Trade rippoffs

[fire_toad]

I'm not sure how often this happens to other people, since I mostly play in uhm.. cheiftan... but I get heavily ripped off in trades, especialy for luxuries. I offer the AI a trade: my wines for its dyes, it counter with its dyes for my wines,chivalry,gunpowder,5 gold per tern,60 gold (only a BIT exagerated). What's up with that, does the offers it gives reflect to your military, science or power? or is it just being extremely cheap.

[Akka]

It's the same for everyone. The more powerful you are, the more they will ask to you for anything.

[Harovan]

It works as well vice versa: the more powerful they are, the more they are willing to pay, when you sell luxuries or resources.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I dont know who created this diplomacy screen, but it needs some reform. Who in the world would want to speak with someone who calls you nation "the barbarians" or "the puny nation" or "blah blah you suck" im sorry, but if other leaders would treat me like crap, then I wouldnt want to do trade with them.
Also, the AI needs to trade away their old techs. Sometimes when I'm far behind (aroundone whole age) they refuse to sell their old techs to me for anything less than outrageous prices (read World Map, all my gold, and 20 gold per turn)

[dnassman]

Have had this always happen to me and I have found it is when I am the most powerful and richest. I wanted Dyes and I had to give them Ivory, Gems, Spices, Wines, 2000 gold. Luckily I was rich and had the luxuries. But can understand how annoying it could be.

[fire_toad]

I know, it's really annoying when you reduce a civilization down to one city and you get a message from them: make peace or we will wipe you off the face of the earth. That's no fun! They should be groveling.

[YuMMz]

The greatest asset in Civ is Technology. If you want to dominate the trade market get ahead in technology. Then once you discover a new tech trade it to Greece, Babylon, Persia, China or India those Civs I have noticed especially China, Babylon and Greece all will pay unbelievable amounts of gold per turn for techs. For example I have been getting 400+ gold per turn from all these civs and setting my science to 100% and still making 1500-2000 gold per turn. Once you have accomplished this you will dominate the tech race since these other civs cannot set science as high because they are paying you! Once you are 2-3 tech ahead you can trade away old techs for whatever you want! This strat only really comes into play during mid-midieval times or later, before that no civ is wealthy enough to accept trades. Also make sure you get Darwins!

[Willem]

Re: Trade rippoffs

Originally posted by fire_toad
I'm not sure how often this happens to other people, since I mostly play in uhm.. cheiftan... but I get heavily ripped off in trades, especialy for luxuries. I offer the AI a trade: my wines for its dyes, it counter with its dyes for my wines,chivalry,gunpowder,5 gold per tern,60 gold (only a BIT exagerated). What's up with that, does the offers it gives reflect to your military, science or power? or is it just being extremely cheap.

Part of this depends on whom you're trying to deal with. Each civ has been programmed with a different personality when it comes to trading. Some are easy to get along with, some are down right impossible.

Also, have you asked what the other civ might be willing to offer for something you have? Especially if they approach you. Don't just cut to the chase, spend some time haggling. You might find you get better deals. If not, don't bargain. They'll come around eventually, once they know you're not a patsy.

The trading aspect is actually one of the more sophisticated elements of the AI, IMO. It does a much better job in that area than it does with military decisions.

[Catt]

The more powerful you are, the worse deals you will get.

It's been said in these forums (and I believe it, based on experience, but can't show any absolute proof ) that the AI knows exactly the benfits of a luxury resource to your civ -- i.e., if you have 7 other luxuries, marketplaces in most of your cities, and 500 citizens (the leader by far), then that eighth luxury is worth a heck of a lot to you -- it will produce four additional happy faces in each city with a marketplace, regardless of how many cities you have. If the AI civ trading it to you has four cities of average pop 10 and only has access to 2 luxuries, then even trading his one excess luxury for 5 or 6 luxuries from you won't necessarily seem to be a "fair trade" in the AI's eyes (rightly so?) in terms of the effects on the two populations.

As Sir Ralph points out -- it works both ways. If you are not the largest and most powerful civ, try trading a luxury to the big dog -- you can usually get one luxury back plus an extra premium of some kind.

Catt

[theEntity]

The AI doesn't try to rip you off when trading luxuries, but it insists on a fair deal - and a fair deal for the AI is that you both gain the same amount of happy faces for the trade.

A typical example may be that you have 40 cities, all with marketplace and already have access to 6 luxuries. If you get access to a 7th luxury, that means 40 * 4 = 160 happy faces.

The AI civ you're trading with may have 30 cities, 10 with marketplace, and access to 5 luxuries. If you trade it a 6th luxury, then that one will be worth 20 *1 + 10 * 3 = 50 happy faces.

So the AI knows that you gain more than 3 times as much from the trade, which is obviously not a fair deal, and therefore demands compensation in the form of more resources or gold.

The human player (who often have more cities and more marketplaces) forgets that he gains much more than the AI on a 1-1 luxury trade. It's the AI who is right however.

The exception is of course the trade setting in the editor. Unless it is set to 100%, then the AI is programmed to not accept trades unless they get a better deal than you.

[Phil_de_geezer]

I played a game with one city (on Monarch i think) and i could buy any luxuries or resources i wanted for around 50 gold! The AI really does offer fair deals (those luxuries weren't going to help me much).

[Spiffor]

The AI calculates relative gains :
If you have 50 cities, acquiring a luxury will make 50 people happy. If the AI only has 25 cities, a luxury will only make 25 people happy.
In this logic, it's perfectly fair for the AI to demand 2 luxuries for only one.

[Catt]

Originally posted by theEntity
The exception is of course the trade setting in the editor. Unless it is set to 100%, then the AI is programmed to not accept trades unless they get a better deal than you.

theEntity - excellent post - very clearly articulates the basis of the AI's valuation of luxury trades.

However, with respect to the last point (quoted above), I believe that "AI Trading Rate" variable in the editor does not affect the AI's willingness to trade with the human in any way, including in terms of making "fair" or "unfair" trades. I believe it only affects the AI's willingness to trade with other AI civs, in the following manner:

If the "fair price" for XX is 150 gold, the AI will insist on 150 gold from the human player. But if the AI Trade Rate in the editor is 150, then the AI will insist on only 100 gold from another AI civ.

The formula is: (100/AI Trade Rate) * "Fair Price" = AI cost, where "Fair Price" is what the human will be required to pay.

The effect of an AI Trade Rate being higher than 100 is that it is easier (cheaper) for AI civs to trade among themselves.

Catt

[Arrian]

Annoying, isn't it? It was this that finally pushed me over the edge from builder to warmonger. I understand the logic behind the way it works now, but I think that it's flawed. I also discovered that if I'm big enough that the AI won't accept a 4 to 1 trade, I can just go take what I want. So I do.

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian
Annoying, isn't it? It was this that finally pushed me over the edge from builder to warmonger. I understand the logic behind the way it works now, but I think that it's flawed. I also discovered that if I'm big enough that the AI won't accept a 4 to 1 trade, I can just go take what I want. So I do.

I understand the logic as well, and I sometimes (only sometimes ) think it is flawed. After all, if my citizens are unhappy and causing me problems, I want that extra luxury, even if it means I'm giving [insert favorite evil AI here] 2 happy faces for every 1 happy face I get. On the other hand, I sometimes conclude that I can do without the extra happy face and would rather see [same evil AI here] suffer horrible war weariness / unhapiness than help out on the happiness side (even to my own benefit). Unfortunately, I haven't seen any evidence that the AI evaluates trade deals using these sorts of variables (a little too "HI" I think).

Catt