Thanks for the nice comment on me, Catt. And the link is very useful. I have never done any research on that since it has no impact on how I do my trading. And that article just fill up the gap =)
As for the real impact, most of the memtioned factors are really uncontrollable once the game start, except for mood. But even in that case, changes to the trading value is adjusted by at most 2%?
The points I memtion, however is where you can really maximized your tech trading.
1) Knowing the 1st sales is the all import since you are selling at 2x than the next few sales. The first trade is always given to one who is the riches or has a similiarly new tech. If you trade these after that, it is a no go or you will have to give two tech for one.
2) Also, it is extremely worthwhile waiting for the tech to be known by at least 2 civ before trading. Waiting further, however do not help much. This fact helps very much in strategy planning.
3) If a civ is researching the very tech you are selling, it is best to sell to one who is not researching it. Bcos the 2x effect is over the base (which is lower if the civ concern is researching it). So if I have two new tech Astronomy and Gunpowder. And A is researching Astronomy, B is reseaching Gunpowder. Make sure you sell Astronomy to B first before selling to A and Gunpowder to A first before selling to B. Not the other way round.
4) Knowing the tech trade value also means I can always use my trick of using gold to buy all the things I want first and then getting all of them back with confidence later selling tech.
Note: The key here is that all other factors do not change tech trade value much no matter what you do. But the points I mention can made the difference easily between selling 100gpt for nationalism or selling it at 50gpt. See the huge difference here? The timing and order of tech sales is extremely important.
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