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Originally posted by Analyst Redux
Soren, in evaluating the situations in this thread on a case by case basis, I think you are missing the forest for the trees. Explaining away each individual tree doesn't make the forest go away.
A very typical scenario post-patch: you uncover a civ that, for whatever reason (typically, because it started on an island, by itself, with lousy land), lacks contact with other civs and is technologically backwards. You sell it as much as you can, but at a certain point, that civ has no gold, no techs, no g/p/t, nothing left to trade with. You sell it contact with some civs, but not all. You see by the lists that you still have several techs and contacts that the poor civ hasn't even a single gold left to purchase.
If you go back to that civ just a 2-3 turns later, it's got everything you didn't deal to it: all the contacts, all the techs, and probably one or two that you've never been able to pry from other civs because they were demanding an outrageous price.
Posit all the hypotheticals you like (presumably, this horribly backward civ didn't wait for me to come calling to pop all of its huts), but this backward civ didn't suddenly come up with all the valuables it needed to aquire everything in a few turns. This doesn't happen so consistently and constantly without a severely stacked deck. If the other civs aren't giving it away, then the price is so nominal, compared to what they expect to charge me, that the difference between that price and free can't be much. Explaining it away won't make me feel better about seeing it happen every game.
Much as I hate this, I can't bring myself to uninstall the patch. The improvements made to the worker automation, i.e. no more chasing around after pollution, are worth their weight in gold, platinum, mithril, dilitium crystals (insert your fictional item of infinite value here). I can't bear to give those up and go back to end of game tedium in micromanaging 100+ workers because they can't be trusted. But this radical change (make no mistake, it is a radical alteration to the flow of the game) in AI-to-AI trading behavior is a heavy price to take in exchange.
To all (including Soren): My observation is that this problem is dramatically alleviated once the Republic tech advance gets passed around and AIs start adopting it. AIs that are Republics generate a lot more cash, giving you a lot more overhead to work with in gold-per-turn deals. For whatever reason, the AI also values g/p/t strangely. I can't count the number of times an AI with a healthy gold reserve refused to pay 40 gold for something, but happily paid 2gpt for it. Lots of players post that they wheel and deal their way out of a backward tech position during the midieval era. I submit that this is because the widespread adoption of the Republic, and the ability to milk the AI civs for gpt, is what levels the playing field for humans in trading with the AI.
Until you cross that threshold, however, there is just no such thing as a peaceful strategy on the upper difficulty levels. The ancient era is the era of the horseman. The peer-to-peer AI tech trading makes ancient era research a one-against-seven proposition. Actually, it's much worse, as the AI research bonuses, combined with their skewed value of a tech when trading it to you vs trading it to each other (which, of course, is based on the reasearch bonus) pretty much gurantees that trying to peacefully trade/research your way to victory on Emporer/Deity level is aking to trying to crawl out of an ant lion pit. The harder you try, the faster you slide.
The odds of getting what you want at the point of a horseman's lance are a great deal more sporting than that. It's just that a strategy game seems like it ought to have more, well, strategy. Until this patch, it did.
Soren, in evaluating the situations in this thread on a case by case basis, I think you are missing the forest for the trees. Explaining away each individual tree doesn't make the forest go away.
A very typical scenario post-patch: you uncover a civ that, for whatever reason (typically, because it started on an island, by itself, with lousy land), lacks contact with other civs and is technologically backwards. You sell it as much as you can, but at a certain point, that civ has no gold, no techs, no g/p/t, nothing left to trade with. You sell it contact with some civs, but not all. You see by the lists that you still have several techs and contacts that the poor civ hasn't even a single gold left to purchase.
If you go back to that civ just a 2-3 turns later, it's got everything you didn't deal to it: all the contacts, all the techs, and probably one or two that you've never been able to pry from other civs because they were demanding an outrageous price.
Posit all the hypotheticals you like (presumably, this horribly backward civ didn't wait for me to come calling to pop all of its huts), but this backward civ didn't suddenly come up with all the valuables it needed to aquire everything in a few turns. This doesn't happen so consistently and constantly without a severely stacked deck. If the other civs aren't giving it away, then the price is so nominal, compared to what they expect to charge me, that the difference between that price and free can't be much. Explaining it away won't make me feel better about seeing it happen every game.
Much as I hate this, I can't bring myself to uninstall the patch. The improvements made to the worker automation, i.e. no more chasing around after pollution, are worth their weight in gold, platinum, mithril, dilitium crystals (insert your fictional item of infinite value here). I can't bear to give those up and go back to end of game tedium in micromanaging 100+ workers because they can't be trusted. But this radical change (make no mistake, it is a radical alteration to the flow of the game) in AI-to-AI trading behavior is a heavy price to take in exchange.
To all (including Soren): My observation is that this problem is dramatically alleviated once the Republic tech advance gets passed around and AIs start adopting it. AIs that are Republics generate a lot more cash, giving you a lot more overhead to work with in gold-per-turn deals. For whatever reason, the AI also values g/p/t strangely. I can't count the number of times an AI with a healthy gold reserve refused to pay 40 gold for something, but happily paid 2gpt for it. Lots of players post that they wheel and deal their way out of a backward tech position during the midieval era. I submit that this is because the widespread adoption of the Republic, and the ability to milk the AI civs for gpt, is what levels the playing field for humans in trading with the AI.
Until you cross that threshold, however, there is just no such thing as a peaceful strategy on the upper difficulty levels. The ancient era is the era of the horseman. The peer-to-peer AI tech trading makes ancient era research a one-against-seven proposition. Actually, it's much worse, as the AI research bonuses, combined with their skewed value of a tech when trading it to you vs trading it to each other (which, of course, is based on the reasearch bonus) pretty much gurantees that trying to peacefully trade/research your way to victory on Emporer/Deity level is aking to trying to crawl out of an ant lion pit. The harder you try, the faster you slide.
The odds of getting what you want at the point of a horseman's lance are a great deal more sporting than that. It's just that a strategy game seems like it ought to have more, well, strategy. Until this patch, it did.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the game balance has shifted, but it is still balanced because it is still based on game rules. The AI is not just tossing techs to each other to screw over the human. I could have done that if I wanted to under the guise of "tribute" or whatever, but I decided that that would be unfair to the player.
Because the system is still based on rules, it is still beatable using that rule-set. Try using the tech-scaling to your advantage by raising your science rate as high as possible and ignoring one section of the tech tree to burrow straight to Republic or Monarchy or Construction. Then, sell your techs off to everyone for cash to purchase the now-highly-discounted techs you previously ignored. Or pick an exploration civ, build 3 or 4 scouts and a couple galleys and sell your world map to everyone, providing you with a source of income and preventing them from using their maps as leverage. Do everything in your power to keep civs from contacting each other to keep tech costs high. Aggressively trade off your luxuries and resources to keep the money flowing out of their treasuries so that they have less gold to buy techs. Build the Great Library... or just research the militaristic techs and go capture it. Use your imagination.
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