lump sum trades should be removed

[prozaic]

I'm trying to beat deity. After playing emperor/immortal for a while, it became obvious that trading luxuries for gold is central to victory. The amount they give is certainly large but didn't seem like an exploit; just a necessary game mechanic to allow players to compete. But naturally I discovered that you could very easily milk the AI for all of its gold by DOW'ing, or even better (zero diplomatic repercussions) by having the resources repeatedly pillaged and repaired. I don't see how you can argue that this isn't an exploit, but it's part of the game. Worst of all, it's up to the player to determine how much to abuse it, which puts power gamers like me in a bad spot.

I'm going to try to play with a new rule "no lump sum trades", but I'll still have a bitter taste in my mouth.

So does anyone else think lump sum trades should be removed from the AI?

 

[Loucypher]

There's actually a 'fix' coming up in BNW - Lump Sum Trades will require a declaration of friendship, so the whole sell/DOW thing won't fly anymore unless you wish to take massive hits. The pillaging thing, eh, it's cheap, but it requires specific pinpoint pillaging from the AI.

But yeah, the DoF for Lump Sum trades will help alleviate the problems at least a fair bit.

 

[kingchris20]

There's actually a 'fix' coming up in BNW - Lump Sum Trades will require a declaration of friendship, so the whole sell/DOW thing won't fly anymore unless you wish to take massive hits. The pillaging thing, eh, it's cheap, but it requires specific pinpoint pillaging from the AI.

But yeah, the DoF for Lump Sum trades will help alleviate the problems at least a fair bit.

Yeah, once you DOF/LumpSum/DOW that first time, your gonna be hard-pressed to get another DOF

 

[OmniPotent42]

I think they should add another modifier that says "your trades haven't held water" and gives a -1 penalty for every 200 gold someone lost in a trade agreement with you. Needless to say, trying to steal enemy gold and then DoW will make everyone else pretty livid.

 

[joncnunn]

Yup, BNW is already effectively removing lump sell deals by requiring DOF just like G&K effectively removed RAs by requiring DOF.

It still remains to be seen as to weather they'll change the logic that in Vanilla and G&K would result in the AI only giving you 7 gpt for a luxury while giving you the full 240 gold for lump sum.

 

[Sabrina]

I don't do lump sum trades, except when I can't trade with anyone else who can give me other luxury or GPT. pillaging, never! I really don't get the point... Why pillaging a city I am attacking if I will need to repair the improvement once I take it? maybe I'm missing some great opportunities, who knows...

 

[nanomage]

I don't do lump sum trades, except when I can't trade with anyone else who can give me other luxury or GPT. pillaging, never! I really don't get the point... Why pillaging a city I am attacking if I will need to repair the improvement once I take it? maybe I'm missing some great opportunities, who knows...

Well this often means the difference between captured city and all your units dead and buried. The exploit is not here, but when you sell resources for LSG, then let someone pillage source, repeair it and resell and so on.
Another exploit is to repair the enemy improvements to pillage them again and heal your units/earn some money, nut this is not regarded as bad as the former one.

 

[EEE_BOY]

It is not the problem of only the lump sum gold trade, in fact, any one-time effect type of trade (such as bribe to war, diplomatic vote trading) should also require DoF.

Since AI can't tell if human will break their deals, these types of one time bonus accelerate human player too much that makes deity a joke. Imagine if you can bribe the top military AI to go war against the whole world, and the human player can tech, cultural, or even attack the AI to sneak a win.

On the other hand, another mechanism could also work: on top of the DoF requirements,
Breaking the per-turn deal in 10 turns or less ( of 30 turns) attracts -2 diplomatic hit with all AIs,
Breaking the per-turn deal in 20 turns or less attract -1with all AI,
In more than 20 turns, no effect.

 

[ThisNameIsTooLo]

Actually, I would make it -0.1 for every turn before the deal expires, fading at a rate of +0.02 per turn.

 

[joncnunn]

maybe I'm missing some great opportunities, who knows...

Assuming your not planning on exploiting the AI, in both Vanilla and G&K you're missing 1 GPT when selling a luxury to the AI for 7 GPT instead of lump 240 gold.

As to buying a luxury; I never buy them with either gold or GPT but if needed trade a luxury for a luxury.