Making Money from bankrupt AI

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
AI's pay too much for techs? huh?if i want to buy a tech from the ai, say it costs me 1040 gold. Now if i try to turn around and sell it back, most of them rarely even give me half that.

Problem with that is there are 14 other AI Civs you can sell it to! If the AI wanted to sell that Tech to you why didn't it sell it to the other 14 AI Civs before you? That's stupid. Would you sell a tech to only 1 AI Civ so that 1 AI Civ could sell it to the other 14? No, neither should the AI... unless maybe you're on Chieftain.

But the ai almowt never pays me too much for a tech.

Yup, and prices go down as more civs know the tech. I'm quite sure this is the case as it's happened quite a few times to me when I buy/sell techs.

Prices do go down, but not at the 50% rate each time some claim. You sell your tech to the richest & strongest AI Civs 1st & you can make them bankrupt preventing them from any rush building or army expansion. No AI Civ should sell it's soul (treasury & all future income for the next 20turns) for just 1 Tech... but they often do. Worse is they will do it for dead-end techs for which the Wonder has already been built!

French offer to buy Technology A off me for World Map, some gold and a smack upside the head.
I think that I can do better, so I clear the table and ask them what they'd give for Technology A.
"We regret we cannot reach an agreement at this time."
WHAT? You just approached me and offered some gold!
Okay, me thinks, I reset the offer to what it was ... but they are insulted. So, did they just go off the deal in the space of 5 seconds, or does this game simply not remember anything?

Yes, this is a problem. It's almost as if you're talking to 2 different AI Civs. Here's another to try... when you are at war with a weaker AI Civ threaten your troops are coming when asking for peace. In my experience, the weaker AI Civ laughs at your threats or offers only a flat Peace agreement... when you go to 'lets make a deal'... you get plenty of tribute. Again seems like 2 different AI Civs.

[player1]

The biggest problem is that AI diplomacy is passive.

AI should do this:
I discovered a tech.
Should I sell it:
1) yes - then I should sell to many players in same time
2) no - then I should NOT sell it to ANYONE

So if AI want to sell tech to player, that should be his offer, not your proposal (like it is now). That way he will sell it to several other AI.

I think that this could be done in patch.
We just need to ask Firaxis...

...and maybe we get better diplo-AI in second patch (to late for first)

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by wisecat
Could that be that AI cancels resources/luxuries trades in an attempt to get a better deal? Did anyone notice any correspondence between the change of your and AI civ comparative standing ("like your power compared to their" changes) and their willingness to cancel/renegotiate trades?

The AI(for me) frequently cancels deals where I am paying X gold per turn for a luxury when it expires, but will make the same deal again with X being a few gold higher, so yes, the reason it cancels is because it thinks it can get a better deal. Sometimes it doesn't cancel, presumably because it thinks its getting the better end of the deal.

Someone mentioned that the ai might be buggy because it doesn't cancel resource deals when they get their own source. This may be because they have a deal that gives the extra of the resource they have to another civ for more than they pay you for it