Firaxis, please fix the luxory trading bug!

[monkspider]

I can't believe it's been two patches already, and this seems to have only gotten worse! A typical deal with a country who is gracious and is allied with me is his spices for my ivory, wines, and silks, plus 2198 gold. This is ridiculous!!! Please Firaxis, I plead of you, address this in your next patch!

 

[Carbon_Copy]

There are many different things that influence the price of luxuries, and often the benefit you receive from a lux deal turns out to be fairly near to equal what you're paying for it. Here's a checklist to ask to see what's making the price jack up so high:

Is your country big? The bigger your civ, the more benefit is derived from a luxury, and thus the more you will have to pay.

Do you have several luxuries already? The more you have already, the more the next one will cost you, since every one above two adds multiple happy faces in cities with marketplaces.

Have you broken any deals with other civs? They tend to jack up the prices and be more reluctant to accept payment in installments if you've violated RoPs or Alliances or MPPs.

Really, the first two points are the big influences on the price. Players tend to, over time, pull together a large empire and put marketplaces in many of their cities, even when they're not going for a military win, plus they tend to gain control of several luxuries. If you're trying to get the one last lux that you don't have, it WILL cost you your firstborn, because if you get that, every city with a market will get four more happy faces, and over a large and well-developed civ, that can mean HUNDREDS of happy faces for that one lux. THAT is why it's so expensive, and why you often have to trade several luxuries plus gold per turn to get a new one.

There's nothing broken about luxury trading, it's just a bit counter-intuitive. It works for play balance, I guess, but it's a poor correspondence to real-world economics, particularly the concept of diminishing marginal returns. If luxuries were based on a more realistic model, the FIRST luxury you get gains you the most happy faces (provided a marketplace exists), and the number of happy faces added should diminish as you add more luxuries (basically, the way the game works now, only inverted).

 

[Razorwing]

I think if the premise of a game is that it should be easy to learn, easy to play and not too complicated, then every model have to be confined to those parameters. In the early period of the game it's completely ludicrous for a galley to spend three turns (sixty years) out of port... but what do you do? ;-)

I'm confident Civilization could be a very detailed and accurate simulation of empire management, but it would be very dull to play.

 

[Sodak]

Carbon Copy explains it well - there is no bug. If you want those hundreds of happy faces (check your score after that happens), you will have to pay dearly. A fine reason to go settle or conquer luxuries early in the game!

 

[konigstiger]

Originally posted by monkspider
I can't believe it's been two patches already, and this seems to have only gotten worse! A typical deal with a country who is gracious and is allied with me is his spices for my ivory, wines, and silks, plus 2198 gold. This is ridiculous!!! Please Firaxis, I plead of you, address this in your next patch!

If you don't want to pay 'em, grab it from 'em

 

[NY Hoya]

if you disconnect one or two of your luxuries from your trade network before trying to buy another luxury from the AI, will you then get a cheaper deal?

 

[etj4Eagle]

I would have to yes, disconnecting your luxeries from your trade network first would help. Since in my latest game I did notice an effect on adjusting my tax sliders before going into negotiations. If I had set them to generate lots of cash, the AI usually wanted quite a bit of that gold/turn. However, when I adjusted them to produce very little gold/turn, the AI did not want so much.

Of course this may be me just imagining things. But it seems that the AI might be asking for a certain precentage of my gold/turn. And when I have the sliders adjusted to produce lots of gold it figures that I can afford to give them more money for that luxery/tech/resource. Heck I will do the same to the AI, if I see that they have lots of gold I will expect them to pay me a lot for any tech that I give them. But if they are poor, I will give it to them for cheap (figuring its better me than someone else).

 

[maddskillz]

If luxuries were based on a more realistic model, the FIRST luxury you get gains you the most happy faces (provided a marketplace exists), and the number of happy faces added should diminish as you add more luxuries (basically, the way the game works now, only inverted).

That's incorrect, what you are describing is diminished marginal utility. For example you are at a baseball game eating a hotdog, the first one is great for $2.25. HOwever the next at $2.25 is not as necessary and therefore you don't place the same $2.25 value on that second hotdog. The third less as you begin to appreciate it less and value it less then the first.

When dealing with an array of luxury items such as silk, gems, furs and so on you do not have a diminished marginal utility for each luxury as it each provides new consumer goods unavailable before.

NOt trying to be a stickler, but I find this to be an important concept in the game that has been very well done by Firaxis. The use of luxury items in civ 3 is what takes it to another level in comparison to 1 and 2 in my opinion.

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by maddskillz


That's incorrect, what you are describing is diminished marginal utility. For example you are at a baseball game eating a hotdog, the first one is great for $2.25. HOwever the next at $2.25 is not as necessary and therefore you don't place the same $2.25 value on that second hotdog. The third less as you begin to appreciate it less and value it less then the first.

When dealing with an array of luxury items such as silk, gems, furs and so on you do not have a diminished marginal utility for each luxury as it each provides new consumer goods unavailable before.

NOt trying to be a stickler, but I find this to be an important concept in the game that has been very well done by Firaxis. The use of luxury items in civ 3 is what takes it to another level in comparison to 1 and 2 in my opinion.

Also there is the combination effect of being able to make goods that use multiple luxeries, which leads to an increasing marginal utility. Now maybe the effect should peak at some level, with additional luxeries above that not having as much effect. But that is probably getting too complicated.

 

[Selous]

the trouble with the game and the exorbident luxery prices is the fact it makes it cheeper to goto war to take a resorce from the AI ... that isnt fun way to trade .... it would be like the OPEC countries turn around and want 400 gold per oil barrel .... the western forces would mobilise and invade as it is much more ecconomicaly viable ..... i would have thought that would be a bad move diplomatically by opec countries

 

[hzm]

Trade should be encouraged in civ 3, at least in the modern ages. Its ridiculous that I have the give 3 resources and 2000 gold per turn for one resource because it may be worth more to me. Firaxis wants to make winning peacefully an option in this game and do it by making the only way to get resources by warring?

 

[Carbon_Copy]

I will provisionally acknowledge that a straight diminishing marginal utility may not be the correct "real-world" model, there could possibly be mitigating factors that are beyond the level of abstraction we're looking at, BUT...

Let's assume that I, the hypothetical everyman of some random civ, am offered dyes (or some other luxury that I don't normally have access to). Consider the following two scenarios:

1) I have ready and abundant access to several luxuries (let's say ivory, silks, and gems) already.

2) I have no other means of indulging myself.

Under which set of circumstances would I value the dyes more? I personally would probably get more excited over the dyes if I didn't have anything luxurious already than if I already had several types valuable things. I would still value them, for certain, but would I consider those dyes to be much more dear to me if they happened to be taken away while I still had my other luxuries than if they were my only luxury to begin with? I think, on the level the game operates, They've got the benefits and prices backwards. AI civs also wouldn't charge limbs and firstborn children to get your seventh or eighth luxury, either.

The problem is that the play balance would be out of whack, since with a marketplace, just having two luxuries would mean +8 happy faces unless they changed the entire nature of how a marketplace functions to compensate.

So, in the interests of game balance, I accept the way it is because it's better for the game to be this way, but not on the grounds of any realism it might have to it.

 

[hzm]

I may be OK with 1 resource for 3 but not 2000 gold per turn. Especially since the ai will never to continue trading. They always cancel!

 

[JoseM]

Originally posted by hzm
I may be OK with 1 resource for 3 but not 2000 gold per turn. Especially since the ai will never to continue trading. They always cancel!

lol 2000 gold "PER TURN" is a exageration, u mean 2000 gold lump, or inmediatly, or instant... sorry for my english

 

[hzm]

That's just a number I always use. I don't remember what the usual per turn amount is.

 

[karambunai]

I couldn't help but to agree with monkspider on this issue. I don't mind paying a bit extra but the price that AI charges for their luxuries is usually damn ridiculous. Anyway, it does not reflect the logical method of trading in the real world. The price of a pound of spice from one supplier should not vary radically, whoever the buyer might be.

 

[lawren8]

Originally posted by hzm
I may be OK with 1 resource for 3 but not 2000 gold per turn. Especially since the ai will never to continue trading. They always cancel!

I've found in this situation, the civ is placing almost 0 value on
your luxuries.

 

[Mapache]

Well, look at it like this: You pay for access to a good. "One unit" of ivory pleases many people in many cities if you are big. If Civ3 used a more quantitative model you'd maybe happier. Huge empire->many contracts->high price.