Trading is boring

Smokeybear said:

So tell me you actually enjoy having to dick around in the trade screen and do it all manually several hundred times a game... like I said, after years and billions of manual clicks later, I'm so freakin' tired of that crap. Automation is a very, very, verrrrrry good thing, sometimes.

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I think the trading system is poor in G&K (have no idea if it will be improved in BNW). I believe most players to be like you, and simply do not use it, as it is almost never required for game victory.

The problem can be solved with a mod though, if Firaxes doesn't fix it in BNW. And it's a mod I've had my eye on for a long time. It's just a very complicated mod so it's been put off.

Unless you are dead set against mods, CivUp/Gem actually does some good work on making the system more usable by making the F2 screen interactive. And Whoward has a useful standalone but not as interactive version (the original) you can look at: here.

I think the trading system is poor in G&K (have no idea if it will be improved in BNW). I believe most players to be like you, and simply do not use it, as it is almost never required for game victory.

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What level are players "like you" playing on? I find trading essential. I spent 20 minutes the other night hunting around for deals because I needed something like 100 gold to upgrade a cat--and it had to upgraded that turn in order to keep up with my invasion forces.

I traded 1 horse to someone for like 45 gold, open borders for some chump change, and when I couldn't find anyone else willing to trade whatsoever, I ended up trading a luxury for like 41 gold and 3 per turn. The upgrade was pivotal, therefore so were the trades.

So, maybe it doesn't matter on easy levels, but it is quite important (probably necessary) on harder levels.

I do think that trading should be enhanced. Trading for political support, trading for denouncements or declarations of friendship, etc. I also think you should be able to cancel trades, perhaps with a penalty.

For example, you want to end your deal to provide gold to player X so that you can get a better return by trading with player Y. So, you ask player X, how much will it cost me to break my deal? If the math favors it, then pay the penalty and end the deal.

There's many ways to enhance trade. I hope the expansion accomplishes some substantial improvement with its addition of trade routes, world congress, etc.

I usually play emperor (with mods of course so probably/definitely easier than unmodded). I have played unmodded and gotten the achievement for all levels, including deity, I just don't personally find the two highest levels fun.

I would imagine the majority of civ players do not utilize much trading because the majority of any fan base is casual by overwhelming odds. But I would guess that the majority of civ players who frequent these forums do trade because we make up the more competitive group(in general).

Browd said:

You derive no additional benefit is a CS ally has more than one instance of a luxury. Multiple strategics do provide additional benefit, of course

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ok thanks. bit of a bad feature then

CSs only occasionally have multiple instances of a luxury, so it doesn't arise often.

Luckystrike77 said:

Wow, you guys are lazy!

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This, you guys are awfully lazy and also don't realize the strategic implications of your trading. For example constantly dumping your resources onto the runaway AI to drain as much of its gold as you can, so it won't be able to keep spending gold on units or whatever to maintain its runaway status. Or using trading for diplomacy, if you bother using diplomacy with the AI that is. That's micromanagement, nobody is forcing any of you to do it, nor to do it fully, you can micromanage as much as you want and leave the rest to the AI. The more you micromanage the better you will be as a player and the higher difficulty you'll be able to beat, but than again nobody forces any of you to become good players...

OwlRaider said:

This, you guys are awfully lazy ... than again nobody forces any of you to become good players...

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They're good players (I suppose anyway) who know how much micro goes into playing well. They find it tiresome because they've played the game long enough to know how repetitive it is. The request falls mainly under UI, not subsystem AI. Some way to prevent F4 every turn.

kirbdog said:

They're good players (I suppose anyway) who know how much micro goes into playing well. They find it tiresome because they've played the game long enough to know how repetitive it is. The request falls mainly under UI, not subsystem AI. Some way to prevent F4 every turn.

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Yes. This is exactly what I was referring to. I micro the hell out of trading, and that is why it gets so damned tedious and boring. Because the tradescreen is so crappy, and forces you to do everything manually and use a lot of guesswork to try to get the stupid AI's to just buy your stupid crap. Come on- all you should have to do is click on the item you want to trade, and then the AI should make a serious offer, and get it over with. Instead, you have to keep clicking and typing in new guesses until they finally say "Oh, ok, I'll pay that." It's not realy trading, it's just tedious guesswork and unnecessary typing and clickfesting. And it's not like the crappy tradescreen is friendly to that sort of stuff. And after dozens of times a game, billions of times throughout playing Civ, damn, if that don't get frickin' old.

Smokeybear said:

Yes. This is exactly what I was referring to. I micro the hell out of trading, and that is why it gets so damned tedious and boring. Because the tradescreen is so crappy, and forces you to do everything manually and use a lot of guesswork to try to get the stupid AI's to just buy your stupid crap. Come on- all you should have to do is click on the item you want to trade, and then the AI should make a serious offer, and get it over with. Instead, you have to keep clicking and typing in new guesses until they finally say "Oh, ok, I'll pay that." It's not realy trading, it's just tedious guesswork and unnecessary typing and clickfesting. And it's not like the crappy tradescreen is friendly to that sort of stuff. And after dozens of times a game, billions of times throughout playing Civ, damn, if that don't get frickin' old.

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Sure, the UI isn't optimal, but it isn't as bad as you make it sound. Sure there's a bit of guess work, but the AI follows standard patterns, for luxuries it's 240 a piece(neutral-good relations), 209 a piece(worsening relations) than 180 than whatever, or if mixing gpt and gold than 209+1gpt than 177+2gpt than whatever. For strategic it's mostly 45 a piece or nothing, but on some occasions you can sell them for less than 45. So just looking at your diplo screen you should have a good idea at what threshold the AI you're trading with will buy your resources for.

Can you get a better deal from the AI than what they offer after you click the 'What will you give me for this?' I used to use a lot of guesswork but then it seemed like I could speed things up by putting my offer out there and seeing what they will give. Sometimes they want Open Boarders from me, and I remove it and pay them some gold instead and that seems to work.

OwlRaider said:

Sure, the UI isn't optimal, but it isn't as bad as you make it sound.

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Yes, it is. End of story. I know all of that stuff you brought up, but it doesn't change the gadawful tedium and repetitiveness of it in that gadawful UI by one iota. Trading in this game isn't much fun to start with, and the way it's implemented in CiV makes it even less so.

The UI tries to create the illusion of arm's-length bargaining, but it falls well short of a convincing illusion. I don't find the tedium to be quite as bad as Smokeybear describes, but the system provides little game-play benefit and is due for an overhaul.

In addition to having more real-time "InfoAddict" type information, I would favor a true market-based system, where trades (both human trades and AI trades) are posted for competitive bid and the person initiating the trade can pick among the offered bids (and can pick a lower bid if there is a geo-political reason for doing so -- e.g., the player intends to DOW the high bidder in 2 turns or wants to curry favor with the second-highest bidder or wants to deny the offered, e.g., strategic resource to a runaway).

Browd said:

CSs only occasionally have multiple instances of a luxury, so it doesn't arise often.

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happened a lot on my last playthrough on the meditteranean map. Citrus, marble, wine... multiple CS had multiple resources