how stupid is the AI in this game?

[El-Shaddai]

I'm playing on a large map with about 18 other civilizations. I am America and I find a village, which offered me a free settler. Well I settled at that spot, and about 10 turns later I offer it to France for communications with the Egyptians ( France was right beside my city )....well apparently they were insulted by the deal ( WTH, why? )... so I start expierimenting with how much I can give them without actually giving it to them.... Well, I offer them my world map, 500 gold, all of my resources, all luxuries, 5 techs, all of my cities ( about 16 ), contact with 14 civilizations, a right of passage, and they still won't budge.....

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Cities can only be given away, or negotiated for in peace treaties. As soon as you try to arrange a trade with a city involved, the AI won't agree to it.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

What's so stupid about this? You can NEVER make any deals involving cities. With the sole exception of peace treaties - but even here, no other offer but straight peace is possible.

And that makes absolutely sense, since there are several possible exploits around trading towns.

 

[JasonBostwick]

If you took away your 16 cities from the deal, they would probably accept - the only way a city can be given to an AI is if it is donated for nothing in return, and the only way one can be taken from the AI through diplomacy is during peace-treaty negotiations when you have nothing on your side of the table.

 

[Shujaa]

Why? That makes no sense.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

There were human exploits (i don't remember the details) so they eliminated the ability to trade cities in one of the first patches.

 

[Thunderpants]

El- Good thread WTH would they not take the deal ??? What did you want in return ?

Hang on , maybe they thought that only an ultra brazil nut would give away all their citys ?

 

[TruePurple]

heres something odd, some civs won't trade per turn gold for anything ever. They might be willing to trade 300 gold for one of your techs but won't give 1 gold for 20 turns instead. Apparently the AI can't do simple math.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

The AI often runs a deficit and won't agree to pay what it doesn't have coming in.

 

[TruePurple]

On the flip side they may be willing to trade you a tech for 300 gold but if offer them 1 gold per turn AS WELL they refuse. Talk about sticking to some very strange principles. You could pile on benefits to give them in trade but as long as that 1 gold per turn(or more) TO THEM is there they will refuse.

 

[Pentium]

That's when your reputation is broken.

 

[wilbill]

In unpatched Vanilla Civ, you could essentially convince the AI to "sell itself" to you. Players were buying all but one or two of the AI's cities, then wiping the remaining cities out. Conversely, the AI would pay huge sums of gold/gpt for worthless cities (in desert or tundra with no resources. etc.) destroying its economy.

The fix came in 1.07, IIRC. It "fixed" the problem by simply not allowing the sale or purchase of cities other than transferring them as part of a peace treaty with no other conditions involved. A bit extreme, perhaps, but it did fix the problem.

 

[RandomInsanity]

also you could give your cities to the ai, puttin units just outside of them, and then start a war, take all the cities back and get some of theirs, technology and gold for peace because you would have taken a lot of cities

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Another big problem were the free units you could squeeze out here.
IIRC you got a free defender when you bought a city at that time. And buying a city was cheaper than rushing a late game defender.
And of course, the human always sold them cities that would flip back in no time anyway, and had zero workable tiles .

And in general, it was nice to fix the totally unbalanced Civ1&2 strategy - buy your entire neighbor.

 

[N3pomuk]

uhm doc, I belive ther was no buying or trading cities in civ1&2.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

uhm doc, I belive ther was no buying or trading cities in civ1&2.

Of course there was - you could buy their entire empire except the capital. And bribe all their units.

IIRC you couldn't do that when the AI was in Democracy - but they usually weren't anyway.
The best strategy in Civ1+2 was to stay comparably small, so they'd ignore you, and build up huge piles of cash.
Then, go out and buy 15 cities, and unleash the Howitzers.

And, Barb cities were only half-priced.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

What's so stupid about this? You can NEVER make any deals involving cities. With the sole exception of peace treaties - but even here, no other offer but straight peace is possible.

And that makes absolutely sense, since there are several possible exploits around trading towns.

The AI not accepting to receive a city is silly!

OK, maybe it prevents exploits but taking that option out (instead of trying to put real I into the AI) is the laizy solution!

I don't see how could this preventing exploits. I understand how the AI giving cities could be exploited, but receiving?
EDIT: Ok, ok, I understand the possibilities after reading the latest msgs!

 

[Shujaa]

Of course there was - you could buy their entire empire except the capital. And bribe all their units.

IIRC you couldn't do that when the AI was in Democracy - but they usually weren't anyway.
The best strategy in Civ1+2 was to stay comparably small, so they'd ignore you, and build up huge piles of cash.
Then, go out and buy 15 cities, and unleash the Howitzers.

And, Barb cities were only half-priced.

Incite Revolt was so deliciously abusable in Civ2

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

You can still gift cities away in C3. You just can't have a trade associated with it.

 

[TruePurple]

That's when your reputation is broken.

No, some nations will deal in per turn gold and some won't. And none have accused me of treaty in dealing like they had often done in another game when my rep was broken. Anyways broken rep or not the AI should be willing to take per turn gold thats much less then a lump sum it will take.

I say the AI and diplomacy is whats broken in civ3.