Diplomacy=********?

[stravaig]

Travis -
In the example of trying to trade for the civ's last city, I'm sure it considers its last city its capitol. There's no way it'd trade it, even if it were for 12 bigger cities. Maybe that doesn't make perfect sense, but the capitol is /always/ off limits.

- Stravaig

 

[Jezner]

I love being able to look into the treasuries during diplomatic trading time. One time the scumbag Romans (trust me, they earned the title) approached me, requesting my maps. They had a total 53 gold compared to my 1500. So for kicks, I asked for their maps in return and all their gold. They took it.

At least they will know where that massive invasion will come from

 

[WUM]

seen the succeses of some and the complete failure of others in bargaining, even on the easiest level, i say:

FIRAXIS did a GREAT job on this!


don´t even want to imagine what is needed for a fair deal on deity-level..!

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Here is one.

I was at war with the Zulu. They were still ancient and i was around the middle of the modern area. Though my units were stronger, they kept sending one Impi after another, slowly wearing me down. I figured the Romans (who were "Polite" to me) would give me a helping hand for a few tech and gold. I asked them what they would want for an alliance vs the Zulus. They said nothing would get them to help me. By the way they were also in awe of my culture. So I offered them EVERYTHING and 2 receintly captured cities, they still were insulted... THE VERY next round the english make an allignement with them agiast the Zulus. What did I smell funny =). As such the romans had to declare war on them cause the english were getting there butts handed to them by the Zulu. In the end though I won a cultural victory and the romans had many Zulu cities by that time.

I do like the fact that by the end of the game most civs will still be alive...

 

[dennis580]

I play on Deity and have been able to make some pretty fair deals with the computer. One of the things you need to do is manually put the items on the board. You will always get a better deal this way. I have been able to make fair deals swapping techs with the computer. Note* Thier is some tech techs even though they are at the excate same level on the tech chart that the computer puts a much higher price on.

Not only that I have actually been able to rip the computer off. One time I traded like 60 or 70 gold to the computer for contact with 3 different civs.

 

[imperialus]

Originally posted by Mozenwrath
I would say the cities for peace thing sounds more realistic. I can't think of one occasion in history when a nation has bought a city from another nation with a map and some gold, can you?

Alaska was a Russian colony. I think the US bought it for about 2.5 cents an acre.

 

[CurtSibling]

Originally posted by imperialus


Alaska was a Russian colony. I think the US bought it for about 2.5 cents an acre.

Manhattan Island, anyone!

Sold for a donkey and some tobacco!

 

[LoneWolf5050]

If you have a sucky culture compared to them, they will demand more from you, unless you're at war with them and kicking their butt. It's a clever system. You have to concentrate on non military improvements to improve culture, so you can bully people in diplomacy as part of your foreign policy, while the other half of your foreign policy is carried out by your military.

Very, very clever design.

--LW

 

[The Ripper]

Try to think about the dealing between the Pope and Attila the Hun....
Culture works even on a strong opponent,if he is an uneducated barbarian..
I think that culture is a way to represent also religion in the game,even if I believe it could have been added more specifically

:grad: :grad:

___________________
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti latio

 

[Malys Faisent]

There is a huge level of complexity to the AI's negotiations from what I've seen.

Part of it is:
relative military strength and proximity
relative culture
relative technologies (different than culture)
amount of exploration
embassies
reputation
the individual leaders
the difference in nations (ie. Enland gets along better with France than say the Zulu)
hardcoded (giving away cities outside of getting peace)
previous trades in effect

Most of it makes good sense actually. If cultural levels are close or you are leading the AI will usually want more from you, especially if you have a higher level of technology. You can afford (as far as the AI is concerned) to pay a premium for whatever is on the table if you have a signifigant lead. If you can crush another nation with your military they are more likely not to try and tick you off. Maps trade straight up early on, but if you don't stay with the pack as far as trading goes you will be WAY behind once everyone else trades map...you'll have just your area and everyone else will have theirs and others...naturally you will have to pay more for this information. Contacts with other civs also vary in price, depending on how advanced a civilization is. Three citys, you'll pay ~20 gold, 20 cities and you might be looking at several hundred...it makes sense.

I find that going to war with someone can improve your bargaining abilities tremendously, but only if you are winning! You can get just about anything you want if you pick on the little guy...let him get all the good deals from everyone else and then rough him up a little and extort what you need. Its a fun way of picking up workers and those spare techs that you don't want to go back and research, plus everyone else's maps without having to trade your own.

Personally I wish there was a way to distinguish what the AI knows about the world rather than just adding it outright to your own...it would be nice to be able to see just how much they know about your empire at any given time (either through espionage or trade).

 

[chazmyrr]

Warlord difficulty. The year is 1950. I have the largest land area, the most powerful military, all other civilizations feel I have advanced technology, all other civilizations are in awe of my culture.

The Indians have been trapped on a tiny island the entire game. The only resource on the island is wine. Lost of wine. All of it, the entire world supply of wine. They have a polite reaction to me since I have always treated them decently. They are far from my closest rivals. They have five cities and a very small military. They have just acquired Gunpowder but have no source of saltpeter to build riflemen.

I tried offering some strategic resources the Indians didn't have such as iron and saltpeter in exchange for wine. No go. I added substantial gold both lump sum and per turn. Not even close. I try adding techs and even a few cities. Nope. I ask what they want. Three techs, two strategic resources and my world map. In an attempt to try and keep them from cancelling the trade after twenty turns, I added 50 gold per turn. I did not remove any of the items; only added the gold. This changed the offer from acceptable to insulting. No matter what I added, the offer wouldn't even be considered.

I would say that the AI has a problem calculating values since it can't distinguish that it's request + gold is better than what it requested.

 

[Dearmad]

Who KNOWS what kind of wine it REALLY is...

 

[kamosa]

One problem I have with the bargining is that the AI tends to evaluate your cash offer based on how much cash you have, not how much the deal is worth.

If you have 1000 gold they want 800 of it. If you then spend 900 some where and come back to the deal, they only want all of it, but they are still willing to make the deal.

Because you end up having to trade all the time, you end up getting hurt for your financial prudence.

Boo! Don't penalize me for having large cash reserves. That should be a bonus, not a way to hurt me more. As it is, having cash means nothing. I can hold my cash and buy one resource, or spend my cash and buy one resource. Gee, tough decision, guess I'll get the benifit from spending my cash.