How to sell a technology?

[davidcrazy]

Everyone knows the importance of trading technologies with AI to get luxuries and golds.. but how to do it well?

i can keep increase the price until the advisor tell me that "it's a close deal" and then I know i already get the most out of it.

but more often the AI have so little to offer that I don't want to trade with them and it's clear it is not a fair trade.
but once i do sell one tech to one civ, it will very soon sell it to others. but i don't want to go to the F4 screen every turn to check whether the other AIs have decent price to offer. so very often i end up trading with some weak AI who have nothing to offer just to avoid that they become rich later and trade with other AI before I do.

How can I avoid this? just by estimating when the AI will have enough money to trade?
i find this an obvious advantage of AI since they must be doing that every turn as programmed in.

 

[kb2tvl]

To start with, you are trying to fit your strategy to the situation when "thinking outside the box" is needed.

There are some approaches that can be implemented to gain political capitol and not gold pieces. First, giving away techs can give you a positive attitude that will last quite a while. You get a positive attitude for selling techs below value also.

Another approach is to research the next tech and one turn before finishing, make your trades and give-aways.

 

[Woody]

The main thing is dont expect to get rich doing this until late middle ages or early industrial, the AI simply doesnt generate enough income until then. In the early part of the game the goal is not to get rich, it is to keep up in the tech race. On levels above monarch it is nearly impossible to stay in the tech race researching things yourself until much later in the game. You either have to do no research and buy and/or trade for techs or you can gamble and try to research techs that the AI is less likely to get themselves but the goal is still keeping up with the tech race and not getting rich until later in the game.

 

[sourboy]

The moment you research a tech, sell it to all for whatever they offer (except those pesky 2gp offers - those are the Civs that tend to go '3rd-world')

 

[davidcrazy]

Originally posted by sourboy
The moment you research a tech, sell it to all for whatever they offer (except those pesky 2gp offers - those are the Civs that tend to go '3rd-world')

yeah. but a lot of times there is only one AI that can offer a decent price... and i know if i refuse to sell the tech to others at 2gpt they will sooner or later get it from the AI i sell it too (as for at what kind of a price, i have no idea).