Trading Absurdity

[Panag]

Originally posted by Trip
Of course, in this game money is much less valuable than in other games, where you actually have to BUY your units, as well as support them...

hi ,

its possible true the editor , ....

have a nice day

[nato]

As the leader of Prussia in my game of Empires in Arms: A Napoleonic Simulation used to say... "Even 1 dollar (gold) may come in handy later on for situations you don't expect." (I'm France, and consequently beating Prussia, Britain, Austria, and all their minor countries in 1795 too.. just thought I'd add that )

Add up all the time and clicking you do for EVERY trade to get it to just the exact amount of gold necesary.

No game will ever be majorly effected by small change. 1 gold will never really matter in a major way ... I'd rather have the rl time instead.

If you feel that is worth the time of your life for a handful of gold, go for it! But I bet you'd have more time to actually play Civ if you didn't.

[nato]

On second thought I guess I'm in the wrong. Some people are made happy by doing things perfectly and getting the exact most efficiency they can. So for people like that its time well spent.

I guess I'm just a kind of person who would rather spend time on big decisions than micro that might be meaningless, but to each their own!

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by nato
Add up all the time and clicking you do for EVERY trade to get it to just the exact amount of gold necesary.

No game will ever be majorly effected by small change. 1 gold will never really matter in a major way ... I'd rather have the rl time instead.

If you feel that is worth the time of your life for a handful of gold, go for it! But I bet you'd have more time to actually play Civ if you didn't.

Yes, yes I know. That's why I added this on the end of that:

Of course, in this game money is much less valuable than in other games, where you actually have to BUY your units, as well as support them...

[Dominae]

The 3000 gold for 5 gold absurdity (and other variations) comes from the fact that the AI eventually refuses all trades with a civ they have bad relations with. If you've been beating up on the Greeks the whole game, they simply won't accept any trade, no matter how sweet.

Obviously this becomes absurd when you're essentially giving them 2995 gold, which is how the AI views it. What they're saying when they reject this is basically: "We don't want your stinking money, you loathsome pigs!" (or something like that). No human player would do this, but I believe I've explained the logic behind the phenomenon.

An easy fix to this problem is to disable trade proposals in the diplomacy screen if the AI simply doesn't want to trade. There's no use in trying to make a deal when the AI is obviously not cooperating.


Dominae

[Akka]

Originally posted by Dominae
The 3000 gold for 5 gold absurdity (and other variations) comes from the fact that the AI eventually refuses all trades with a civ they have bad relations with. If you've been beating up on the Greeks the whole game, they simply won't accept any trade, no matter how sweet.

Obviously this becomes absurd when you're essentially giving them 2995 gold, which is how the AI views it. What they're saying when they reject this is basically: "We don't want your stinking money, you loathsome pigs!" (or something like that). No human player would do this, but I believe I've explained the logic behind the phenomenon.

An easy fix to this problem is to disable trade proposals in the diplomacy screen if the AI simply doesn't want to trade. There's no use in trying to make a deal when the AI is obviously not cooperating.


Dominae

I disagree. These absurdities comes from the fact that the AI see the trade as relative rather than absolute. What I mean is that it see what you give it compared to what you have, and see what it gives compared to what it have. So if you're an extremely wealthy civ with hundreds of cities and the ennemy is a tiny backward civ with a handful of small cities, basically 3000 golds are less valuable for you than 5 for it.

Of course, it's completely stupid to evaluate any trading on a relative basis. When I will buy something, the price does not change according to my social situation and my actual wealth.
But well, it's not like a bad design decision is surprising

[nato]

That is exactly what I was saying Akka. I was thinking it might be like the luxuries valuing system in reverse. Gold would be considered less valuable to a larger civ.

I wonder whether it is that way, or the way Dominae is saying. There is at least some logic to the gold-is-less-valuable-to-bigger-civs idea ... but if it makes an AI reject 2995 free gold, its just not working. The logic behind the model makes sense, but the results its giving are silly. The last step in creating any model is asking "do the results make sense?"

Dominae's way would make this less a problem. The AI saying "We don't want your stinking money!" is actually kind of cool ... it would be humanlike, rather than the logical optimum choice you would expect a computer to make. If I considered somebody to be monstrously evil, I wouldn't take their money either ... especially if its like blood money.

So if it was a relative value system, I think it is giving bad results. If however, the AI only rejects these things only because you are it's mortal enemy and it has a vendetta with you, thats not a real problem to me.

So I wonder which it is?

[notyoueither]

The whole 'relative to' concept is bull-twattle.

I'm Quwait. OK Sudan, oil is $1 per barrel because your poor and don't have many cars....

Korea? You need a bit don't you? $5...

Japan? Wow look at all that industry. $20...

Hey! Uncle Sam. How you doin? Am I glad to see you. Just for you today you can have a barrel of oil for $500. What a bargain...

How long do you think I last as Quwait before the USMC pays a visit?

[Akka]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The whole 'relative to' concept is bull-twattle.

I'm Quwait. OK Sudan, oil is $1 per barrel because your poor and don't have many cars....

Korea? You need a bit don't you? $5...

Japan? Wow look at all that industry. $20...

Hey! Uncle Sam. How you doin? Am I glad to see you. Just for you today you can have a barrel of oil for $500. What a bargain...

How long do you think I last as Quwait before the USMC pays a visit?

How many times do you think I try to bargain with the AI for its oil/coal/iron/insert your favorite ressource here/ before I'm tired of its constant attempt to rip me off and I understand it's less costly to merely crush it under my foot and take what I need ?

Though, you can notice that I TRY to trade. Though the more I play, the less I trade, knowing that anyway the AI will NEVER trade fair with me (except in the rare cases where it desperatly need a particular tech or ressource).

[nato]

You've got it NYE ... the AI is engaging in price discrimination! The dream of all firms! Charge a different price to each customer ... the price just happening to be exactly the most the customer will pay, thus turning all consumer surplus into producer surplus for the firm.

Maybe we can bring the AI up on some anti trust laws! At this rate, we're gonna need the CTP lawyer unit guy...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Akka le Vil
These absurdities comes from the fact that the AI see the trade as relative rather than absolute.

Akka, your theory could explain things equally well. However, I simply do not see any reasons to favour your theory over mine. In fact, yours seems even less plausible, because (as you said), it is a pretty poor design decision. Furthermore, there are times when I've traded with backwater civs perfectly fairly.

It doesn't seem to me that relative size is the only factor for AI trade behaviour. In my experience, the AI's attitude toward your civ is far more important. If the civ doesn't like you (for whatever reason), don't expect any fair trades (and expect a couple of absurd ones, too!).


Dominae

[player1]

In my OCC games, it was soo easy to buy Oil, rubber and luxuries form AIs.

So CHEAP.

[Akka]

Originally posted by Dominae


Akka, your theory could explain things equally well. However, I simply do not see any reasons to favour your theory over mine. In fact, yours seems even less plausible, because (as you said), it is a pretty poor design decision. Furthermore, there are times when I've traded with backwater civs perfectly fairly.

It doesn't seem to me that relative size is the only factor for AI trade behaviour. In my experience, the AI's attitude toward your civ is far more important. If the civ doesn't like you (for whatever reason), don't expect any fair trades (and expect a couple of absurd ones, too!).


Dominae

Well, I expressed poorly what I meant. I did not wanted to disregard your opinion, I wanted just to insert it into mine
For what I saw until now, the AI compare the value of trade in a relative value. THEN, it modify the value according to relationship : the better your relations are, the more your offer will be valuable to the AI.

What make me think that my theory is plausible is :
- The civs always trade more or less equally at the right start of the game (one tech for one tech) and the more I progress in power, the more unfair the trades become. Though, I NEVER betray any civ (I just can't lie or break a pact, it's against my nature ), so the reputation is not the problem.
- Often, a polite civ that is stunned by my culture ("stunned by" is a new level I inserted in my mod where the culture is 1 to 5) still ask for unreasonnable amount of tech/ressources when I'm the first world power, even though I never had a war and we're commercial partner for centuries.
Though, a suspitious civ that is unimpressed by my culture offer nearly fair deal at the start of a game, where everyone is more or less at the same level.

[Akka]

Originally posted by player1
In my OCC games, it was soo easy to buy Oil, rubber and luxuries form AIs.

So CHEAP.

Probably because you were saw as weak, and as you had only one city, each ressource was considered having less value for you than for the AI. Another proof of my theory

[Hurricane]

The simple reason the AI wont trade 3000 gold for 5 gold is that this feature is TURNED OFF. While it per definition is not a loan, I am quite positive the AI uses a loan-calculating algorithm to decide whether to accept the deal or not. As we all know, however, the AI will never lend you money or borrow from you. So when they switched this feature off, they at the same time made gold switching impossible. I don´t think it has anything to do with relative strengths or diplomatic relations.