Trading Absurdity

[Harovan]

Re: Trading Absurdity

Originally posted by Theseus
For the hell of it, I offered:
Iron
Saltpeter
Coal
Oil
Rubber
Wines
Furs
Dyes
Incense

He still said no!!

The value of luxuries, converted to gold (which is the base of all calculations), increases with population. If Alex has only 2 cities left, he has less citizens to supply and your ressources are worth much less than if you offer the same to a civ with 20 cities. That's how the trade system works. You can use it to your benefit. Offer your scarce luxuries and ressources to the civs with more citizens and renegotiate the deals after 20 turns if you feel, that his/her # of citizens increased.

[Spiffor]

Theseus :
Maybe you have a bad reputation, and are known to break treaties (it happened to me for a whole game after an ancient sneak attack). Then I suppose the AI doesn't give any trust to you when you trade on a per-turn basis... I think it fears you cancel the treaty one or two turns after.
OR : the AI now doesn't understand it's possible to exchange lump for per-turn.

[notyoueither]

I have to agree Spiffor. In my current game an AI is willing to trade me Replaceable Parts for Spices, Wines and 25 gpt.

I have not broken any agreements. I have not declared war on any AI while I had forces inside it's territory. I am Mister Clean.

But thay all still show they are furious with me. It's the first game I've ever seen that. They ask for ROP and MPP. I say OK to ROP. They still hate me??? Oh well. It hasn't effected the diplomacy that I have noticed.

[Dominae]

I agree with cyclotron7 (and others voicing the same opinion): refusing the offer in this case is the "right play" by the AI.

If this were multiplayer, and I had two cities left, I would never give away an advanced tech (Rocketry being the most important tech in the Modern age...) for anything short of a batallion ready to dig me out of the hole I'm in.

The fact that these "extreme trades" seem ludicrous is that the human player expects the AI to give them something every time an offer is made. The fact that the AI is hard-coded (actually, I don't know if this is a fact or not) to reject any trade under certain circumstances is a commendable game feature.

The fact that that AI is sometimes unwilling to give in is not "stupid", it is simply inconvenient for the human player.


Dominae

[Harovan]

I must disagree with cyclotron7. The AI isn't that smart. I just had a game, where I saw an American sneak attack force approach, at the end of the ancient age. It was too late to block them, and I knew that it would be useless to ask him to leave. So I contacted Abe and bought Monarchy for 25 gold per turn. He attacked the next turn anyway, and I had the tech practically for free.

[Bella Hella]

i can almost always get techs if i just offer gold. that's the only sure-fire way i've experienced of getting techs. you just have to have a lot of dough. *shrug*

[Dominae]

I'm not trying to defend the AI in general, just the AI's play in Theseus' example. There's simply no reason for a 2-city civ to want 8 luxuries and a couple of outdated strategic resources ("No, we don't need any Iron; our Infantry wouldn't know what to do with it anyway..."). This is especially true if the human player is gaining a permanent asset (Rocketry), while the AI will probably be wiped out the next turn anyway.

Edit: It seems I've bent Theseus' example to support my argument. However, I think my point is still valid.

Dominae

[Yolky]

I'm suprised nobody said this.

If youi can't reach rocketry yet, you wouldn't be able to get it. You have to have the prerequistes first to enamble to trade it.

Davor

[ahenobarb]

Infantile "Diplomacy"

Not to bother you with the gory details of a game, I had. here are the highlights:

Huge map, 9 civs

Never had even a battle with another civ, only barbarians.

traded tech freely

shared resources

built up inferior civs with generous gifts

All civs in the game are Polite to me

going for cultural victory

"compared to these guys we have a stong military"

it's 1864

The Romans, who share a border, I had been sheparding through through the game: We want a MPP, or die!

Sure, whatever. I give it to them.

next turn: Romans DECLARE WAR!!!

next turn: 15 of 35-40 Romans cities fall to me, Rome won't negotiate peace (Heck I don't even want their cities)

Next turn: 7 cities, refuse to acknowledge envoy

next tuen: 7 cities, refuse to acknowledge envoy

next turn: all remaining cities but one, refuse to ackowledge envoy (I'm a democracy so I'm starting to get war wariness)

next turn: Romans are dead, solves my war wariness problem


Q: On what scale of logic does it make any sense for the Romans to attack me. I have been their patron through the entire game. I thought someone else had instigated them, but everyone is polite and as I said I never even fought anybody. I had 2x the cities as the romans and 175+ cavalry, the romans had nothing comparable.

What's up with that?

[Dominae]

In "realistic" terms, you could explain the AI's behaviour as "wanting a share of the pie". Although it goes against most sound strategy, it's sometimes difficult not to target the most successful/wealthy civ around before the weaker ones.

In the Industrial era, in order to eventually ensure a nice lead in the space race, I'll often attack the strongest AI civ (and try to bring as many other civs into the battle as possible, via MPPs) just to force them to focus on military rather than science and economy. Usually I'll end up with an extra couple of luxuries, some nice peace negotation spoils, and a few nice new cities. These wouldn't be present if I simply beat up on the poor Zulus.

It's pretty clear I'll do this whether the strongest AI has been nice to me over the ages or not; strategically it's a good decision, so I stab them in the back (yeah, I've got no honour...it wins me games).

The real problem in your example is that the Romans failed in their grab for power (which, incidentally, does happen in real life). Also, I must concur that there is a problem with the AI not knowing when to stop it's warmongering ways; as the Romans were getting beaten pretty handily, they should have realised peace was the better option at some point.


Dominae

[ahenobarb]

I guess they had the best chance going for me, since i was closest but sheesh!

I think Civ III is programmed so that wars have to go on for 5 turns or something before they can end. In which case, Rome might have wanted to take that into consideration.

I really wanted to see if I could go a whole game without fighting anybody (you outta get extra points on your score for that), but I guess it goes to show there's no prize among nations for being the nicest.

[Kc7mxo]

I was playing a game the other day as the Persians, 7 civs, standard map, two continents.

i'd conquered the zulu empire so i had about twice the territory of anyone else. my culture was shooting up, and was twice the size of my neareast opposition.

near the end of the game i'd siezed most of the strategic and luxury resources, but the Germans and the English had their little out of hte way continent nicely contained, so i tried to trade.

Mr Bismarck wanted 3 luxuries, and more than a thousand gold pieces for ONE of his damn luxuries.

so I ICMB'd his butt after launching my spaceship.

How do you like THAT trade Otto?

[Harovan]

Didn't you notice yet, that the AI is willing to pay the more for your luxuries, the more citizens it has. That's the reason, why you often can negotiate better prices for your luxury sales every 20 turns, because the AI civ has grown. This has nothing to do with "it can afford more", a civ with less citizens can be rich too. The value of resources/luxuries grows with the number of citizens you can supply/make happy.

Now back to Alex: Theseus' Japan is much bigger than Alexanders Greece. For Greece, resources and luxuries aren't worth much converted to gold, because he has not much citizens. Theseus has to pay Alexander's prices, and, because Alex doesn't evaluate luxuries very high due to less citizens, Theseus failed. If Greece was the same size like Theseus, I'm sure 2 luxuries or 1 resource would be enough.

For the AI, prices depend on the number of citizens. I noticed this many times in my games.

[Dominae]

ahenobarb, you can go the whole game without fighting anybody. I've done it (especially easy in an OCC game...I think they dislike you if you're militarily superior to them). However, there is not sure-fire way to play an entirely peaceful game in Civ3, which is a good thing.

Didn't you know? AI civs that declare war on you out of nowhere is part of the fun! Seriously now, peaceful games should be a rarity because they're boring; the AI is designed around this fact.


Dominae

[Dominae]

What Sir Ralph says makes a lot of sense. Perhaps the best explanation of what was going on in Theseus' game.


Dominae