Trading for lump sum of Gold requires Friendship

[Gali]

Yeah 20 plus gold per route late game on sea routes with a trade civ. Early land routes have been shown to be quite weak overall at around 2 . Sea routes require an investment in a navy and so are riskier. Gold is probably going to be scarcer. People may not want to settle on luxury tiles now since you get less in a trade and they will be the engine of your economy early.

We do not know precisely how the early economy will go, but it will almost certainly have less readily available gold. Gold per turn is already discounted and takes time to develop. Buying units early will be a bigger investment. That buffs Liberty and weakens Tradition, but it is hardly fatal. Tradition's Monarchy gold and maintenance reductions on buildings and units will now be stronger. Liberty will again speed up your settling. Hopefully the balance is better.

And yes MadDjinn if you nerf trading then you nerf trading civs. If they nerfed cavalry people would realize Songhai got weaker. I do agree it does prevent abuse and increases opportunity cost though. Its probably a good thing and if they improve diplo AI to account for it any negatives disappear.

My main fear for BNW is it forces increased interaction with the AI diplomatically which has always been hit or miss.

 

[Buccaneer]

Heh. Now this is the first major strategic gameplay change (regardless of victory condition) that I've seen.

 

[Arachnofiend]

And yes MadDjinn if you nerf trading then you nerf trading civs.

That is not necessarily true, and it isn't the case here. The nerf to lump sum trading hits everyone; the thing is that civs with powerful means to obtain gold elsewhere (Portugal, Arabia, Morocco) don't need it as much as civs with no gold bonus. If anything it could be seen as a buff because it makes it harder for a trade-neutral civ to have as powerful an economy as one of the trade civs.

 

[chazzycat]

goodbye Tab tradition opener

 

[Buccaneer]

A "playstyle" that a lot of players used got 'nerfed' and now people will have to work a bit harder to get things done (especially early game). That's a good thing.

The 'sell all and then DoW exploit' is also basically wiped out, unless you're doing that to a DoF friend.

The endgame 'sell everything to each and every AI and buy CSs for the diplo win' is also basically broken here, though the Diplo VC is actually a bit more protected from that due to the changes to how it works.

Three dramatic, yet very good, changes to make the game more challenging and less exploitative. Thanks for efforts. Now if you can get them to make the AI capitals a bit stronger, that should take care of everything.

 

[cairnsy44]

I often find myself in a bind financially in the game and bail myself out with the lump sum. I haven't (often) used the exploit unless the civ I declare on has really ticked me off. That said, when we have a DoF, I get very annoyed that the pleas for help can only be from the AI civ. They don't ever entertain helping me out with money or luxuries. That needs to change. If we have a DoF, I should have them help me at least SOME of the time. If not, then the penalty for denying them assistance should go away!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

If there is anything that would cause me to open up to DoF proposals (aside from playing as Sweden), it is this.

 

[Bechhold]

But will the AI start offering trade rather than asking for a favor every x amount of turns with nothing to offer?

 

[Buccaneer]

If there is anything that would cause me to open up to DoF proposals (aside from playing as Sweden), it is this.

Yep, that may or may not be a good thing.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yep, that may or may not be a good thing.

Are you rich? Of course, I'll be your friend.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I often find myself in a bind financially in the game and bail myself out with the lump sum. I haven't (often) used the exploit unless the civ I declare on has really ticked me off. That said, when we have a DoF, I get very annoyed that the pleas for help can only be from the AI civ. They don't ever entertain helping me out with money or luxuries. That needs to change. If we have a DoF, I should have them help me at least SOME of the time. If not, then the penalty for denying them assistance should go away!

The penalty for denying them assistance was removed in Gods and Kings.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I often find myself in a bind financially in the game and bail myself out with the lump sum. I haven't (often) used the exploit unless the civ I declare on has really ticked me off. That said, when we have a DoF, I get very annoyed that the pleas for help can only be from the AI civ. They don't ever entertain helping me out with money or luxuries. That needs to change. If we have a DoF, I should have them help me at least SOME of the time. If not, then the penalty for denying them assistance should go away!

I have never used the exploit in the sense that I declare war on the Civ after making the deal. I just let it expire and then renew it or sell it to someone else for another 240. Of course I will always sell luxuries, horses or embassies if I can, though, because currently I feel that if I don't, I won't be able to expand fast enough. I try to avoid declaring war unless I'm going for Domination, which is pretty much never.

I'd be happy if the change were accompanied by balance changes which made the AI less expansion-crazed early on.

 

[cairnsy44]

But will the AI start offering trade rather than asking for a favor every x amount of turns with nothing to offer?

that is what I fear. It happens so often that it really handicaps the DoF. Especially since it is such a one way street.

 

[Karmah]

This changes seems only logical to me.
Gold trade is in fact supposed to be an over time kinda bonus.
It makes room for the natural continuation in trade , namely the international new traderoutes system. Seriously would you invest in a long term relationship or rather one shot strip the ai of all its gold ? , so yeah this exploit had to go

For catatonic who is afraid that peacefull start focusing on wonders will not be possible anymore , since u can t suddently get a full load of cash in case of war to by walls+archer ...anyway investing in hanging garden or pyramid was not forbidding a reasonnable defense before hand , but if you like to go for GL , it s pretty hard anyway.Well I guess we ll have to adapt , maybe even reduce difficulty for those games. But I really think that the AI will also tend to be more friendly if it s his nature (I won t expect much from gengis but from ramma maybe)

 

[seasnake]

Sweden got a huge bump with this, more people will be willing to make declarations of friendship to trade lump sums of gold with you.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Great news, made my day. Thank you, Frankenstein team!

goodbye Tab tradition opener

Why? Because you have to hard build settlers instead of buying everything? Isn't it how the game was supposed to be in the first place?

 

[Halcyan2]

goodbye Tab tradition opener

I'll still play Tradition.

Anyway, haven't a lot of people been complaining that Tradition is OP (and that in many cases, Tradition is far better than Liberty). And now that Tradition gets HG and can buy GE with Faith, maybe this is a good way to indirectly nerf Tradition....

 

[chazzycat]

Why? Because you have to hard build settlers instead of buying everything?

Yep exactly. Buying settlers is a core part of the strategy as I understand it. Without that, everything is much slower. If you're building settlers, your capital isn't growing, and tradition is all about growing your capital. It'll also take much longer to get up to 4 cities, the ideal number for taking advantage of the free buildings.

Isn't it how the game was supposed to be in the first place?

Maybe, I don't know. But it pretty clearly was a very powerful strategy, which is going to be much less powerful now.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Yep exactly. Buying settlers is a core part of the strategy as I understand it. Without that, everything is much slower. If you're building settlers, your capital isn't growing, and tradition is all about growing your capital. It'll also take much longer to get up to 4 cities, the ideal number for taking advantage of the free buildings.
...
Maybe, I don't know. But it pretty clearly was a very powerful strategy, which is going to be much less powerful now.

Of course the start will be slower, but not to the point it's not viable anymore (unless other changes are made, which I'm unaware about). I played a few Tradition games with no lump sum trades on immortal (and planning a deity challenge soon), they were definitely playable, winnable and still strong. But I think that all speculations about plausible strategies atm are pointless. Trade routes and who knows what else will affect the gameplay in many different ways.

 

[Furycrab]

Personally I kinda love this change and it's sorely needed.

The balance opinion on openers is kinda completely tainted by the fact that you can trade for large lump sums of gold with literally no planning, and the AI can be heavily abused by a ton of forms of trading.

My only small concern is that with each improvement to the AI and with each balance tweak to take out the exploitable stuff we are getting close to a point where Deity is getting out of hand and might need a revision of the bonuses it currently gets... But I'm kinda okay with that.

Of course the start will be slower, but not to the point it's not viable anymore (unless other changes are made, which I'm unaware about). I played a few Tradition games with no lump sum trades on immortal (and planning a deity challenge soon), they were definitely playable, winnable and still strong. But I think that all speculations about plausible strategies atm are pointless. Trade routes and who knows what else will affect the gameplay in many different ways.

Immortal is unlikely to be the issue, there are still ways to get things done on that difficulty that aren't unreasonable, heck, you even have a fair shot at most wonders. Deity is the big ballbuster and right now if you play under standard settings, this change kills the crazy speed of the Tradition opener, and takes away practically all your "how to deal with early Deity wars shenanigans". Like I said, I don't mind if it means that down the line they can review the bonuses the AI gets because it's now less exploitable, but I'm also kinda cool with the idea that Deity isn't a difficulty you can always win.