How do trade agreements work?

[Gaius Marius]

Anybody know exactly how trade agreements work? Here's what I'm not sure about:

Lets say I trade Furs to the Indians for Horses. This agreement lasts 20 turns, after which either side can cancel. However, if neither side cancels, the pact continues indefinitely. I get this.

Second case, lets say make peace with the evil Pangeans in exchange for them giving me 5 gold/turn. How long do they give me gold? 20 turns? Until war starts again? What if the deal is that I give them Peace (which they really want) + gems for, say, saltpeter and 5 gold/turn? Do I get the sweetheart deal of saltpeter + 5 gold for gems? Or is this just something the AI will cancel after 20 turns since it sucks so much for them?

Third case, what if I just give the Greeks 5 gold/turn for, say, incense? If neither of us cancels the agreement, after 20 turns, do I keep paying and the Greeks keep supplying my incense fiends?

Finally, what if I give the Pangeans 5 gold/turn for peace, and never cancel the agreement? Am I just paying out the nose in perpetuity unless I manually cancel the agreement?

Basically, it seems like common sense would dictate that gold/turn agreements automatically expire in some situations, and not in others. Can't really tell.

Advice/experience? Anyone know for sure?

Also, anyone know how to rename cities?

[challenge]

Last first:

Right click on city, select rename from menu, type.

As for the rest. I don't know, yet.

[Locus]

Trade agreements automatically run out after 20 turns. You receive a pop up notice when this happens. You have to actually go back to the AI and renegotiate a trade agreement if you so choose to do so.

Trade agreements can be cancelled because of war. I don't know if you can cancel them any other way before the 20 turns are up.

Civ III has an open bargaining system you can make demands of resources, cities, techs, maps, etc in exchange for peace. You can also demand gold and tribute per turn. I am not sure how long a tribute deal would last because I have not tried it. I recall that an AI Civ offered me like 5 gold per turn if I left them alone..don't remember for how long, though.

[Gaius Marius]

I know for sure that you don't have to manually renegotiate after 20 turns. If you go to the diplomacy screen (parlay), and click on active, you will see what agreements are in place. If there are still turns to go before the 20 turn barrier, a number will be next to the agreement. You can cancel it anyway, but not w/o problems. Otherwise, you can cancel it at will. It does not cancel by itself - either you or the other civ have to do so. I have had trade agreements (usually a 1/1 luxury deal with a friendly neighbor civ) last most of the game.

But my confusion on the issues in the first post remains.

Thanks for the help, anyway. Now I can rename all of those stupid Egyptian cities to Roman colonies.

[Gaius Marius]

One more question: Can you have multiple gold per turn deals with the same civ? Lets say I pay the Greeks 5gp/turn for incense, and then they get Transmogrification, which I really want, and I agree to pay them another 20 gold/turn for it. Can I do this? If so, am I now paying 25gp/turn, or does this replace the earlier agreement? Either way, how are the expiration dates affected if there are, say, 5 turns between the two agreements?

Bleah. Sorry I'm so microinterested in this stuff, but I think it needs a good deal more transparency, or at least a 1 paragraph firaxis or expert explanation.

[skink]

From my experience, if you both trade resources or luxury items, a message will say "this agreement can be canceled after 20 turns" (or something similar), but if you trade say a resource for cash, or a technology (i.e., a single-shot item) then the message will instead say "this deal will last 20 turns". So, if you're both trading resources, the trade will continue indefinitely unless canceled. If you trade anything else (cash, tech, maps) it will only last 20 turns and then expire.

[Gaius Marius]

Ahh..very observant of you. I'll have to test this.

[Gaius Marius]

bump

[Stromprophet]

Sofar, all the agreements I've seen are ok. But the computer always wants you to shell out more.

My problem is like in trading luxeries, you can't set the amount to trade, say I have 6 furs, and I want 4 dye, I no longer get the benefit of having those furs to make my citizens happy. That's kind of retarded. Anyone know a way around this?

[Laszlo]

To find out how long your agreements are lasting you can check up on your advisors.

The Trade Advisor will show you what you are currently importing/exporting and the negotiations table shows what excess you have for trading.

Then you can also visit your Domestic Advisor to check on any income from other Civs on your balance sheet.

With that you should be able to tell how long all your trades are lasting for.

[Madine]

Any city can only benefit from one luxury or strategic resource of a certain type.

If you click on the word active towards the bottom of the diplomacy screen, you can see what agreements are currently in effect, which should help you answer your own questions, or at least provide you with the information you need to make intelligent diplomatic choices.

[challenge]

Originally posted by Stromprophet
... say I have 6 furs, and I want 4 dye, I no longer get the benefit of having those furs to make my citizens happy. That's kind of retarded. Anyone know a way around this?

One fur site will supply all your connected cities need. This connection can be road, rail, seaport or airport. All you need of dye to gain it's luxery advantage is one (additionals add nothing). So you can cut trade deals with 5 different cultures for your furs and get something different each time and still save one for the home folk. Try looking at the trade advisor's screen and rtfm section on trade.