Technology Leader .... What's the point? (rant)

[rothomp3]

According to information posted by Soren (I think) back when the game first came out, the AI can not tell the difference between the human player and other AIs. He implied this would not change, and probably could not be changed. This tells me that the AI is, in fact, offering the same kinds of trades to each other as it/they offer to you. But as someone else pointed out, there is a certain amount of bargaining you can do, you do not have to accept the initial absurd offer. It's like you make an offer, it makes a counter-offer, then you counter-offer, etc. Clearly the AI does this between itself as well.

later,
rothomp3

[Azrikam]

According to information posted by Soren (I think) back when the game first came out, the AI can not tell the difference between the human player and other AIs. He implied this would not change, and probably could not be changed. This tells me that the AI is, in fact, offering the same kinds of trades to each other as it/they offer to you. But as someone else pointed out, there is a certain amount of bargaining you can do, you do not have to accept the initial absurd offer. It's like you make an offer, it makes a counter-offer, then you counter-offer, etc. Clearly the AI does this between itself as well.

If this is the case, then the AI MUST be willing negotiate, or they would never trade amongst themselves. Admittedly, I haven't played the game, so I'm only going by the information on the boards, so I'll be the first to admit that I could be off-base.

It does seem strange that Firaxis wanted to make the game less military-oriented, but from what I'm hearing, has done the opposite.

[Technoron]

You ask the AI for something, the AI will ask for ridiculous things back, initially.

Remove 2 or 3 of the 4 techs he was asking for. He'll probably still accept.

Uh. Yeah. Four techs plus cash for iron working was AFTER I'd talked 'em down. Cripes. Give a guy some credit.

According to information posted by Soren (I think) back when the game first came out, the AI can not tell the difference between the human player and other AIs. He implied this would not change, and probably could not be changed. This tells me that the AI is, in fact, offering the same kinds of trades to each other as it/they offer to you. But as someone else pointed out, there is a certain amount of bargaining you can do, you do not have to accept the initial absurd offer. It's like you make an offer, it makes a counter-offer, then you counter-offer, etc. Clearly the AI does this between itself as well.

First off, the AI does NOT make counter offers. All counter offers are created by the human player.

Second, as an extension of the first, there is NO bargaining. THE AI DOES NOT BARGAIN (nor does Tommy Lee Jones). It calculates the absolute minimum it will accept and then asks for more. The player is then tasked with either attempting to find that minimum value or simply going to the cleaners.

Third, if the AI cannot distinguish itself from me and offers the same trades to itself as it does to me, well, that means that the AI is offering itself worthless maps in exchange for high end techs. And, apparently, it actually ACCEPTS those offers. I can think of no other way for a puny civ with no territory or resources to keep up in the tech race (and somehow they always do). "Hey guys! I just reconned an new square! wanna trade its location for some shiny new techs?"

I've got some major issues with how the AI tosses around techs (including wonder-bearing techs) like they're confetti at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The way "challenge" is being created with the tech free-for-all takes me back to the day I was playing original Civ and the Indian capitol finished Pyramids and Colossus in back-to-back turns. (Original Civ AI never actually built wonders, they were simply "awarded" if a die roll was made.)

Sure would be nice if the AI's proclivity for blue light tech specials was tempered by the difficulty level.

[Arrian]

You all may want to check out the 1.17 AI vs. AI "trading" thread, also in the General Forum. Soren has posted there (and has specifically indicated that Firaxis is looking closely at the rate of tech advancement - i.e. hitting the Industrial Age in 1000AD), and the debate between those of us who are upset with 1.17 and those that like the changes to AI trading has been going on for some time.

-Arrian

[Technoron]

Originally posted by FireDragon
damn, beaten by 5 minutes. Anyway, methinks this is a case of not trading as intelligently as the computer. On Monarch, I keep up by trading. I view trading as my chance to fleece the computer, not get cheated.

Fleece the computer? The AI KNOWS the value of what is being traded and will NOT trade for less than par. The only thing I've found that comes close to "fleecing" the AI is to start a war with a smaller civ and then extort the hell out of it when it begs for peace.

The computer trades intelligently? With unique tech comes unique advantage. Be first on yer block to field a couple dozen knights and watch the enemy's borders fold back. Get republic a few dozen turns before everyone else and watch the research flow. Be the one to build the Sistine Chapel and the serfs are forever grateful. No AI civ will hold any tech in reserve for any reason or amount of time (like they will in SMAC). The computer does not trade intelligently, rather, it trades INDISCRIMINATELY.

[Calvin Vu]

This is my 2c.

The problem with this is due to two conflicting objectives: 1) reward the first player who gets the tech (instead of the second, normally human, player who buys it and then sells it to the remaing 14 civs, making a tidy profit for himself), and 2) prevent the "The poor gets poorer; the rich gets richer" scenario which compounds the difference and make the outcome of the game obvious by 200 AD.
Methink we can balance these two objectives by adopting the modern concept of "patent" to Civ. The rule can then be made so that only the technological inventor holds the patent to that technology and only he can sell/trade it for a number of turns,say 20 turns. That will help the tech leader to control how many civs (and even exactly which ones will get his tech for the critical "first 20 turns"). If this is adopted then we can change the "tech licensing" price to be much lower than it is right now so that the "technological poor" will have a chance to catch up. The "fair" price may then be calculated as:

FPr = TC / (NOC) + (TC * (NOC/2 - NKC)/NOC)

where:
FPr : full price of the tech license (i.e. price sold
to a Civ which has not yet researched that
tech). This will be proportionally reduced
depending on how far he gets in researching
the tech.
TC : cost of researching that tech.
NOC : Number of Other Civs in the game, not
counting the inventing civ.
NKC : number of civs who already have this tech.

So, using this formular, each tech license will cost a base price of [TC / (NOC)] plus a premium/discount depending on whether you're the first civ who licenses the technology or you're the last one.
With this formula, assuming the inventing civ license his tech to all remaining civs (and assuming all of them have to pay the full price since they have not yet done any research on this tech), then the inventing civ will get the full-price of his tech investment back and he would be the only civ who gets it for free. That would be nice but not as ridiculous as the huge profit due to tech whoring right now. That would also enable alternate strategies such as gold-rushing libraries and universities at the beginning instead of investing in science since the cost of obtaining just the licenses to catch up with the tech is not too ridiculously high.

To make it more interesting, we may not want to disable the sales/trades of techological licenses by the licensees but, instead, allow the inventing civ to declare war in that case and also reduce the likelihood of such "licensing breaker" to obtain another license in the future. That would be a fun choice, methink.

[Whoha]

the ai trades for less then the acceptable value, just drop off 10 or 11 legions on the doorstep of their last city, and im sure you will find that the ai considers a peace treaty worth all of their tech,money,maps,contacts(contact each guy or the ai sells it next turn for whatever it can get, and you get contacted by however many ppl who want to sell you a useless tech you dont give a damn about...)

The whip is still as good as ever when it comes to warfare, The only fix i can think of is the fix applied to nerve stapling in smac/x,whereby nerve stapling becomes increasingly less effective. I think they should just drop the unhappiness penalty(it doesnt hurt builders who rush a temple and it doesnt hurt warmongers who set up temporary cities with taxmen and worker cities) and just have the value in shields from a whip drop, but after a set time pick back up again(during this time NO whipping could happen or it would continue to cause a drop in the value of a hurry sacrafice and a lengthening of the no whip time)