Another post about the difficult AI

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kevincompton

Prince
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
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376
They hardly ever seem to make Alliances against my enemies with me when I propose them, but quickly turn on me with other AI nations.

They don't seem to ever trade techs fairly, they always want a bunch of money and a tech, for one tech!

They don't trade resources fairly. Whats the deal? Is there circumstance to this or is this always how it is? On occasion I get a fair deal and it makes me wonder why then but not all these other times?
 
What annoys me is how the AI will very rarely trade techs for techs on an equal setting. Okay, so half the world has the tech I have to offer, but they wouldn't even trade an equal-priced (in terms of research) tech for that if the rest of the world knows it.

Sometimes the AI trades nicely, but you can never be certain of it.
 
about resources: luxury resources are calculated by the number of happy faces the produce, so if you have a large empire with lots of marketplaces, you might end up having to give 4 or 5 to an average civ
 
There are 2 things to be aware of from the start of the game:

Reputation - how you deal with other civs
AI Attitude - what a particular civ thinks of you

You will find any deal difficult if you have a bad reputation, which comes from breaking deals and sneak attacks.

Attitude starts at a default level based on difficulty and changes according to how you treat that civ. Generally you must trade maps every so often to stay at the starting level. If you make other trades or sign and keep deals for the minimum 20 turns then their attitude improves.

Your problem is that you don't cultivate diplomatic relations until it's too late. The AI civs tend to have good relations with each other. You have to establish good relations with trade, then make RoP's, and then MA/MPP's. If you wait until you're at war with their good friend then you're toast.

As for tech trades not being fair, that is part of the difficulty level. You have to adjust your values accordingly to know what's 'fair'. Generally it is easier to research for yourself until Emperor, where you find it easier to buy techs. Try researching techs that can be valuable trades, like Polytheism. If you can get it first then you can trade it around for the other techs and gold.

Lux trades are valued based on the happiness it will give the recipient. It will not be fair if you're much bigger than them.
 
Tech trades follow a simple formula. It can be found on this website. It's determined by the raw cost of the tech and the number of people who have it that the recipient knows. Good players can get multiple techs for little cash. It's not unusual for someone to go into a trading round and come out the other side richer in every respect -- more techs, more gold, more gpt -- than on entry to the trading screens. You just have to know what you're doing and how the AI values things.

The AI is always rationale, in its own way. Once you learn that way, everything is pretty straight-forward.

BTW, the larger/stronger you are, the more luxes and resources will cost. That makes sense. If you have 40 strong cities, you can make a lot more use of iron than a small civ with only 3 cities. That's taken into account when calculating the cost of a resource.

Arathorn
 
I've read some posts about tech trading and done some of it with a little success. The main problem I always find is that AI does never seem to have money. I thought it was a problem of playing in low levels but now I am playing in monarch and it is the same. I know I have never cared of my reputation, specially never traded maps, so I am now going to pay attention to Alamo and practise this.
 
I also can't figure out why, in one game, the AI civs will be swimming in cash (and offering huge gpt deals), and in the next they're all broke. Initially I thought it had to do with the amount of warmongering going on, but in my recent game, there hasn't been much fighting and the AI civs generally have less than 50 gold on 'em (and they're "insulted" by any mention of a gpt deal, no matter how miniscule).

-V
 
It is very common for the AI's to go broke and even run a deficit. I've noticed that sometimes (but not always) the AI will give you more gpt than it is earning if it knows it can pay you that money from it's reserve, however it will forget that it is 'saving' its reserve and just into even more debt! e.g. in a recent game Persia was broke and -42 gpt in debt. I bought something from him for 80 gpt and could then could sell him a tech for 38 gpt (leaving him dead broke with 0 gpt) However when I paid him 60 gpt and 400 gold I could sell him the same tech for 38 gpt and 400 gold (leaving him dead broke with -20 gpt in debt)
 
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