Trading (mainly for beginners, but others may find it useful)

Alot of people (myself included) sometimes find it hard to trade with the AI fairly. When you find yourself a whole bunch of techs behind some think the only anwer is to fight a war and get techs for giving the AI peace, or to just give up the game. This is not always true. Maps, Right of Passage (ROP), and luxuries can be a powerful trading tool if you are in the right position.

On this game on Regent Level, and had two continents to myself and had just been contacted by Persia (they settled a city on my continent) and I found I was several techs behind. I only had a map of my territory, because I hadn't done any sea exploration. Here is how I caught up in tech:

ROP is based entirely on territory size. If you have a larger territory, other civs will pay you for a ROP, if you have a small territory, YOU pay for ROP with the other civ. The smaller civs payed me more for a ROP than the bigger civs (if they had the money). Never sold my map until I had contact with all civs. If you sell your map to any AI civ, once you end that turn, your map is worthless because the AI will now sell your map to everyone else. I had luxuries to trade, that's what really helped me.

1. There was 6 civs. I at first only had contact with Persia. I established an embassy with them. I had a large territory, so selling a ROP was worth more to them than it was for me. Through trial and error, the cheapest contact I could get from Persia was contact with the Zulu. So for a ROP and me giving them 34 gold I bought contact with the Zulu.

2. Continue this process, establishing embassies with all civs before making a deal so I could use my ROP as a bargaining chip. From the Zulu for ROP and 5 gold I got contact with Babylon and their territory map.

As you continue to get contact with more civs the price of contact with other civs diminish just like techs do. The more civs you know that has contact with a civ, the cheaper it is.

3. From Babylon for a ROP I got contact with Greece, territory map, and 10 gold.

4. From Greece for ROP and 10 gold I got contact with the Chinese and their territory map.

I think it was at this time I ran out of cash from establishing embassies, so I ended my turn so I would get more money.

5. From China for ROP, 4 gold/turn and 15 gold I got contact with the Romans and China's World Map.

6. The Romans were actually behind in tech for some reason. I gave them theology for Monarchy and their world map.

7. Went back to Greece and gave them my world map, 20 gold/turn and 10 gold for Astronomy and their world map.

8. Gave Persia World map and 6 gold/turn for Navigation, World map and 2 gold.

9. The Romans didn't have any money at all, so I tried to get as many techs from them as possible, so I could get money from the other civs. I gave the Romans Education and world map for Engineering and Fuedalism. Then I gave them Astronomy for Invention.

I then went around seeing who offered the most for my luxuries, so I would get techs from the cheap civs and cash from the rich civs. The one problem with this is that the smaller civs don't offer as much money for luxuries as the larger civs (the larger civs get more benefit from luxuries).

I had a very large civ, so it was hard for me to get luxuries. Luxuries are valued on how many happy faces they add to your civ. If you have 100 cities all with marketplaces you will get 100's of happy people from just 1 more luxury. So a smaller civ may ask for 5 of your luxuries for 1 of yours, because you get more happy people from it, than they would.

10. Gave China World map, Wines and spices for Gunpowder, Banking and 6 gold.

11. Gave Persia Wines and spices for Chemistry, 3 gold/turn and 4 gold.

12. Romans had nothing but furs. Gave them wines, spices, banking, chemistry, navigation, gems, 8 gold/turn and 14 gold for their furs. My civ was much larger than theirs .

13. Gave Babylon Wines, spices and world map for 11 gold/turn, 80 gold and world map.

14. Zulu were dirt poor, also. They only had 3 cities. Gave them world map for 2 gold/turn.

15. Gave Greece wines, spices for 9 gold/turn and 28 gold.

16. Gave China Chemistry for 9 gold. I felt generous, 9 gold was all China had.

17. Forgot I hadn't signed a ROP with Rome, so gave them a RoP for their last 14 gold. If I had included the ROP in my above trade for their furs I would have saved some money.

2 turns later I got 2 more gems hooked up and sold Persia one of them for 18 gold/turn plus 30 gold. Traded China my gems for Economics.

End Result: Got 9 techs, everyone's world map, rop with everyone, plus made a profit. Everyone was broke after dealing with me . But I did stimulate their economy with my luxuries and 20 turns later I renewed the trades for more techs, and alot more gold. And everyone is Polite to me because of the trading I was doing with them.

Other hints if you were better caught up in techs. If you can be the fastest to a tech, sell it to ALL civs on the same turn. Sell it to the richest civ first, then the cheapest if you only want cash. If you want to trade tech-tech, then trade techs with the cheap civ so you can get cash from the rich civ. Techs get cheaper in price, when more civs know that tech. Research dead-end techs that the AI seems to avoid (Literature, chivalry, etc) and then go around selling them and/or buy the required techs after everyone else knows that tech and the price has dropped.

Nice article, Bamspeedy. The use of RoPs first is a great idea.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
..... If you can be the fastest to a tech, sell it to ALL civs on the same turn. Sell it to the richest civ first, then the cheapest if you only want cash. If you want to trade tech-tech, then trade techs with the cheap civ so you can get cash from the rich civ. Techs get cheaper in price, when more civs know that tech. Research dead-end techs that the AI seems to avoid (Literature, chivalry, etc) and then go around selling them and/or buy the required techs after everyone else knows that tech and the price has dropped.

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True, I think sometimes people try to keep techs away from the other civs. Like their not going to ever get it! It is better to make THE deal. Of course, some techs during some circumstances ought to be guarded.

Good job, Bamspeedy.

So Bamspeedy just verified what I've always suspected, that once you see your map it's worthless to the other civs cuz they get it from the civs you sold it too, so tell me Bamspeedy, a good plan would be to time selling your world map just for the right time and then try to sell it too all the civs on the same turn?? WOuld that work? I like the idea of signing RoP's for techs and money, heck they are going to walk all over your territory anyway you might as well get something for it. Thanks for the article Bampeedy, it will help me!!

Informative post, Bamspeedy. I've only been playing Civ for a few months now, so I search out and read strategy threads aimed at beginners.

I've got a coulple of observations/questions concerning your strategy.

1) So far in my first few games at the Warlord level, I've tried selling my newly discovered techs to all the other Civs. The problem was NONE of them had any money. (China: 4g, Babylon: 12 g, Rome: 0g etc...). I always hear about how other players rake in the gold using this ploy, so I can't help wondering if I'm doing something wrong. What would you do in this situation, when all the AI Civs are flat broke?

2) I bust my butt in road building. There are many obvious reasons to do this, trade perhaps most of all. But once again, the other Civs are seriously lacking. They have a few scattered cities, none of which are connected by roads. Building roads to the nearest AI city does me absolutly no good, since it's not attatched to its own capital. This was true in my last game, where I not only had a bad starting position, but was also without iron. I had money, and would have gladly payed my neighbor China for it, but they had no roads. I had no choice but to start an ill-advised war with Mao. He proceeded to run me down.
So what do you do in this situation, when your potential trading partners slack on building roads?

Thanks for the excellent post, Bamspeedy!

So Bamspeedy just verified what I've always suspected, that once you see your map it's worthless to the other civs cuz they get it from the civs you sold it too, so tell me Bamspeedy, a good plan would be to time selling your world map just for the right time and then try to sell it too all the civs on the same turn??

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It depends on who the other civs have contact with. If England has contact with Germany, and I have no idea where Germany is, I would preferably either buy contact with Germany or buy England's world map (with cash) and go meet the Germans myself. If I give England my map, then they will turn around and sell/give it to the Germans, thus I made nothing off my map from the Germans (if I end my turn without contacting Germany and selling them my map). You can imagine what potential loss I would take if England had contact with 6+ civs that I did not know.

But selling your map for contact with another civ can set off a domino effect. Just like my example above where I used a ROP for contacts, I could go to the English trade maps and get contact with Germany, go to Germany trade maps and get contact with India, go to India trade maps and get contact with Babylon etc..

When you have alot of civs in the game (12-16), it would be tricky to know ahead of time who has contact with who (England, the first civ I meet, might have contact with Germany and India, but Germany and India don't have contact with each other. This is kind of rare, more often seen real early in the game, but with 1.29f it seems if only 1-2 civs have met another civ the price of getting contact with that civ is still pretty steep and the AI doesn't swap techs, etc. as easily as they had in earlier patches.

The value of your map is based entirely on how many more tiles you have uncovered than the person your trading it to. I guess it depends on what kind of map you are playing on. On an island map, you may be able to hold off selling your map until much later and get a better offer as you would have more tiles uncovered (especially water tiles if you have a good sized navy out exploring) and the AI would have more money to offer. However, the AI usually will get around to exploring many of the tiles themselves (especially on pangea), so that would devaluate your map.

In my original example in my first post, I had two continents that was totally unknown to the other civs. If I had been playing pangea and I had an expansionist civ next door, they probably would have mapped out all my territory while I was still building my first few cities.

True, I think sometimes people try to keep techs away from the other civs. Like their not going to ever get it! It is better to make THE deal. Of course, some techs during some circumstances ought to be guarded.

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Yep, especially giving your neighbor military techs (Iron Working, Nationalism, Replacable parts, etc) isn't a good idea, except in some certain situations. It's also a good idea not to trade away a tech that has a wonder you really want until you are almost done building it.

1) So far in my first few games at the Warlord level, I've tried selling my newly discovered techs to all the other Civs. The problem was NONE of them had any money. (China: 4g, Babylon: 12 g, Rome: 0g etc...). I always hear about how other players rake in the gold using this ploy, so I can't help wondering if I'm doing something wrong. What would you do in this situation, when all the AI Civs are flat broke?

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The AI almost never gives gpt until it has switched out of despot. Even then it won't have much money, since it doesn't have much infrastructure (marketplaces, banks, etc). When you see players receiving several hundred gold/turn for techs, that is almost always in the industrial-modern eras. With the latest patches you won't make quite as much money as the version of the game that came straight out of the box. In the original version, you could literally bankrupt the AI because they would pay you so much money, they didn't have any money to research on their own.

2) I bust my butt in road building. There are many obvious reasons to do this, trade perhaps most of all. But once again, the other Civs are seriously lacking. They have a few scattered cities, none of which are connected by roads. Building roads to the nearest AI city does me absolutly no good, since it's not attatched to its own capital. This was true in my last game, where I not only had a bad starting position, but was also without iron. I had money, and would have gladly payed my neighbor China for it, but they had no roads. I had no choice but to start an ill-advised war with Mao. He proceeded to run me down.

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Yes, this is annoying. Building a harbor may help, if the AI ever gets around to building one! If you really need to trade with that civ I would try and sign a ROP and build a road straight to his capital and to the iron. Or if the iron was on the border, I would put a city as close to it as possible, rush alot of culture into that city and try and capture the iron by culture.

Bamspeedy, the one thing I haven't read (might have overlooked it) is the fact that (maybe only at higher levels) the AI usually only will trade those dead-end techs you are talking about and NOT the 'not-dead-end techs'.

In your fine strategy article you were the larger civ but behind in techs, so I think you played a higher level. Trading tech has become so expensive in 1.29f, I usually fail to buy them, I get them through war-booty!

Trading with the AI (lux, ROP) is the way to get later allies in these 'tech-collecting' wars. Buying tech costs money, getting an alliance costs money. Normally I spent my money on the latter one.

That's my view on trading techs on Emperor or Deity (in the case that you're behind in tech).

When you're the tech leader you've already won. (Useally in the medieval times when you've grown in size through war and collected your techs.) The AI will spent his money on your tech and will not fulley research any more. You 'll use that money to rush improvements and to set research at 90 or 100%.

My two eurocents on trading at higher levels,

ERIKK

Bamspeedy, the one thing I haven't read (might have overlooked it) is the fact that (maybe only at higher levels) the AI usually only will trade those dead-end techs you are talking about and NOT the 'not-dead-end techs'.

In your fine strategy article you were the larger civ but behind in techs, so I think you played a higher level. Trading tech has become so expensive in 1.29f, I usually fail to buy them, I get them through war-booty!

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I think (may be wrong), that the AI will trade any tech. Dead end techs are valued lower, especially if the wonder that pertains to that tech has already been built. So it may seem like the AI only trades the dead end techs, but that is because they are cheaper. On emperor or Deity, the AI usually will start off bigger than you, so you wouldn't be able to use ROP and world map as a bargaining chip easily, because in most cases their territory is bigger and they have more land mapped out than you.

I played that game on 1.21f. It was Regent level. I was behind in techs because it was a tournament game and I wanted a fast culture win. So after Education (for universities), I set science to 0% (so I had cash to rush culture buildings in all my cities) and that is why I was behind in techs.

War and trading luxuries for techs is definitely more commonplace and seen more frequently. But I wanted to show some people that if they have a large territory (for ROP purposes) and a world map can be extremely valuable in some situations. Most players don't even think of charging a price for ROP.

On regent things might be different but even if the AI is way ahead he still demands huge amounts of money for tech. But it works for you too, if you are the tech leader!

Asking gold for ROP I used to forget too! Most of the times, before trading, I do a round with AI's to see what are to most lucrative deals, then I make the deals. And if I really need cash I trade my map for 1 gold every turn with every civ. That's real boring.

Well, I just had some experience with trading on 1.29f (Monarch level) and have a few comments.

The price to buy a tech if only one civ knows that tech seems to be much higher than previous patches. And it seems to diminish more rapidly for the more civs that know it, than previously. Examples:

Philosophy - I can't remember what I payed for it, I believe it was around 15-20 gold/turn. I then sold/gave it away to all civs (I wanted a fast tech rate, so everyone has to be up to date with techs). When I got to the last civ I could only sell it for 10 gold! They had 12 gold, but would only pay 10 for it. If I upped the price to 11, the advisor said "pretty close to a deal". So unless the Aztecs were only a turn or two from researching it themselves, after 14 civs (I am at war with Germany, so I don't know if they have philosophy or not) know a tech the price is really cheap.

The AI does not give away techs as cheaply to other AI as they did in the past. In some situations you can take advantage of this. I bought mapmaking from Babylon (on the same turn they discovered it) for my world map and 28 gold/turn. I then sold mapmaking and my world map (not worth much as I only had a few warriors out exploring) to all civs for their world map and what little gold they had (no gpt). I then went back to Babylon and they offered me 21 gold/turn for my updated world map!!

I think they key was to go back to Babylon on the same turn, as the gpt they give me corresponds to the same 20 turns as the gpt deal I am giving them. If I waited a few turns, they might not give gpt (or not as much) as it wouldn't be known if they could afford it towards the very end of the deal after my payments expire and they are still paying me.

If I had held off on trading my map, Babylon eventually would have been getting maps and/or trading away mapmaking, so you need to take the initiative and move fast! I had contact with all civs, so it may have been different had I been playing an island map or not met many civs yet.

Earlier in the game I had done something similar with contacts/writing. I bought (got in a peace treaty) writing and a couple contacts with other civs. I then found several civs who did not have writing so I sold writing for contacts and money so that in one turn I got everyone's money and contact with all 16 civs. Before that turn I had contact with 2 civs.

With 16 civs you can buy techs/contact really cheap when you start getting contact with all of them. If you are playing with less civs the price will still be pretty high even if 'everyone' knows that tech.

On regent things might be different but even if the AI is way ahead he still demands huge amounts of money for tech. But it works for you too, if you are the tech leader!

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I believe the AI values the price for techs partially on how much it would cost you to research it. With 1.29f research costs for the human is increased instead of the AI's cost decreasing as you go up in diff. levels. So on Deity, it costs the human so much more to do his own researching, and the cost to just buy the tech with cash is increased to correspond to this.

I believe the AI values the price for techs partially on how much it would cost you to research it. With 1.29f research costs for the human is increased instead of the AI's cost decreasing as you go up in diff. levels. So on Deity, it costs the human so much more to do his own researching, and the cost to just buy the tech with cash is increased to correspond to this.

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Yeah, I think you're right!

Always a joy to read your articles, bamspeedy.
I've had some problems in games with pangea maps with 2 continents: the AI didn't build any harbors, so I couldn't trade luxuries. Is there any way around this, besides the obvious option of establishing a 'beachhead'? Why doesn't the AI build harbors? Can't you just force 'em?

Let me add my thanks for the article, useful stuff. On the AI not building harbors -- I frigging hate this, too. Waiting for literally hundreds of years for the Americans to build ONE STUPID HARBOR on their pathetic little island so I can get my noble Chinese peasants drunk on some of their fine wine and also unload my overloaded spice and incense junks in their size 6 and shrinking sh*tholes. (For some reason in my games civs with monopolies on wine are always the most backwards ... is this saying something? And oddly enough, it's often the French ...)

Why do I care so much about wine? Because it would get me up to the full 8 luxuries (thanks to silk and furs from the Russians, and gems from the Huns), and with lots of marketplaces in my main cities, I'm one rickety Yank harbor away from dancing in the streets.

Next time this happens, I'm doing a D-Day for trade purposes. Found a city or conquer one on their isolated backwater, build a harbor and connect up with their ridiculous capital for the luxury in question. Now it's too late to bother in my current game. This would also prevent the other AIs from stealing the happy juice out from under me.

Originally posted by dsirirueng
Let me add my thanks for the article, useful stuff. On the AI not building harbors -- I frigging hate this, too. Waiting for literally hundreds of years for the Americans to build ONE STUPID HARBOR on their pathetic little island so I can get my noble Chinese peasants drunk on some of their fine wine and also unload my overloaded spice and incense junks in their size 6 and shrinking sh*tholes. (For some reason in my games civs with monopolies on wine are always the most backwards ... is this saying something? And oddly enough, it's often the French ...)

Why do I care so much about wine? Because it would get me up to the full 8 luxuries (thanks to silk and furs from the Russians, and gems from the Huns), and with lots of marketplaces in my main cities, I'm one rickety Yank harbor away from dancing in the streets.

Next time this happens, I'm doing a D-Day for trade purposes. Found a city or conquer one on their isolated backwater, build a harbor and connect up with their ridiculous capital for the luxury in question. Now it's too late to bother in my current game. This would also prevent the other AIs from stealing the happy juice out from under me.

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Taking the luxury militarily is sometimes the best option. Especially on the lower levels where they take so long to build stuff (harbors). In the game I'm playing now on Monarch level, the AI still is not building harbors and I am researching Invention. Most don't even have hardly any roads at 10 AD! All 16 civs are one big landmass, and it looks like I won't be getting any luxuries for trade until I capture them and hook them up myself .

Since it sounds like you have a large civ and the Americans have a pretty small one, expect to pay an arm and a leg for those wine. The luxury will benefit you so much more (it will add many more happy people for you) than a luxury would benefit them. But if they are technologically backwards a tech or two should be sufficient to get the wines.

Informative! Thanks

A quick question: I have heard of people trading their last resource or luxury to other civs, for tech or anything else. How do you do that? If the AI needs a resource I have only 1 of it is listed by can't be added to the table.

Hotrod

I don't know, I've always been able to trade away my only iron, for example. Are you sure you are connected to them (by roads or harbor/airport) so that you are able to trade the resource to them? Do they have the tech to be able to use that resource (like if they don't have gunpowder they can't use saltpepper, so you wouldn't be able to give them saltpepper)? I know it says '0' next to the resource meaning you only have 1 of that resource, but if I click on it, I can still trade it away.

16. Gave China Chemistry for 9 gold. I felt generous, 9 gold was all China had.

17. Forgot I hadn't signed a ROP with Rome, so gave them a RoP for their last 14 gold.

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9 or 14 gold is nothing. Why you doing this, ? For respect?

Diplomacy. Give them great deals, they will love you. The AI loves ROP, and China would get chemistry anyways from some other civ the next turn or two. So it makes sense to just give it to them and keep them happy with you since you charge them such a low price.

thank you for answer.

If you want to get a civ broke, at Chieftain at least, just renegoiate peace. I broke everybody w/ that tactic. Unfortunantely, Catherine was a cheap lil' leader and made me give her 70 gold and my World Map. Like yeah right! Only problem is that like a regular deal, you can't touch it for twenty turns.

Yes, if you have a power lead you can renegotiate peace for money/techs. Usually (but not always) you won't be able to get anything from the top 1 or 2 AI civs and they might make you pay for peace, even if they are weaker than you.