Breaking into AI trades

[ALA Gator]

~1000 AD large map C3C.

I have been in contact with the other civs of my world for a while now. After Navigation, I traded for world maps of all the other civs (except the one I am currently conquering) I can see on the maps that certain civs have luxuries to trade but there are none available to trade with me. I assume that they are trading with other AI Civs. How can I get them to start trading with me? How can I see who is trading what with each other?

I feel like the last kid at kickball!!

 

[Tone]

I don't know how to see what is being traded but you can see if there are active trades between AIs by using the foriegn advisor screen (F4?).

It is difficult to break into an AI trade. I'm not even sure that it is possible. What I do is declare war on one AI (make sure that you have no active trades otherwise your rep will go) and then get a trading partner of theirs to also declare war. Once they accept your alliance proposal, you can then grab any resources in trade that they were trading to your enemy.

 

[AnsonMage]

Hmmm, been awhile since I got into Civ 3 but can't you negotiate embargos or ask AI to stop trading with an enemy? I'm not sure if that was new in 4 or not...

 

[ALA Gator]

Embargos are a possibility too. Declaring war might be the right way to go.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Embargos are a possibility too. Declaring war might be the right way to go.

I don't believe the AI can agree to a trade embargo if they are already engaged in a trade. In an umodded game, the only way to break an ongoing deal between AI civs is to get one of them to declare on the other or declare on one of them yourself. I did this several times in a game I did back in..November, I think. I was playing as Rome on an eastern Mediterranean map. Someone was selling the Celts iron, and I figured out that the only civ with excess iron to trade was the Hittites. So, I declared war on the Hittites, landed a stack of defensive troops, and had them move to the two iron sources and pillage both of them. Then I took a couple of cities to encourage the Hittites to accept my peace terms.

I repeated this (again against the Hittites) when I wanted the Hittites to stop selling ivory to the Babylonians -- nothing against the Babylonians, but I wanted to be the one selling them ivory! I need the gold to support my economy. I declared war, took the Hittite city controlling the ivory (all 3 sources). Then I sold the ivory to the Babylonians in exchange for their declaring war on the Hittites. The Babylonians then absorbed the Hittite troops that would have otherwise concentrated on that city controlling the ivory.

 

[ALA Gator]

It worked out pretty well for me. Actually the Hittites declared war on me so I got all of the remaining civs to ally with me against them and picked up one luxury. After a few turns another civ catured one of the Hittites luxuries and I traded with them (+2 Luxes) then when the war was over I traded with the Hittites for 2 luxes (+4 Luxes) and I took 2 of their cities. Now I have 7 luxes.

 

[Ringo Kid]

You could also declare war, and blockade the harbor(s) - or pillage all the squares around the enemy capitol to cut off all trade between that civ and the other AI's. (If the capitol has an airport you need to destroy that too.) That has the advantage of hurting all the other AI civs too, and making it less likely they will trade with that civ in the future. ( At least I think that will damage the trading reputation of the civ whose trades you break. )