how to trade to make the ai happy (bug?)

[Shogoth]

i just finished a pazifistic game (no military units at all) and had to make a lot of trades in favour of the ai.

i tried to offer 5 gpt for nothing and they didn't accept!?!
also i tried to give 50 gpt for the worldmap, also this offer was not accepted!

and when i sold techs, they offered me for example wm, 50g, 55 gpt, which i changed to wm, 50 g. the ai accepted but said this is highway robbery???

another example is america (2 cities) to which i gave allmost all techs & luxuries for free, they stayed polite until i asked them to make alliance against the babylonians (leader on the continent), then they were gracious!?!

i had the impression that some ai's are proud and don't like free stuff to much, so rather trade wm vs. tech than give the tech for free?

this was my first game where i had to trade in favour of the ai, does anybody has some experiences (un victory...) how to be effective?

or is my program buggy?

 

[dojoboy]

I don't believe your Civ3 app is buggy, but I do think the AI follows certain a protocol which may not take into account such wonderful offers. I guess what I'm saying is the AI is coded to be critical of deals when a human is trying to swindel them. Then, along comes "Shogoth the Benevolent" who throws their world out of kilter. To the AI, this does not compute! Who knows?

 

[sirromdivad]

This is a bit of a side note, but I have noticed consistently that if you ask the AI to make you an offer and then you adjust their offer (you know, poking around for the few extra gp or world map, etc), then even if you go back to their exact original offer, you don't get the "niceness points" with the AI (cautious goes up to polite, etc) that you would if you just accepted their offer.

B/c of this, if after poking around I decide to just give them what they ask for so they might think nicely of me, I always clear the table, then start the offer process from scratch.

dem

 

[Txurce]

Shogoth, I recall you mentioning that you broke a treaty in your pacifist game. If so, this would explain the AI subsequently refusing to accept any gpt from you (because you can't be trusted to pay it).

Most countries' feelings toward you improve when you sign an alliance or MPP. If America was already polite toward you, then it makes sense that they would become gracious after allying with you against Babylon. The real question is why they agreed to fight Babylon in the first place.

With regard to giving away stuff for free, I have found that the AI tends to respond positively, although it's often short-lived. Free gifts rarely help if someone is furious with you. A change in attitude seems to occur most often when you trade a luxury to the AI... as evidenced by the reaction if you later decide not to renew the deal.

 

[Shogoth]

@ sirromdivad

hey, thats more than a side note!
allthough it's striking that it sometimes also works in the other direction, i mean if you want less...
normaly i trade like hell pressing the last gold out thats possible, but actually i had also the impression that it helps not to change the offer in the pazifist game.

@ txurce

you're right whith the broken alliance. what was striking was that some allmost didn't care, and the zulus did a lot. but actually different civs have different values of nicety towards you, and the zulu were direct neighbours loosing 4 cities to me...

that with the mpp/alliance is a verry good tip since in normal game i rarely use those options, or at least don't care for the friendlyness of other civs.
i should care more!

but of course never do a mpp in a pazifist game!
the partner will declare war and all of a sudden you'll have 5 civs dividing your empire among themselves...

 

[sirromdivad]

Off on a tangent:

Does anyone know whether, when going into a trade, if the AI has a fixed, unchangeable sum which it deams any set of goods is worth, or does it actually adjust depending upon offers which you make?

What I mean is, let's say I'm offering Oil, and the AI decides thatthe most it'll pay is 50 gpt. If I come in with an "opening bid" of only 25 gpt (since I don't know what the AI's final bid will be) does the AI lower its final bid -- i.e. will I now be incapable of getting it to pay the 5o gpt, even though at some point (pre-negotiating( it would have?

I know this is a little bit of a Schrödinger's Cat, but it would indicate a policy of always asking for very high sums and working down, rather than being reasonable and then trying to squeeze a little extra out.

I only ask b/c there have been numerous times where I've picked a random number (37 gpt say) out of the air, they've accepted, but then I've never been able to get more than my initial bid. Seems to stretch belief that I'm always nailing the magic number on the first try, but I'm also not convinced that the AI is actually that clever.

Sorry for the ramble.

--dem

 

[Txurce]

David, my strong sense is that the AI has a fixed minimum sale price, and always come in high... or conversely, a fixed maximum buy price, and always come in low. I've become good at intuiting the AI price, coming in at the exact range, or one level above or below it; you probably have, too. But I don't think this tells you anything about how the AI works... even though it "feels" that way.