Research Agreements

[Croc104]

What's the deal with AI constantly offering ridiculously one-sided RAs?

I rarely have a game whereby the AI doesn't offer me an RA on their side and request GPT, a lump sum, a lux, open borders and a few strategic resources off me?

I doesn't matter if I'm the tech leader, they'll still do it. Why on earth would I sign an RA which assists them in catching up on other Civs and cost me a fortune in assets?!

 

[JustinianIV]

I haven't seen this in a while. Now when they offer me lop-sided RAs they are usually not ridiculously lop-sided. Even then, you can usually just make an even trade.

Perhaps it's because you are the one who would benefit most from the agreement due to having low beakers?

 

[Asklepios]

Because RAs give you beakers equal to 50% of the median value of all techs you can currently research, they will give you more beakers if you are ahead in tech.

This means the AI, whe it is behind on tech, wants more out of the deal to even up the beakers-gained disparity. I don't know whether it takes into account the Rationalism bonus as well.

If you want even RA agreements, then maintain tech parity or be slightly behind. Obviously thats not a way to win games, but it will happen more often just incidentally if you play on the higher difficulty levels, thanks to the AI's default advantages.

 

[monkeymcbain]

i usually have to give the AI a lump sum of gold to get them to have enough for a RA, then they ask for a small amount of gold and gold per turn. Just greedy i guess.

 

[Browd]

There are two effects here. First, regardless of whether you are the tech leader, if you are one or more eras ahead of the AI, you have to pay 100 gold/era (or the equivalent in other forms) to the AI, in addition to the base cost of the RA. So, if the AI is still in Medieval and you are in Renaissance, the AI may ask for 3 gpt + 24 gold, or 2 iron + 10 gold. If you are several eras ahead (say, Modern vs. Renaissance, the AI may ask for a luxury (240 gold), and not offer anything to balance the trade; in that case, if you specify that the AI should pay you 40 gold, the trade will go through. You can fiddle with the components of the era-differential payment, if you have a preference about the form of that payment.

Second, usually later in the game, the AI will gratuitously ask for strategics that it values at 0 gold. So, if you are in Modern and the AI is in Industrial, where only 100 gold or equivalent should be required, the AI might ask for 3 gpt + 24 gold + 5 horses (valuing the horses at 0); just clear the horses and the trade will go through.

The era-differential payment is, of course, only one sided -- if the AI is an era or two ahead of you, it doesn't pay you an era differential.

Fnally, the AI can be ahead of you in literacy but behind you in eras. This is because the human player is much more likely to beeline to a new era before completing techs in earlier eras. The AI may beeline to get a tech that unlocks a UU or UB, but otherwise will clear techs more thoroughly than the human player will.

 

[Browd]

Because RAs give you beakers equal to 50% of the median value of all techs you can currently research, they will give you more beakers if you are ahead in tech.

The median tech payoff for RAs is only in vanilla. In G&K and BNW, RA mechanics were changed to tie RA payoffs to the total beaker output of the RA partners over the course of the RA.

If anyone is still fiddling with their tech queue to achieve particular medians at the time the RA matures, stop doing that.

 

[Wodan]

If you haven't noticed, when they make those ridiculous offers, you can remove all the resources and flat gold, leaving just the gpt, and they'll accept that deal.

e.g., change this:
100
2 per turn
Sugar
Silk
Coal
Research Agreement

to this:
2 per turn
Research Agreement

And they'll take that deal every time.

 

[Asklepios]

The median tech payoff for RAs is only in vanilla. In G&K and BNW, RA mechanics were changed to tie RA payoffs to the total beaker output of the RA partners over the course of the RA.

If anyone is still fiddling with their tech queue to achieve particular medians at the time the RA matures, stop doing that.

Damn, I missed that change totally.

Thanks for the info.

 

[shaglio]

I could be completely wrong about this, but from the information I've gathered in other threads about RA mechanics, if the AI asks for extra in an RA (meaning you're ahead of them in eras), refuse it because you won't get as much out of the RA as they will. The person behind in eras gets more bang for their buck out of RAs than the person ahead in eras.

 

[lokithepunishr]

The person behind technically gets a better beaker/gold return, but paying gold for extra beakers, even if you are ahead, is almost always worth it. The only time its not worth it is when you sign a RA with someone who has a very, very low beaker output.

 

[Croc104]

Thank you for all of your helpful responses!

 

[Asklepios]

The person behind technically gets a better beaker/gold return, but paying gold for extra beakers, even if you are ahead, is almost always worth it. The only time its not worth it is when you sign a RA with someone who has a very, very low beaker output.

Yeah, I think even with knowledge of current rules in mind, I'd agree with that. After all, if there's eight civs, and two of you gain a tech boost, it doesn't matter so much that the other guy is benefiting more than you: you're still gaining a lead on the other six civs.

If there's only 2 or 3 civs less, that's different. But if there's only 2 or 3 civs left, thats probably because you're in burn-the-world mode, and then nobody is going to offer you an RA anyway, and even a flat RA will be gold better spent on troop maintenance...

 

[lokithepunishr]

Yeah, I think even with knowledge of current rules in mind, I'd agree with that. After all, if there's eight civs, and two of you gain a tech boost, it doesn't matter so much that the other guy is benefiting more than you: you're still gaining a lead on the other six civs.

If there's only 2 or 3 civs less, that's different. But if there's only 2 or 3 civs left, thats probably because you're in burn-the-world mode, and then nobody is going to offer you an RA anyway, and even a flat RA will be gold better spent on troop maintenance...

yeah no doubt, i usually play with at least 18 civs, so for me any research agreement that produces a reasonable amount of science is worth it, for thosenof you playing on small/standard maps it obviously makes a big difference. the most important thing is to take into account how much science you are gaining for the price of gold, sometimes its better to spend that gold on city states, or buying units to take a city, like you said, but just looking at the other civs empires should give you a good idea ofnwhat to do. if japan only has 2 cities (lets say 12 and 10 pop) signing a ra is probably not worth it for 250-1000 gold depending on your speed, but if morocco has 8 cities averaging 12 pop then by all means go for the ra, just take into account how much sci the ai is gona make that wyou willbenefit from.

 

[Asklepios]

yeah no doubt, i usually play with at least 18 civs, so for me any research agreement that produces a reasonable amount of science is worth it, for thosenof you playing on small/standard maps it obviously makes a big difference. the most important thing is to take into account how much science you are gaining for the price of gold, sometimes its better to spend that gold on city states, or buying units to take a city, like you said, but just looking at the other civs empires should give you a good idea ofnwhat to do. if japan only has 2 cities (lets say 12 and 10 pop) signing a ra is probably not worth it for 250-1000 gold depending on your speed, but if morocco has 8 cities averaging 12 pop then by all means go for the ra, just take into account how much sci the ai is gona make that wyou willbenefit from.

If you're wanting to assess how much science they're making, you could do worse than looking at the score breakdowns, and seeing how much score they have from techs. Not precise, of course, but probably marginally more reliable than counting pop.

I have to say though, when I play I tend not to review these numbers on a turn by turn basis, so generally am not very situationally aware in that sense. Because of that I tend to just ask myself what my gold situation is, and if I am needing the gold for something else. I tend to pretty much run my gold close to the red unless I'm saving up for something specific, so its always an opportunity cost question when offered an RA.

 

[troublmaker]

I almost always get just the gold costs on my RAs.... maybe my research output is too high...

 

[Asklepios]

I almost always get just the gold costs on my RAs.... maybe my research output is too high...

I think its the other way round, from what I'm reading here. If you're getting fair 1:1 deals, it means you don't have the era lead.

 

[Wodan]

I could be completely wrong about this, but from the information I've gathered in other threads about RA mechanics, if the AI asks for extra in an RA (meaning you're ahead of them in eras), refuse it because you won't get as much out of the RA as they will. The person behind in eras gets more bang for their buck out of RAs than the person ahead in eras.

Yeah, I think you're right in your statement (that is, you're completely wrong about this).

If the AI gets a better deal out of the RA, it's because the AI is way behind you in score. Do you really care if the 4th - 7th (or worse!) place in the game gets some extra cheddar? Your rivals to win the game are the 1st-3rd places.

A RA with someone that far behind you is frigging ideal. You get bonus and only one other player gets something, and that player way down in the rankings. In ~90% of cases, it's actually beneficial to you to be helping out that player (he's already friendly to you, and the odds he'll be unfriendly to your rivals is pretty high).

 

[joncnunn]

Yeah, I think you're right in your statement (that is, you're completely wrong about this).

If the AI gets a better deal out of the RA, it's because the AI is way behind you in score. Do you really care if the 4th - 7th (or worse!) place in the game gets some extra cheddar? Your rivals to win the game are the 1st-3rd places.

A RA with someone that far behind you is frigging ideal. You get bonus and only one other player gets something, and that player way down in the rankings. In ~90% of cases, it's actually beneficial to you to be helping out that player (he's already friendly to you, and the odds he'll be unfriendly to your rivals is pretty high).

That would describe the G&K RAs and also Vanilla's.
However, in BNW, you get the LOWEST players yield for the last 8 turns. If he's an era or more behind; you are unlikely to get enough science from the RA to cover your gold cost.

 

[civ54lyfe]

my recent experience is that no AI will offer me one at all. granted, i don't pay enough attention to my long-standing Friendly AI's finances. maybe they never seem to have the gold for it? but lately it's like an RA offer is a super endangered species to me.

 

[Gamewizard]

You could always gift them some gold to get one.