Scaring the A.I

[GePap]

For the most part the Civ3 A.I. is far better not only than the Civ2 (duh) but also in many ways better than SMAC's (specially at war). At the same time, it has a warped sense of priorites and strengths. When talking to other leadres, my adviser tells me how in awe they are of my culture, tech, and power. Well, if they are in such awe, why do they make crappy deals or fail to realize sometimes when things are not going to go their way? The bab's built a city close to my capitol, right smack in the middle of my continent. No safe passage agreement, so they could get to reinforcement to it. I got sick of it and marched a huge army right up to it. I was then nice and offered things for this city (even thought i had the force to take it, no problem) just to keep things civil- do they take the sweet deal? No. So then i threaten, telling them to do it or else. Do they listen? No. In the war that followed I took 6 cities and crushed many an army- all because they would not surrender one single city they could not have ever kept, even after i was nice! The A.I. needs to know fear (like we do) and sometimes do what is trully in their best interest.
2 side notes: Why would a civ not want to trade one luxury it lacks for one I lack? We both gain in such a deal so why oppose it? Again, ignoring self interest.
One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

[monkspider]

Re: Scaring the A.I

Originally posted by GePap
All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

Well put, I agree with your points completely, it would be wonderful if Firaxis implements this in a patch, and well they should!

[Pyrodrew]

Re: Scaring the A.I

Originally posted by GePap
2 side notes: Why would a civ not want to trade one luxury it lacks for one I lack? We both gain in such a deal so why oppose it? Again, ignoring self interest.

1st, a civ with 10 cities benefits less from a 1-1 luxury trade than a civ with 30 cities does. Thus the smaller civ is right to ask for a better deal than a 1-1 luxury trade.

2nd, a civ might not like you.

3rd, if a civ is technologically further behind than you are a 1-1 luxury trade will again help you out more than them. 1 more extra happy citizen often leads to better production... this allows you to build 1 more tank... but him only 1 more rifleman.

One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

You just need MUCH more gold rocks. I don't know the amount of yellow rocks you offered for his black rocks, but black rocks generally will help you more than the gold rocks will help him. The AI shouldn't be in the game to make a small profit... it should be playing to win & if preventing you from having railroads & strategic units do that... so be it.

Finally, since nothing is perfect I'm glad Firaxis decided to make the AI more of a tough negotiator rather than a spineless yes man.

[oriel94]

I agree completely with the 'gold for black goo' point. The AI should jump at that (gee, is that human player nuts, or what?)

As for driving hard bargains (eg wanting two luxuries in exchange for one), perhaps the AI is being smarter than we think. Quite often, I'm inclined to trade on their harsh terms because I desperately need to make my citizens happy. Does the AI know this?

[GePap]

To the main point

I am glad to be stimulating debate with my extra notes but I also would like to get comments on my main point.

To pyrodrew:
You make a very good point on the luxury trading bit, but not on the other one. Remember, trade deals last only 20 turns so in those twenty turns the A.I. is getting gold (which they are always short in supply) for something it yet has no way of exploiting while at the same time retaining the ability to cancel the deal later, especially after it can exploit it. If a player is trying to make the deal it is because they are being nice and did not decide to get the resource by force. In such a situation it is very much in the interest of the A.I. to trade because:

1. It prevents war, which drains the treasury.
2. The A.I, really get something for nothing and has the ability to cancel later (lets be honest, many times it will take far more than 20 turns for the A.I. to catch up to you in tech, enabling it to exploit the resource itself)
3. I never said it would be cheap. If we were talking about oil, coal, aluminium, or uranium, most players would be willing to pay a very high amount for it. What I decry is that i can't even try to make the deal in the first place.

[BigNick]

Re: Scaring the A.I

Originally posted by GePap
One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

Think of it as them asking you why you want the black, shiny rocks. They won't trade it to you without you telling them why you want it, and as soon as you tell them, it suddenly has a value to them.

[GePap]

If they Ask

My great god, Bubula, eats the rocks and if he is ever hungry, he will smite my land
Does anyone ahve any better lies to tell the A.I.?

[Mike4879]

Re: Scaring the A.I

Originally posted by GePap
The A.I. needs to know fear (like we do) and sometimes do what is trully in their best interest.

In one game I used ICBMs against a single civilization, crushing basically every city in their civilization, and they still would not surrender, and they had no atomic weapons whatsoever.

[oriel94]

In one game I used ICBMs against a single civilization, crushing basically every city in their civilization, and they still would not surrender, and they had no atomic weapons whatsoever.

Damn their stubborn national pride! Just goes to show how a people can behave without soccer moms.

[Pyrodrew]

About That

Originally posted by GePap
To pyrodrew:
You make a very good point on the luxury trading bit, but not on the other one. Remember, trade deals last only 20 turns so in those twenty turns the A.I. is getting gold (which they are always short in supply) for something it yet has no way of exploiting while at the same time retaining the ability to cancel the deal later, especially after it can exploit it. If a player is trying to make the deal it is because they are being nice and did not decide to get the resource by force. In such a situation it is very much in the interest of the A.I. to trade because:

1. It prevents war, which drains the treasury.
2. The A.I, really get something for nothing and has the ability to cancel later (lets be honest, many times it will take far more than 20 turns for the A.I. to catch up to you in tech, enabling it to exploit the resource itself)
3. I never said it would be cheap. If we were talking about oil, coal, aluminium, or uranium, most players would be willing to pay a very high amount for it. What I decry is that i can't even try to make the deal in the first place.

The Egyptians have over 800 gold in my current game, so they are not always in short supply. The AI will trade coal it just needs another rare resource in return or a substancial offer of gold to compensate. Again, I don't know how much gold you offered nor the current situation, so it's hard for me to say whether the AI did the right thing. Same goes with the war situation - it depends on everyone's current situation... current wars, current treasury, tech knowledge, reputations, each civ's history, growth opportunities, military strengths, mutual protections, etc. Does the AI take all this into account - no idea, but more than just "gold = good" should be considered. The AI isn't getting "something for nothing" since it's trading away it's highly valued limited coal supply & it's losing it's coal advantage it has over you.

Gold isn't as benefitial as other things it could receive. Gold can be used to increase science %, but from what I recall from Soren is the AI cannot adjust it's science % & if it can... going from 16 turns to 12 turns is very weak compared to getting a tech instantly. Gold can increase it's military, but if it's not at war (which sounded like the case) that's not necessary. Gold can rush productions, but that's VERY expensive AND only if the AI is the right government type... and do we know for sure if the AI is smart enough to rush production? The only other thing Gold is good for is at the negotiating table... but the AI's Hoard of Coal or Oil is a MUCH stronger bargaining chip than... some yellow rocks.

Finally, and most importantly, game-wise is it is better for the AI to err on asking too much rather than for asking too little.

[Frito]

Agreed. I'm my last game I had to pay over 60 gold/turn for iron...but that was on diety and I'm sure it depends on the difficulty level your playing on.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by Frito
Agreed. I'm my last game I had to pay over 60 gold/turn for iron...but that was on diety and I'm sure it depends on the difficulty level your playing on.

The AI is much more resistant to accepting trades at higher levels.

[GePap]

What supply?

The point of my argument is to allow the A.I. to trade resources it CAN'T yet use. Until I get steam power, I don't even KNOW if I have a coal supply, and neither does the A.I. Until the necessary tech is found, the A.I. has NO USE whatsoever for this resource, so we can't claim to be depriving it of anything. Let say a friendly A.I. came to you soon after you reach industrial age and asks for something you don't see (aluminuim) and offers 70 gold per turn. You can't yet use aluminium for anything, but you can definitely use 70 gold per turn. Would you turn them down? Perhaps if you are afraid they might use that alimunium on you, but of course at the same time, these friends of yours might disapprove of your stinginess and decide to take this thing you CAN'T SEE or USE by force, meaning the loss of treasure, perhaps cities. Based on simple, selfish reasoning, taking into account the possible harm the enemy may be able to do to you (thus returning to my initial point), it would make much sense to get 1400 gold over 20 turns (the lenght of deals) for something you CAN'T yet USE while at the same time avoiding war.

[Badtz Maru]

You have to realize that if they don't know what the resource is, they don't know how to harvest it. Aluminum isn't just something you pull out of the ground and use, you have to extract it from the ore. You aren't paying the AI for the right to go mine it yourself, you are paying them for the finished product, which they can't produce if they don't know anything about it. Also, if some advanced alien civilization came to Earth and offered us huge amounts of money for some ore we didn't even know about and had no idea how to use, do you think we would sell it? I think instead we would start researching the hell out of it to figure out why they wanted it so much.

[GePap]

I'd sell

If a civilization that advaced came here and asked for something, i would sell in a heartbeat. A Civ so advanced could probably wipe us out easily, so if they are offering to pay, they are being nice as hell- better take advantage of that quick before we make them angry- which was the original point of this thread. Sometimes others make 'offers you can't refuse' so why refuse and risk destruction? It makes no sense to try to defend the undefensible(is that a word?) while risking everything in the process, which is something the A.I. does all too often.

Besides, none of the strategic resources are finished products, they are the things needed to make a finished product. As such, yes, they could be exploited by a civ, mining them,while not knowing their use.