Trading for lump sum of Gold requires Friendship

[Death Dragon]

As it's by now officially confirmed with that Greek preview video, you can't trade for instant cash anymore unless you're friends with the civ you trade with.
It looks like they obviously did that change to stop people from exploiting the AI by trading everything they have for money and then declaring war anyway.
But of course that's not the only thing that's gonna be different.
It's gonna make trading a lot less common. You can't just sell resources when you're desperate for money, you need to wait until the AI has enough gold per turn before you can trade, open borders are only gonna be 30 gold now and it'd be impossible to sell embassies (unless they changed the time a deal is active from 30 turns to 25 turns or something) and it'd probably also not be good for civs that have trade related abilities like the Dutch and the Arabs (unless they've been reworked).

So what do you people think about this change? More good than bad or the other way around?

 

[EricTheGreat12]

As it's by now officially confirmed with that Greek preview video, you can't trade for instant cash anymore unless you're friends with the civ you trade with.
It looks like they obviously did that change to stop people from exploiting the AI by trading everything they have for money and then declaring war anyway.
But of course that's not the only thing that's gonna be different.
It's gonna make trading a lot less common. You can't just sell resources when you're desperate for money, you need to wait until the AI has enough gold per turn before you can trade, open borders are only gonna be 30 gold now and it'd be impossible to sell embassies (unless they changed the time a deal is active from 30 turns to 25 turns or something) and it'd probably also not be good for civs that have trade related abilities like the Dutch and the Arabs (unless they've been reworked).

So what do you people think about this change? More good than bad or the other way around?

I think that it's actually better because of the fact that nearly every time I trade with AI we trade with gold. Now that they changed it, I feel as if I can start trading more luxury resources with the AI

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think it is very good (wish they'd gone farther and restricted lump sum more)
So embassies/ open borders will be exchanged or given as a gift rather than sold.

It means you will get your gold on a gpt basis. And spend it on Cs or rush buy

Arabs and Dutch don't need to be reworked. They just got a slight nerf. If the AI is better about improving its duplicate resources, then you can trade for happy instead of gpt

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

It resolves a highly abused deficiency in the AI. I like it.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Personally this change worries me. On one level, it's good that they're removing something that's essentially an exploit, but I find the AI is so aggressive towards peaceful players in the early game that being able to trade luxuries for gold is currently the only way to compete with the AI on King or above without just churning out units and forgoing all early Wonders.

Of course, if they're toning down the aggressiveness of the AI and how quickly it expands, then fair enough. But that remains to be seen.

 

[kingchris20]

Good and welcome change, but I sure will miss that 25 gold bump for allowing an embassy in my capital!

 

[stealth_nsk]

It needs some connected tweaks:
- AI more willing to be friend.
- AI suspicious to lump gold trade requests if friendship is about to end - otherwise the exploit will be reborn in weaker variant.
- Much bigger warmonger penalties for attacking friends. Probably with lowering warmonger penalties for attacking neutrals.

With such thing it will be brilliant.

 

[Scaramanga]

Sounds good to me. Maybe the Dutch will get 100% retained happiness.

 

[EEE_BOY]

Even lux gpt trade seems exploitable but at least the lump sum cash trade is removed. A welcome move!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It needs some connected tweaks:
- AI more willing to be friend.
- AI suspicious to lump gold trade requests if friendship is about to end - otherwise the exploit will be reborn in weaker variant.
- Much bigger warmonger penalties for attacking friends. Probably with lowering warmonger penalties for attacking neutrals.

With such thing it will be brilliant.

#1 No. AI should be less willing to friend (or at most equally)
for #2.. not sure, not much of a problem if #1 does not occur
#3 definitely

As for the Dutch.. perhaps they could also receive the ability to trade imported luxuries ie from City States (unless everyone has that now)

 

[bcaiko]

I agree this is a very good change. The AI should have always been programed to favor GPT offers unless it liked you a lot.

Hopefully this will be balanced properly, though. Stealth is correct that the AI needs to be a little more friendly now - since it's actually worth trading now instead of taking everyone else's stuff, it would be to the AI's benefit to play nicer on occassion. Also, do you have to enter in a Declaration of Friendship to trade lump sums? Not that I DoF often, but doesn't that take several techs to unlock? Early lump sum trades are pretty vital to certain game strategies.

 

[nanomage]

It means game's about to be much harder, so yes I like it.

 

[Scaramanga]

I agree this is a very good change. The AI should have always been programed to favor GPT offers unless it liked you a lot.

Hopefully this will be balanced properly, though. Stealth is correct that the AI needs to be a little more friendly now - since it's actually worth trading now instead of taking everyone else's stuff, it would be to the AI's benefit to play nicer on occassion. Also, do you have to enter in a Declaration of Friendship to trade lump sums? Not that I DoF often, but doesn't that take several techs to unlock? Early lump sum trades are pretty vital to certain game strategies.

DoFs happen any time. You might be thinking of Defensive Pacts.

 

[stealth_nsk]

#1 No. AI should be less willing to friend (or at most equally)
for #2.. not sure, not much of a problem if #1 does not occur
#3 definitely

Trading for lamp sums of gold is not a bad thing. It makes diplomatic exchange working smoothly. The only bad thing is exploiting this trade. So the first point is needed for trade to work.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Trading for lamp sums of gold is not a bad thing. It makes diplomatic exchange working smoothly. The only bad thing is exploiting this trade. So the first point is needed for trade to work.

You don't need lump sums of gold for diplo exchange... gpt is enough.

Luxury=8 gpt (unless they don't like you then it is 7,6,5, etc.)

2 Strategics= 3gpt..if they need it.. (may have been repriced to 1 Strat=2gpt, but AIs are more discriminating about their need)

Open Borders= Open Borders (maybe repriced to 1 or 2 gpt)

Embassy=Embassy

Peace=Lump sums, Cities

 

[bcaiko]

DoFs happen any time. You might be thinking of Defensive Pacts.

I could swear they at least require an embassy. I know Open Borders does. ...maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Luxury=8 gpt (unless they don't like you then it is 7,6,5, etc.)

As it is now, the AI will never give you 8GPT for a luxury - even at its most friendly. It overvalues GPT, so it will give you 240 gold, but not 8gpt.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Welp, looks like Liberty just got a whole lot better. Much of the strength of Tradition is being able to buy your way to 4 cities quickly but you're not going to be able to do that anymore.

I will withhold judgement until I play the game but for now I'm wary of this change. I love discouraging people from exploiting the AI by declaring war to break a trade but I am going to miss buying settlers with lump sums dearly.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I could swear they at least require an embassy. I know Open Borders does. ...maybe that's what I'm thinking of.




As it is now, the AI will never give you 8GPT for a luxury - even at its most friendly. It overvalues GPT, so it will give you 240 gold, but not 8gpt.

Which it needs to change... so a luxury (which is a per turn trade) should be 8 gpt but not 240 lump sum.

 

[Scaramanga]

I could swear they at least require an embassy. I know Open Borders does. ...maybe that's what I'm thinking of.




As it is now, the AI will never give you 8GPT for a luxury - even at its most friendly. It overvalues GPT, so it will give you 240 gold, but not 8gpt.

Yeah sorry, I think you're going to need at least Writing to make DoFs.

 

[Petiscator]

I'm happy that they are trying to work on that exploit, but, as Blackcatatonic said, it is worrying. Some civs just got a very big nerf here, like the Netherlands and Arabia. Also, Russia (I love to play as them because you can improve a horse tile and get 8 strategics to trade with your neighbours, as it doesn't sacrifice happiness for REX and can be divided between AIs if they don't have enough money). Tradition just got another nerf, which is a shame, because I just started tradition openings again, after a long time with Liberty. Even though I'm sure they'll change the Netherlands' and Arabia's UA, I will miss the lump sums a lot. Indonesia and Portugal now feel a bit less interesting as well.