Gpt

[dexters]

Lord Emsworth also pointed out that even with a wrecked reputation the AI has no qualms trading gpt for techs or gold upfront, as long as they get the whole thing first.

My comment was not completely correct.

Edit: Though it's not entirely incorrect either. The War Academy has a fairly involved talk on Reputation. It's a must read.
But here's what I meant in my original post.

But unless explicitly stated, we'll use the more common term "gpt deal" in this article to refer to rep-risky deals.

Trading reputation decides whether AI is willing to make gpt deal with you. It has the following characteristics:

* Your reputation starts with clean.
* Each AI has a record of your reputation separately.
* An AI views your rep as "trashed" if any of the following is true
o You had a gpt deal with this AI before which got terminated prematurely for certain reasons (see the next section).
o The AI knows or knew another AI with whom you had a broken gpt deal, and those two AI are NOT currently at war (that AI who you betrayed might have been destroyed). This is similar to what your foreign advisor says about "xxx is a known liar and betrayed our friend yyy".
* Once an AI thinks you have a trashed rep, it would be less willing to or never make any gpt deals with you anymore. Note the "less willing to". Although your rep is shot, you could still possibly make gpt deal but would have to pay a lot more. I think it depends on how big gpt payment you avoided in the broken deal. Practically, once you break a gpt deal you'll never be able to make such deal again.

Bolded and the highlighted for clarity.

Therefore certian circumstances, (ie: techs/resources/goods being sold isn't valuable enough) a player with a trashed reputation can price themselves out of a gpt deal and get the 'unable to agree to deal' message, especially if the AI has no spare lump sum gold lying around. I'd see a trashed reputaiton as a tax the AI places on a trade. So where previously a 100 gpt for a tech was doable, if the rep hit is big enough, the Tax might be +250 gpt, which means even if the player demands 0 gpt, he'd still be 150 gpt in the hole making gpt trades functionally undoable. This 'Repuation Tax' as the article points out depends on how badly you wrecked your rep or what sort of gpt payments a perosn may have evaded through breaking of a deal.

The OP didn't give us enough information. Though if his rep is truly clean (i'm always a little dubious as its easy to get a rep hit) then its then economy and stage of the game he's playing. For all we know, all the AIs could be tiny fiefdoms falling off the rails with science maxed out and no money to pay for anything else.

 

[Spoonwood]

"As a rule of thumb, as long as an AI is still in Despotism just don't hold your breath for any gpt at all - not even on Deity."

Ahem... check the screenshot and save with Joanie in the picture here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6919555#post6919555

 

[dexters]

Wow nice find Doug.

I've been running a debug game on a standard map with 7 civ (i'm 8th by I gave myself 0 settlers so I'm technically not in the game and just watching) and noted for example that AIs have varying researching patterns.

AIs at war was at 30% research slider 70% gold. The Mongols who built 4 different wonders on the same high prod city and has tech lead is @ 100% research. The Babylonians and Sumerians which have rich productive cores are at 60/40 split.

I suppose on Diety, given all the bonuses they have, if you catch one of the AIs who isn't a tech leader at the right time, you can get gpt.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

"As a rule of thumb, as long as an AI is still in Despotism just don't hold your breath for any gpt at all - not even on Deity."

Ahem... check the screenshot and save with Joanie in the picture here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6919555#post6919555

Yeah, I think that it might happen every so often, but it is nothing that you could really count on. What I said was more intended as a rule of thumb. Still nice find.

 

[TheOverseer714]

For every rule, there is an exception...

 

[Spoonwood]

I think for every Deity game with 15 tribes where I build the Great Library before the AIs have Monarchy or The Republic, I can find an exception. I know The Maya gave me some GPT in another one I had going... not as much as Joanie gave me though.

 

[zpzepp]

I've been running a debug game on a standard map....

How do you run a debug game?

 

[dexters]

this is a PTW and C3C editor feature.

It lets you run a game and watch the AI play. You can't control their units, but you can go into their cities to check their research rate, and switch what they build. the tech tree with tell you who has which techs and you can also give yourself and units you want and gift gold to yourself.

It's really fun. I edit myself out of the game so its just the AIs playing against each other. Makes for a good evening's worth of entertainment.

From this I can confirm various things. AI suffer from culture flip like human players do. AI elites dies. AI suffer from corruption. The new FP fix in C3C which ranks corruption instead of adding a new core helps the AI a lot more and is a nerf on human players. Probably one of the best fixes they included.

Sometimes you also make new discoveries of how the AI function.

Did you know:
In order to load up their transports, the AI will move ALL of their 'available' offensive units to their port cities. I saw the Persians in my current debug game shifting their troops to a city on the coast well away of any borders and wondered why.

Turns out they had a galley there!

It appears to work on a first/come first serve basis and usually not all of the attacking units make it to the city before the galley is loaded. As to why the AI would shift their entire stack(s) of attack units, I assume this is a way for the programmers to control for the 'spear and archer' attack force being sent out. Their main attacking stacks will include more modern units.

What I'm trying to find out now is if their coastal cities with their transports will hold garrison of troops that are meant just for loading up.

Fascinating isnt it?

 

[Bucephalus]

I only take issue with your tone and condescension

It's unfortunate that you inferred this - it was not how it was intended.

I refer to 'Monarch' as 'lower level' simply because it is in the bottom four of eight - merely a question of semantics, not a high-handed dismissal of someone else's ability.

If I have caused offense, then I apologise, but I think you are being too sensitive.

 

[Kumquat]

It's unfortunate that you inferred this - it was not how it was intended.

I refer to 'Monarch' as 'lower level' simply because it is in the bottom four of eight - merely a question of semantics, not a high-handed dismissal of someone else's ability.

If I have caused offense, then I apologise, but I think you are being too sensitive.

Most of the difficulty settings are unique. I do not see how you can lump half into high settings and half into low settings Regent is a lot harder than Chieftain but Emperor is a lot harder than Regent.

 

[Bucephalus]

Most of the difficulty settings are unique. I do not see how you can lump half into high settings and half into low settings Regent is a lot harder than Chieftain but Emperor is a lot harder than Regent.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Of course they are progressively harder, and 'Monarch' is the fourth progression of eight. It might not suit your definition of 'lower level', but it does mine.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Emperor is where it starts getting tough for me, I need my "A" game. I don't play higher in solo games because it becomes work and not play. The same reason I play at middle difficulty on Oblivion. It takes 20-30 hits to kill some enemies, and I don't care to double that. Difficulty is relative, and the fact is that Emperor is the beginning of the higher levels, relatively speaking. We argue enough about things that aren't factual, so why argue what is a fact? Sid is harder than Deity, Deity is harder than Demigod, etc. etc. Buce apologized for any offense given, so let's not beat a

 

[Kumquat]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Of course they are progressively harder, and 'Monarch' is the fourth progression of eight. It might not suit your definition of 'lower level', but it does mine.

I was trying to point out that you missed a medium You have low and high but no medium. I am a nonsensical Kumquat after all

 

[dexters]

It's unfortunate that you inferred this - it was not how it was intended.

I refer to 'Monarch' as 'lower level' simply because it is in the bottom four of eight - merely a question of semantics, not a high-handed dismissal of someone else's ability.

If I have caused offense, then I apologise, but I think you are being too sensitive.

I probably read too much into it so apologies.

I would say though that Monarch is the first level where the AI receive actual advantages. I'd put it at a middling difficulty. Regent is the 'fair' level but given most humans cheat in some way its probably fair to lump it as a 'lower' difficulty setting with chieftain being a 'training level'.

Vague classificaitons aside, my point is that the AI receive no commerce bonuses on any of the difficulty levels. They receive free unit support, which means they just build more units. They receive production bonuses, which helps thme build things faster. None of these relate directly to GPT. Free units doesn't give them gold in the bank. The relationship are more indirect.

AI on higher difficulty settings get infrastructure up sooner and generally have larger empires relative to human players. That's where it gets it gpt payments from. raw commerce. And none of these are limited to the 'higher difficulty' levels. In a any map, the AI is playing against itself save for 1 human player and in all difficulty levels AI playing against itself will through it's starting locaitons, some RNG luck and 'emergent' AI behavior (sending the right sized SOD) create winners and losers. Those winners will invariably be able to afford gpt payments. AI size and wealth also tend to favour the right combination of civ traits (agricultural, commercial, scientific) are very good traits for AI civs.

So let me summarize:
Can diety AI afford gpt sooner? Probably, given the right conditions/civ traits etc.

Is AI's ability to afford gpt tied to difficulty? No

 

[Bucephalus]

They receive production bonuses, which helps thme build things faster. None of these relate directly to GPT. Free units doesn't give them gold in the bank. The relationship are more indirect.

That's clearly not true; the sooner that happiness buildings are built, the earlier they work more tiles; the sooner mkts/banks are built, the earlier they have gpt to spare; the sooner they have libraries/uni's built, the earlier they quicken research. The higher the level, the more quickly all of these things occur.

I don't deny that decent gpt deals can be struck at Monarch - even though it is not my experience there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it - but I see it more and earlier the higher I play.

 

[dexters]

That's clearly not true; the sooner that happiness buildings are built, the earlier they work more tiles; the sooner mkts/banks are built, the earlier they have gpt to spare; the sooner they have libraries/uni's built, the earlier they quicken research. The higher the level, the more quickly all of these things occur.

I don't deny that decent gpt deals can be struck at Monarch - even though it is not my experience there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it - but I see it more and earlier the higher I play.

AI suffers the same happiness handicaps on higher levels so it evens out.

On lower levels, the AI still has happiness issues, just because they dont connect their luxuries fast enough and if they have an off continent source or can trade for them, their harbours usually come on line near the end of a city's build order, usually by the middle ages. This is also when gpt payments become more common. But that's balanced out by the handcap going the other way. I honestly think the handicap hurts/helps the humans more than it does the AI.

Happiness buildings are also highly dependent on civ flavours. Sumeria likes culture buildings so temples go up quickly. The Zulus don't prioritize them. So it's sweeping to assert anything other than that happiness is always going to be a bit of a challenge for the AI to handle.

But that's neither here nor there.

The question is. The AI is the same at chieftain as it is on sid. Can the AI afford GPT at any level? The answer would be yes.

Is the AI economy more potent on Diety? Definately