AI won't even give me 1GPT for my tec and i have a clean rep

[Vulcans]

I hear everyone getting fantastic deals with the computer for tec, but the computer doesn’t seem to want to trade on a per turn basis with me even when I have a shiny reputation.

The computer is willing to trade a couple of hundred gold up front but then is not willing to trade even 1 gold per turn with me. This is in civilization gold on monarch and emperor difficulty.

I know computers won’t trade gold per turn if you’ve got a black mark next to your name from breaking a per-turn agreement but I am having this situation even before I have had any other agreements with the computer. They are polite status, I’ve never crossed them in a deal, I’ve tried giving them ROP maps etc before to make them happy, have a embassy with them, buttering them up with gold gifts, tried all sorts of things. And they just seem unwilling to trade on a per turn basis.

So in the eng I am forces to settle for something like 26gold upfront for a Tec if I’m lucky. I think they are all very stupid computer players if they wouldn’t even accept a tec for 1gold/turn, (20 gold total) while they are willing to pay much more upfront. so how do you guys get somehting like 20 gold/turn? Are there any tricks that I’ve missed to get them to be willing to trade on a per turn basis?

please forgive me if this is already addressed somewhere in the forums, i read pretty much all the posts in the acadamy and a lot of the forum to check if it has already been addressed.

[eldar]

They won't pay you gold per turn if they don't have it to spare.

[Crakie]

1) The AI may just not have the money available. You should not expect the AI to pay gpt before about halfway the middle ages. If your advisor says: "they will never accept such a deal" with a clean rep, it usually means the AI has no budget surplus.

2) Your techs are valued in a certain way by the AI. One of the most important factors is how many other players (known to you, or them, or none, that does not matter for some reason) already have the tech. If you are the first one to reach a tech, it will be worth ALOT and the AI will pay through the nose for it, except when it just doesn't have the money. The way the AI values your tech is reflected in the advice you get, such as 'I doubt they will accept this deal' means you are asking too much.

[Tesuji]

I see a lot of lamenting about reputation here. I suppose it would have helped to make some of the reputation concepts visible, so that people don't have to guess so much what's going on. For such an important concept in the game, it stays rather invisible which leads to a lot of frustration with players.

[Brain]

Originally Posted by Tesuji

I see a lot of lamenting about reputation here. I suppose it would have helped to make some of the reputation concepts visible, so that people don't have to guess so much what's going on. For such an important concept in the game, it stays rather invisible which leads to a lot of frustration with players.

It looks like something that wasn't really intended to be exposed. But they screwed up. Your reputation is only a true/false thing instead of a progressive scale, such as attitude. I hope they fix that in Civ4.

[Brain]

Originally Posted by Crakie

Your techs are valued in a certain way by the AI. One of the most important factors is how many other players (known to you, or them, or none, that does not matter for some reason)

If you're saying that it doesn't matter how many civs you or the AI knows then that's not true. Someone figured out the exact tech cost formula (I'm too lazy to search for it right now) and it includes BOTH the total number of civs and the number of civs that you know.

[gunkulator]

There really isn't much to the reputation concept. It's either good or it's ruined. You start out with it good. If you break a deal where you were supplying something on a per turn basis, then your reputation is ruined. That's it really.

How do you know if it's ruined? Offer an AI 1 gpt for 10 gold (assuming they have 10 gold). If they'll agree, your rep is good. If they say they'd never accept, then your rep is ruined.

What surprises most players is that you might break a per turn deal through no fault of your own and still you take the rep hit. For example, the AI might pillage away a resource you were trading or you might be trading per turn to a civ that gets destroyed. The AI might cut roads or blockade your path to your trading partner. All of these break deals and trash your rep.

[axehaxe]

When the AI who your trying to get gpt from is at a serious war with another AI, they are less likey to pay you gpt because they've already lowered science for extra cash and are spending it on units. I was trading with the sumerians one time and I charged something like 50 gpt and nationalism for giving them steam power. After that they never accepted anywhere nears that amount for anything. So the gpt goes lower but never higher. In fact, right now they aren't even accepting 1 gpt like you said because they are at war with the maya and so am I.

[gunkulator]

Your reputation has no impact on you getting per turn deals from the AI, only on you giving such deals. You can stil get the AI resources and gpt with a trashed rep. They just won't accept resources or gpt from you as part of the deal. When you have a trashed rep, the AI insists that you deliver all of your end of the trade agreement up front.

[Brain]

Originally Posted by gunkulator

There really isn't much to the reputation concept. It's either good or it's ruined. You start out with it good. If you break a deal where you were supplying something on a per turn basis, then your reputation is ruined. That's it really.

Not quite. There is a War Academy article on this subject here. There are in fact two types of reputation: trading reputation and ROP reputation, and one is independent of the other. As I said, the concept is supposed to be hidden but people have figured it out over time.

[Vulcans]

I think crake must be right, they are just flat broke. But then when I play I normally see them all broke, with anything from 0 to 30 gold, (mostly around 1 or 2 gold). That means hat if I only get a couple of gold from each AI I would be lucky to make 50 gold in total from a tec. So why sell it to them in the first place if I can slow them down by a turn or 2. I am about second in the tec race, so sometimes I get a tec first and sometimes it’s the persions that get it first and seem to sell it to about half the civilizations straight away.

I read all these strats about zero science research level from the start, pope start etc, but how could that work if there is no market to sell your tec as all the AI are broke? Is there a way to encourage them to try to stockpile some money so they can afford my tec? I still only get bad deals in the early MA. is it a simple matter that it’s not worth bothering with doing the tec trader thing till MA?

[WackenOpenAir]

Your reputation does not matter in recieving GPT from them, you only cannot pay it if your rep is ruined.

[popewiz]

gunkulator, I think it makes sense to lose your rep if you allow the resource you're trading to get pillaged or you allow your trading route to be destroyed. As for losing rep for that civ getting destroyed, I think that's a little off.

[Brain]

Originally Posted by popewiz

gunkulator, I think it makes sense to lose your rep if you allow the resource you're trading to get pillaged or you allow your trading route to be destroyed. As for losing rep for that civ getting destroyed, I think that's a little off.

Worse. If you ever re-negotiate peace and get a military alliance as part of the deal then the AI will consider it a declaration of war on YOUR part if your enemy is destroyed. Now THAT's complete nonsense.

[eldar]

Originally Posted by Brain

Worse. If you ever re-negotiate peace and get a military alliance as part of the deal then the AI will consider it a declaration of war on YOUR part if your enemy is destroyed. Now THAT's complete nonsense.

...indeed! I've been caught out by this before, and only a lucky glance at the F4 screen ("I'm at war with them?! when did that happen? Better kill their units tramping all over my territory then....!") saved me from embarassment!

[DBear]

I got my rep hosed once when a volcano took out my gems that I was trading to a neighbor civ.

[Brain]

Originally Posted by eldar

...indeed! I've been caught out by this before, and only a lucky glance at the F4 screen ("I'm at war with them?! when did that happen? Better kill their units tramping all over my territory then....!") saved me from embarassment!

Yes, me too. I learned this playing the Rise of Rome scenario. I was lucky to look at the F4 screen at all. The Celts and Greeks were furious with me, but they had been polite just turns ago. Then I looked and saw that I was actually at war with them. What the...?!? The most stupid thing about this is that you don't even recieve any kind of message at all.

[SJ Frank]

Originally Posted by Vulcans

I think crake must be right, they are just flat broke. But then when I play I normally see them all broke, with anything from 0 to 30 gold, (mostly around 1 or 2 gold). That means hat if I only get a couple of gold from each AI I would be lucky to make 50 gold in total from a tec. So why sell it to them in the first place if I can slow them down by a turn or 2. I am about second in the tec race, so sometimes I get a tec first and sometimes it’s the persions that get it first and seem to sell it to about half the civilizations straight away.

I read all these strats about zero science research level from the start, pope start etc, but how could that work if there is no market to sell your tec as all the AI are broke? Is there a way to encourage them to try to stockpile some money so they can afford my tec? I still only get bad deals in the early MA. is it a simple matter that it’s not worth bothering with doing the tec trader thing till MA?

The AI will not have any gpt available while in Despotism. They will have gpt available after they switched into Republic and after they built their marketplaces. Even then, what will typically happen is that most of the gpt's in the world will be pooled into the hands of a few AI "tech leaders". So, unless you own a tech lead over the strongest AI's, you can not gain access to those gpt's.

What it means is that, as you've observed, the AI's will start to have some gpt avaible in early MA, and as the AI nations grow stronger and improve in infrastructure, they will have more and more gpt's available. The gpt's tend to dry up only when the AI's are knocked into none-representitive governments because of war.

When people refer to 0-science-tech-trading, they're typically talking about a different kind of tech trading with a different kind of goal. Rather than trying sell their techs to get the AI's gpt, they instead try to trade their gpt for the AI's tech. The trick is to play the "tech broker" between the AI's: buying one tech, then selling that tech to another AI for another tech, and get deals like 2-for-the-price-of-1, or 3-for-the-price-of-1.5, etc.

[Crakie]

Originally Posted by Brain

If you're saying that it doesn't matter how many civs you or the AI knows then that's not true. Someone figured out the exact tech cost formula (I'm too lazy to search for it right now) and it includes BOTH the total number of civs and the number of civs that you know.

I was saying that, but thanks for clearing that up

One thing that has not been mentioned, is the difficulty. A warlord level AI will take longer to get a budget surplus, which will probably not be a big surplus anyway. In my recent demigod games however, 250 gpt deals were common already in the early industrial age.

[Vulcans]

So one interesting thing could be that in that respect it could actually be easier on diety. If the AI have more surplus earlier then you effectively get more surplus.

I’ve just started an experiment, diety level, lots of AI. Go nearly 100% science and get Alphabet, writing, litrature. Set up core and quickly put aside second city onto FP for pre-build GL. Once you hit litrature set science research to 0% and start collecting cash(or get iron working if you don’t already and need spearmen for defence). The AI will be ahead on tec for a while but don’t worry, if you’ve pre-built the GL from the start then it should arrive soon after you get litrature. Next thing you have the GL and jump up the tec tree to where the computer is, (compleating final few AT techs). With GL you will be ensured 3rd place in tec till advent of education. So with a lot of computers you should be able to sell your tec to lots of people. Sit at 0% science level getting all your science from GL and selling to other AI for a bit of extra pocket money.

This will give you lots of god in cash stored up (save it). This gives a couple of thousand years of free tec where you can focus all yor attention on expansion/war etc (more land and cities for later tec generation). GL becomes obsolete early at education (after getting 25 free tec from it), so start building librarys at the start of the middle ages, and so you’ll be ready for 100% science power after education. Then you'll have lots and lots of cash when GL becomes obsolete so buy tec from 1st and 2nd place so you become 1st in tec race, Now is the time to get the ahead, you can run a deficit for a long time because of the huge cash stockpile, and with increased territory and 100% science rate (you can’t go under 4turns/tec so don't do 100% if you can get 4turn/tec at lower rates) it should be able to get ahead of the AI.

This strat works well if you could sell your GL tec to other AI in the AT, but I found the AI didn’t have any money on emporor level.

But maybe as frank said on diety level the AI will generate more surplus and so this could be feasible. Also the more AI the better. And also archepelago/continent would be better then parganda as the AI wouldent have contact with all the AI.

Well it didn’t work as well as I had planned on emporor because of the computer not having cash to buy my AT/early MA tec, but it might work better on diety, archepelago, large map, lots of AI.

Time to milk the GL tec for all they are worth!