How to keep Luxury Deals Continuing

[onomastikon]

Any tips on strategic luxury deal continuation?
I mean this: I trade with, say, China for Furs. (I give him, say, Gems and Incense and a map or a tech for furs -- me bigger than he, and I need it bad, with marketplace, those furs save my butt.)
Then, 20 turns later, Mao is happy to tell me that he doesnt feel like continuing our deal anymore. I then immediately click on "Lets Make A Deal" and pay through the nose for another 20 turns. But I have to do it right away, if I wait just 1 turn, his furs are gone.
I usually look every turn, click f4 and check out "active", but I see no way to renegotiate when at 1 turn left. Is there a way? I mean, I am looking for a way to keep the deal going before it expires.
Or what should I be doing to ensure my furs for the future? I really dislike being dependent for only 20 turns in a row. Any tips?
thank you

 

[Tatran]

Uncheck the renegotiations box in the preferences screen.
Otherwise go to war and get what your civ needs.

 

[Himalia]

Not much you can do really. The AI is never all that fair when it comes down to trading and it would seem that you can only renegociate at the end of the deal.

 

[DaveMcW]

Mao probably sold the furs to another civ. If you can figure out who it is, you can buy a trade embargo or military alliance to get the furs back.

But the cheapest way to get luxuries is to conquer them.

 

[onomastikon]

Mao probably sold the furs to another civ. If you can figure out who it is, you can buy a trade embargo or military alliance to get the furs back.

But the cheapest way to get luxuries is to conquer them.

OK thanks.
Conquering Luxes on other continents is, however, not terribly easy. Also, it is sort of "overkill", in the sense that
- I want luxuries to make my people happy (so I can do other things, like build)
- If I conquer the luxes, I will basically end up destroying the civs that have them, and I will win the game.
So it is a fine solution, but to the game (not the acute problem at hand).

 

[SJ Frank]

Mao came to you during an inter-turn, right? If that's the case, then the luxury deal is open for renegotiation during your turn before that inter-turn. When you use the Active tab on the F4 screen, as long as you can click on a deal and bring it up, then that deal can be renegotiated. If a deal can’t be renegotiated, then clicking on it does nothing.

There is a way to bring the price of the luxuries down. You know how the price of luxuries increases as you own more of them. Well, the idea is to 1) lump all the luxury shopping into one turn, so that you could change the order of purchasing, 2) buy the luxuries that you need to pay with cash first, when they’re cheaper, 3) buy the luxuries from the backward civs last. Because you can buy them with outdated techs, they’re essentially free.

 

[Torinth]

It's only my third post, and my only experience comes from practice not reading these boards all day, but I think part of the reason the fur deal gets renegotiated by the Chinese is because you offered them a fixed item as part of the trade. If you said you'd give them tech or gold upfront for twenty turns of furs, you should expect them to want another installment by the time those twenty turns expire. It nearly doesn't matter if you also traded them luxuries or resources at the same time.

So all else being equal (and it often isn't: needs change, yours and your trade partner's empires grow and shrink) you're much more likely to be able to maintain a per-turn trade if you only trade per-turn goods in the first place.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Even with gpt-luxury trades, they'll want to renegotiate. Why? Because your empire probably got bigger, making the luxuries more valuable. I also think there's some inflation built into the game somehow (with mroe gold available, the AI will demand more good for the same amount of stuff).

In the end, you either pay the piper and increase the amount you spend on luxuries, or you tell Mao to take a hike and use the luxury slider to off-set the loss of the luxury.
To tell which option you should go with, look at the trade offs. If you're pouring all your money into science and reduction in your science level will threaten your strategy, give Mao what he wants. If a decrease in science/taxes is possible, look into how much Mao is asking for vs. how much tax revenue you'd have to give up to increase luxuries enough to keep the same level of happiness.

Or just go and put pain to Mao and take his luxuries...