[GS] I think something in the trade system is still a little bit bugged

[Bitterman]

So I've noted that whenever I want to sell strategic resources (and it doesn't seem to matter which one) I'll usually get the usual 3 flat gold and 6-8 GPT for 20 strategic. if I go all the way up to 40 (or 60) however, the AI will refuse to trade and will never give me anything. But if I go once more with 20, they will buy it again as long as they can (I think as long as they can keep it, even if they are winning +6 per turn of that specific strategic).

That is, if I want to sell 60 of any strategic resource, I have to make three deals, one for each 20 for them to buy it. They will also almost always buy it, even when they happen to have plenty of it, is outdated or are getting a nice surplus per turn. A long as they are friendly/allies with me, they'll buy.

Now the other way around, when I want to buy some strategic, the situation seems also a little bit messy; even when they are allies with me and have 120 of that specefic strategic, they will try to charge me something like 13 GPT and 10 flat gold. If I want more than 6-7, they will behave the same way as they do when I sell: they will decline the deal no matter what. I'd have go down again for 6-7 for them to sell me something.

Is anyone having the same experience? As far as I know I don't have any mod that directly affects AI behaviour (I deactivated Real Strategy on my present game).

 

[comatosedragon]

I have not had that experience specifically, but I agree that something is still wrong. Diplomatic favor is way to overvalued; I traded 57 to Canada for 35 GPT last night. That's almost 2000 gold, and this was in the classical era.

 

[Socrates99]

Maybe in the next iteration we could get a global market instead of under the table deals with individual leaders.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Maybe in the next iteration we could get a global market instead of under the table deals with individual leaders.

Now, that phrase got me thinking. . .

As soon as someone discovered the Trade Civic, or built the first Trader Unit, a Commodities Exchange Market pull-down tab or other information sheet would appear. This would list all the 'Commodities' (discovered Strategic Resources, Amenity Resources, Favor) in the game, and the sell/buy prices. This is also where Monopolies would be indicated, and if you happen to be the Only Source for, say, Silver or Gypsum or Uranium, you can set the price as high as you want. Make that information visible whenever a trade is proposed, and you could bargain or be bargained with for any commodity being traded.

This 'mechanism' could be made more complex by changing pricing if you have an excess of a commodity - like, you are producing Strategic Resources in excess of what you can legitimately warehouse, or by some fluke of the map you actually have more examples of an Amenity Resource than there are Civs in the game: the 'excess' would, then, at least temporarily drop ('crash'?) in price/value relative to other goods.

I should think that 'Favor' could be treated just like Gold or any other Commodity as to value: if everyone is swimming in it, it's value/purchasing power would drop. If it's early in the game and the amounts of Favor are in single/douuble digits in each Civ while Gold is in triple digits, then Favor will be valued a lot more than Gold

I would hope, though, that such a mechanism would be introduced along with a legitimate Economic Victory Conditions, so that 'cornering the market' (i.e., setting the price) on X % of all the Commodities might be one criteria for such a victory.

 

[Aristos]

"Something"?

 

[legalizefreedom]

So is trade mostly fixed?
The current state looks like it will remain until the next major patch.

 

[Kwami]

It is in fact mostly fixed. The behavior that the OP here is describing was discussed in a previous topic and essentially confirmed by a Firaxis poster. It's a band-aid until the next major patch.

 

[Victoria]

Is selling 1 diplomatic favour for 20 gold OK?
You can get 2-3 suzes early if you are lucky, that means with the government one you are on 80GPT just from favour.
It’s not fixed, more like faxed or similar.

 

[Minou]

Better is you could not sell it. AI pays way toomuch, so that as Victoria notes you are sometimes swimming in ridiculous amounts of gild if you luck out with first contact envoys and/or simple quests.

But if not going for Diplomatic Victory it really has so little value they should be offering like 1 gold for 1DF.

Regardless of this it feels kind of wrong that you can buy and sell it whereas it should have to be earned through actions.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Regardless of this it feels kind of wrong that you can buy and sell it whereas it should have to be earned through actions.

Agreed.

I feel the same way about being able to buy plots vs earning them with culture. Gold controls everything. Too much like RL for my taste...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Better is you could not sell it. AI pays way toomuch, so that as Victoria notes you are sometimes swimming in ridiculous amounts of gild if you luck out with first contact envoys and/or simple quests.

But if not going for Diplomatic Victory it really has so little value they should be offering like 1 gold for 1DF.

Regardless of this it feels kind of wrong that you can buy and sell it whereas it should have to be earned through actions.

Gold has always had a place in Diplomacy. The Greeks famously (well, famous among us old Classicists) said that the most dangerous Persian force was Darius' Archers - not the ones with bows, but the ones depicted on the back of the Persian gold coin that was used to bribe Greek politicians and diplomats, including Demosthenes (who was well-paid to write and give speeches against Phillip II of Macedon - his famous Phillippics.)
Egypt during the New Kingdom and possibly earlier earned a great deal of Diplomatic 'clout' because she had access to gold mines and used the gold as 'gifts' to other monarchs. I wish I knew the hieroglyph for 'bribe' . . .

What is probably out of whack in the game is not being able to turn Gold into Favor, but being able to get Gold so easily and in such quantity and with no negatives attached to accumulating wealth. In fact, when 'the government' hordes too much for diplomatic or other purposes, it has a negative effect on commerce and trade:to use the Persians for an example again, they notoriously believed that 'wealth' was the amount you had stashed away in the treasury, which reduced the amount of gold and silver coin in circulation throughout the middle east and stifled the local economies throughout the Empire. When Alexander captured the Persian treasuries at Susa, Persepolis, and Babylon and started spending like the greatest drunken sailor in history, it caused hyper inflation from Greece to Afghanistan because suddenly there was so much coin in circulation for the same amount of goods.

Realistically, though, a 'real' model of economics in the game would be fiendishly hard to implement well: given that economists can't predict with any certainty the current economy for the next two years, it does not seem likely that a game design team can come up with a model that reflects economies before and after metal and paper currencies and among a myriad of different economies and governments over 6000 years!

 

[HappyBuilder]

Is anyone having the same experience? As far as I know I don't have any mod that directly affects AI behaviour (I deactivated Real Strategy on my present game).

Yeah, I was playing as Rome and was completely iron-less, so I wanted to make some deals. Every civ would sell me 2 iron for a flat 20 gold, but the price went dramatically up if I wanted more. 10 iron would cost me 20 gold per turn.

So I ended up just buying iron 2 units at a time from multiple civs until I could build my legions. Definitely an exploit.

 

[Ferocitus]

The depots at Steam are rolling around again.
I suspect a critical patch is coming. Yes, they are finally going to correct the spelling of Ballarat.
After about 2.5 years the exhausted devs should take a well-deserved break until fall to start on any remaining bugs/glitches.

 

[Kwami]

The depots at Steam are rolling around again.
I suspect a critical patch is coming. Yes, they are finally going to correct the spelling of Ballarat.
After about 2.5 years the exhausted devs should take a well-deserved break until fall to start on any remaining bugs/glitches.

You know that they get paid to work, right?