Surviving with perfect credit

[timjack]

I have not seen a discussion on how to survive to the later game with credit/reputation for gpt (gold per turn) deals.

I have been playing on emperor level for the last few months and always end up with a bad reputation and cannot get a gpt deal.

My hypothesis is that the list of situations that can cause one bad credit is large and not entirely obvious. One should go into a credit deal only if one can live up to the bargain. And this should be carefully considered.

Any situation that arises that means you cannot deliver the goods means you break the deal. This includes if someone goes to war with you and destroys a road to the goods that you are supplying to someone else.

I believe there is some flexibility that if you have two gems and one is taken away by a road being destroyed, then you will lose the benefit for your civ of the gems and this will be supplied to live up to the contract.

Say you have a gpt deal with civ C that is separated from you by civ B and the only trade route is through civ B. If civ B goes to war with civ C, the trade route is no longer good and ... you have lost your reputation.

The gpt deal also has a luxury supply equivalent. If I agree to supply a civ with a luxury for 20 turns, I had better do this. This can be a problem at times because, for example, if civ B demands a luxury from me, then if I agree to give it, then I had better do so for twenty turns. This is a problem when one is about ready for a war, but just not at the moment. Before going to war with that civ one must wait until the contract has expired.

I would like to see if one has a perfect reputation if one can then tell if a civ is planning a war by not getting into a gpt or luxury deal. Certainly I stop deals when planning on a war.

This is also a good reason why not to set the "always renegotiate deals" is nice. It is like your phone plan - if you survive two years on the plan, rather than getting into a new plan you can be in a situation where you can quit at any time. If you renegotiate you are stuck with a 20 turn contract.

On the other hand, if one does renegotiate deals one can often get a MUCH better deal (or much worse).

I would be very interested in other's experience at the emperor and up level. It is my understanding that at lower levels this is not as serious - at least I never really noticed the severity at monarch level.

 

[slothman]

Well I only play monarch but I don't have a problem with rep. The only way I could lose it out of control is to have a road pillaged and a trade. I'm nice and I prevent that so I always have perfect rep.

 

[timjack]

Thanks. I did not have a problem at Monarch level also. I think the AI are strict in their interpretations at Emperor and above. I think the correct term would be downright "snitty."

I might be wrong on this, but I certainly began noticing this in the last several weeks when I switched to Emporer.

In a way though this might be nice as the civs tend to back stab eachother with aplomb. I read somewhere one commented that it is nice when one is the last one left with their reputation in tact.

 

[Salte]

I have always had the impression that the "rules" for keeping your deals are the same on all difficulties, but i havent played much on chieftan/warlord/regent, so i might be wrong. I havent noticed any difference on monarch/emperor/demi god.

Regarding civs being reluctant to enter deals when planning wars, they dont think twice about it. I've often entered into ROP / and gpt-deals, even renegotiated peace when i noticed the AI closing up on my cities (and a couple of times after reloading ), the AI agreed to the deals, but attacked nonetheless.

But does AI's care much about rep anyway? They seem to be able to get everything anyway (at least on emperor and higher).

When i play a peaceful game i often manage to sustain a good rep throughout the game, but on occasions i get screwed by the luxury-thing with roads being cut off. The risk of this gets smaller later in the game though, due to harbors and airports.

 

[timjack]

Yes. I have tried to enter into a 20 turn agreement to prevent an imminent attack ... to no avail. They took the deal and attacked in the next turn.

Could Emperor level just have me paranoid and looking at things I didn't notice before? YES!

Emporer level has forced me to retool and I may be completely wrong that they seem to care more that I obey the rules of trade(rather than they obey the rules).

 

[Smellincoffee]

If they've decided they're going to war-- they're usually going to go to war. I've only been able to buy the AI off once, and that was in my first warlord game when my "ally", Shaka, was going through the trouble of planting a nice SOD outside of one of my cities. (We just finished taking out the Bablyonians together)

 

[JazzToucan]

I've gone from Monarch to Emporer to Demi-god in the last month and, bottom line, the only thing the AI respects is force. You are always at risk for being backstabbed. However, if your army is sizeable and you've beaten down a couple of other civs, the remaining ones probably won't mess with you.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by timjack
Could Emperor level just have me paranoid and looking at things I didn't notice before? YES!

It looks like it does indeed. AIs dont change with level. Their attitude and reps are determined by the same things on all levels. These things are indeed sometimes stupid.

So, do not care too much about your reputation especially on higher levels starting from Demigod up to Deity later in the game after you established some lead. Though before you have a lead, reputation is very essential to keeping up with tech pace. That is what you probably encountered on the Emperor level.

Later on, they will take your deals even with bad reputation. This way or another, by paying them, or by trading, or by killing, they will eventually part with what you want.

 

[timjack]

Later on, they will take your deals even with bad reputation.

This has not been my experience. I have sat with several luxuries and strategic resources that no one would trade for. Except for cash (and very little at that). My army was the strongest and I was poised on simply taking out everyone. But even with this force I was still not able to deal.

Perhaps the force part is another aspect of the equation. If one is too strong do the AI's simply stop trading luxuries/strategic resources?

My initial interest in starting this thread was how to avoid pitfalls in damaging one's ability to trade especially for credit. It seems there are other factors that effect the trade equation.

 

[JazzToucan]

I, too, have found that luxuries and resources get almost nothing later in the game. Techs, on the other hand, will always get you plenty of gold or other techs.

 

[Salte]

You can alway get gpt-deals for luxurys and resources, no matter what your rep is. This is because the moment one of u breaks the deal, the other will stop delivering his part of the deal.

As long as the AI has any money and has more than a handful of cities i manage to get reasonable deals with them for lux and resources (even useless ones).

 

[Justus II]

Two tips, that seem to help. First, when crafting a per-turn deal, if the AI is also including something per-turn, the rep hit is not as devastating, and not permanent, I believe. For example: You offer the AI Wines for 200 gold. If the deal is broken (your fault, his fault, nobody's fault) your rep is trashed. However, if you can haggle him to say 180 gold and 1gpt, then there is a per-turn element on each side, and if it is broken it is only a temporary hit, and your reputation is not permanantly ruined. This can also work with buying tech, if you get him to throw in a luxury or even an ROP, which seems to be treated as a per-turn item.

Second, even if your rep is trashed, you can generally make per-turn deals as part of peace negotiations. This is where being powerful militarily can pay off. Even if you are not at war, you can renegotiate peace, and make the per-turn deal part of the new peace treaty. For example, if you want Magnetism, but don't have the cash, pick a weak AI, and renegotiate your existing peace deal (you always have a basic peace treaty when not at war), and then make a gpt offer to buy the tech. The danger is if the tech is expensive (i.e. Nationalism) and you don't have enough gpt to swing the deal, you are at war!! You can't go to F1 to adjust your income either, so make sure you have a good idea of what the tech will cost.

A final caution, another thing that can trash your rep is the destruction of the other country, even if it is by someone else!

 

[Park Ranger]

A simple but often overlooked factor:

When trading a per turn item for a lump sum or tech you need to have a good rep that establishes that you will continue to pay the AI for the thing you've already received.

When you're rep is tarnished (you failed to live up to a per turn agreement) the AI won't want to get suckered again.

In my exp. you can always sell tech for per-turn items. Its up to you to keep track of which civs can/will uphold their promises.

 

[timjack]

Thank you. This is indeed a learning experience.

A specific example sticks in my mind - and this may be that the AI distinguishes between per turn and up front trades. And one's rep can be ruined in both.

In C3C, Emperor, modern age, AI behavior seems odd. I must have done somthing to the Byz some 600 plus years ago (they have not existed for that long). Perhaps this is what you mean by my having a per turn deal with a civ that was destroyed by someone else! And I get the rep hit.

Then Russia is the largest and fighting the Inca, the second largest. Russia has no oil and refuses to trade me for it. They have 70K in cash. So they are attacking the Inca Modern Armor with TOW Infantry. Odd. I need Russia to put up a stronger fight while I continue to build so I GIVE Russia oil.

The idea that Russia would sacrifice modern armor production in a major war because I was impolite to a civ that no longer exists is difficult to understand. They were continuing to trade for other luxuries when continuing previous deals and not renegotiating. But they would do without Oil to the extent that they had to use TOW Infantry as an offensive unit.

They would trade neither gpt nor a lump sum (other than a handful of dollars).

After I gave Russia Oil I was expecting it to go back to oil guzzling gpm vehicles. When I placed a spy on Russia it had minor offensive ability and it had made 206 jet fighters. Just building them like there is no tomorrow. Russia cannot launch any kind of attack but it has a jet fighter collection for all to admire.

I took out the Inca thinking it must have bombers or some reason for Russia to have so many jets. Nope. Jet fighters might have taken them all out, but I still can't explain all the jets.

This situation led me to wonder what was so egregious that Russia would lose rather than deal. I think the fact I had a per turn deal with a civ that was destroyed might be the explanation.