Oh the wonders of the new 3.13 patch tape. This is more of a b*t*h session than a request for help, but I had to get this off my chest since, for whatever reason, I believe that patch tapes should actually, like, fix things...

Upon graduating up from Civ 3 to Civ 4, one of the great things that I came to love is how your "fellow" civilizations traded fairly honestly with you. If you had a food or luxury, and they had one, typically you could get a one-for-one trade. There weren't any rediculous demands....

Well, I just installed the new, improved, whiz-bang 3.13 patch (actually, based upon what some of the "fixes" were, I did so reluctantly) and was (NOT) delighted to discover that the good old Civ 3 rediculous trade demands were back along with various other "oddities"!!! :cry:

My buddy Darius had some rice that I REALLY wanted to help with health issues. I had pigs that I figured he might want just as badly.. So I offered him a one-on-one trade; he basically stuck up a rather significant digit and said no freakin' way. So, being an agreeable sort, I asked what he wanted for his rice. Some how I thought that iron, horses, AND pigs were a little much for rice -- he should have just asked me to build and gift knights to him so that he could attack me for the remainder of my resources!!

If Darius had been a nice, small little civ in this game I MIGHT have understood this a little more. But he was second (to me), appeared to have as much territory (or more), and was AHEAD of me technologically. Needless to say Darius became #1 on my sh*t list (talk about poisoning water in his cities)!!

This was improved trading?

Some other oddities I discovered about trading.

My good friend Darius approached me and wanted to trade copper for horses. I thought this a little odd since I already had 3 copper resources and corporations had not yet been founded (or discovered). But, despite this, I asked if he wanted to negotiate. Offerred horses and asked what he would give for them. I was informed that, even though he had approached me initially with the deal, that he didn't think any trade was possible...??? I guess the idea is either you take the first deal offerred or FORGET IT!!

Another oddity.. Hamm, who was currently my vassal, approached me with an offer of copper, fish, and wheat for horses. Now it just so happened that I already had MULTIPLE resources for each one of these. Now if you have a corporation that requires these resources and returns value for each additional one of them you have, I would have understood this. As it happened, I did NOT yet have such corporations (or, for that matter, I had NOT yet discovered the Corporation technology!!).

Now is it my imagination or did Firaxis seriously impair the trading process? Or, alternatively, is there somone out there that can explain WHY these things are happening or provide a tip on how to "fix" it?

As a last recourse, I could always remove the 3.13 fix since I really didn't see any advantages to it (despite the supposed performance enhancements that were my main reason for loading the patch, my PC was still hanging occasionally), but this would take reinstalling the game since -- like an idiot -- I didn't save the software prior to loading it.

You could try Bhruic's Unofficial Patch for 3.13. Check out his thread here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246057)

So this is a patch for the patch...??? I'll download it and cross my fingers because the current trading scenario sucks.

In your Darius example, do you have a save? I would suspect if we open up the world builder we'd find that he's not having any health problems. If that's the case, then he has no need for your pigs, so why should he benefit you with his rice?

I do much the same, I'll never accept a balanced trade from the AI unless I actually need that resource. You'll also find that resource trades are strongly tied to attitude. You can even ask for free resources from very close allies most of the time.

I guess the problem in my mind is that, prior to 3.13, the proposed trade (I made to Darius) NEVER would have been refused and, quite honestly, I liked it that way -- one missing resource for another (i.e. food for food, luxury for luxury). The only resouces that were not treated that way were critical resources such as horses, iron, copper, etc. I always drove me crazy in Civ 3 when the other leaders made outrageous demands for resources and I really dislike going back to that...

So this is a patch for the patch...??? I'll download it and cross my fingers because the current trading scenario sucks.

Yes. There's a known bug in the trading system after patch 3.13 that Bhruic's unofficial patch fixes. Actually, there's quite a few things that Bhruic has fixed that got broken with patch 3.13. I'm guessing we can expect another official patch out Firaxis sometime in the future.

3.13 sure introduced some strange trading bugs!

I have not applied Bhuric's patch yet but I think it would solve some of them. If you offer AI something and it appears to give ridiculous return then just back off. The AI will then approach you in a few turns on their offer that is much more reasonable. :p

The most annoying is that if you trade then after 10 turns they always break up the trade.. and then 2 turns later they ask it once again. But it works only when I accept their trades and do not ask negotiating. If AI vs AI has normal trading then it is very unfair advantage for AI.

This was why I came to the forum tonight. I was pissed when I saw this garbage was back. Are we sure they're basing it on their needs this time, and not the size of your empire like in Civ III?
This should be a check-able option to turn on or off.

The trade bug has to do with the fact that in 3.13 (without Bhruic's patch), the AI doesn't properly red out resources that he already has. So the AIs end up asking for resources they've already got, which, as you'd expect, they place really low value on, which results in them asking for a ton of them to try and make the trade worthwhile from their viewpoint.

Try to offer some other resource, usually works for me at least.