[Database] (6-24) Revert DIPLOAI_TEMPORARY_FOR_PERMANENT_TRADING setting

[Jozrael]

	Current default	Proposed default	Rationale
Ability to trade instant goods for per-turn goods	Disabled in either direction	Human can trade their instant good for AI's per-turn, but not vice versa	Don't forbid a trade deal that's strictly beneficial for the AI if the human wants to take it

It makes total sense to, by default, forbid the player from trading their per-turn goods for an AI's instant goods. You can trivially exploit the AI by making these deals and then reneging, getting something for nothing (well, probably diplo penalties). It can't guard against this.

But the reverse is strictly beneficial for the AI. It's getting its payout instantly and irreversibly, and it's up to the player to curate the relationship to make good on their investment. Most notably the current default constrains tech trading - rarely, if ever, does the AI stockpile enough saved gold to fully pay what it values your tech at.

(To head off a potential criticism: Technically the AI pays you more over time than the raw gold value of the deal, but that's over a huge amount of turns, and gold now is vastly more valuable than gold later).

Note: this is only the default. Players who wish to restrict themselves further have every opportunity to do so in their config.

 

[Recursive]

The reason I turned this off was because the AI would consistently request lump sum Gold in trade deals, which players had to manually reject and replace with GPT if they didn't want to risk getting exploited.

Ideally this should be paired with the AI, when making offers on its own turn ("What will make this deal work?" should probably be okay, as that's prompted), avoiding including human instant goods in exchange for its own per-turn goods. @axatin might be interested in implementing that.

 

[azum4roll]

Human should not have the option to do something that the AI is forbidden to.

 

[rkkn]

Human should not have the option to do something that the AI is forbidden to.

big disagree here. I do not think this is a rule that should be held as inviolable.
Human and AI players are extremely different. Especially since as far as I'm concerned this rule is not fully adhered to now, and never can be. Humans can already do lots of things the AI can't. Mostly in the realms of planning, strategy, and tactics. And then the reverse is definitely not adhered to. The AI can do tons of things that humans can't.
And plus, in this particular case the AI's restriction would be purely to help it make better choices.

 

[azum4roll]

Mostly in the realms of planning, strategy, and tactics.

None of those are game rules.

The AI can do tons of things that humans can't.

Anything outside of handicaps?

 

[rkkn]

Anything outside of handicaps?

What do you consider handicaps? The AI-only perks are wide reaching. The AI gets extra information access (gets to know how much military you have?), extra vision, can settle new cities that almost instantly jump up to decent population, etc.

None of those are game rules.

Do they need to be game rules? What difference does it make? Even if you make the game rules the same, human and AI still won't be the same. What's the point? What do you accomplish?
Instead the goal should be seeking best gameplay experience. Will it make the game better or worse? Asking, in this case, will this human-only option make players feel like they can exploit or take advantage of the AI? I do not think so.

I think it will simply feel like adding an option that makes sense. It doesn't make any sense to be unable to buy things despite pulling in buckets of gold just because that gold happens to be in the form of instant yields instead of per-turn yields. Especially when you, the player, are taking a worse deal in order to do this. If I were sitting on 1000 gold and had 0 gold-per-turn, would I rather lose 800 of it or drop my gpt to -20 for 50 turns? I'd absolutely take the negative income, every time. Gold now is worth so much more than gold later. Adding the ability to spend that 800 gold instead does not feel exploitative to me in the slightest.

 

[axatin]

I tend to agree with azum here. With this proposal, a human player with negative income and an economy based on instant yields would be able to make trade deals, but an AI would not. The proposal wouldn't be exploitative, that's true, but it would open up a strategy for human players that the AI wouldn't be able to use.

Of course I'm completely aware that AI and human players are not the same and that bonuses for the AI are needed in many places to make them competitive. However, I'd say the long-term goal is to try and improve the AI and to hopefully make it less dependent on extra bonuses somewhere down the road. And while this is a very long and very difficult process and human-AI parity is of course not a realistic goal, implementing strategies that can by design only be employed by humans is still something we should avoid in my opinion.

 

[azum4roll]

The AI gets extra information access (gets to know how much military you have?)

That's a myth. Not sure if they really know.

extra vision, can settle new cities that almost instantly jump up to decent population

These are handicap bonuses.

will this human-only option make players feel like they can exploit or take advantage of the AI?

Humans have an advantage of being able to buy stuff with negative GPT. Relying on instant gold over steady GPT has a downside, and that's the inability to buy resources. This is a game rule and shouldn't be bypassed simply because you're a human player.

 

[Anarcomu]

Humans have an advantage of being able to buy stuff with negative GPT. Relying on instant gold over steady GPT has a downside, and that's the inability to buy resources. This is a game rule and shouldn't be bypassed simply because you're a human player.

AI used to be able to do that, this has only changed to avoid player making a huge deal giving turned-based values, then breaking it, by declaring war for example. The base intent have never been to forbid someone to make deals whilst on negative GPT.

 

[Jozrael]

I have never wanted to spend instant gold because I don't have gpt. It's always a good like a tech.

 

[Recursive]

Human should not have the option to do something that the AI is forbidden to.

What do you consider handicaps? The AI-only perks are wide reaching. The AI gets extra information access (gets to know how much military you have?), extra vision, can settle new cities that almost instantly jump up to decent population, etc.


Do they need to be game rules? What difference does it make? Even if you make the game rules the same, human and AI still won't be the same. What's the point? What do you accomplish?
Instead the goal should be seeking best gameplay experience. Will it make the game better or worse? Asking, in this case, will this human-only option make players feel like they can exploit or take advantage of the AI? I do not think so.

I think it will simply feel like adding an option that makes sense. It doesn't make any sense to be unable to buy things despite pulling in buckets of gold just because that gold happens to be in the form of instant yields instead of per-turn yields. Especially when you, the player, are taking a worse deal in order to do this. If I were sitting on 1000 gold and had 0 gold-per-turn, would I rather lose 800 of it or drop my gpt to -20 for 50 turns? I'd absolutely take the negative income, every time. Gold now is worth so much more than gold later. Adding the ability to spend that 800 gold instead does not feel exploitative to me in the slightest.

I tend to agree with azum here. With this proposal, a human player with negative income and an economy based on instant yields would be able to make trade deals, but an AI would not. The proposal wouldn't be exploitative, that's true, but it would open up a strategy for human players that the AI wouldn't be able to use.

Of course I'm completely aware that AI and human players are not the same and that bonuses for the AI are needed in many places to make them competitive. However, I'd say the long-term goal is to try and improve the AI and to hopefully make it less dependent on extra bonuses somewhere down the road. And while this is a very long and very difficult process and human-AI parity is of course not a realistic goal, implementing strategies that can by design only be employed by humans is still something we should avoid in my opinion.

That's a myth. Not sure if they really know.

These are handicap bonuses.

Humans have an advantage of being able to buy stuff with negative GPT. Relying on instant gold over steady GPT has a downside, and that's the inability to buy resources. This is a game rule and shouldn't be bypassed simply because you're a human player.

Some clarifications:

- The intention of this rule is simply to prevent the AI from getting exploited in trade. Human-to-human deals are not restricted in this way. It's more akin to the AI valuing the item as "IMPOSSIBLE!" than a game rule, but it has a tooltip to provide more clear feedback to the human about why.


- The AI does not use the exact military strength #. Both humans and AI have a function which calculates every other empire's military strength and places it into one of seven 'ranges':
IMMENSE
POWERFUL
STRONG
AVERAGE
POOR
WEAK
PATHETIC

Humans can view this based on the Military Advisor messages (and unlike the AI, they don't sometimes have an underestimation based on their Boldness flavor).

However, the AI also calculates a 'Target Value'. Whereas military strength determines the enemy's attack power relative to the AI's defense power, the target value calculates the enemy's defense power relative to the AI's attack power. This also has one of seven ranges:
IMPOSSIBLE
BAD
DIFFICULT
AVERAGE
FAVORABLE
SOFT
CAKEWALK

Humans do not currently have access to this information.


- Extra sight is only given as a handicap bonus on Immortal (+1 sight) and Deity (+2 sight). It's meant to compensate for some of the massive disadvantage the AI has due to not being able to remember the positions of units like humans can.


- The AI settling new cities and growing in population very quickly is a result of their handicap bonus granting instant Food from settling new cities + their production discount on buildings (such as the Granary).


- The AI does not make decisions based on its difficulty bonuses. For instance, it won't deliberately settle a city to get a Food boost in their capital. It isn't allowed to know about that (though it is allowed to know about the resources it has already gained, obviously).

 

[ma_kuh]

Humans can view this based on the Military Advisor messages (and unlike the AI, they don't sometimes have an underestimation based on their Boldness flavor).

Incoming proposal to make Human advisors suggest things based on your civ's AI flavors. Now, you too can see what's going on in Carthage's brain! /s

 

[adan_eslavo]

Can you tell me what the Military Advisor is?
What do you mean by "instant goods"? What the goods are?

I think the op needs some clarification for newbies. Now I think barely anyone except devs can understand what's going on there.

 

[Recursive]

Can you tell me what the Military Advisor is?
What do you mean by "instant goods"? What the goods are?

I think the op needs some clarification for newbies. Now I think barely anyone except devs can understand what's going on there.

    switch (eItemType)
    {
    case TRADE_ITEM_GOLD_PER_TURN:
    case TRADE_ITEM_RESOURCES:
    case TRADE_ITEM_OPEN_BORDERS:
    case TRADE_ITEM_DEFENSIVE_PACT:
    case TRADE_ITEM_RESEARCH_AGREEMENT:
    case TRADE_ITEM_THIRD_PARTY_WAR:
    case TRADE_ITEM_THIRD_PARTY_PEACE: // Ignore in peace deals
    case TRADE_ITEM_ALLOW_EMBASSY:
    case TRADE_ITEM_VOTE_COMMITMENT:
        bTemporary = true;
        break;
    case TRADE_ITEM_GOLD:
    case TRADE_ITEM_MAPS:
    case TRADE_ITEM_CITIES:
    case TRADE_ITEM_TECHS:
    case TRADE_ITEM_VASSALAGE:
    case TRADE_ITEM_VASSALAGE_REVOKE:
        bTemporary = false;
        break;
    }

Instant goods are bTemporary = false, temporary items are bTemporary = true.

Click on your leader icon in the right sidebar (or press V) to see the advisors (EUI).