Crippling the AI's research capability
- Thread starter Wislem
- Start date
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Yeah, this thread was created back in november, using the original version straight out of the box (1.07f). So some of this won't apply to the latest patches. Most of the time, the AI doesn't have the cash flow to pay gold/turn until the early middle ages, and sometimes not even then. It depends on how good of an infrastructure they have and if they are paying/earning money from other civs.
FormerFarmer
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2002
- Messages
- 1
In my first game, I am Persia on a huge random map against seven random civs. Around 400 AD it's going pretty well: I have the Pyramids and Great Library, and am working on the Hanging Gardens. Only one war so far: I'm five cities away from eliminating Japan.
I stumbled onto the strategy of trading techs for gold per turn, and now have over 1,000 gold while some other civs have little or none.
What I don't understand are these two items:
1. How do you know your reputation?
I've made lots of trades and kept every agreement, so don't know why it would be bad - but don't know what it is!
2. Why do the other civs have their attitudes? Shaka is polite, Gandhi cautious, and everyone else annoyed (except Tokugawa, who is understandably furious). But why?
Can anyone help me understand this?
I stumbled onto the strategy of trading techs for gold per turn, and now have over 1,000 gold while some other civs have little or none.
What I don't understand are these two items:
1. How do you know your reputation?
I've made lots of trades and kept every agreement, so don't know why it would be bad - but don't know what it is!
2. Why do the other civs have their attitudes? Shaka is polite, Gandhi cautious, and everyone else annoyed (except Tokugawa, who is understandably furious). But why?
Can anyone help me understand this?
Breaking your reputation in civ3 is something akin to breathing, you often don't know that you're doing it and its damn hard to avoid it. As far as I can tell from what you said, they probably hate you because you are war with Japan and have razed or abandoned a Japanese city. Or possibly because someone else has broken a trade route that you were using to trade with another civ and you get the blame for breaking the trade route. I don't think anyone's made a list of all the things that damage your reputation, but there should be some info on it in the FAQ.
And welcome to CivFanatics
.
And welcome to CivFanatics
.This is funny. Well, I'm new, so don't laugh at me plz. But when I play on chefitan, I will not be able to broker techs. Every time I ask for gold per turn, even if it is 1 gold per turn, they get insulted. I can ask for 300 gold lump sum but not 1 gold per turn for 20 turns. Something odd here?
NDackmon
Chieftain
I've had Civ3 since Christmas of 2001 and I still keep coming up with new strategies. I recently started selling technologies to other civs for HUGE prices in gold per turn. Of all the strategies I've ever come up with this one is by far the best and I never knew that other people used it too. I don't think that it necesarily makes other civs happy though, especially when you charge them some 317 gold per turn for Spaceflight and Synthetic Fibers just so that they come back a few turns later with a dozen transports of modern armour (I have no idea how they could afford all that) , start a war, and not pay the money for the full 20 turns. 
I didn't know if it was becasue the AI was smart or that they wanted the uranium that I had and they didn't have. Maybe they would have started a war with me anyway but as long as I'm not a war the strategy works great and I can put science at 80% to 100% and still make over $1000 per turn becasue some civs are just so desperate for technologies. I'm currently making almost $1800 gold per turn from eleven other Civs in the game I'm playing. They pay for my maintanence, science, corruption, and everything else I could ever want.
I know two other people with Civ3 and neither of them ever really come up with any strategies, nor do they pay attention to a civ's specific traits but I think that this strategy would work best for the Greeks who are comercial and scientific. I really like how it cripples the other civ's economy and boosts mine. Next time I start a game I should use this strategy for the whole game and see how long it takes me to get all the technologies. I don't think that this "Science Broker" sceme is unfair because the Romans, and later the Byzantines, did use it to some degree when they traded with less advanced cultures and took andvantage of the fact that they had better products to sell. Long Island in New York was bought from the Native Americans for only $24 so if it was done in the past, then I think it would be fair to do it in Civ3 as well.
St. Louis MO
I didn't know if it was becasue the AI was smart or that they wanted the uranium that I had and they didn't have. Maybe they would have started a war with me anyway but as long as I'm not a war the strategy works great and I can put science at 80% to 100% and still make over $1000 per turn becasue some civs are just so desperate for technologies. I'm currently making almost $1800 gold per turn from eleven other Civs in the game I'm playing. They pay for my maintanence, science, corruption, and everything else I could ever want. I know two other people with Civ3 and neither of them ever really come up with any strategies, nor do they pay attention to a civ's specific traits but I think that this strategy would work best for the Greeks who are comercial and scientific. I really like how it cripples the other civ's economy and boosts mine. Next time I start a game I should use this strategy for the whole game and see how long it takes me to get all the technologies. I don't think that this "Science Broker" sceme is unfair because the Romans, and later the Byzantines, did use it to some degree when they traded with less advanced cultures and took andvantage of the fact that they had better products to sell. Long Island in New York was bought from the Native Americans for only $24 so if it was done in the past, then I think it would be fair to do it in Civ3 as well.
St. Louis MO
zerksees
in remission
In my own gameplay on PTW 1.27f I find that after ancient times, you can often broker a good deal with one civ, but after you sell a tech to one civ, the second knows you do not have exclusive ownership of the tech and won't pay as much.
Try it. Once you get exclusive on a tech, shop it around to find two other civs who are willing to pay for it. Both might be willing to give 80 gpt and world map, but once you sell it to the first one, the second one will no longer find that deal acceptable.
Has anyone else seen this?
I wonder if this thread should still be in the war academy.
Try it. Once you get exclusive on a tech, shop it around to find two other civs who are willing to pay for it. Both might be willing to give 80 gpt and world map, but once you sell it to the first one, the second one will no longer find that deal acceptable.
Has anyone else seen this?
I wonder if this thread should still be in the war academy.
Qitai
.
Yes, this is a well-known fact among the elite players now.
Monopoly Tech cost twice as much as non-monopoly tech. Whether a Tech is monpoly or not depends on the buyer's contact.
Before communication is sold, it is possible to sell at monopoly prices several times if you know who has contact with whom (A simple way to tell is establish embassy and see who is available on each AI's MA list, the other way is simply good guess work). After communication is traded, it is almost a certainty that you can sell a tech at monopoly price only once, since all AI should have full contact once communication trading is available unless we are looking at a continental map before navigation/magnetism.
Monopoly Tech cost twice as much as non-monopoly tech. Whether a Tech is monpoly or not depends on the buyer's contact.
Before communication is sold, it is possible to sell at monopoly prices several times if you know who has contact with whom (A simple way to tell is establish embassy and see who is available on each AI's MA list, the other way is simply good guess work). After communication is traded, it is almost a certainty that you can sell a tech at monopoly price only once, since all AI should have full contact once communication trading is available unless we are looking at a continental map before navigation/magnetism.
CIVPhilzilla
Reagan Republican
I have to say I disagree, to some degree. Leaving the AI in the dust is always a good thing to exploit. Industiral and Modern times I hardly ever trade my techs. I find it better to be far ahead and crush them with top of the line equipment. I loan them money or other things to get their gpt.
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
This thread really shouldn't be linked in the war academy anymore! 
As an aside - nothing is important once you are ahead of the AI in tech - the game is won and the rest is just how you like to finish the game...
As an aside - nothing is important once you are ahead of the AI in tech - the game is won and the rest is just how you like to finish the game...
zerksees
in remission
One way to cripple the AI research is to trade gold and get back gpt. Apparently this affects its decision on how to allocate income as described in this article about effective commercial management (which is already in the war academy).
anarres - thanks.
I was referring to getting ahead on one part of the tree - not necessarily having all techs ahead of the AI. Not sure if this is what you meant.
anarres - thanks.
I was referring to getting ahead on one part of the tree - not necessarily having all techs ahead of the AI. Not sure if this is what you meant.
SuperDave9x19
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2002
- Messages
- 55
I disagree with wanting to have rep drop if you give techs away at different price levels.
IMO, when I sell tech, there are 3 reasons
1. To make Money
2. To gain reputation bonus'
3. To drain AI coffers.
I will sell industrialization to rich AI guy for 60 gpt then sell it to the poor AI guy for 10 gpt if I get the impression that I am getting all they each can give.
In some ways, item 3 above is WAY more important than item 1.
Hell sometimes I sell industrial techs to weaklings at a ridiculously low price so that my enemy can make railroads FOR my near term takeover.
WackenOpenAir
Deity
It is not a cheat and not unrealistic.
I think it pretty well presents the way the modern world handles the world. They do get our technology to a certain extend (else in afrika they would be killing eachother with stone axes instead of ak47's) but they do pay us for it and its hard to get out of that patern for them.
I know many people don't want to believe in this point of view and think in the western world we are nice guys that are helping the rest of the world.
I simply see it like this:
there are 6 billion people on the world. The western world and asia, say 4 billion people are productive and produce an amount of goods. only 1 billion people (the western world) consume far more than half of the produced goods.
You could think we are more efficient in production, but then why aren't we producing our computers, TV's, DVD players, Cellphones (and cars) ourselves? We research more efficient, and that was just the point this is about.
3th world countries are still too backwards though, "they are not yet able to pay us gpt"
Also, i don't see it as a cheat because it is hard enough to obtain and maintain this trader position on deity/sid and it does require you to make a "sacrifice" in that you must be very carefull with your reputation and whom you go to war with.
I think it pretty well presents the way the modern world handles the world. They do get our technology to a certain extend (else in afrika they would be killing eachother with stone axes instead of ak47's) but they do pay us for it and its hard to get out of that patern for them.
I know many people don't want to believe in this point of view and think in the western world we are nice guys that are helping the rest of the world.
I simply see it like this:
there are 6 billion people on the world. The western world and asia, say 4 billion people are productive and produce an amount of goods. only 1 billion people (the western world) consume far more than half of the produced goods.
You could think we are more efficient in production, but then why aren't we producing our computers, TV's, DVD players, Cellphones (and cars) ourselves? We research more efficient, and that was just the point this is about.
3th world countries are still too backwards though, "they are not yet able to pay us gpt"
Also, i don't see it as a cheat because it is hard enough to obtain and maintain this trader position on deity/sid and it does require you to make a "sacrifice" in that you must be very carefull with your reputation and whom you go to war with.
Steiner-Davion
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2005
- Messages
- 201
Starkist said:
How does this bug work? I've never heard of this before.
Basically it was an overflow error. Really big sums of money got counted as a huge negative number, so they'd agree to anything (since they were giving you a batch of stuff they thought was of negative value). A similar effect actually allowed them to give it to you even though they didn't have it.Steiner-Davion said:
It was fixed back in, IIRC, version 1.17.
I discovered this exploit indepently and have been using it for months. I was suprised to find it already posted. It appears to me that this "tech broker" is a well known strategy. It practically is an endless cycle: sell tech, get money to resarch tech, sell tech, get money,... Once your ahead you stay ahead. I got so far ahead once I just destroyed the AI and I'm not even that good at milatary.
I was a whole age ahead: Modern Armor vs. Musketmen 
and could afford spies in all civs even allies they didn't care my rep. was high enough I could have won UN despite my trechary.
I was a whole age ahead: Modern Armor vs. Musketmen and could afford spies in all civs even allies they didn't care my rep. was high enough I could have won UN despite my trechary.
Similar threads
