AI giving away cities

[wervdon]

Im not sure what your saying Iskandar. Isn't what a common thing in real life?

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse, but its not a big deal by any stretch


If you just meant that if you offered the english peace and 1 gold for london that they'd refuse, well id agree But they'd also refuse peace for london If its say peace for a colony in south africa, and they'd accept it though, I can see where they might in a spiteful tone say "just keep your **** gold and get out." if you tried to offer them money & peace for territory. Its what I would say I guess, since the home political scene would probally get bad if it come out you took cash in a peace deal that cost your empire some of its citizens to your hated enemies.

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by wervdon

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse,

That is weird - I recall asking for a city with that advisor bloke saying 'we're getting close to a deal here' then adding gold and losing it compltely. My theory is that Firaxis wanted to limit the exploitation of a defeated civ. Not that I'd do that...

[Blake]

I think that one easy exception is, AI's should always accept gifts of cities you captured from them. This can't really be exploited (asking money for the city could be exploited). I would like to give cities back to a civ which has effectively surrended.
(Agree about the need for a total surrender.)

They should also be conductive to giving back cities which they captured from you, if you pay a sutible price, or if you are big and ugly enough to take it from them.

An additional critera could be that the city must not be closer to their Palace than yours. ie they wont ever give back a city which you built in their home land, and they later captured.

[Iskandar Reza]

Originally posted by wervdon
Im not sure what your saying Iskandar. Isn't what a common thing in real life?

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse, but its not a big deal by any stretch


If you just meant that if you offered the english peace and 1 gold for london that they'd refuse, well id agree But they'd also refuse peace for london If its say peace for a colony in south africa, and they'd accept it though, I can see where they might in a spiteful tone say "just keep your **** gold and get out." if you tried to offer them money & peace for territory. Its what I would say I guess, since the home political scene would probally get bad if it come out you took cash in a peace deal that cost your empire some of its citizens to your hated enemies.

What I meant to say was you know was that sometimes in the real world you add in say for instance a 100 bucks just to seal the deal. So it wouldn't seem like you took the city or land from them, but you "bought" the city.

[Blake]

"Understand that I cannot agree to peace while you continue to control the resources near city B. However I will compensate you for the loss of city B."


AI's should also give flipped cities back, for a fairly reasonable price, and offer a reasonable amount of money for the return of a flipped city. It would help prevent the needless wars which result when a city flipping is simply not tolerable.

[DeepO]

Blake, I agree with your idea that it should be possible to purchase flipped cities back, but I feel it should be possible to purchase any city if the price is right (I do want to pay 10k in gold for a size 4 city with a luxury the AI has in abundance).

However, you are always free to give cities to the AI, I've done it multiple times when I'm attacked in a new, not defended city: I give it to some other AI (who is most of the times pleased to gain another city), while I have time to gather my defenses. It has a very pleasant side effect: When you do this, you create a buffer between yourself and the aggresive AI, and there's a big chance that the next time he will attack something it is not you, but the second AI you gave the city to.

DeepO

[Level]

I got 5 or 6 citys once I had to try diferent combonations of diferent citys.

I think the price should be set by the size of the citys, what wonders and improvements it has, the orignal owner, amont of culture around it, and the distance from the capital.

[Dan Severn]

I've gotten cities for peace plenty of times. Usually crappy little cities.

Strange, If I ask for 5 cities, all their treasury, their maps, and all their tech, that's fine.

But if I throw in my world map or decide to give them reparations to sweeten the deal, they're insulted!

[wervdon]

Things the ai would definatley have to take into account when trading cities for something other than peace:

1) Total possible commerce from the city, taking into account terrain with best possible modifications (roads) wether or not currently present, and presence of improvements like markets and adjusted for corruption
2) Same for production
3) Same for food
4) Presense of its citizens (citizens native to its civ)
5) Presense of military units in the city
6) Importance of location: if its a choke point, that one is hard but important (a canal city is also a choke point by definition really, or close enough to be considered one) This should also not just look at the city tile, but any tile within the city radius.
7) Resources in the city's squares
8) Culture generated by the city for the civ in question
9) Potential future but unseen resources in the city radius
10) How much its worth to the civ its going to: ie) is it giving them access to a resource the lacked?

There's probally more than that involved, but thats just a few of the things i'd look at it if another human player asked me to trade the city. Maybe not as thoroughly (with regards to commerce), but I would assess its economic, military/strategic, and cultural value.

I can see why they didnt make ai's want to trade cities. Thats a hard sort of thing for an ai to accurately judge if its getting the short end of the stick.

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by wervdon

I can see why they didnt make ai's want to trade cities. Thats a hard sort of thing for an ai to accurately judge if its getting the short end of the stick.

When you put it like that, yeah

Suppose it doesn't really matter. C'mon, we all get the city we want in the end.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by DeepO
He doesn't... because it ain't true. It's a myth like the ocean-going unsinkable AI galleys, something people speculate about because it would explain strange situations. Sometimes it's just bad karma when the AI outsmarts you

DeepO, admitting that sometime I suspect that computer are smarter than me, if not of a real human being , I have tested quite often the AI strategy to suspect city placement have at least some algorithm that share same rules with resources position algorithm, if not a real cheat helping the AI.

Of course I'm all in favour of a properly scientific tested experiment, but lacking that I still keep with my line that if I smell smoke often enough, there must be some fire around

[DeepO]

Oh, I too saw several occasions where the AI had suspicously good city placements for future resources, but look at what your own cities look like. It doesn't show that much, but you might find that your own cities aren't placed any worse. I doubt it is a cheat, because so far, the AI cheats are documented, and boil down to production bonusses, and faster AI-AI tech trades.

How many times have you seen that an AI city could build the Ironworks, as opposed to one of your own cities doing it, for instance? I had, in all my games, 4 AI cities with IW, or the possibility for IW. While at the same time I had 2 IWs in native, human cities. That is not decisive information, but from the looks of it I had better placement than the AI...

I think it is more an artifact of the algorithm that spaces out AI cities: they do try to cover as much ground as efficiently as possible. It's only normal that doing so will give them access to all resources. I have not seen that many cities placed on spaces that later give access to a resource without at least as many cities being placed on tiles that are just off, while my neighbouring city (built later) gets the resource. It is a matter of luck, or bad karma as I put it

As to the smoke: there is a famous saying in Dutch, from a historical comedian-freedomfighter. Roughly translated it goes like this:
"Where smoke is, is fire" said Tyl Uylenspiegel, and he warmed his hands on a pile of horse dung.
I guess that says it all

DeepO