How do I stop AI trading?

[TruePurple]

I've been trying to win a Monarch game for awhile now. I always pick Indian (spiritual organized) and a standard map.

My current game, I pushed expansion as much as I could without over expanding. But the only other AI on the map expanded at a extraordinary rate and hemmed me in fast. I have 5 cities, the AI has 13 or 14? (difficult to count them, to keep track of where I've counted when scrolling the map) My cities are all carefully placed and I've whiped in most all the latest buildings I can. Enemy AI is expansion imperialistic.

OK to go back, I realized early on that I needed to destroy the AI, so I collected some troops after upgrading my towns a bit and did a strike on a border town that had copper next to it. Since the only source of iron or copper is near that border, took out that town and now that copper spot was within my domain. I still had a iron mine to work. So I could make swords and then mace. I also lucked out and got some event that makes every melee troop I make have a bonus against archery.

I was also keeping up with tech with trading and stealing, at first.

But early on a AI nation I hadn't even met yet declared war on me and parked a shipload of troops next to a shore town that was under defended because it was in the back. I guess Portuguese had convinced a fellow AI to fight me. I repelled that attack, and it hasn't attacked since. It wants alot for peace, and since it hasn't attacked since...

At first I was doing pretty good though I let AI spy destroy my iron mine, so I rebuilt and parked a spy over it. I've gotten many generals, 4 so far. I used one to warp a plain warrior into a mace and the other three I added to one town for advanced troop generation. I don't have the tech for the structure for faster troop gen.

OK here is the main issue, the AI keeps throwing mace at me, I thought perhaps it was leftover troop and tried to counter with crossbow. But now it's throwing knights at me, but it doesn't have any source of iron or copper on the continent! I explored everywhere with open border before starting the war. Now it's destroyed my iron mine with troops and I'd like to park some troops over it but they get destroyed, I'm trying to heal up troops from one assault in the main border town with wall/castle before attempting to hold the mine for bring it back up but the amount of stuff the AI keeps throwing at me is getting more and more furious.

I could make my own knights if I could get that blasted iron mine back!

I tried cutting its two horse spots with spies parked over and timed to cut at the same time. But they get rebuilt so fast.

All this wouldn't be so bad if the AI didn't have a mysterious source of iron. I guess one of the other AI gave it a sweetheart deal even though AIs want me to pay through the teeth for iron from them for me (and for some reason I'm only connected to one of the 4 AI's trade connection I have encountered) How can I figure out what other nation is supplying my foe with iron and stop them?

Also, I don't like cheating too much but my general keeps dying when the AI chooses it to defend against attacks, is there no way to tell it to not use that troop for defending? Does retreat chance work when defending?

 

[AcaMetis]

I guess one of the other AI gave it a sweetheart deal even though AIs want me to pay through the teeth for iron from them for me (and for some reason I'm only connected to one of the 4 AI's trade connection I have encountered) How can I figure out what other nation is supplying my foe with iron and stop them?

So, first off, the AIs do "cheat" with regards to resource deals, but only to a point. AIs trading amongst each other don't pay attention to the actual value of a resource, so they'll happily trade Gold for Fish, Ivory for Wheat, or as in your case, Iron for something like Cow. What they don't do, at least that I've noticed, is gift a resource to a rival to try and stop someone (you, most likely) from rolling someone over and getting a ton of land. Even when the first AI has a spare and the second AI could really use Iron to build a few Pikes or what have you. Though keep in mind if you're playing with REs, there is one RE about supplying a resource to a religious brother/sister that's at war with a heathen, and AIs might gift a resource through that.

To stop that from happening you can do a few things:

• Pre-emptively, if you make sure your target doesn't have anything to spare that they can trade to someone else who has a spare Iron/Horse/etc, they can't make the trade. So, say you've got a spare Banana and someone who's got Iron to spare needs Banana, you can trade your Banana for whatever and make sure that no one else can trade Banana for Iron.
• If you can't lock down a rival's trades, which obviously happens more often than not, you can try to negotiate stop trades. Negotiating a stop-trade between two rivals will break all trade agreements between those nations, including Open Borders, that were made 10+ turns ago. That last part is important - if a trade can't be cancelled because it was made in the last 10 turns it can't be cancelled, even when negotiating a stop-trade breaks Open Borders.
• Lastly, if you can't do either, your best bet is probably to use Spies to smash some stuff. Say your target is trading Cow for Iron, than by smashing all his Cow Pastures you can cancel the deal, since they can't provide the resource anymore. You can tell what they're trading for a resource (and who they're trading with) through the Foreign Advisor, assuming you've met the civ they're trading with.

Also, I don't like cheating too much but my general keeps dying when the AI chooses it to defend against attacks, is there no way to tell it to not use that troop for defending? Does retreat chance work when defending?

There isn't. It's for this reason that most people like to make their Great Medic a Scout/Explorer or a very weak military unit, like a Chariot while they're warring with Cavalry or the like. The game will always pick the defender which gives the attacker the lowest chance of winning a fight (with...some exceptions), so having a GG with 1 and +100% versus animals means they won't get chosen to defend until literally the entire stack is on death's door or worse.

As for whether retreat chance works on defence...quick testing would indicate it doesn't. 110% retreat chance (Guerilla III, Flanking I and II, and Tactics) didn't save a defending unit three times in a row, so that chance getting capped at something below 100% aside (IIRC) I'm going to say no.

 

[krikav]

I just had a game where I had Wang+Justinian on a island without access to Oil. I played the strategy around that and planned to gain total dominance in the modern era.
Then this happends:

Spoiler :

Yes, that is Kublai, trading away oil for pig to his worst enemy. >_<

 

[krikav]

Kublai is like: "What can I say, I really like pork!

 

[TruePurple]

If I break a AI deal by smashing the resources being traded, do I have to quickly scoop up that resource myself? Does the AI quickly remake the deal or what?

 

[lymond]

If I break a AI deal by smashing the resources being traded, do I have to quickly scoop up that resource myself? Does the AI quickly remake the deal or what?

Not sure exactly what you mean. Do you mean conquering the city with the resource? Maybe. AIs will improve their smashed resource soon enough.

Other ways are trade embargo or bribing that AI into war with the target, if those are even possible based on their relations to each other and you.

However, I really must say that in reading between the lines of your OP, that you have a LOT of areas of improvement in your game. On Monarch level, sitting at 5 cities while a nearby AI has 14 cities is very very wrong. Worrying about resource trades is far far far from being important to you. I encourage you to really learn more about the game. How to setup a better empire early on and take advantage of it. You've found the right place here to do just that

I can easily assume that there are some basic core mechanics that you still need to learn, and some serious bad habits in terms of gameplay.

 

[TruePurple]

I assume AcaMetis means that if I use a spy to remove that which provides the resource being traded, all of them at once, that will cancel the AI deal since it no longer can make good on it. Are you saying that's wrong? If it's right, then does it usually reform the deal immediately after the resources are repaired?

As far as your judgement of my playing goes, the the AI expanded at a reckless pace, no way I could match it. As it was I had a settler waiting a bit because of dangerous barbarian pike and archer in the area (like, alot) And if I had somehow managed to expanded as fast as the AI my research would disappear completely and I'd be stuck in the stone ages for a long ass time.

And FYI having access to copper and/or iron when the AI doesn't is a huge advantage,(especially with free bonus against archer on all my melees) so you trying to say that I shouldn't try to get that advantage is ludicrous. You claim to be an expert but say such a thing. But I suppose you only said that nonsense as a way to ridicule me. Which doesn't seem very nice.

 

[krikav]

Well, I can also easily see between the lines of what you write, that you have alot to learn.
There is no need to be rude against people trying to lend a helping hand.

Lymond isn't trying to downplay the importance of strategic resources, but only point out that IF you have a desire to get more proficient at this game, you are spending your efforts totally wrong by focusing at that at this stage of your development, and I agree completely.

 

[Zavior]

You can almost always out expand the AI on monarch, barring cases you are at the end of a peninsula where you only physically have space for a few cities before the AI's culture blocks you off.

If you still have the starting save at turn 0, perhaps you could post the save so we could play the same map and compare results?

 

[AcaMetis]

I assume AcaMetis means that if I use a spy to remove that which provides the resource being traded, all of them at once, that will cancel the AI deal since it no longer can make good on it. Are you saying that's wrong? If it's right, then does it usually reform the deal immediately after the resources are repaired?

With regards to you having to grab the deal yourself ASAP and AIs (re)forming deals, trading for strategic resources yourself is too expensive to be a viable strategy, and if you have one copy of it yourself the AIs won't trade it to you anyway unless you've got a Corporation that uses it. I don't think AIs are intelligent enough to actively try and trade for strategic resources when they need them, but don't quote me on that. Definitely don't assume that an AI is just not going to get Iron when you see a trade it can do for Iron, either, because that's the wrong head getting put on the end of a Pike waiting to happen.

 

[lymond]

@AcaMetis AIs will definitely look to trade for strategic resources if cut off, if options are available.

@TruePurple If you spend the effort to cut off all of X resource, that will cancel the trade. However, reforming the trade later will depend a great deal on that resource being available for trade and the AIs willingness to do so. Or they simply trade something else for it. Destroying the resources in the trade deal will "cancel" the trade deal; therefore, the deal must be renegotiated between the AIs later, but the deal could be anything. Say it was corn for iron, and you cut off all the corns, then the AI might trade fish for iron later. But the AI with iron might trade it to someone else before that happens.

The point though was that worrying about all that is far from important. That is, expending all that effort and production on spies - and spy points. If you can negotiate a trade embargo or bribe into war with each other that would probably be more effective, but not always available due to their relations. Or bribe the guy with iron into war with someone else or vice versa, and good chance that iron gets pillaged or sniped eventually. Many times there is really not much you can do about it, if the target has someone willing to trade extra iron to them.

Anyway, my comments were meant to be constructive. This is a nice forum and there are a lot of experience players hanging about who like to help less experienced players. You clearly need a lot of help with your game and you have come to the right place. You say "reckless pace" but that is very much relative. On Monarch, with good play, you should out expand the AIs significantly as well as in all other regards. I encourage you to use this forum and the good people here to learn how to do that.

However, if you do not have the patience or willingness to take some constructive criticism them I'm not sure how to help you.

 

[Fippy]

Lymond's response is really tame, considering your use of words like nonsense, "claim to be an expert" and so on.
I would not reply any further..
especially considering it's a Monarch thread, and you come up with stuff like AIs being at reckless pace.

 

[TruePurple]

Lymond isn't trying to downplay the importance of strategic resources, but only point out that IF you have a desire to get more proficient at this game, you are spending your efforts totally wrong by focusing at that at this stage of your development, and I agree completely.

This false dichotomy is the heart of the issue regarding that which I found offensive and you found offense at my being offended. I am not focusing on resources at the cost of not expanding, I am not a #%^! idiot and nothing I said implied that was what I was doing. I feel that is a very unreasonable assumption, I usually manage to expand faster but circumstances of this game prevented that and the AI did just pump out towns real fast where after I managed to deal with the barbarians I had to fight it to expand further because it was right up to my borders. and it's hard to expand and fight the AI.

That "claim to be an expert thing" is really being taken out of context that's what the word "but " is for too in the very sentence in question, putting in the context. You look at the sentence following it for further context. I figured I wasn't actually being told that it wasn't important, just being implied that I decided to ignore expanding in order to get the resource dominance other peoples replies suggest that's how they took what Lymond was saying too. I never said that was what I was doing and that seems like a rather, even very, insulting assumption since only an idiot would skip expanding when they need to and have the space, in order to try to get resource dominance.

That said look at the beginners advice thread, it says what I've generally found to be true. You want quality over quantity, every single new city is very carefully considered for location and I spread my cities out if spots are crap in-between. Are you saying that I should just spam cities and put them where-ever like the AI does? Ok maybe not just wherever, but pack in as much as possible even if the locations are **** and they impinge on each others big fat pluses?

Note, Lymond didn't actually give any advice in that part of the conversation in question, just said my playing sucked and I need to learn to get better using the forum. Yet that is the very thing others are getting offended at me for, the "claim to be an expert" thing radically taken out of context (and I said that after) So which side should be offended in this exchange again? The person who said I am an idiot who knows nothing of how to play or the person who possibly suggested the other person isn't an expert? (and only if you take it completely out of context)

And if you want to tell me not to be offended, then show me what that looks like rather than **** like 'you dare say this, I won't help'

Lymond, thank you for answering my question after this "incident" and for the advice different than the original topic that wasn't asked for, it could have been helpful. I make many spies BTW and often put my points in espionage unless I have specific reason otherwise. Like researching the one that gives me court building (too much work bringing up the game or something to find the name of the tech, Civil services maybe?) or the tech after it, Constitution? (both very nice tech, especially for Indians). Or if I think I can research a tech before AI for trading. I contently am readjusting my sliders after careful consideration of my current needs and deplaying many spies while being careful not to overdo it at the cost of needed troops or building improvements. (leaving a town without a barracks that just produces spies for it's unit production for example) And I carefully deploy my spies in various ways both offensively and keep them in town for defense too, and on key mines and such, trying to just keep enough spies in the towns for the tech I need to steal and what not.

 

[Fippy]

So what do you want to hear, other than you should be humble and try improving before arguing with us about details?
And yep, city overlap is usually good..just one example.
You will simply not get very far if you question much better players in every post.

 

[TruePurple]

As I said, there was no details Fippy. For example Lymond didn't say city overlap was good. Lymond gave no advice at al other than "learn more from the forum" in the post in question. The only thing I "questioned" was baseless assumptions about how I play my own games.

Also if specific advice had been given, which it wasn't at that point, questioning the advice to understand the logic behind it is the smarter thing to do. Especially since different people give different advice, like people in newbie advice suggesting quality over quantity.

You want to talk about my being humble, yet I'm suppose to just accept assertions of my being an idiot and others being experts. Is this you showing me how to be humble?

 

[OldDude]

As I said, there was no details Fippy. For example Lymond didn't say city overlap was good. Lymond gave no advice at al other than "learn more from the forum" in the post in question. The only thing I "questioned" was baseless assumptions about how I play my own games.

Also if specific advice had been given, which it wasn't at that point, questioning the advice to understand the logic behind it is the smarter thing to do. Especially since different people give different advice, like people in newbie advice suggesting quality over quantity.

You want to talk about my being humble, yet I'm suppose to just accept assertions of my being an idiot and others being experts. Is this you showing me how to be humble?

@TruePurple, no one has called you an idiot and no one has made any attempt at ridiculing you, as you said. You started this thread asking for help and when the helpful people on this board pointed out you could use some improvement in your game play that wasn't specific to the issue you get offended. Even I, as a Prince level player, could see what the others saw. Don't be so sensitive.

I've gotten tons of help from @lymond, @Fippy, @krikav and others. These are very generous folks that spend their own time helping others on this board. Perhaps if you started a Shadow Game you'd be able to see what they mean, unless you don't think you need the help. That's of course up to you.

Best of luck and happy civving.

 

[lymond]

TruePurple - There really is no need for contentiousness on either side. As I said, we are here to help. No, I did not give advice initially nor intended to. My comments were meant more to encourage and inspire you to learn a better way to play. In other words, to "take the next step"...if you do, you will get tons of good advice. And honestly, experienced players can interpret clearly from your OP that there are many things that could be improved in your gameplay. These are not "baseless assumptions. We folks can dive deeper on this by actually seeing one of your games, or if you run a shadow game here from the start.

I can assure you it will be an eye opening experience when you learn some new methods. I call it learning from "tabula rasa" . Basically, wiping the slate clean and learning the game over again.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going into a war of words on the matter. I am certainly here to help you though, if you wish.

 

[Pangaea]

I see the antagonism in the Random events thread wasn't a one-off then, so think I'll abide by Fippy's advice and not waste any more time. If you want to learn, there are fantastic threads for that already (like this one), and many of the players here are incredibly skilled, and know the game inside out. It's pretty easy to read between the lines of what you write that there are core concepts you are not aware of, and that many things can be improved upon. But key to that is an open mind and willingness to learn.

And no, that doesn't mean we are calling you an idiot, or worse. Just that we see clear areas for improvement. None are born experts.

 

[schulni]

If think where we went awry here is that OP wrote a post asking about specific situations, likely expecting responses addressing those specific questions. On this forum though if you start a post in Strategy and Tips with "I've been trying to win a game on Monarch for awhile" and then ask specific advice questions for your current game, experienced players like Lymond are going to see it as a better investment of their time to get at the root of why someone is struggling with Monarch.

Many players on this forum play hard difficulty levels, often deity. Someone who reaches that level will never lose on Monarch, and will never reach a point in a Monarch game where they are asking any of the questions in the original post. That's why they might see answering those questions about a specific game as less helpful than supporting someone I'm getting better at underlying mechanics.

I also think, though, that not everyone on here wants to become a deity or even immortal level player. The game gets increasingly tedious with micromanagement as you move up in difficulty level, for one reason. It can be time-consuming and frustrating. So it is important for all of us to remember that people play for different reasons and with different goals.

To OP, I'd really recommend a shadow game as the best way to learn to beat Monarch, if that is one of your goals. People are really generous with their time here and will help you a ton.

 

[Pangaea]

I also think, though, that not everyone on here wants to become a deity or even immortal level player. The game gets increasingly tedious with micromanagement as you move up in difficulty level, for one reason. It can be time-consuming and frustrating. So it is important for all of us to remember that people play for different reasons and with different goals.

That is certainly true, and perfectly valid. It's one of the reasons I don't enjoy Deity all that much. Yeah, it's super-hard, but it also means you are much more constrained in what you can do in any given game, which I don't find all that much fun.

But I do think that everybody can get up to Immortal and largely win there by getting the basics right. However, the main thing is to have fun, and if we have more fun by playing on Prince, people should do that.