yavoon said:
how are u guys doing the early tech trading? often I can give ppl 2 techs for 1 and then some money and I still dont get a deal done.
1 Research UP the tech tree, like alphabet-writing-philo, use the higher level tech to trade for the multiple lower level ones you skipped.
2 make lots of early contacts, if you can get in a position where you know all the civs but they do not all know each other, then you are golden.
3 the more civs that you know of have a tech, the cheaper that tech becomes. So while you are moving up the tech tree, the other civs trade the lower techs with each other, so those tech become cheaper, while you are still the only one who knows that higher level tech.
4 trade with the civ that can give you most first, the more civs that know each other have a tech becouse you trade it to them, the less you can ask for the same tech from the next civ you trade it to.
5a Trade a tech on the same turn to every civ that knows each other, so that they can no longer trade it among each other. It may even be worth just giving it away to the last civ on your tradelist if that one is to poor to give you something usefull in return.
5b Do not trade on the AI turns, or interturn, only trade when it is your turn, to prevent that civ from trading it to the other civs before you have a chance to do it yourself.
6 If you trade 2 tech for one AI tech, and then trade those same 2 for an other AI tech with an other civ, and then again with a 3th civ, you effectively traded 2 tech for 3.
There is no build in way that tells you what civ know each other until you gained the abilety to trade contacts, but if you pay close attention to things you can often make a pretty good guess about who knows who.
yavoon said:
and they are polite towards me!
Doesn't matter. Furious, anoyed, polite? Business is Business!
yavoon said:
also, how abusive is it to buy the other civs settlers off them? it seems to me it'd be nearly game breaking. should I be doing it?
Whatever you like, but it is not as if it happens every game that you have the oppertunety to do it, and not every civ in the game ither, so I don't think this effects the enviroment more than an unlucky strike by a barb unit would.