AI refusing tech gifts

[kurtkage]

I did a quick search and didn't find any posts on this so thought I would make a thread.

I did not notice this with 3.13, however it is possible that it has always existed and I just did not come across the situation before.

I'm running 3.17 with .19solvers patch.

If an AI is close to finishing a tech it will red it out in the diplo screen as saying "we would have nothing to gain". I can understand that they would not want to Trade something for a tech they are a few turns away from finishing, but to red it out and disallow the tech being Gifted to them makes no sense to me.

I think previously that the tech would not be redded out, you could still gift the tech, it's just that the AI would not offer anything in return for it. This is no longer the case.

In a game I am playing, Sitting Bull is my best buddy, he was DOWd on by a more advanced civ with infantry + their vassal, while SB had muskets still. Being the good friend that I am, I decided to gift him some techs and gold to upgrade with. SB however is 4 turns from finishing replaceable parts and will not allow me to gift it to him for free. The next turn replaceable parts is now at 11 turns for him and he still will not accept it. Two turns later his tech spending is shutdown and he's at some crazy 983 turns or whatever, and he Still won't accept it as a gift!

This to me is clearly broken. Even if the AI is 1 turn away from finishing research on a tech I see no reason for them to refuse a free turn of research.

So what do you guys think?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Do you play with Disallowed Tech Brokering?

 

[grumbler]

deleted, redundant

 

[kurtkage]

This game is No tech brokering enabled yes, However I researched replaceable parts myself. As a matter of fact I have not recieved a single tech from Any AI in this game, All of my techs are self researched. SB is friendly with me. Just to check it I went back into the game and tried gifting him corporation which SB is currently researching with 3 turns left to go, it is redded out. All other techs he will take.

Edit: I take it back, I stole Archery from SB many thousands of years ago lol, but that is it I swear. Plus now that I think about it, stolen techs not counting as your own research was something added in bruich's patch I think that has not been brought back?

 

[DanF5771]

The AI will refuse to accept techs that it has already invested more than 50% of the necessary beakers in, as this receiving of the tech via trade would disallow them to trade it to somebody else with "no tech brokering" on.

 

[kurtkage]

Thanks Danf, I see.

It makes sense in some circumstances I suppose and prevents a human player from exploiting it to deny the AI trades with other AI.

What if all the other AI had the tech in question and it is useless for trades anyway, it would still behave the same way I suppose?

 

[DanF5771]

Yes you are right--from what I can read from the code, there is no check of the tech situation involved:

DenialTypes CvTeamAI::AI_techTrade(TechTypes eTech, TeamTypes eTeam) const
{

	...

	if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_NO_TECH_BROKERING))
	{
		CvTeam& kTeam = GET_TEAM(eTeam);

		if (!kTeam.isHasTech(eTech))
		{
			if (!kTeam.isHuman())
			{
				if (2 * kTeam.getResearchProgress(eTech) > kTeam.getResearchCost(eTech))
				{
					return DENIAL_NO_GAIN;
				}
			}
		}
	}

 

[kurtkage]

Interesting. I just looked again and SB is in fact the only civ that does not have corporation, so he has noone to trade it to anyway hehe.

Since it doesnt take anything else into account it is not a very flexible rule. In the situation where his research crashed due to war, you'd think he would want to take it.

hehe I like doing little proxy wars, propping up weak civs at war with stronger ones, gifting techs and units and stuff. I don't normally play with no tech brokering enabled though so that must be why it went unnoticed to me before.

On another note, the reason I was even trying no tech brokering was that I didnt want colonies to be able to trade away techs, but it appears that when you spin off a colony they mirror your tech status for what was researched. Being that they did not actually research the techs themselves, I would think they should be barred from trading it under no tech brokering.

 

[DanF5771]

From the changelog of the official patch 3.17:

• New Colonies have their parent civ's tech brokering restrictions
• New Colonies have knowledge of their parent civ's maps
• New Colonies cannot trade away their motherland techs under "No tech Brokering" option

I agree, the rule is everything but flexible, but I doubt there will be any changes of that by another version of the unofficial patch. Better BTS AI?

 

[kurtkage]

No idea how I overlooked that in the patch notes.

Thanks Danf, you are helpful!

Yea I guess this isnt something for the unofficial patch. The only reason I posted it here to begin with was that I thought it was a newly introduced bug, I didn't think about potential exploit. So anyway with that said I guess I'll let this thread die now.

Thanks for the help

 

[DanF5771]

You are very welcome, may it rest in peace then.