Adam Smith Foundation: Profitable Mapwhoring Project

[Shiber]

I would like to propose the following trade:

(See final plan at bottom)

Sell WM to Rome for 8 gold.
Sell WM to America for 4 gold.
Sell WM to Aztecs for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Iroquois for 11 gold.
Sell WM to France for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Germany for 6 gold.
Sell WM to England for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Russia for 7 gold.
Sell WM to Persia for 6 gold.
Sell TM to Greece for 1 gold (they offer the same for WM).

Treasury before trade: 234 gold.
Treasury after trade: 298 gold (+64).

Possible alterations:
* Not sell WM to the Iroquois for 11 gold in favor of selling them currency for 25 gold (all the money they have left).
* Trade WM for WM with Babylon (they have no money to spare I'm afraid) and trade WM with Germany for 5 gold + their WM and then conduct all the other trades. Our WM will probably be worth a few more gold pieces then and we'll be able to get more money in exchange for it from the other civs.

NOTE: By doing so we are not revealing much of our territory. We've traded world maps or territory maps with every known civ at least once. True, some don't have our latest territory map and we'll be updating their information about our territory, but it's not like we have any reason to worry about England finding out where Memphis and Loveshack are. Basically all the other civs already know the vital information about our territory so we're virtually trading with information about other civs' territories here.

Future note (thanks for adaMada): we should be very careful about trading maps once we begin to explore Uber Isle (that is, if we find out that it's actually an island worth settling).

My thanks go out to Aggie for giving me the idea to research this when he mentioned that the Iroquois will pay 11 gold for our WM.

LATEST PLAN (following suggestions and new ideas)

Phase one (increasing the value of our WM)
-----
* Trade WM for WM with Babylon.
* Sell TM to Greece for WM + 4g (we pay).

Phase two (prices marked with * are expected to grow as a result of phase one)
-----
Sell WM to Rome for 8 gold. *
Sell WM to America for 4 gold. *
Sell WM to Aztecs for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Iroquois for 11 gold. *
Sell WM to France for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Germany for 6 gold.
Sell WM to England for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Russia for 7 gold. *
Sell WM to Persia for 6 gold. *

Minimum profit: 63 gold.
Assuming that each civ (except Germany, whose treasury consists of the mere 6 gold that we'll take from them anyway) will pay +4 gold after we combine Greece's map with ours (based on Spiffor's tip), we'll make a total of 95 gold.

[Aggie]

I agree whole heartedly except lets trade greece our tm they will give the same for it.
Aggie

[adaMada]

Wow. That much for the World Map that everyone already has? Congradulations on another brillent idea Shiber.

Let's do it (with the Iraquois, Babylon, and Germany modification)!

-- adaMada

Edit: I'm right in assuming we've given our TM away at least once before, right?

[Shiber]

Yes you are.
In effect, we are trading off information about other civs' territories.

[Sheik]

This looks like a good idea. We should probably sell our world map to the Iroquois because another AI will probably give it to them if we don't.

[adaMada]

Yea, once one civ has your TM, you might as well trade away until they've all got it. Awsome idea, though, to trade on this sort of mass scale!

We should be careful about trading TM and WM once we've actually 'seen' Uber Isle, though.

-- adaMada

[MrWhereItsAt]

Ah, the AI already knows where everything is - that's how their cities predict future resources so well.

But if we can get money off of them for stuff they already know - you won't hear any objections from me.

El Presidente
MrWIA

[adaMada]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Ah, the AI already knows where everything is - that's how their cities predict future resources so well.

But if we can get money off of them for stuff they already know - you won't hear any objections from me.

El Presidente
MrWIA

Yea, I know that, BUT they can't (by their programming) settle a location they don't "know" about -- so, when we get Uber Island, we'll have to be veryy careful that we don't wind up letting them know about it before we totally colonize it.

-- adaMada

[Shiber]

You're right! It's a good thing you've mentioned that.
I'm adding this to my report.
And thanks for all the compliments.

[Kloreep]

Great plan.

I think I'll vote against the currency trade now. No reason to sell a tech for a measly 14 gold.

[Apocalypse]

As Minister of Science, I suppose mapwhoring. We need money to buy techs

[Vlad Antlerkov]

The unintelligence of the AI never ceases to amaze.

Unless they lack a map of the island, the only things that benefit will be our pockets.

[Spiffor]

SHiber : a flawless plan, as often. Go for it !

[adaMada]

Has anyone noticed the Greeks have reached their island? brings up a very good point, which we can help as part of this plan... when we do our massive trade, we should get an updated version of the Greek's TM assuming we don't already have one that's very up to date (even if it costs us a bit of money) -- we've got to know what they're doing on their island.

As such, if this trade takes place enough turns after our previous buy of the Greek's TM, we should change the plan to buy the Greek's map, I think.

-- adaMada

[Donal Graeme]

I officially support this plan of action, and send it to the President for approval. Anything that gets us money will be good, and the fact we don't really lose anything makes it even better. And a chance to learn more about the Greek territory, including their island, would be important.