Trading luxuries: good idea?

[AeonOfTime]

I haven't found any threads on this topic, and as it's been an issue in quite a few of my games, I thought i'd share my experiences, which led me to the conclusion that trading luxuries and resources is NOT a good idea.

I'm more of a pacifist builder myself, and try to get along with pretty much everyone else. However, keeping the other civs at bay is not that simple. You have to keep them satisfied by trading techs, resources, luxuries.... you name it.

The big disadvantage being, that supplying your "enemies" (which they can become very quickly if they think they are powerful enough) with luxuries and resources doesn't benefit yourself as much as it benefits THEM.

Example: in a recent game I played, I traded the babylonians dyes for a World Map, 5 Gold per turn and 20 Gold. As they did not have so many luxuries, the dyes I gave them enabed them to put more workers in the field (at least in cities with a marketplace), and get an overall production/research boost. ...That's in absolutely no relation to what they were willing to give (and they had 500 Gold in store and a few interesting techs).

Of course, this also has to do with the difficulty setting (I'm playing on Monarch), but I think this makes trading luxuries and resources pretty useless. You're better off keeping everything to yourself.

How do you handle this? Or was this never an issue?

AeonOfTime

[cumi]

Hi,

trading luxuries and strategic resources is very imporant issue for me. If you have more than one tiles of luxuries of one kind it is very useful to sell it, for example in exchange for a luxury, that you don't have. I suppose, you can controll NOT MORE than 3 types of luxuries.

Without buying luxuries how do you think, to make your citisens happy?

Selling the luxuries for gpt, you can also get nice amount of money and you can get FRIENDS. This can be an important issue if you are pulled into war...

[Cruddy]

Hmm... If you don't trade, the AI Civs get very annoyed. Trading partners are less likely to be seen as potential threats, although this is only true up to a point (militaristic neighbours with overwhelming numerical superiority - yikes! You're screwed either way).

On balance, I think going for the trade is the best option. Excess luxuries do you NO GOOD AT ALL. Even if it's just one lousy gold and a map you already have, that's more than you would have without the trade.

Of course the AI will stitch you up on trades, but HAGGLE. Your trade advisor will say whether it's acceptable or not You can only really expect to get obsolete techs for luxuries - no one is going to tell you how to build a Great Wonder before they've had a chance to build it themselves!

One final point - the AI will get dependant on a luxury you have been trading. So every 20 turns, you can keep raising the price (always assuming the attitude is cautious or better... annoyed rivals will sometimes just refuse to trade at all).

[Cort Haus]

On the whole, it's good to trade, but not every trade is good.

Cruddy : Getting 1g is worse than nothing if you give the opponent 20g or 100g or 1000g worth of extra production, and you want to keep them down - but I don't always want to keep opponents down - I support my alllies against my enemies, and want my allies to be strong to stop my enemy from trashing them. I'd rather give resources for improved relations than sell for a single peanut.

AeonofTime : You have a point that the enemy can benefit more than you, so that's a case-by-case decision per civ per trade and not a matter of global policy when playing civ. So your conclusion is mistaken - you might instead conclude that there are occasions when a trade is not worth it.

Cumi : There are many ways to get people happy without buying luxuries : The luxury slider, happy-buildings, entertainers, military police - and getting lux thru tech-trades, extortion.

[Solver]

Indeed, it's good to trade. This keeps the AI quite happy with you, and a country that has two luxuries and Horses coming from you will probably think twice before attacking you - why attack if they know they're going to lose it all?

Also, sometimes you get very good gpt deals and they're worth it... and as already pointed out, extra luxuries do you no good. Sometimes, if I want a MPP and the other civ doesn't, a luxury added is what makes them happy.

[DAVOUT]

I am much more concerned by trading techs than by trading luxuries; as it has been said, we can stop every 20 turns a trade of luxury whereas a tech deal is for the whole game. I am particularly cautious when my civ is commercial. I have observed that a commercial civ has a potential gold production big enough to finance the research and get ahead of the pack before Feudalism on its own. I appears that the gold NOT given to the AIs reduces considerably their rythm of discoveries (this is at Regent).

[Catt]

I wouldn't hesitate to trade luxuries to the AI civs -- I just can't see how they get a tremendous benefit from it. For one thing, except to combat war weariness, the AI never uses the luxury slider, so trading luxuries won't allow them to decrease the slider and preserve a lot of extra income. Additional luxuries will let the AI put some entertainers back to work in cities -- but I've got to believe that in most cases the extra shields help only at the margins (since production is rounded at the city level and excess shields are lost) -- which really means that the AI is getting a little extra gold from what would otherwise be extra entertainers. Depending of course on what you can get for your luxury (and how much you value the mere existence of a trade deal), I wouldn't be overly concerned about trading luxuries.

Strategic resources call for a bit more caution, but again I don't worry about it too much, even in those cases where I'm not trying to support the weak and deny the strong (i.e., as Cort Haus mentioned). Is my neighbor an extremely aggressive civ that has no iron? Ok, maybe I won't trade that extra iron to that particular civ. But even with an aggressive neighbor, unless the overall strategic situation (map features, strength of empires, technological development, known unit counts, etc.) implies that I could conceivably have a real fight on my hands if my neighbor had iron, and assuming the neighbor has something interesting to trade, I'd probably feel free to trade it without much fear. Even if the neighbor is emboldened by a few new swords or knights so far as to threaten me, it really would just provide an opportunity to do some pruning

Catt

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
On the whole, it's good to trade, but not every trade is good.

Cruddy : Getting 1g is worse than nothing if you give the opponent 20g or 100g or 1000g worth of extra production, and you want to keep them down - but I don't always want to keep opponents down - I support my alllies against my enemies, and want my allies to be strong to stop my enemy from trashing them. I'd rather give resources for improved relations than sell for a single peanut.

I admit, that was a bad example. A trade for 1gp can build up to a worthwhile arrangement later - but it's only usually worth it to keep a massive empire from ripping across your territory to rape it.

[dexters]

Interesting thread.

I need to ask clarificaiton about how an extra luxury would allow AI civs to produce extra workers.

Are you talking about rush building using pop and trying to keep their resentment down?


Anyways, I have a tendency to try an monopolize as many luxuries as I can get my hands on. This is advantageous no matter where you are. If you're ahead, well... luxuries become another tool you can use to manage the world to your liking. If you're about even, pulling a luxury from a rival just as they go into war against you or someone else could affect them. Or if you're behind, the cash and the goodwill luxuries generate will give you an advantage in making powerful friends, or at least buy you some time.

Monopoly is key here. If you do not have monopoly, there is some civ out there who is not trading with you and could declare war without worrying about it.
There are of course nice diplomatic things you can do to make things more complicated if you don't have monopoly, but luxuries tend to cluster. Strategic resources don't. It's usually difficult to even come close to monopolizing those trades.

EDIT: Someone mentioned the AI doesn't use the happiness slider. Is this confirmed? If so, what is the detault? 0?

[Solver]

Strategic resources call for a bit more caution, but again I don't worry about it too much, even in those cases where I'm not trying to support the weak and deny the strong (i.e., as Cort Haus mentioned). Is my neighbor an extremely aggressive civ that has no iron? Ok, maybe I won't trade that extra iron to that particular civ. But even with an aggressive neighbor, unless the overall strategic situation (map features, strength of empires, technological development, known unit counts, etc.) implies that I could conceivably have a real fight on my hands if my neighbor had iron, and assuming the neighbor has something interesting to trade, I'd probably feel free to trade it without much fear.

Hmm, I just can't help but prepare for an invasion of civ without Iron. If they got no Iron, it's no Swordsman counterattack, and I want their land before they become a thread. Sometimes I may wait till Middle Ages, though, where Knights vs. Spearmen is a joke.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I am much more concerned by trading techs than by trading luxuries; ....

Tech trading is another subject. I think this thread is specifically looking at luxury trading, though'd I'd say that selling techs is generally preferable to buying them, depending on circumstances. However, that doesn't stop many players happily buying tech as policy in the ancient era without long-term problems.

[Catt]

Originally posted by dexters
I need to ask clarificaiton about how an extra luxury would allow AI civs to produce extra workers.

I interpreted the original reference to "workers" to mean city laborers, not actual worker units.

EDIT: Someone mentioned the AI doesn't use the happiness slider. Is this confirmed? If so, what is the detault? 0?

That was me, and yes the default is 0% luxury spending. Soren Johnson wrote in another thread:

Originally posted by Soren Johnson of Firaxis
the luxury slider is very, very tricky. the AI basically only uses it to balance out war weariness, and there is a maximum level it will never go over. the danger was that the AI could get used to the luxury slider and deemphasize acquiring luxury goods and building happiness improvements, allowing a good portion of the treasury to disappear.

The full thread is HERE. Another great thread for AI behavioral answers (with Soren's participation) is alexman's Why, of why does the poor AI ... thread -- be forewarned however that specific examples of inefficient AI behaviors have since been addressed (due largely to that thread!).

Catt

[Cort Haus]

re: PTW thread link posted by Catt

I was away from Civ and Poly for a while, so I missed the forum's discussions on PTW - thanks for posting that link. Off-hand, does anyone recall any other PTW-strat/AI threads worth a look? Especially later ones, as this has more initial reactions.


(typo edited)

[dexters]

Catt, appreciate the link to that very interesting thread.

A question, how can I access the game's debug mode?

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by dexters
A question, how can I access the game's debug mode?

Ypu need to use a scenario. There's a tick box under scemario properties in the editor.