Vorlin
Chieftain
The information given here about how the AI can discount when trading with other AI's now makes the entire AI trade system understandable to me: it's a domino effect. The combination of AI's not stockpiling gold, combined with AI's constantly seeking to trade, combined with tech becoming worth less as more civs know it, combined with the tech discount AIs get...this all adds up to every AI civ having all the techs the others have.
Here's how I think it works: CivA gets a new tech, no other AI civ has it. It checks with all the other civs, but even discounted only CivB can afford it. CivB buys at discount. The tech is now worth less, so either CivA or CivB find they can now sell it to CivC. The tech is now worth less, so...you get the picture: the tech migrates to every AI civ and -none- of them pay anything other than a discount price. The only thing that breaks this chain is when an AI civ falls so far behind that they can never afford the tech, even when every other AI knows it and they get maximum discount. Note that this chain also means that poorest AI civs get the newest tech at the least cost, so this trading chain tends to keep the lower tier AI civs competitive in the game for much longer than they would be otherwise: a weak AI civ will get the same tech on about the same turn as a far more powerful one for a fraction of the cost.
I understand what Firaxis wanted in giving the AI's the ability to sell 'under cost', and it makes sense in-and-of itself. But when you combine that with the other AI traits I mentioned above you get something -far- more powerful and game-dominating than I think the Firaxis team had in mind. And the higher the difficulty level, the worse it gets.
IMO, the values for the AI trading rate should be changed in the next patch (though it's easy enough to modify them yourself): Chieftain should be 80 (though someone said earlier that you can't set them below 100, if so make Chief/Wlord 100), Warlord should be 90, Regent should be 100, and the AI should get this powerful bonus only on Monarch and above. As it is, the AI always gets this bonus to a greater or lesser degree, and as shown above this bonus has a -huge- effect on the AI's strength.
(This isn't just a theoretical post, I've observed precisely this behaviour among the AIs during my last Regent game using 1.29f patch. I was turtling in as a pure builder and all the AI's had almost exactly the same tech at the same time throughout the entire game (regardless of individual civ traits, terraforming, or government type). Only when I started beating some civs to dust did they fall below the threshold where they could purchase new tech from their research-strong AI buddies.)
Here's how I think it works: CivA gets a new tech, no other AI civ has it. It checks with all the other civs, but even discounted only CivB can afford it. CivB buys at discount. The tech is now worth less, so either CivA or CivB find they can now sell it to CivC. The tech is now worth less, so...you get the picture: the tech migrates to every AI civ and -none- of them pay anything other than a discount price. The only thing that breaks this chain is when an AI civ falls so far behind that they can never afford the tech, even when every other AI knows it and they get maximum discount. Note that this chain also means that poorest AI civs get the newest tech at the least cost, so this trading chain tends to keep the lower tier AI civs competitive in the game for much longer than they would be otherwise: a weak AI civ will get the same tech on about the same turn as a far more powerful one for a fraction of the cost.
I understand what Firaxis wanted in giving the AI's the ability to sell 'under cost', and it makes sense in-and-of itself. But when you combine that with the other AI traits I mentioned above you get something -far- more powerful and game-dominating than I think the Firaxis team had in mind. And the higher the difficulty level, the worse it gets.
IMO, the values for the AI trading rate should be changed in the next patch (though it's easy enough to modify them yourself): Chieftain should be 80 (though someone said earlier that you can't set them below 100, if so make Chief/Wlord 100), Warlord should be 90, Regent should be 100, and the AI should get this powerful bonus only on Monarch and above. As it is, the AI always gets this bonus to a greater or lesser degree, and as shown above this bonus has a -huge- effect on the AI's strength.
(This isn't just a theoretical post, I've observed precisely this behaviour among the AIs during my last Regent game using 1.29f patch. I was turtling in as a pure builder and all the AI's had almost exactly the same tech at the same time throughout the entire game (regardless of individual civ traits, terraforming, or government type). Only when I started beating some civs to dust did they fall below the threshold where they could purchase new tech from their research-strong AI buddies.)
