Effects of over bargaining the AI?

[inudog]

Does anyone know the effects of over bargaining the AI? What I mean is if you ask what an AI is willing to offer for something, say they offer 15 gpt for a tech, and you renegotiate it to the maximum amount where they will still accept. i.e. they wont go for 19 gpt but they will gor for 18 gpt and 10 gold and a territory map.

Do you take a rep hit for that or does the AI’s attitude towards you decrease?

I have no idea, but was wondering if anyone has checked it out.

 

[Bamspeedy]

No, it does not affect attitude (nor would you overpaying for something help attitude).

But, if you do take every last possible gold (and gold/turn) money that they have, it is possible that they start selling off infrastructure to keep up the payments (crippling their economy), or they could declare war on you to break the deal.

I generally don't worry about that though, as I can fend them off if they do declare war.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

So what you are saying Bamspeedy is that this is a good thing to do.

 

[cromagnon]

Yes, take them for all they're worth.

FYI, some people refer to "market price" for luxuries or tech. This is where you push up the price that's "acceptable" until the advisor says "getting close to a deal," which means they don't think it is worth more than that.

This is different from the advisor switching to "will be insulted" over a 1 gpt difference, because that means they can't afford that amount of gpt.

 

[morkaphi]

Just some add-up to cromagnon's post:

When the advisor says the AI "will be insulted", that actually means your offer is too crappy for the AI to consider. If the AI can't afford what you propose, the advisor says "they will never accept such a deal".

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy

But, if you do take every last possible gold (and gold/turn) money that they have, it is possible that they start selling off infrastructure to keep up the payments (crippling their economy), ...

Has this been documented? I hope it is true.

 

[Renata]

It's very definitely true. Not only that, but it can also kill their research.

Question for anyone who knows: is the reason this works that the AI won't deficit research? It seems logical: if you take all of a civ's gpt, then their maintenance or unit support costs increase and they can't deficit research, they have to lower their science slider to compensate. But I don't know for sure.

Renata

 

[Sirp]

Yeah I'm fairly sure that the AI will never research at deficit, which is fairly silly really. It means that giving them 400 gold is completely different to giving them 20gpt, while to a human the difference is relatively minor.

But, you can't really prove that the AI *never* researches at deficit unless you ask the programmers/crack the executable etc...

-Sirp.