Diplomacy and Tech Trading

[rocklikeafool]

Hmm...and how exactly would you do that?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

How do you change the minimum city yields?

You simply edit the <iMinCity> tags in CIV4YieldInfos.xml. Neither FfH nor BtS modified this file, but you can easily copy it from the Assets\XML\Terrain folder of the main Civ IV folder into the FfH folder and edit it there (or, if you prefer, you could change it in the main folder and have it apply to the main game and all other mods that don't replace this file too)

 

[kivanc]

I don't know much about the leader personalities in FFH, but Valledia doesn't trade her techs even at friendly. They are red-lined and the mouse-over says something like "we just don't like you enough". Really? Really? Because our nobles just got married and we donated a huge wedding gift... doesn't that count for anything? Your divination tech looks so tasty... and don't you want to learn deception; its all the rage.

Okay, so obviously each personality determines how likely a particular leader is to trade. Where can i get that info or can one of the mod-monkeys hanging around here post it?

Its worth knowing just so i can plan who is worth sucking up to and who i can let go hang. Is Valledia the new Toku?

i.

i'm also into an investigation about diplomacy and some links and xls compilations might help you.

but i'm not quite sure if there is any change on them with BTS 3.17

thanks to ori
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4712466
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204328

and thanks to karlkrlarsson for xls compilation...
i was shy to check all the columns and it would take to much time, i still think it would be helpful for many persons.
but even if you don't have so much time like me, you'd better read the following commentary evaluations.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235270

if anybody knows a similar thread describing AI attitudes and some suggestions how to behave, please paste the link.

 

[onedreamer]

It's in there, though I've only managed to see it on the highest difficulties.

you mean the lowest. In Civ4, you're hardly be too advanced for the AI when playing Deity ^^

The message that you're too advanced is pretty common when you're the tech leader.

 

[onedreamer]

People here seem to advocate slowing the trade rate. Is this is a popular sentiment?

Also, have people experimented with 'secret codes' to try and slow the tech rate and to formalize particular diplomatic 'cliques'?

not for me, no. In FFH2 the teching rate is very slow, and doesn't need to be further slowed for my tastes. However, I only play standard maps (6 players), and the number of players influences the teching rate.

 

[Maniac]

you mean the lowest. In Civ4, you're hardly be too advanced for the AI when playing Deity ^^

But the AIs claim you're too advanced even when you're behind.

 

[Blackmantle]

I have more of a feeling that this refusal is to hold you down if the AI is slightly ahead of you. (So to prevent you catching up to be on-par again.)

Its my behavior as a player as well sometimes (since i am the tech leader quite often i have few incentives to give good AI vital techs which give good units or acess to wonders i want to build during said game.)

So i guess it might have to do with the value of techs you have vs. theirs and overall availability of your on the tech-market. (thats just my impression and thus i might be way off.)

As a tech-leader i experience that one way more seldom with most AI willing to give me their cheaper techs to fill the gaps (to a less than favorable rate though.).

Interestingly AI seems to offer widely varying values for different techs by leaders and situation. Can someone second that observation? Whould also be interesting to know what it has to do with.

Oh and on friendly most AI seem to be willing to trade techs regardless of most reasons not to. So there is a real incentive to get them up to friendly.
And yes. Amurite treshold should be set down to pleased if anything. If just for their own good. (Unless thats a completely coscient design intent of course. )

 

[snarko]

The "too advanced" depend entirely on tech trading, the number of techs you get via trading to be specific. If you and another civ are eons behind everyone else but trading frequently with eachother others may refuse to trade because you are "too advanced". Silly rule imo but I can understand why they didn't make a check if you actually are advanced, that would require much more processing.

A civ which is friendly towards you will never refuse to trade for this reason.

 

[kivanc]

well. diplo skills are more critical in high difficulty levels. let me give 1 tactics , and if anybody else has different strange tactics, i'd be very happy to hear that. but this tactics is true for normal settings when tech brokering restriction is not enabled.

Well, first of all according to my XP, most AI leaders(and so as me) are being convinved by the beaker value of each tech while trading. If you are offering a 300 beaker tech, it is probably possible for him to give you a 250beaker tech. If you need a 300 or more expensive tech from him, you need to give 1 more extra thing.

let's say i have a tech "tech3" of 300 beakers which is not so much critical. and most of the AI's don't have it. I contact all 4AIs met at the same turn. I try to get what i can from all of them, but don't forget! with the same tech, at the same turn!
1)i get one average tech "tech1" of 250 beakers from 1st AI
2)i get one cheap tech "tech2" of 150 or even 100beakers from 2nd AIanother
3) i get some gold from 3rd AI
4) and 4th AI has nothing to give. he is behind at tech and has 0 gold but i know he is stronger than me in military. so i give the tech to him as a gift.

now, i know that most of you will agree that 1st trade is good and 2nd trade is bad. 3rd trade is average, depending on the gold sum. and 4th trade seems like a foolishness when considered alone right?

first of all, if you don't do the 2nd and 3rd trades at the same turn; and if the 1st,2nd and 3rd AIs get along a little bit, later AI1 civilization will probably try to trade and get sth with the "tech3" that you gave him. and a few turns later, you may not get even a little gold or a cheap tech from AI2/AI3 as they already took tech3 from AI1
and the 4th AI, if he is stronegr than you he will soon ask for sth from you which you will not want to give. and you will get a "-2 you refused to..."
by gifting that tech, you will be balancing the bad attitude you will get after your future refusal. moreover that aggressive but powerful AI may even ask for that tech3 from another AI and take it as a tribute. So why not give him that tech, if it is not so much critical?

By giving the same thing to all AIs at the same time, you are also balancing possible -1/-2 "you traded with our worst enemy" attitudes

Does anybody agree that this tactics work good. You can especially do this one, after you have finished with building the related wonder. But if an AI researches another tech which needs tech3 as prerequisite, then he can be a rival for you to build the related wonder. so choose the tech good, which you will apply.

 

[Maniac]

The "too advanced" depend entirely on tech trading, the number of techs you get via trading to be specific. If you and another civ are eons behind everyone else but trading frequently with eachother others may refuse to trade because you are "too advanced". Silly rule imo but I can understand why they didn't make a check if you actually are advanced, that would require much more processing.

A civ which is friendly towards you will never refuse to trade for this reason.

Ah yes, describes the game in which I encountered this perfectly. :b:

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Also, the number of techs you can trade for before people start refusing to trade with you depends on the difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the sooner they start calling you too advanced.

 

[onedreamer]

A civ which is friendly towards you will never refuse to trade for this reason.

well a friendly civ can even present you a tech even if you are ahead in tech... but I've never had a civ tell me that I'm too advanced if I'm not really, and honestly I don't see how keeping in memory every tech I traded is less CPU or memory intensive than just check the difference in known techs between 2 civs, heh...

 

[Immaculate]

Despite the multiple opinions in regards to what 'wfyabta' means, Snarko et al are right.
To clarify:

WFYABTA is the message that appears when mousing-over a redlined tech the rival civ knows and you don't in the trade window if:
a) you have traded for and recieved a significant amount of techs from your rivals (including during negotiations for peace). it does not apply to techs you have sold or traded to your rivals.
b) that rival civ is not 'friendly'.

So to get around it, you can avoid trading until you are ready to trade for a very useful tech (self-research all the small techs saving the WFYABTA 'slots' for higher tier techs) or get the rival civ to 'friendly' diplomatic status.

Also, Monkey Finger is right. Its a LOT easier to reach WFYABTA at higher difficulties then it is at lower difficulties (ie- you can trade for fewer techs before the AI goes into WFYABTA mode) (which is part of the reason why diplomacy is so much more important at higher difficulties).

Second to last, the number of techs traded that it takes to reach the WFYABTA threshold is different for each civ (in unmodded civ, its very high for Mansa and fairly low for Huayna- sp?) so some civs make better trade partners then others, even not at friendly, because they will trade you more techs before they have decided that you have scavanged enough.

Lastly, WFYABTA can fade. Every turn (i think) there is a small chance that the AI civ 'forgets' that you traded for a tech and therefore may be willing to trade with you again after that.

PS: This is why Camarilla's strategy DOES NOT WORK at high difficulties (without several rival civs at friendly).

 

[kivanc]

PS: This is why Camarilla's strategy DOES NOT WORK at high difficulties (without several rival civs at friendly).

you can think like that but it happened to me in a few games, in emperor especially. i will try it in immortal as well.
at the same turn, you can get more than 1 techs from different AIs.

and plus all of their attitude towards you get greener.
cautious ones become pleased and annoyed ones become cautious. yes, it is true.

still, if there is a very low limit for letting the human player get tech from trade in high difficulties, i didn't do that in much amounts.
also, i don't trade techs very frequently.

by the way, why do you guys not steal tech instead?

 

[snarko]

well a friendly civ can even present you a tech even if you are ahead in tech... but I've never had a civ tell me that I'm too advanced if I'm not really, and honestly I don't see how keeping in memory every tech I traded is less CPU or memory intensive than just check the difference in known techs between 2 civs, heh...

Because it doesn't keep track of what techs you traded, only how many. It does keep track of what techs you trade for the no tech brokering option but it's not used in this case.

On the other hand to check who is the most advanced it has to loop through every tech in the game, check if player 1 has it, check if player 2 has it and decide on some value for the tech (the default research cost I guess would be pretty fair and faster than the AI value). It's not *that* slow and could certainly be done, but I guess it wasn't deemed important enough.



One thing which Immaculate didn't mention: if you trade techs before you meet an AI that AI has no memory of it.

 

[Immaculate]

you can think like that but it happened to me in a few games, in emperor especially. i will try it in immortal as well.
at the same turn, you can get more than 1 techs from different AIs.

and plus all of their attitude towards you get greener.
cautious ones become pleased and annoyed ones become cautious. yes, it is true.

still, if there is a very low limit for letting the human player get tech from trade in high difficulties, i didn't do that in much amounts.
also, i don't trade techs very frequently.

by the way, why do you guys not steal tech instead?

Merhaba Camilla,

You are absolutely right in thinking that you can get more than one tech for each one you self-research by carefully trading it around. My only problem is that if you are not careful with trades, you will reach the WFYABTA limit very quickly.

Now, i did make a caveat. Your method works excellently when you have several civs at 'friendly' diplomatic status. In fact, i think that its almost imperative to develop diplomatic ties with 3-4 rival civs (depending on game conditions) and then making them your tech-trade partners with no fear of WFYABTA.

So, let me take back what i said about your method of tech brokering (it doesn't work at high difficulties). Let me say instead that its very important that the player place themselves in a situation (by diplomatic manipulation) where they are able to play the part of a tech broker to a limited group of 'friendly' civs.

I.

 

[kivanc]

Merhaba Camilla,

You are absolutely right in thinking that you can get more than one tech for each one you self-research by carefully trading it around. My only problem is that if you are not careful with trades, you will reach the WFYABTA limit very quickly.

Now, i did make a caveat. Your method works excellently when you have several civs at 'friendly' diplomatic status. In fact, i think that its almost imperative to develop diplomatic ties with 3-4 rival civs (depending on game conditions) and then making them your tech-trade partners with no fear of WFYABTA.

So, let me take back what i said about your method of tech brokering (it doesn't work at high difficulties). Let me say instead that its very important that the player place themselves in a situation (by diplomatic manipulation) where they are able to play the part of a tech broker to a limited group of 'friendly' civs.

I.

merhaba (means hello in Turkish lang)

well, yes, i get the point about the limit for tech trading called damned "WFYABTA", so that method works limitedly.
do all AI's report what they traded with you to each other? how can they judge that... Peh!
and i'm sure there won't be any WFYABTA tech limit between AI civs.