A quick practice session with trading and bargaining

[SirPleb]

What a fun idea Moonsinger!

This save is at my favorite trading turn, i.e. the first turn where Map Making is known on a pangaea map with lots of Civs. I played it as follows:

1) I want Map Making before anything else so that I can use my maps in other trades. England is the only supplier for that so,

England: maps+627g for MapMaking

2) I want contacts before techs because techs will become cheaper that way. There are only two places to get contact with Greece: England and Rome. I don't want to finance England any further, it will be hard enough to get our 627g back. So,

Rome: maps+53g for maps+Greece

(A side note about my reasoning here: Probing Rome with simple cash offers determines that she'd accept about 155g for her maps, and about 150g for Greece. Further probing shows that she'll take maps+53g for maps+Greece. This means that she values our maps at about 250g. If I did the simplest trade of just maps for Greece, I'd be wasting about 100g of the value in my maps. Instead I add 53g to sweeten the deal and get her maps. I figure I'll get that 53g back later in the trading. All this may be unnecessary to get everything from all rivals in the long run but you never know, it doesn't hurt to start by squeezing trades.)

3) I still don't have contact with Babylon. Japan is willing to offer that and everything else she has just for my maps, so:

Japan: maps for Babylon+Philosophy+maps+1g

4) Time to get all their tech and maps. My intent now is to squeeze everyone dry if possible. I'll pick off any Civs who will give me everything they have for my maps. If I reach a point where no such trade can me made then I'll lean toward trading for maps first, hoping to get more tech from other Civs afterward. I'll trade away my techs and/or contacts only if there's no other way to get what I want. Since only the Zulu have Mathematics, and only Zulu and Persia have Literature, those techs needs special care (i.e. don't waste the trading turn with those Civs on other techs.) Since only one Civ knows Mathematics there's no need to trade carefully to allow for blocked techs (Currency and Construction) - no one will have them yet anyway. One final note: I'll leave Egypt till the end, because she's the Civ I'd be most likely to go to war with soon. (That means I won't consider taking an alliance with her against someone else, so I want her map info last in order to be able to use it at the very end to perhaps buy alliances from other Civs.) So,

Russia: maps for maps+21g (that's all she has)
Persia: maps for maps+Literature+39g (to get Literature)
Zulu: maps for maps+Mathematics (to get Mathematics)
India: maps for maps+Polytheism (that's all she has)
Rome: maps for CodeOfLaws+53g (get our gold back, all she has)
We now have all tech. So we're done with Zulu and Persia also now.
Greece: maps for maps+50g (all she has)
Babylon: maps for maps (all she has)
Egypt: maps for maps (all she has)
England: maps+Mathematics+Literature for maps+570g

(Note about my reasoning on the final trade with England: Since England has cash and Map Making there is little doubt she'd trade to get Mathematics and Literature from other Civs next turn. So regardless of our long term strategy it makes sense to make this deal now - we might as well be the ones to get the payment from England for those techs.)

Status at this point: Got everyone's maps, all tech known by anyone, all maps, and all of their gold except 130g which is still in England's treasury. Got 829g in our treasury. Have not made any gpt deals. Did not give away any new contacts. Did not give away any tech except two techs to England. Gave away maps.

Now some final trading will depend on long term goals. No matter what I will give maps to everyone before the turn is done. They'll trade the maps around anyway, I might as well give them away to reduce the trades the other Civs can make and to get some goodwill.

If I want a tech based goal and some research partners I would now give away some techs, especially Map Making (because they'll focus on learning it next otherwise) to some tech leaders.

But I'll assume I want to slow things and be a warmonger. So let's leverage the remaining value in the maps to get some alliances. First of all a Greece/Babylon war looks like fun. I take an embassy with Babylon, declare war on Greece, and take an alliance against Greece with Babylon. Surprisingly it isn't even necessary to throw in maps to get it.
Next an embassy with Russia, give her contact with Greece, and then give her maps for an alliance against Greece.
Next, declare war on Rome and India. Establish embassies with Japan and Zulu. England is willing to pay for alliances! Take alliances against Rome and India with England and get her remaining 130g for it. (If she hadn't gone for this I'd have renegotiated peace and thrown in a ROP to try to get the alliances and as much gold as possible.)
Japan allies with us against both Rome and India without needing anything in the deal.
The Zulu need a bonus thrown in - give them maps for alliances against India and Rome.

That's as far as I went. Treasury is down to 675g due to embassies. The western world is in massive war. I would end this trading turn by giving all friendly Civs maps at this point.
After this turn I think I would plan toward attacking Persia. (Changed my mind about Egypt being the best early target.) When ready to attack I'd consider bribing Egypt to join in though of course she'd be next after Persia. And I'd stay prepared for either of those two to start a war before I did - remote Civs might bribe them and in any case they might get feisty with their UU's soon.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Shillen
End result: Tech parity with leader, 957 gold, making 31gpt. Republic in 40 turns at min sci. Most civ’s are still extremely backwards. England, Rome, and Persia are at tech parity. Zululand is down Polytheism. Babylon is down Literature. Every other civ is down 3 or more techs.

You are ending up with a little bit more gold than Smirk, but the tech pace in your game is a little faster because England, Rome, Persia and you are all at the tech parity. In Smirk game, other than England which he also bankrupted her, all other AIs were still backward in tech. In either case, both you and Smirk did much better than the rest of us so far. If I have to rank the results so far, I think I Smirk is #1 and you are just a tiny bit trailing him at #2. To Judge Dredd, Zagnut, Hotrod0823, and myself, we were almost there.

PS: I started this thread to help someone but it looks like I'm helping myself after all. Let's hope that we can learn more from the other top players.

//Edit Note: I posted this before I saw SirPleb's post. I really like SirPleb solution. What do you guys think?

 

[Moonsinger]

SirPleb,

I'm so glad you come to join us. I'm sure everyone here will benefit greatly from your wisdom.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
You are ending up with a little bit more gold than Smirk

Actually I think Smirk is ahead in gold if I read things right. Looks to me like Smirk has 924g and doesn't owe any money vs. Shillen is owing 8gpt fpr the next 20 turns...

 

[Shillen]

I don't know if managing the sliders was part of your intent, but no one else noticed that having lux at 30% is a huge waste at this point. You can turn it down to 10%, hire a scientist in shanghai, and get 13 more gpt. Shanghai will still complete the Pyramids in 1 turn anyway. Sure it will stop growing, but all your other cities are like size 4 or less. It's really not worthwhile to turn lux up that high for a single city unless that city is building a wonder. Now that it's done with the wonder the lux should be turned down and growth stunted, until you can either build some happiness improvements or capture/trade for some luxuries.

Since Smirk didn't notice this, I'm actually making more gpt than he is...but really I don't care who did 'better'. I just think this is one thing that someone should have noticed. I also never renegotiate peace. It's too 'dirty' to me. So a handicap I put on myself I guess.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Actually I think Smirk is ahead in gold if I read things right. Looks to me like Smirk has 924g and doesn't owe any money vs. Shillen is owing 8gpt fpr the next 20 turns...

Yes, you are right about that. I just learned the "renegotiating peace" trick from him and the early war declaration from you. Getting the AIs to involve in an early war among themselves is a very good idea; that way, there won't be any massive build up for us to deal later on. It looks like I'm getting a big pay off for starting this thread.

 

[hotrod0823]

Current research is Math due in 16 at 10% science and 30% lux. The lux is clearly on to keep the Pyramid city happy. I cut Lux to 10%, and hire an entertainer and scientist in Shanghi and still pick up the pyramids next turn this gives a new +39gpt surplus.

Great minds think alike ??

I wish I could've played it out before it crashed I would've liked to see how much gold I could've ended up with.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Shillen
I don't know if managing the sliders was part of your intent

I read Moonsinger's post to mean that it was just about trading, so I didn't even look at what our empire was doing. I didn't even notice until reading through this thread that we nearly have the Pyramids finished All I checked was our geographical situation, that's all that mattered to me for trading. Now that I look our position over, whoosh! We're sure set nicely to clean this world up. Nice setup Moonsinger!

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Shillen
I don't know if managing the sliders was part of your intent, but no one else noticed that having lux at 30% is a huge waste at this point. You can turn it down to 10%, hire a scientist in shanghai, and get 13 more gpt. Shanghai will still complete the Pyramids in 1 turn anyway. Sure it will stop growing, but all your other cities are like size 4 or less. It's really not worthwhile to turn lux up that high for a single city unless that city is building a wonder. Now that it's done with the wonder the lux should be turned down and growth stunted, until you can either build some happiness improvements or capture/trade for some luxuries.

Yes, I usually check the slider at the end of my turn, but since my focus was about "trading" for this thread, I forgot to check it. Thanks for pointing that out.

Since Smirk didn't notice this, I'm actually making more gpt than he is...but really I don't care who did 'better'. I just think this is one thing that someone should have noticed. I also never renegotiate peace. It's too 'dirty' to me. So a handicap I put on myself I guess.

I concur! It's a learning thread. It doesn't matter much who did better here. We are just trying find more about all the "trade" secret. I thought I was pretty good with squeezing gold out of the AIs, but now I know that I still have much to learn.

 

[Smirk]

I'm both cheap and greedy. Not as cheap as some of you though, I only trade in units of 5 or 10g.

SirPleb's looks to be the best for slowing tech, I think. I figured there were two major routes, either getting everything else to ease the gold needed for Map Making with England (I didn't want to leave a large excess there since it would be harder to get back.) or paying for Map Making and then bartering with maps as SirPleb did.

I tend to be tight with maps, but its likely just an unfounded perception. The AI ESPs my weakest city regardless whether they have my maps or not. So my biggest knowledge hole is, why does the AI like the maps, and how does having the maps affect their plans? Are they more likely to go to war?

The only thing I've ever noticed was they they are more willing to run thru your land to a good spot they now see in an area you may be holding back to develop later.

Also, if they have your map already you never get that pre-war warning when they try to trade for your territory map. Its been my opinion that asking for a world map means they want to be your friend, asking for a territory map means they are considering declaring war. Demanding either one is a different animal altogether. Which reminds me, I wonder why no one has tried that yet? I think I may replay it and attempt some forceful persuasion.

 

[hotrod0823]

I tried it in PTW (don't know why but PTW runs better for me) and recreated my first turns and played it out until no more trades remained and ended up with 730 gold, and +34gpt.

I didn't create any wars or force any peace deals.

Edit: After reading the spoilers I renegociated with England for 200 gold and signed a ROP for the rest and got back to 959 gold and +34 gpt, owing Zulus 4gpt for the next 20.

 

[Moonsinger]

Smirk,

From your experience, do you have much luck with the peace renegotiation at the Deity level? It seemed that everytime I did that, I ended up with paying them some extra gold or they won't accept the peace treaty.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Now that I look our position over, whoosh! We're sure set nicely to clean this world up. Nice setup Moonsinger!

This game came from one of my previous milking attempt for the HoF. That would explain why it's a huge random Pangaea map with stationary barbs.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Smirk
why does the AI like the maps, and how does having the maps affect their plans?

That sure is an interesting question!

And actually, to digress a bit, this whole thread sure is interesting! It is timely for me. I've been thinking for a while of writing an article on trading, with a special focus on this often crucial trading turn. I've got some scratchy notes started but it has a long way to go, I find it a tough subject to organize and generalize.

My thinking about maps, which has led to the style I use in this trading turn:

1) The AI values them highly. (Given enough land that is - on a small or tiny map the total value is more limited.)

2) They are a special commodity in that they don't seem to be devalued based on how many Civs know them. Tech and contacts devalue but maps don't - they can be separately traded for full value to each Civ.

3) The AI seems to not get much real value from learning them. I haven't withheld maps in a long time so I'm not sure. But when I tried it in early days it didn't seem to make any difference. This is perhaps partly because the AI can't squeeze full advantage from the info and partly because it seems to already "know" some things such as resource locations without having the maps.

4) The human can get enormous value from them. I want maps as soon as possible. They allow me to see which Civs have which resources in their area. Much more importantly they allow me to plan for the long term. I can foment wars with predictable results once I know the layout. I can plan my overall expansion, attacks, alliances, etc.

5) Maps have a "stale date". E.g. in this sample Moonsinger has given us, almost everyone has ended up trading nearly full map knowledge to England. When another Civ next learns a tech, England will have the currency to buy it - those maps! And after that happens we won't be able to sell the maps to that Civ for anything, our maps will have become "stale". If I hold onto maps for very long, I'll lose two ways: their value will go down (as others learn parts of my maps anyway), and the Civs who provide that knowledge will gain something. I'd rather sell the maps early or even give them away.

 

[hotrod0823]

A little info from Cartouche Bee in The RBP3 SG thread

The peace negotiation is just part of my regular arsenal and is perhaps exploitive (my emissaries are very skilled in this tactic now). If you go to the graphical power charts and you have a higher power rating (I've actually measured the width of the power bars with a ruler at times) than the AI you will negotiate with, you will be able to get peace and they will pay you for that peace (world maps, gold GPT, techs, Alliances, ...) the amount depends on what they can afford and just how much stronger they perceive you. When the 20 turns of peace ends it does continue as normal peace that could be broken at anytime and that's is when you need to decide if you want another 20 term pact or leave the peace free and easy. This type of peace treaty favors those that have a builder/domination style and can keep a foe with a stronger military at bay when things get dicey (aka. GOTM14).

This was a response to a question from Charis on why CB was crazy enough to renegociate peace with only warriors serving as MP's in their cities.

The Game was on Emperor BTW.

 

[Yndy]

What to do:
Checked what everyone has and doesn't.
Checked what embassies do I have.
Check historygraph.
Check trade tab for trade routes.
Check science tab for techs that we lack(doh)
Check domestic tab for maximum gold per turn
Check military tab for military might. (were average with Persia)
Check foreign tab to see who's friend with who.

Result. What do we have to trade:
- 775 gold
- 45 gold per turn (with science to 0%, happiness set to 0)
- Our Map
- access to our territory
- our military capabilities.

We have a lot to trade. Let's see what they have
The worst tribe is Egypt. They only have contact with Babs ahead of us. We're preparing them a surprise.
Backward civs: Russia, Japan, India.
So&so: Rome, Zulu
Advanced civs: England, Persia
First thing! Get the other contacts:
1. Declare war on Egypt (anyone thought of that? i have a decent military, I won't lose)
2. Trade England (what we give is listed first): Alliance vs Egypt+ROP+WM for Contact Greeks, Babylon, 23g
Worst civ: Greece
So&so: Babylon
Task one: Get the higest priced tech (that we see): Mapmaking (ability to sell our map to others). But England does not have Literature and we would like to pay her goods not money. WE give the money to someone who will pay us back later in the trading.
3. Trade Zulu: Contact Greeks+137g for Literature
Just noticed Zulu have monopoly on Mathematics. Grr.
4. 77g for Embassy with Zulu (right after I see ROP worth only 35g. Grr.)
5. ROP+397g for MAthematics.
6. TRade Greece: Mysticism for 50g
7. TRade England: Mathematics, Literature, 7gpt, 226g for Mapmaking
8. Trade Rome: Mat, Lit, WM, 4g for Code of Laws, Polytheism
I have 7 gold. NOw let's get our money back.
9. TRade Zulu: Map, Poly, Code for 534g + WM
10. Trade Japan: Poly for Philosophy, 1g
11. TRade Greece: Iron Works, Riding for WM
12. Trade Russia: Code for WM+21g
13. TRade India: Code for WM
14. Trade Japan: Code for WM
15. TRade Persia: Mathematics for WM+39g
16. TRade Babylon: Maths, Lit for WM
17. TRade Rome: Mapmaking for WM+4g cheap
18. Trade England: WM for WM+206g
19. Trade Zulu: WM for WM
20. 48g for Embassy with Persia
21. ROP, Contact Greeks, WM for Alliance vs Egypt

Bottom line: It was much easier than I expected. I ended up with 764gold, all tech, all WM except Egypt's, three techs advance compared to half the world. I also got an embassy with the Zulu and Persia, a war with Egypt, England, Persia being my allies, 7 gpt paid to England which still has 70g.
It all took a little over an hour but I expected it to be much more difficult.

 

[Yndy]

I had my trading session before reading your posts (no spoilers ). Except several mistakes that I did, I guess I did OK. When I read Smirk's peace renegociation 'trick' I was thinking 'Is this allowed? Why don't I do it then?' Later I remembered that once I tried and had one of the few civ crashes that I ever encountered so I deemed it to be 'not to be used'. As Hotrod quoted from CB, the key in pece negotiation as well as alliances is POWER. You can do like CB and measure it on the graph, or you can go to the mil advisor and ask him how are you doing. Since you're strong you can leverage the strenght either through peace negotiations, or through alliances. I declared war against Egypt, knowing that they are weak and expecting England to pay me for an Alliance. They did pay about 10g, less than I thought but I got something.
SirPleb, that's why your alliance with Babs against Greece costed nothing.
Military power is just another thing that you can trade.
Right of Passages could also be traded as China is bigger than most others. My ROP with England was worth over 50g, and the one with Zulu was worth 35g (less than the embassy).

Edit: Some notes for your summary Moonsigner. Some of the trades that we demonstrate here will not work on deity (at least at the start) because you probably won't get the opportunity. You won't have larger territory to sell ROPs and you won't have larger power to leverage it for cash. I wonder what happens if you try to renegotiate peace and they are stronger than you. According to the game mechanics you would probably have to pay to get peace (anyone tryed it?).

Some of you went directly for the most expensive tech which is the 'normal' thing to do if you know a little bit of civ trading. But you have to see the overall opportunities. You could get all/most of the money back so paying to only one civ would not be advisable.

By the way I set the lux and sci slider to 0%, I always do that before a trading session to see how much can pay. I can switch it back at the end.

 

[Smirk]

As I said I wanted to try this again with minimizing tech trades, doing more map trades and also a little bullying.

Here it is:


renegotiate peace with Eliza, got Map Making for world map, ROP and 310g
renegotiate peace with Gandhi, got world map and Polytheism for world map and 175g
renegotiate peace with Shaka, got Mathematics, Philosophy, Literature, world map and contact with Babylonians for Polytheism, world map and 45g

demanded Cleo's world map (polite)
demanded Toku's world map and 1g (stayed annoyed)
demanded Cathy's 21g (stayed annoyed)
demanded Cathy's territory map (annoyed)

renegotiate peace with Xerxes, got Code of Laws, world map and 39g for world map

build embassy with Zulus cost 77g
traded Shaka ROP for 30g
build embassy with India cost 56g
traded Gandhi ROP for 60g

demanded Caesar's world map
declared war on Rome
bargined for alliance versus the Romans with Gandhi got 115g and world map for Mathematics
bargined for alliance versus the Romans with Shaka got 15g and world map for world map
bargined for alliance versus the Romans with Eliza got world map and 330g for Mathematics, Literature and world map

demanded Cathy's world map, couldn't get it (now furious)

traded Hamm Mathematics and Literature for world map and contact with Greece
traded Alex Horseback Riding and Mysticism for 50g and world map
traded Eliza 53g for world map

sold two granaries for 14g, not sure if the +2gpt would matter since Pyramids are due next turn
slider at 8.1.1, two entertainers in Shanghai, now at 39gpt and 840g


Greece is at least 7 techs behind and needs 6 contacts (Japan, India, Egypt, Persia, Zulu and Russia)
Egypt is 6 techs behind
Japan is 5 techs behind
Russia is 5 techs behind
India needs Map Making, Code of Laws and Literature
Rome needs Mathematics, Map Making, and Literature
Persia needs Mathematics and Map Making
Zulu needs Code of Laws and Map Making
Persia needs Mathematics and Map Making
Babylon needs Map Making
England is even with us

India and maybe some others are near to finishing Map Making, so the next few turns it would be good to sell it cheap. Still a few without complete world maps so they still have some value. But right now everyone has zero gold.


Still some room to play, all of Rome's neigbors are at war with him and will soon crush him. I doubt he'll be able to get any peace since he has nothing in which to trade.
Japan is next.
Meanwhile I could start attacking Egypt, but don't want to suffer too many loses since I would want to war with Persia in 20 turns. I see the start of that attack is already in place with Macao and a barracks.


Demands are pretty worthless in general except for this turn and earlier where you can get some cheap techs and definately can get maps as I did here. Of course you can get small amounts of gold anytime, its especially useful to clean out a civ of any <100g they have before you declare war, which I do when I can. The more you do it, the more likely it is to reduce their friendliness, but that hardly matters in the cases where you'll use it.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Smirk,
From your experience, do you have much luck with the peace renegotiation at the Deity level? It seemed that everytime I did that, I ended up with paying them some extra gold or they won't accept the peace treaty.

I haven't noticed much difference in any difficulty, but power is important so it will be more difficult to do this in a diety game. I try to start this as soon as I get a clear advantage and they have something I want. For instance in gotm19 I did this about 2000BC to get cheaper trades for some of the early techs, and then again in the 1000BCs.

I've messed up a few times, but if you think you are more powerful, and the graph bears this out, then you should be fine.

But, I always go into it thinking that I won't pay squat for peace so if they give me nothing then I declare war. What will happen is you then have to make an impact (reduce their power, take cities destroy units, or just grow faster) (Note 1), so when you can get peace again you get some real meat like cities. Point being, even if you can't get anything for free, you declare war, and then some turns later you can get even more from them. Even if you've done nothing but build.




Note 1: This BTW is why I think the AI doesn't see the forest for the trees, it judges an attack event based on power with its winning percentage. It seems a good idea to send that horse to take a worker, or to attack that warrior, nevermind you have a stack of 10 swords next to their capital.
This has gotten better over the years and the patches. I remember in the original game you could leave a city unprotected and it would race across a landmass with a stack of cavalry to attack that city, never mind all the other cities were protected by only one unit (of course once they got close you could defend that city and leave a hole somewhere else and they would then go for that one). Anyway to make a longer story still longer, the power change of taking a city outweighs that of killing a few units so they will prefer that.

The moral of the story is you can play the AI game with them and pick off workers and warriors, and get a quick power advantage even when you can't sustain a real war with them. So I generally don't worry about early or frequent wars.

But don't take my advice, you seem to play differently, and it would certainly bother a builder more than me. That is delaying building to pump out some needed offensive or defensive units. In addition I suck, I've played 3 gotms and all I got was this lousy piece of parchment. Your 10+ medals means your strategy is better than my warmongering toys.


Edit:

If you want to see something like this in action, check my timeline for the barb insanity event for gotm18. I got an early war with Cathage and held them off for a long time with just one archer positioned on a hill, until I was able to get something in peace trades.

 

[zagnut]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Is this the best time in the early game to start the first major trades? Since Moonsinger prepared the game and SirPleb says he thinks trading at the first discovery of Map Making is his favorite time, I assume many of you delay your trades until this point. I have generally traded when trades are available and maybe that is why I rarely get off to a great start.

Can I correctly state the strategy as follows: don't trade, except for some early first level techs, until you have built up a good stash of cash and wait until another civ discovers Map Making so you can get the value from trading maps.

2. There are a lot of different strategies that we all followed. However, we all ended up by getting all of the techs from the AI and most, if not more, money that we started with.

Moonsinger, will you be evaluating the strategies we used to determine which one leaves us in a more powerful position? I think this will be more valuable than declaring a "winner". After all we are all using this as training for the next Deity level GOTM game.