then attack you to seize the resource for themselves.

[theDragon]

Thanks guys. Yeh so the update is that I landed in Alaska, jacked the Oil field there, and the Iroquois have that ONE OIL field in upper Africa that my Culture should steal soon enough. So pretty soon, the Oil Count will be:

GREECE:1
RUSSIA:1
ENGLAND:1
BABYLON:1
ZULU:0
FRANCE:0
CHINA:0
GERMANY:0
INDIA:0
EGYPT:0
AZTECS:0
AMERICA:0
JAPAN:0
IROQIOUS:1 (soon to be mine)
ME:5

Unfortunately, I have no Rubber however, so I've been trading with Egypt for it lately. But there are two questions I have to ask ya'll:

1) Which is more of a Strategic Resource to control: Oil or Rubber?

2) If War is pressed upon me or if I invade someone else, should I sell/give out Oil to allies or to gain allies?

Thanks for the input, you guys rock!

[Arrian]

1) You really want to have both of those.

From Civfanatics:

Oil 0/1/2 (Refining) - Paratrooper, Mech Infantry, all tanks, Transport, Carrier, Submarine, Destroyer, Battleship, and all air units

Rubber 0/0/2 (Replaceable Parts) - Infantry, Paratrooper, Marines, Mech Infantry, all tanks, Helicopter

In order to field a good industrial or modern age military, you need both.

2) Depends on how badly you need the help. One of the first lessons I learned in CivIII was that giving an ally resources = giving a potential future enemy resources. If you do feel you need an ally or two to take the heat off of you (for a short while, until you are in position to do some real damage), then maybe dish it out to a couple of far-off civs (preferable far away but on the same continent. This may distract your enemy). If you think you must have strong allies in order to survive, well then it's a no-brainer. Sell to anyone who will take it.

-Arrian