[GS] Experiences trading for strategic resources?

[bengalryan9]

I seem to always have bad luck when it comes to having strategic resources in my territory. I'm lucky if I get one of iron or horses (which is ok, but sometimes I get neither), I'm usually luckier with niter, but I pretty much never seem to have any access to oil.

Now I'm not complaining about the map itself - I think unequal access to these strategic resources leads to a fun game where you have to make some big adjustments to win. Theoretically, you have two options here - war, or trade. Sometimes I'll go out and take these resources by force, but other times I don't feel like playing that aggressive or there's no strategic resources in a place that's convenient to conquer or hold. So that leads to trade, which should be interesting, but...

My experience is that trading for strategic resources from the AI is almost impossible as they always seem to ask for the world. In my current game, for example, I'm out of oil. I look at my potential trading partners and see that China has tons to spare, but lacks aluminum which I have a surplus of. You would think since we each have extra of what the other needs that we could work something out, so I try offering 20 aluminum for 20 oil, which he won't accept. Ok, I figure, I can kind of see where he's coming from as oil seems to have more value in the game... let's ask what it will take? He counters by asking for 20 aluminum... and 469 gold/30 turns. He wants 14000 gold for 20 oil that I'd probably spend in a turn or two. That seems pretty nuts.

So I'm wondering what luck others have had in trying to trade for these resources. It really like the AI way too extreme, especially when you take into account what they offer for your own strategic resources. 6 gold and open borders? Who can say no to that?!?

 

[fotonut]

I've seen that too. The real unfortunate thing is that you can often get AI to accept something like 15 gold for one resource; and you can often keep on doing it until you get what you want. Which is repetitive and unfortunate, of course. But if you ask for >1 unit at once, the price goes up non sensically.

 

[MrRadar]

The algorithm is still somehow broken. You can buy some amounts 1 unit at a time for a reasonable price, but if you try to save clicks and buy more at a time, you throw money away for nothing. Selling goes unaffected by batches of 5 units at a time, it seems, more than that and the offered price drops. But they'll buy a few batches of 5 units for not reduced price until they got enough. But having to buy 40 units 1 at a time makes me want to burn all Civ VI DVDs... if only there were any. I rather seek a peaceful victory in such cases. And that with Concise UI. If I had to do that with the game's own UI , I'd probably rather burn my laptop...

 

[Victoria]

I often have the resources but find it pretty much pointless asking for anymore than a couple but because I often have I rarely have to ask. Maybe we should swap machines
It is certainly too difficult. I just about give mine away to the smaller civs near my main opponent, maybe it’s about how strong/large you are?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I generally can find enough Strategic Resources, although sometimes it means waiting X turns while I accumulate what I need from only 1 - 2 'deposits'.
What annoys me most, though, is that as soon as I have any kind of Strategic Resource the AI wants me to trade all the Resources to them, for ridiculously tiny amounts of Gold or trade goods. And frequently they want me to trade away resources that they don't have the technology to use yet. I understand that as a tactic to use on someone who is too dumb to realize they are simply depriving him of Strategic Resources, but then, of course, they also will not trade for other Strategic Resources for any reasonable amounts at all.
The result, all too often, is that I wind up not trading Resources with them at all because their idea of 'fair trade' is What's Mine Is Mine And What's Yours Should Be Mine, So Gimme.

 

[bengalryan9]

maybe it’s about how strong/large you are?

I'm not much of a warmonger so I don't think that's it (except for the rare game where I feel like going on a rampage). I generally have about the same amount of land as anyone. I suppose it could have something to do with military strength as I do usually try to keep mine higher than others, especially late game.

 

[Pfeffersack]

The need to purchase one-by-one to get a resonable price pretty much kills any import based approach ATM (migh hurt AIs as well, if they trade with each other). At least the problem has been already reported as bug:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...resources-one-at-a-time.647911/#post-15499533

So I'm pretty confident that Firaxis will fix it like they did with other trading bugs in the two GS-Patches we have already seen.