AI Trade Limits?

[Nylan]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, and if it has, I apologize.

I wonder if the AI should have certain restrictions on how often it can trade with another AI, based on the technological age (For example: Trade between China and England was a lot smaller in the renaissance than it is today). It would preserve historical accuracy to an extent, and keep all AI tech trees from looking near identical.

Or maybe they should just bring back the "AI only trades when units are near" principle from Civ2 or a variationi thereof.

Just a thought

 

[Naokaukodem]

and keep all AI tech trees from looking near identical.

They are, except exception. (backwarded islanded civ for example)

Your idea would be hard to be implemented also, as the programmers would have to consider each relations from each civ to each other and for each age (or period?) what would be a lot. The "AI only trades when units are near" is much better in my opinion. Or something like that. But you know, in the other hand constant espionnage and more simply observation make it that not so unrealistic. Try to play on huge map with 60% water and archipelagos and probably you will see differents science groups at differents states.

But i think that what we could work on is more the way to keep a secret than to reveal it. Maybe some feature could allow us in Civ4 to keep the secret of Greek fire (with the risk to lose it through ages).(and of course it would have to be a very specific tech, maybe civ-specific, available after a secret-related tech maybe!)<a concept not so far from unique units one!

 

[dh_epic]

What's good for the goose has to be good for the gander.

The AI has enough disadvantages as is. The best players know that you should check for new techs every single turn, and acquire them, and then sell them to everyone that it's practical to sell it to. You gain powerful techs, and a lot of money. The best players also know to check for potential trades every turn -- so if there's someone without a tech, and you can afford to give up the advantages of that tech, you should cash in again too.

If they restrict tech trades, they should do it for both humans and AI's. That, or neither.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I do agree with that.

I think diplomacy for all players, Human and AI, needs to be more abstracted as well as being more flexible. (so rather than gaining the Ability to do something diplomatically with a tech, you gain a greater chance that your diplomats will succeed at doing something, such as work out a peace deal, get a trade route set up, etc.) Then something like distance could affect this.