New player needs an answer

[daftgeordie]

Hi, I've just finished my first Civ3 Play the world game. It was really great. A bit of a slog but I got there in the end. What I want to know is, when I'm negotiating a trade deal with another Civ, how come my advisor tells me that they will be insulted when I offer gems,dyes,wines and silk and I'm only asking for one of his luxuries. If I want a tech, say, Democracy, even though I offer gems,wines,dyes, Industrialisation and Sanitation they still think that's a bad deal! If I try the same approach I get spat on by the other Civ leaders. It's a bit one-sided..........or am I doing something wrong?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Drakan]

Well first of all, welcome to CFC Daftgeordie

You're not doing anything wrong. It's normal.

The AI takes into account the number of luxuries you already have (in your case you mention you already have wines, gems, silks, dyes...). If you have marketplace in your cities, the more luxuries you have the happier your citizens will be (exponentially):

For lux nº1= 1 happy citizen
For lux nº2= 1
For lux nº3= 2
For lux nº4= 2
For lux nº5= 3 happy faces
For lux nº6= 3 happy faces
For lux nº7= 4 happy faces
For lux nº8= 4 happy faces

see the city splash screen left hand corner.

If you didn't have marketplace,for every lux you have access to you would only get one happy citizen. So 8 luxuries without marketplace would mean 8 happy citizens. 8 luxuries WITH marketplace in a city means 20 happy citizens, if I'm not mistaken.

The AI prices in a deal the amount of happy faces your gonna get by this new luxury it's selling you.

Happy citizens= more tiles can be worked on your city radius, thus your shield output increases becoming more productive and buiding stuff faster, you generate more revenue, get more cash from taxes, your score is higher, you avoid social unrest, you get we love the king days (=WLKD) which in turn reduces corruption and so on....

So the AI prices all this in the deal. If you bought a luxury having only one luxury already in your Empire it's not going to charge you much, but when buying the seventh and eight luxury, the AI is going to demand from you a whole lot of goodies to compensate all the good it does for you.

P.D. Check The War Academy for great advice or The Strategies&Articles forum.
Or Apolyton net for great articles also on civ

 

[leif erikson]

There may be many factors why this is happening. I suspectyou are later in the game and have done some things that were not too nice to the AI civs, like breaking deals or ROP rape. The game keeps track of your "reputation", the way you play, and the other civs react to you based upon this. You can read all about it in the War Academy in AI Attitude Exposed

As your new, there are many articles in here you may benefit from, I know I have. Welcome to CivFanatics and hope to see you in GOTM and Succession Games, that's where you really learn how to play this game!!

 

[daftgeordie]

Thanks for the welcome, and the advice. I didn't enter into any ROPs at all so I couldn't break any. And I never made a sneak attack or did anything throughout the entire game that could be construed as 'dodgy'. Although I didn't break any deals etc. all the other Civs were 'annoyed' with me pretty much through the whole game, even though we had never been at war and traded with each other. Why are they annoyed? What am I doing to annoy them?

 

[Dave the Monkey]

Civs will always be more aggresive if you are militarily weak and do not trade with them.

If you were to trade regularly with them, they'd be a lot less likely to attack you.

On the other hand, if you don't have a huge force, you'll represent easy pickings for the AI.

 

[Drakan]

First let's distinguish between reputation and attitude. Your reputaion is good from what you say: you don't backstab anyone or turn down signed treaties with them. But the attitude of the AI towards you is angry.

How can you change that:

-Because you are the most powerful perhaps. Nothing you can do.

-if you build embassies with them their attitude will become polite.

- trade with them, make their citizens happy by trading your luxuries with them.

- Sign ROP (right of passage) treaties will make them happy.

- Offer them some gold for free.

 

[daftgeordie]

Thanks again for the advice. Yes, I was the most powerful Civ for most of the game (yet slightly behind on tech) and I only established embassies with Civs that I wanted to trade with (about 5 out of 15 Civs) and I never let anyone have an ROP. Also, I was on Chieftain level so I seemed to keep the people content without needing to trade for luxuries. I had a lot of land with a lot of resources and luxuries so I didn't feel the need to have to give the other Civs some of it. Maybe I should in the future!

Thanks again to everyone who offered advice.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

While you mention being slightly behind on tech, were there civs (stranded out on a small island) who were way behind you in tech? If so, gift them a couple of outdated techs and they will worship you.

 

[bob rulz]

Also they frown upon you not only if you are militarily weak, but also culturally weak compared to them.

 

[Chimp]

You're not asking for a resource that they have no extras of are you? In the trade screen it says (Gems #) and if the number is 0 there's no way you're getting it. Just my attempt at a quick resolution...

 

[alamo]

Some techs are valued much higher than others - gov't techs are the highest, then enabler techs like Nationalism and Indust.

There is a method to the madness. Just imagine that you were on the receiving end of that deal - does it help you win the game?

 

[Mr. Do]

Well first of all, welcome to CFC Daftgeordie

You're not doing anything wrong. It's normal.

The AI takes into account the number of luxuries you already have (in your case you mention you already have wines, gems, silks, dyes...). If you have marketplace in your cities, the more luxuries you have the happier your citizens will be (exponentially):

For lux nº1= 1 happy citizen
For lux nº2= 1
For lux nº3= 2
For lux nº4= 2
For lux nº5= 3 happy faces
For lux nº6= 3 happy faces
For lux nº7= 4 happy faces
For lux nº8= 4 happy faces

see the city splash screen left hand corner.

If you didn't have marketplace,for every lux you have access to you would only get one happy citizen. So 8 luxuries without marketplace would mean 8 happy citizens. 8 luxuries WITH marketplace in a city means 20 happy citizens, if I'm not mistaken.

The AI prices in a deal the amount of happy faces your gonna get by this new luxury it's selling you.

When it does this, does it presume that you're always going to get the maximum amount of happy faces from a trade, e.g. if it's luxury number 7 dose the AI trade as if you'll be getting 4 happy faces from it even if you haven't even developed currency yet..?

 

[Drakan]

Mr. Do: i'm not sure on that. But then i've never had seven luxuries before currency. my educated guess would be that the AI just knows you have currency as a tech. Normally it's not untill the end of the Ancient Ages or most likely in the Middle ages when you'll have 7 or 8 luxuries available for your citizens. The AI cheats and knows what techs you have, what luxuries, what hidden resources are on the map, how big is your army, and If you are weak they'll bully you to them.

 

[rysingsun]

I had a lot of land with a lot of resources and luxuries so I didn't feel the need to have to give the other Civs some of it. Maybe I should in the future!

Thanks again to everyone who offered advice.

i presume because you didnt want to make them stronger. but remember when you trade with a civ you and that one civ become stronger but the other 13 dont. so you have suddenly become better than all but one other civ. a pretty good deal i would say. the same applies to both luxuries and techs. so as a general rule trade is good for you.

also it sounds like you need to try a harder level. you are too good a player for your level.

 

[BasketCase]

In my current game (a huge map with lots of fully built-out cities at 18-20 pop), that 8th luxury can be obtained by trading other civs 125-150 gpt. A bargain, considering that bumping up the entertainment slider would cost about twice as much for the same number of happy faces.

 

[daftgeordie]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post.............and thank you rysingsun for a great compliment. It's a fantastic game and I just know that I'm going to be at it for years!