Negotiation stinks

[Lewsir]

In the "beating dead horses" department...

Seeing the thread below complaining about the way combat works in CIV 3 and seeing the responses that say it is better with the uncertainty (and I agree), it reminds me that I hate the way you have to fiddle around in negotiations with other civs until your advisor tells you that the other guy will accept your proposal. I would much prefer to have some uncertaint (and greater variation) on what they will accept, and have the risk that you might give away too much or piss them off by not offering enough. And if you're going to have to try 8 times to zero in on the best offer, it might as well just have the advisor tell you up front what minimum offers will work.

I'm sure this has been discussed 50 times (is there anything that hasn't?) but I only started playing recently so I'd be interested in other opinions on this.

[Wormwood]

Generally, when your advisor says something is acceptable, it can be tweaked around a little bit.

[Lewsir]

Yes but how much time do you spend fiddling to get it just right? Seems like a waste of time to me.

[Bella Hella]

i think it's a waste of time, but it's worth it to get as much as you possibly can from the AI. you can practically rape them for techs. i've developed kind of a system with how much gold i offer, but yeah, it takes a while.

[Lewsir]

I shouldn't say it stinks - I really like the flexibility of being able to trade anything for anything. But there must be some way to make it a bit more fun to negotiate. Plus as I know people have often said, the AI is often unreasonably demanding (especially since they seem to be trading techs among themselves like crazy).

[miccofl]

A "Calculate bottom line" option would be nice.

[Destroyer]

You can screw them (ai civs) over if you can monopolise the resources. I think tis is the only way to keep up on the harder levels with research.

[JohnM2433]

If you really wanted the AI to be like a human negotiator, it would have to haggle. The AI in Colonization did this, IIRC.

Also, there is no way for more than one player to form a monopoly in a luxury/resource/technology. And the AIs do not try to outbid each other on a deal with someone else. If they did, you could wind up getting a tech for 1 gold. But there's no way for one player to even see what deals his/her/its opponents are offering each other, so that could never happen.

Allowing negotiations between more than 2 civs at a time would greatly enhance multiplayer. For one thing, civs with an alliance/MPP could negotiate peace with a mutual enemy without breaking their deal.

[Jaybe]

If Lewsir dislikes it now, just wait for PTW...

... As I understand it, we aren't going to have ANY guidance as to what is acceptable. Hope I'm wrong (or they change it ... maybe it was just relating to person/person negotiations but that was not the impression I had).

You don't HAVE to tweak to get the last gold out of them and if your reputation with them is important, you will LOWER their payments, not raise them. Often I'll just accept their offer if I consider it "fair".

[Lewsir]

Oh, if you give them a beter deal it can affect their attitude toward you? That makes it somewhat more interesting. Any idea how far you can go with this? Say, if you throw in a bunch of gold (say a signficiant percentage of what they already have) can you be confident that it will lead to an improvement in attitude?

[Prince]

You pretty much need that guy telling you what can and cannot be done, because the civ's attitude to you is just way too unpredicatable. When you're more powerful and expanded than him, he might still not trade his world map for yours.

[Jaybe]

Lewsir, there are no yardsticks (oops! You're in Paris) ... Metersticks(?) to go by. You just try it out and try to build a bankroll of goodwill (if you want to do so). There are NO guarantees, just as there are no guarantees that YOU will not stab your trading partner in the back so you don't have to pay for his luxuries.

Prince, regarding reluctance to trade world maps that might also apply to me if I was in their position. I have acquired territory/world maps just before declaring war on occasion.

[Destroyer]

You are tight about needing an advisor, as tech values continuously change, and I have no idea how resources are traded - It aint one for one with the ai for sure!

[CiverDan]

U can also screw them for multiple techs if you take a few of their cities. This works on any level, including diety.

[Jaybe]

Destroyer,
As is often mentioned, in luxury trading it is a matter of who can benefit more pays more. If you already have 4 lux to the AI's 3, and you have twice as many cities, SHOULDN'T you pay more??

I have had occasion to NOT be a major civ and trading for lux was quite even (or better)!