Advice on effective trading

[Asoka-to-me]

Hello, everyone!
I've been playing Civ from the get-go (Windows 3.1, anyone), and over the years I've developed strategies that work for most aspects of the game on middle difficulty settings. The aspect of Civ that's always puzzled me though is trading, be it tech or resources. Perhaps my civ-style is just anti-social, but I'm never sure when it's a good idea to trade techs with other civs (why give them another tech if I''m the one behind on harder settings?)
or luxury resources (More happiness=larger cities, why would I want to help my rivals there?) It would make more sense if the tech trades were fair, but the AI rarely wants an even trade beaker-wise. Also, I know about the subsidy strategies when it comes to trading, but I'd like to know if there are more generic guidelines when it comes to trading non-essential resources.
For example, Genghis Khan (last place) has horseback riding. In order to get it from him, he wants meditation, priesthood, and monotheism. I'm in first place, so I do the trade figuring it's a calculated risk in hopes of cultivating a "pet dog" ally, but I can't figure out if this was a good deal or not.
After scouring the forums with limited success, I submit the following questions, to you my esteemed colleagues:
1) What are you looking for when you trade techs or resources?
2) How can you tell if it's a good deal?

Thank you all, I appreciate your insights!

 

[Maydrock]

I suck in this area, but here are some of my thoughts.

When I research a new tech, I look around and see if I can trade it off to several AI's. Each individual trade might be to his/her favor, but trading the same tech to 4, 5, or more AI's will give me back 2 or 3 times the number of beakers I traded out. When I am doing this, I also try to get as much gold as I can from each; so, all that adds in to my side of the table. If I can't get at least a double beaker return, I usually hold off unless I really want the tech.

Saying that, I find myself doing most tech trading right after I pound 2 or 3 techs out of a rival. I feel that is a good time for my production cities to switch gears a bit while I get the techs needed for the next generation of soldiers.

If I need happiness for WW then I will do a resource for resource trade as a last measure. AI's that are slated for future destruction get a resource for gold trade to keep them happy with me or at least off my back as long as possible. I don't like to do resource for resource trades just to make friends because I forget about them and build my cities to large. I know I can whip them down, but I hate to use the whip on improved tiles. Once all the religions are founded and I have a good feel for what is going on oversees; I will do almost whatever trades one overseas nation wants to be my bud for the rest of the game. I usually pick the 2nd guy from the bottom of the overseas crowd. I feel investing in him will give me a better return of draining the dominant overseas leader than the guy who is rock bottom.

 

[KMadCandy]

as a general rule, i'm more a builder than a warmonger, so read this with that in mind. i love OCC games where i try for UN victory without going around slaughtering everyone; obviously i must be a diplomacy nut, since i need a ton of votes from others cuz i have almost no votes of my own.

"I'm in first place, so I do the trade figuring it's a calculated risk in hopes of cultivating a "pet dog" ally, but I can't figure out if this was a good deal or not." a lot about the way i trade, especially early in the game, is politically motivated in that way. not always for pet dog allies, sometimes to pacify a neighbor and make him think we're friends for now so that i can hopefully time the war for when i want it, sometimes avoiding trades that i want to do but i can tell it's a BAD idea right now looking at who likes who else on the diplomatic screen, etc.

resource trades are ongoing trades, everybody knows this. that makes them more dangerous than tech trades. they make me nervous when there's someone out there i don't want to beat up yet, and i'm not ready for him to beat up on me. if you have any ongoing deals (even open borders), somebody can come and demand that you cancel trades with the vile XYZ. when that happens you are guaranteed to lose diplomatic points with either the demander or XYZ. so if i think it looks likely that someone dangerous may come demanding that, and i really don't want to lose points with the guy, i might not do resource trades i'd otherwise do, or i may cancel deals myself before i get asked to. if i cancel the deals and/or open borders on my own, XYZ doesn't get mad at me. if the person that doesn't like XYZ doesn't scare me, then sure, i tell him to go jump in a lake. but i always watch the diplo screen to get a sense of who likes who.

not all resources are created equal. if gandhi across the ocean has the world's monopoly on rice, and i have spare pigs, corn, and silver that he doesn't have, i'll offer him the pigs first. that's probably the least useful of my three since the building that doubles it comes so late in the game. i'm going to try really hard to get some of his rice, it's +2 health, not just +1, since i have granaries everywhere.

for tech trades, i check how they feel about me quite often. you can earn up to +4 "our trades have been fair and forthright" bonus. if i don't have +4 yet i'm more likely to give them a deal much more in their favor, or sell a tech for far less than it's worth, just to get something out of it since most of the world knows it already. my sense of fairness in trades changes once he thinks i'm +4 worth of fair and forthright .

particularly at the highest levels, as soon as a tech isn't a monopoly, everyone else sneers at it like you got it off the discount rack. i still struggle with "trade this now? or hold on to it as a monopoly longer for more advantage, and risk that somebody else learns it and then it's worth less to trade?" especially with alphabet and the liberalism pre-reqs when i'm first in those directions.

all that stuff, i think a lot of people know, but some isn't stuff that they think about. it used to surprise me how often i'd mention one of the little things i do all the time diplomacy-wise and someone would go "i never thought of that!" now i've just accepted that i'm an oddball , and i guess most folks aren't as obsessed about all those numbers as i am, so maybe hearing how i factor some of that in might help you. worth a shot i hope. have fun and welcome to CFC

 

[Carnage04]

Priesthood, Mono, and Meditation vs. Horseback riding = 260 Beakers

Horseback riding = 250 Beakers

That is about as fair of an exchange as I have seen in awhile. Be prepared to lose beakers in a trade almost every time. Some people seem harder bargainers, too. I was playing a Monarch game the other day and Washington, who I had at friendly, wouldn't give me a tech trade that was nearly two to one beakers in his favor. The exact same trade with Augustus, who was merely "Pleased" with me, netted me the tech AND 120 gold. It was later in the game so it was still something like 5000 beakers vs. 8500 beakers or something.

 

[Coase]

As far as technologies go, I've found that trading away an expensive but reasonably useless technology is key. It used to be Paper (before Warlords); while it gets them closer to Liberalism and other techs, it was otherwise just a placeholder, and I would easily get 6-10 techs for it if I farmed it out amongst different players. (Depending on your preference for Wonders, there are plenty of techs like this.) Doing this a few times each age is great, since for some reason the AI prizes those techs.

Otherwise, you should trade techs pretty much when you can. While I'm not suggesting that you trade away every single tech you have to your rivals, keep in mind that most likely an AI has that tech too, and they're willing to trade as well. An uneven trade out of your favor is often still a good idea since 1) the potential target will end up getting the tech anyway; and 2) you're denying a rival what you'll be getting.

Obviously, I would almost never trade any war technology or Wonder technology, at least if I plan on building that wonder.

As far as resources go, I'm pretty open. I don't mind trading away Health resources at all, especially if I'm getting a non-Health resource in return--it's just not THAT useful to them, and you can usually get something reasonably good in return. Luxury resources I'm a little more stingy with, but keep in mind that the AI will often trade all of their GPT for any resource like that, so letting them be happy is great if you're going to bankrupt them in the process. Strategic resources I rarely, if ever, trade, under any circumstances.

 

[futurehermit]

1) Don't worry about getting a fair trade

2) Only trade for things you need

3) Trade for things when you can leverage them in a big way (e.g., trade away something good early on for polytheism to allow you to immediately research literature after alphabet so that you can get the great library)

4) A good rule of thumb early on is to trade alphabet when you can get math and iron working. Don't worry about much else (unless like polyth as mentioned above)

5) If going for domination, shut down trading on your continent once you are making the push to liberalism. This way you can clean your continent with renaissance units while they're backwards. If going for space race try not to trade (and encourage the lesser civs as well to stop trading) with your closest rival(s).

6) Always a good idea to butter up aggressors early on, even if way unbalanced in their favour. Better that you can convince them to attack someone else than to attack you!!!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The AIs wont offer good deals if they are researching the tech you are trying to trade them anyway, that probably explains the stingy Washington when friendly situation mentioned earlier. You can get an idea of how close they are to finishing the research too by the amount of gold they offer.

 

[automator]

A note: You will never have Ghengis (or Monty, Toku or the other aggressives) as a "pet dog". Regardless of how nicely you trade with them, they'll still look at you as a chicken to be trussed and roasted.

Tech trading is sticky. One thing to keep in mind is that if you give a tech to one civ, they are almost definitely going to give it to other civs. So either you profit, or they profit. My method is to open a trade window with each civ to see what I might get for my one tech. Then I go through and do trades with each in a row to gather as many techs as possible in exchange. The way it often goes, by the end I'm almost giving away the tech for a token amount of gold. But either I get that 140 gold or someone else does, and I'd rather it be me.

Resources: unless you really want the trade bonus for diplomacy, only trade for what you need. If all your cities are happy, healthy and fine, and your income is comfortable, there's no need to make a trade. Just as you probably wouldn't waste time building a temple in a city that is super-happy, don't give the AI a happy bonus that will allow them to grow their cities when your cities won't need that happy bonus until they grow by 3 units.

 

[DaveMcW]

If all your cities are happy, healthy and fine, and your income is comfortable, there's no need to make a trade.

As a side note,

If your cities are happy, healthy, and fine, you don't have enough workers.

If your income is comfortable, you don't have enough cities.

 

[Temron]

Just a little something to add. The AI doesn't normally trade techs very aggressively so even if you are losing out on all your trades, you end out on top by trading the same tech to multiple people getting different tech in return every time. You do always have to worry about trading too much though, as the AI will eventually stop trading with you for a while.

 

[Murky]

Just some observations:

The AI seems to value some technology more than others. Horse Back Riding is a good example of that. If you can research it first, it makes a good tech for trading with. Theology also comes around the time the AI has lot of techs.

They'll almost always want more in trade than what it took them to research a given tech. The AI will usually not take a lower cost trade for a higher cost. The exceptions are overvalued techs or if you have a lot of cash to go with it.

Their opinion of you also effects how much they want to trade. I often wait to convert to a religion until after alphabet so I can get some trading in before some of them start to hate me.

 

[ABigCivFan]

A few things:

1. Always put up your tech/res and cilck "What you will give me for this", or click the tech you want from AI and ask "What you want for this". This give you the most "fair" trades

2. Find out what you need and what you dont need. You can always cancel the res trades after 10 turns. And AIs valus strategic res so high they will often trade 2 res for 1. For instance, you can often trade your only source of copper for 2 happy res for 10 turns if you do no need copper immedietely. Sometimes, you can get nice GPT for your spare res.

3. Think of trading as getting everying AI to feed you the free techs and gold and res, on a large map, this means getting fed by 6-7 AIs, so you are the ultimate beneficiary. So trade as much as you can as often as you can except key techs leading to Liberalism race and etc.

4. On high levels, aggressive trading is essential to keep you in the game, because we can war better than AIs, so you are fine spam trading as long as your power curve is not 1/3rd of the leading AI.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I always do the "what will you give me for this/what do you want for this" thing but then try and adjust what they want so I don't give away a better tech. For example, they may want iron working but I can fob them off with metal casting or a religious tech instead. Especially if I plan to attack them soon. I'd rather they were building forges or in revolt changing to a religious civic, rather than knowing where iron is building units while they hook it up. So I wouldn't agree that the fairest deals are those suggested by the computer. Use that to get a good idea of what sort of ballpark you are in, then try and squeeze out an extra bit of advantage for yourself.

 

[Ecofarm]

good thread, especially kmad and para. excuse the off topic, but I believe that if you declare war and then pay an "agressive" to join, twice, they will declare at your request very cheaply and without you being in war. It makes sense that they become pet dogs in this manner. Alex especially. Haha, he will attack someone with a mUch higher power graph.

We think the AI does not trade fairly, but we forget that they could be researching it too and how valuable 1 in every city can be (8 cities = +8 towns worked [xmultipliers]?).

If you follow this thread and check every turn (every turn!), then you are ready for immortal level trading?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I doubt it. I have only won twice on Prince level. I'm lurking on these forums deciding whether to have a bash at Monarch.

EDIT: But I'm getting better. What was holding me back was getting blocked in by the AIs expansion and being a bit too peaceful, or not rushing for the good city sites, or building The Pyramids because that is the bees knees on Noble if you aren't in danger of getting attacked.

I can normally tech trade OK though. I nearly always win the liberalism race mainly by paying attention to what I am teching towards and ignoring techs I don't really need straightaway like feudalism, guilds, archery, horseback riding. And managing my GP points and lightbulbing.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

EDIT2: Don't check every turn. Just use the HOF mod. It has other really nice features which save loads of time looking at menus that you could do every turn but the computer does for you (exotic foreign advisor, etc.)

 

[Ecofarm]

If you check the things in this thread every turn, you should win monarch most of the time, I do and I am not very good at trading (warmonger). One of the biggest factors in moving up difficulty levels is checking all advisors more often, especially diplomatic and graphs.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I check the graphs when I am thinking about attacking someone, or am in builder mode and checking how weak I am compared to the other AIs, in case I need to build a few more units (or walls, ha ha I don't think I've ever built them unless I am skint and need an extra trade route and just realised I need walls for a castle - which will go obsolete in about 10 turns anyway).

I hear people swearing by the GNP graph, mine is always crazy because I switch worked tiles often if I need to work a mine to build something quickly, or whatever. All I can tell from it is if a civ adopts beurocracy - sudden rise(which you get a message about anyway), has a golden age - a big jump then a fall 8 turns later (ditto), so I just look at that because graphs are sexy (not as sexy as curves though lol).

The best screen is the relations one I find, when an AI demands something I always wish I'd had a look at it the turn before. Again the HOF mode makes this one easier to get your head around, it is still a bit mental though.

 

[mice]

The best screen is the relations one I find, when an AI demands something I always wish I'd had a look at it the turn before.

I think if you hit F4 you can get to this advisor when a leader is talking to you.

 

[ABigCivFan]

If you check F4 screen frequently, sometimes you can do nice Cross-Trading with AIs.

Here is what I did in my current game:

1. Traded my only copper to Won Kon for Sheep (1 ) and silk (2 )

2. A few turns later, traded 1 out of 2 irons to Augustus for copper and 16 GPT.

I did not need the copper but I dont want Augustus to trade it to someone else for other res. We are at the age of rifles so Iron is a no factor anymore.

So the net effect for me is: 1 iron for sheep+silk+16GPT, and the AIs got 2 not so useful strategic res which they value highly.

This is almost an exploit, but it is allowed in my book.

Also in tech trading, first look around and see what everyone has before trading, especially techs that you dont see on the F4 screen because you do not have the prerequisit tech.

For instance, Mehmed and Augustus both have Replacable Parts but neither have Astronomy, only Augustus has Rifling, and you just got Astronomy.

First try trade Astronomy to Mehmed for Repalcable Parts to unlock Rifling. Do not trade Astronomy to Augustus for some other cheap tech, wait until next turn and see if you can get Rifling for Astronomy from Augustus. Throw in some gold if he wants, it is still much better to spend the next 5 turns (4000+ beakers) to research it yourself.