Price of Techs, Resources, Cities

[Kinniken]

I'm new to Civ3 (deep in my first game, a massive one with 16 civs) and one thing annoys me: I never know what price I should ask/offer other civs against technologies, resources or even cities
In a game versus 15 other civs, diplomacy is even more important than usual, so I would realy appreciate help there =)
Oh, and if it helps I am running an unpatched mac version (1.16f), which must correspond to the first PC patch.

[Salvor]

There are a lot of variables involved, so there's no pat answer to that. Most important is how or whether you plan to maintain relations with that civ over the next 20 turns.

Since you're starting out, you can get a good feel for what they're willing to pay by asking them to make you an offer. You don't have to accept, you can incrementally add to it, and by experiment find out the max they're willing to spend.

Also, don't attempt trades that involve cities, unless it's part of a peace offering. They won't trade cities. This was taken out in the last patch to remove an exploit. There are some vague references to trade tweaks in 1.17f, but it's not clear whether a robust replacment of the city-trade is included.

Edit: I misspoke about 1.17f. There's nothing about tweaks to AI trades in the readme. I think I must have misread the line about selling improvements.

[Bautou]

>I never know what price I should ask/offer other civs against technologies, resources or even cities

Just look at the Foreign Advisor in the top right-hand corner of the diplomacy screen, he'll tell you how the other civ will react to your offer before you even offer it (I wonder if he knows JoJo?). Using him, you can fine tune your offer until you get to the edge where "Acceptable" turns into "Very Close", therefore ensuring that you get the best deal possible.

The only time you might not want to use your telepathic friend to drive a hard bargain is when you want to improve your relations with the other civ. In which case, offer them way less than they're willing to pay and their opinion of you should rise. You can also jump from civ to civ to see who will give you the most for your whatever this way too.

[Zachriel]

Sell all techs which are not of immediate strategic significance. For instance, delay selling the tank tech, or industrialization.

Sell on your own turn and offer the tech to all civs on the same turn. If they are rich and powerful they will normally offer a lot for techs like currency or magnetism. If they are weak sell it to them anyway. This will irritate their more powerful neighbors and keep them in the game longer. Soak the rich and give to the poor. This is a corollary to the divide and conquer strategy. Keep your opponents evenly matched and at war, while you gobble up your immediate neighbors.

[Pyrodrew]

Ask Them

1 good way to know where to start is to ASK them what they would give for xxxx tech or xxxx resource. From here you can start to haggle to get better deals for yourself OR give them more if you're feeling generous & want to try to improve relations. By asking them what they would give for xxxx can often result in MUCH better trades than you expect or could get yourself even if you offered the same thing.

[Hywel Dda]

One time to always be bold in your demands is when making peace (especially if you were winning and they're the ones asking for peace).

The computer usually tries to hoodwink you into paying for peace when in fact it's ready to give you all its techs, workers, gold, resources and even a city or two, so ignore any initial offer and start your demands high.