Trade discussion 250BC

I call on the T&T leader to start a discussion on trade-possibilities. I as deputy (not with Civ3 at the moment) have already devised a prelimenary plan which I think we should follow. Roughly it's in this order.

1) buy Poly + WM from Egypt for techs.
2) Buy Construction from Russia for whatever it costs.
3) Sell a tech to Greece for whatever they pay + their WM.
4) Sell techs to Germany (since they'll get it anyway with their Great Lib.
4) Sell contacts (perhaps even WM) to the civs with lotsa money till they are drained.
5) Check whether some civs have Monarchy or have jumped into the new Age. Decide whether it's worth it to hunt for those techs as well.
6) Leave the trading arena with all techs, complete WM, lotsa money and all competitors grateful or polite.

Good idea.. Here what i got during youre plan. Was testing it on the lates save game.
1.The egyptians will give poly and wm for philosophy and maths or poly, wm and 240 gold for 4 contacts.
2. Egyptians will buy maths for 102.
3.The Germans will buy poly for 160 and wm.
4. The Russians will buy contact with Greeks for 50 while Greeks will buy contact with Russians for 90 and wm.
5. Indians bought contact with Greeks for 65
6. Indians bought Polytheism for 100
7.Russia bought Poly for 50
Russians didnt sell Construction
I took the best deals of course and it left me with 1021 gold pieces And yet not sold many techs to Greece and Egypt since they had no money .

I wouldn't advise to sell contacts to Egypt immediately. They are far too worthy. Sell (outdated) techs; that way we have contacts + Poly + gold + gpt (if we temporarily lower the lux slider) to offer to Russia for Poly. I'll test tonight whether we can do it.

Anyway this plan will give a lot of profit. So I support it.

1. I'm always in favor of stripping the AIs of all their assets.

2. Contrary to Krabius' believe: of course we could also get construction from Russia.

But what are our goals?

Do we want the AIs to start researching Middle Age techs now while we still have many turns left on republic? I don't think so.

The ideal scenario would be us discovering republic, the AIs entering Middle Ages, we get the free techs of the scientific civs for republic.

Because of the IMHO very stupid research path we/the people chose (literature !?!???; without a Great Library pre-build!) it is not sure that we succeed. But I cannot advocate to currently accellerate the tech pace. Nonetheless: we should go for what we can get without trading contacts or state-of-the-art techs.

PS: In consequence, our galley should go south to watch out for Babylonian ships about to contact Greece and Egypt. Once this is about to happen, we have to sell the contacts first.

@Krabius I checked; we can even get Construction now. By lowering slider to 0%, and offering Russia WM + 314 gold + 40gpt.
Of course we won't do that.

If we want to trade we have to follow the order I proposed; to get the best deals.

1) buy Poly + WM from Egypt for techs.
2) Buy Construction from Russia for whatever it costs.
3) Sell a tech to Greece for whatever they pay + their WM.
4) Sell techs to Germany (since they'll get it anyway with their Great Lib.
4) Sell contacts (perhaps even WM) to the civs with lotsa money till they are drained.
5) Check whether some civs have Monarchy or have jumped into the new Age. Decide whether it's worth it to hunt for those techs as well.
6) Leave the trading arena with all techs, complete WM, lotsa money and all competitors grateful or polite.

But the first question is: "We know this is possible; do we want it ?"

This sounds like a good idea to me.

If you want to, I'd like you to take over this discussion, and post the final orders on the subject as you see fit. I'm a bit swapped right now with other business, so I'd greatly appreciate it if you could handle the orders for the upcoming TC.

I would expect the following arguments from our Trade and Technology Leader:

1. Argue to establish embassies w Egypt and Greece to lower the map prices.
2. Egypt is willing to pay wm, 40g for code of law.
3. Egypt is willing to pay wm, 140g for philosophy.
4. Thus Egypt is researching code of law.
5. I assume that Egypt and Greece have traded world maps.
6. If we learn polytheism from Egypt, Germany will not get it from the Great Library since they don't know Egypt.
7. Thus we should get polytheism, 242g from Egypt for mathematics, literature, code of law.
8. We should get wm, 97g from Greece for minimum set of (mathematics, literature, code of law).
9. The world maps will show us the location of all barb camps. Our military should dispose those close to us asap.
10. Egypt, Greece still need philosophy before they can research republic.
11. We have all their money and their maps.
12. Our galley should go south to watch out for Babylonian ships about to contact Greece and Egypt. Before this is about to happen, we have to sell the contacts and that should give us construction.
13. Before trading the contacts, sell/donate the techs to Germany they will get from the Great Library.
14. We may want to renegotiate peace with Germany making 100g.
15. We may want to renegotiate peace with India making 120g.
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Thanks Oct and tao.

My official proposal:

Step 1: Egypt
We offer: Math + Code of Laws + Literature.
We get: Polytheism + WM + 135 gold.

Step 2: Greece Uncertain of the exact numbers; trade changes due to other trades
We offer: Math + (if necessary) Polytheism + (if necessary) Literature
We get: WM + all Greeces gold.

Then we have 2 options:

Path A
Step 3A: Russia
We offer: Everything the Russians want for Construction (of course after first lowering the slider temporarily to obtain enough gpt, and of course optimising the trades). We do NOT offer contacts with Greece or Egypt.
We get: Constuction.
We (and Russia) enter a new age by doing that.
Step 4A: Germany
We offer: Construction and Polytheism (they will get it through the Great Lib)
We get: Whatever the Germans are prepared to pay
We check for more money and possible Monarchy somewhere and trade for it. We then trade around to drain all civs of thei techs, gold and WM.

The advantage is that we are rich, knowledgable and respected and loved.
The risk here is that we'd not be ready for the New Age, thus helping our competitors more than we help ourselves.

Path B
We stop trading and as soon as we are ready for the new Age (republic finished, revolted etc. or as soon as our continent-shares are going to meet the Greeks or the Egyptians) we do the deals 3A, 4A etc.

The advantage is that we pick the time we enter the next age, not the situation picks the time.
The risk is that we can't always prevent people meeting. If they meet; all our possible deals are down the drain.

****************************************************

2 questions
1: Should we do steps 1 and 2 ?
2: If 1 is answered "yes"; what next; Path A or Path b ?

I'll poll this discussion later on (with the approval of the T&T leader).

Options:
"No, dont do step 1 and step 2"
"Yes, do step 1 and 2 and then A"
"Yes, do step 1 and 2 and then B"
"Other, please specify"
"Abstain"

Gentlemen and Gentelwomen, thank you for lending me your ear. Now lend me your tongue and respond. I want to hear your thoughts.

First reply - I like both deals 1 & 2, and how you stated them (if necessary, and get all the gold!).

Second reply - tougher question. I'm concerned by the Babylons near us - if we do end up in a conflict, we will need the gold and resources to secure allies in that battle. My answer is: it depends on the price of Construction. If it won't bankrupt us totally (if we can sell it for good stuff - that changes things), go for it. We need the pikes from Feudalism to neutralize the Bowmen effectively.

-- Ravensfire

@Rik Meleet:

I am disapointed that you didn't follow my point 5 nor argued against it. (Edit/add: Sorry! I only read your argument in the other thread after I posted this statement. I don't agree with you however. AIs "always" trade maps. And 107g is not a "low price".) We don't need Egypt's wm now, since it will be nearly identical to Greece's which we will get "cheap". We should get the extra 107g from Egypt instead of the wm.

Also we have to consider that this is a monarch game. The AIs trade not at all as aggressive as on emperor or deity. Proof: look at the non-traded techs they have. Therefore I would not even pay "half an arm and haf a leg" for construction now. Especially as we don't need it for any imminent improvements.

Therefore I favor my deal proposed above followed by your Path B and would appreciate if you include this proposal in the official poll.

And, yes, I do authorize you to post an official poll on the subject.

The poll is available here.

tao: the Authorisation was meant for me. the poll you've posted is "informational".

The real official trades 250 BC poll