Tech Trading

[jackdog]

Ok have been reading lots of threads and a common theme is the writting bee line then trade like mad as if the AI's get there first they beat you to it and you get left out in the cold.

My question is at what expense....

Firstly I have found that having done the bee line the only tech I have they mostly don't is writting and this is the one you arn't supposed to trade for obvious reasons, what to do about this paradox of a strategy.

Lets say I have some other stuff they want alphabet, or something, and they only have something of fairly significant lesser value like budism or something, do you trade anyway cos if you don't someone else will so you may as well or do you hold out for better and risk a missed opportunity.

also it may be me but sometimes I swear they trade when its still my go, do they or am I mistaken.

can you just give everyone writting for what ever they have of greatest value all in one shot to level the field as one of them may only be few turns from getting it anyway or is this too much.

help....

 

[madscientist]

You need writing for open borders and alphabet for tech trading. I will trade often early on except for certain items, such as metal working from an early oracle or theology from a great prophet lightbulb. I will trade alphabet for something like mathematics, monarchy, horse riding. I will NOT trade alphabet to mansa musa though. I will generally get currency at any reasonable cost so I can start getting gold with my trades. Of course I am rather generous with giving away techs for starting wars.

 

[madscientist]

Also each tech has a certain beaker value. On marathon meditation is arround 300, writing 450, monarchy 1300, alphabet 1400, calander 1700, currency 1900, theology 2400. No AI will give you a more valuable beaker tech than they recieve. Trading alphabet for meditation is a poor choice for you, but getting currency for meditation and calnedar is not bad, or trading theology for currency and gold (the AI can trade gold if they have currency).

 

[KMadCandy]

the value of beelining to alphabet depends on the difficulty level you're playing. the higher the level, the faster they tech, so the better techs they'll have learned. whether they're willing to trade them to you is a different matter of course.

you're mixing up writing and alphabet a bit there. alphabet is the one you have to beeline for to trade. writing is a pre-req for it. writing lets you sign open border agreements and build libraries, but you cannot actually trade techs until at least one of the leaders knows alphabet.

"Firstly I have found that having done the bee line the only tech I have they mostly don't is writing and this is the one you arn't supposed to trade for obvious reasons, what to do about this paradox of a strategy."

so there, you mean alphabet. trading alphabet can be dangerous, since it's the one that gives them the ability to turn around and trade amongst themselves. being the only one that can trade is a huge advantage and that's the part you like to keep for yourself. of course trading writing is giving them a boost toward getting alphabet, but it's not actually the tech that's the "don't trade until you have to" one. i'm just stressing that in case you're misunderstanding. you might just be doing a wrong-word version of a typo.

i've been playing for a long time and i have a sense for who usually tends to trade techs around to others and who holds on to them tightly. (some people don't like having that kind of knowledge since the AI doesn't know things like that about you, so they use the random personalities option.) sometimes i use that when deciding who to trade alphabet to. Mansa Musa will trade it to even the barbarians almost. Tokugawa won't trade it tho, he has a very selfish definition of "this is still a monopoly even tho a lot of people know it, i cannot release this secret knowledge to the world at large!" often on a tech that i've been holding back for a specific reason i have a tech trading frenzy when i do decide to let go of it, if there are multiple choices available. things like alphabet, paper/philosophy on the way to liberalism, things like wonder techs the turn before i finish the wonder, etc. once you start trading a tech so it's no longer a monopoly, they sneer at it like you got it off the discount rack , especially as you go up in levels. that's always fun.

"also it may be me but sometimes I swear they trade when its still my go, do they or am I mistaken."

they don't. it can be confusing since you can't see techs that you can't trade for ... techs that you don't have the pre-reqs for. and you have to wait a turn after trading for pre-req tech A on turn 3 (for example) before you can trade for the next tech B on turn 4. so when turn 4 comes around it can look like a lot of them learned something overnight, but it can sometimes be a matter of they knew tech B already, particularly when the pathway to tech B can be reached by picking one of two pre-reqs. like, you can learn Civil Service after you know Code of Laws or Feudalism.

i sometimes end up trading alphabet for iron working. IW is less beakers but on the higher levels they have this snotty attitude of "my beakers are worth more beakers than yours are".

you'll find your way around thru trial and error. i guarantee you'll make some errors, but you'll learn from them more than you'll get frustrated by them i hope. good luck and have fun .

 

[madscientist]

Then of course there are Ais who immediately ask/demand a tech once you discover alphabet. Musa does this but will trade even after you decline. Others, particularly russians tend to sharpen thier swords at first refusal.

 

[KMadCandy]

that's another thing jackdog. you'll get a sense of which ones you can sort of sometimes afford to deny demands from, since you'll be able to make it up to them later before they come try to kill you. and you'll figure out which ones it's very dangerous to refuse since that's what makes them go bonkers. and some others aren't even worth bothering to give into, since they will come after you no matter what you do. learning alphabet gives them the opportunity to demand techs from you. that's 100% not a reason to delay learning alphabet though. they don't always come to demand something and if/when they do, you'll figure out how to handle it.

madscientist, mansa varies from one extreme to the other. my very first deity game, i rushed to alphabet and beat them all to it. skipped everything else, even bronzeworking. he wouldn't trade me bronzeworking. after i hit enter, during the transition to the very next turn, he called me up to say "perhaps this would be of use to you" and gave me bronzeworking for free, since i was so very far behind.

thank you mansa! but his kindness resulted in me being scared away from deity for weeks. i knew i'd be behind. the fact that i was so far behind so early that they were already handing me presents made me feel that it was hopeless *giggle*.

 

[madscientist]

MadCandy, I have been afraid of Diety for 1.5 years. I am still at warloards Prince level and will be there until I have won with all leaders (Marathon/Huge map) I think I have 7 or 8 left after my current Fredeick game but BTS will likely be out by then. Guess I have not had the opporunity to accept Mansa Musa generosity although I have gotten a few friends to occasionally give a tech I am close to finish researching.

 

[jackdog]

Thanks for the comments,

Usually play at prince and can reliably win, though I have not been so tough on myself to play all the leaders, now thats dedication. want to go up to monarch but predictably first forays gave up early on as it was obvious an arse kicking was going to be had. So having read lots of this site am trying to encompass it to improve my prince game, and yes not just playing katherine and wiping the map clean with cossacks but some other leaders also.

The plan is to stand a better chance on monarch when I next try. But Yes BtS will be here by then, and so all bets are off for a while as I only play the original civ4 with no mods, patches or the warlords upgrade, so will take some time to get used to the whole thing.

thanks again any additional comments welcome.

 

[Dirk1302]

Deity is insane, up to immortal the game gradually increases in difficulty, then at deity it gets 100 times as difficult or so. Tried it lately got bored and thrashed in no time, looked at the worldbuilder after dying and saw that most Ais had civil service and machinery 500 bc (which means they probably had feudalism 1000 bc). I can not even begin to think of a strat to counter this, in my best games i can sometimes reach civil service around 100bc - 1 ad.

 

[KMadCandy]

@jackdog: why no patches? no mods i understand. and i'm not trying to tell you how to play the game by any means, IMO it's your game and you should do whattheheckever is fun for you. but if you do plan to get BtW and/or warlords, keep in mind that the devs made the patch changes for a reason, and almost all of those changes are in the newer versions. the only exception i can think of right now that is that marines don't go obsolete now in warlords, they didn't in un-patched vanilla but they do in vanilla 1.61 which is annoying. adjusting to those changes might be an additional jump besides all the new things you'll have to learn (or re-learn) in the expansions. i also ask because i'm also just plain curious and nosy, you don't have to answer *giggle*.

fair warning, in case you don't already know, most people consider warlords a bit harder than vanilla. at least different, a better description might be that they say you're more forced to go to war early than you are in vanilla. so according to popular opinion that in itself might be a big jump too. when patch 2.08 for warlords came out, many people found that that they had to drop down a difficulty level at first, since various things had changed. i have no reference for that, i got warlords late and updated to 2.08 the day i installed it. as far as my playstyle, i definitely don't find myself forced into war earlier or more often to win. but i'm an oddball.

@madscientist: notice that i didn't say i've ever won at deity! i did once, but in such a ridiculously cheesy way (although no cheating at all) that maybe even a 9 year old could do it, if they knew some basics about the civ4 culture system. when i lose in real games, i don't get ranked as dan quayle, so i take that as a good sign. all leaders, you are indeed completely mad. if you do try deity for real and non-cheesy, my advice is: play OCC. they start with 2 settlers and the land grab is like nothing you have ever imagined. spots to settle disappear. by like turn 4. okay not quite that fast but it's harsh. if you don't want to try to fight them early on for their cities and land really really early, which you might not at first since they do get hefty advantages, try the OCC option. you never have to worry about the landgrab at all, and you get nice big benefits, such as no unhappiness ever in your entire empire once you build globe theatre. spiffy as all get out.

 

[Lord_Zath]

I don't like tech trading, so I disable that in my games

 

[jackdog]

Hi kmadcandy,

Its simple really have only really just got back into the game after some time so only really just realised how much expansion had taken place.

also poor excuse but to me computers are just like cars I will drive it round the track much faster than most and can often diagnose a problem but ask me to do the simplest fix and you can guarantee it will never drive again. So mucking with patches etc has always scared me. Had I not hearn BtS was coming out I would probably have given it ago, and i'm sure managed eventually, but as it is, its like all the patches at once on a disc that you just plug in....excellent.

I have no where near as much time to play as I would like due to kids and hecktic study comitments so when I can spend a few hours playing or learning doing and learning a patch I will play......

Still damn glad BtS is coming out and yes fully expect to drop a level or two straight away.

 

[obsolete]

I also try to never trade alphabet, as I learned these lessons from the days of Civ III. However, some AI's like Nappy get it early, and then I am willing to trade it as someone's already broken the monopoly.

Also, assuming things haven't changed much from days of Civ III, once everyone gets alphabet, their tech trading spins out of control. The earlier you give it to them, the sooner you dig your grave.

 

[Dirk1302]

^^Things have changed though, AI's still trade with each other but not as much as in CivIII where it was possible that all the AIs had a tech one turn after you traded it to one of them.

 

[LlamaCat]

you should download the patches, they FIX things as well as update gameplay mechanics. it's as simple as click, download, double click the .exe file and it automatically replaces all the files for you. takes maybe 2 minutes? this is quite odd that you would not use patches. BTS will eventually probably require a patch or two (although you would think not, since they have fans play-testing it for the past YEAR)

 

[JackOfClubs]

Ok have been reading lots of threads and a common theme is the [alphabet] bee line then trade like mad as if the AI's get there first they beat you to it and you get left out in the cold.
[...]
Firstly I have found that having done the bee line the only tech I have they mostly don't is [alphabet] and this is the one you arn't supposed to trade for obvious reasons, what to do about this paradox of a strategy.

1) I would say that bee-lining is usually not a good idea. You will want to get workers early on to lay the groundwork for your empire, but workers are useless if they don't have the proper techs to develop your map. Also, you will want to build up you military, even if only for defensive purposes so Bronze Working, Archery or Horseback Riding are a good idea before you start worrying about tech trading. True you could trade for these techs, but delaying them until after Alphabet is usually a bad idea in my experience.

2) The rule isn't, "Don't trade Alphabet." It is, "Don't give up a monopoly on Alphabet." It is good to be the only civ that can trade techs for reasons which are, as you say, obvious. But as soon as one other civ has the tech, it becomes a classic prisoner's dilemma. Although it would be to both of your advantages to keep the other civs from getting it, the first one to defect reaps all the rewards and leaves the other guy holding the bag. Once you see that someone else has it (i.e. it no longer shows up on the Foreign Advisor screen as available to trade to that civ)
it is usually a good idea to trade it to everyone else you know as if your life depended on it. For one, if you wait, they will trade it to everyone they know. Even if they don't, though, it is not that expensive a tech and other civs will soon either research it on their own or will research other, more expensive things that they will not want to trade for Alphabet.

It may even be a good idea to try to guess when someone is about to finish researching Alphabet and trade it around a turn or two before. This can be done by noting that they have Writing and that the price they are willing to pay for Alphabet keeps going down. If you still have a monopoly, you get a much better price for trading it, and you avoid the risk that they might research it and trade it around on the same turn. But this is tricky and takes lots of micromanagement, so I usually don't bother.

3) It is quite common, if you are the first one to get to Alphabet, that that will be the only thing you have that others don't. This may seem like a paradox, but it is actually an opportunity. The trick is to find something that no one else has, but that everyone can trade for. Obviously it has to be something you can research quickly, which is another good reason for not bee-lining because it gives you more prerequisites and therefore more flexibility. So, to summarize, the advantage of having Alphabet early is often not so much that it allows immediate trading, but that it shows you what you need to research in order to have something to trade. This is true throughout the game, by the way, not just immediately after getting Alphabet.

4) As a generalization of the last point, I find that I usually want to get Alphabet early purely for the insight it offers to other civs capabilities. Even if I don't plan to trade at all, this is valuable intel which should not be passed up. For example, if you are planning on invading a neighbor with Axes and Cats and see that most of their cities are defended with Archers and Swords, you might think you are good to go. But if you look at the tech screen and see that they know Feudalism, Civil Service and/or Machinery and furthermore have lots of gold for upgrades, you might want to think twice.

 

[obsolete]

^^Things have changed though, AI's still trade with each other but not as much as in CivIII where it was possible that all the AIs had a tech one turn after you traded it to one of them.

Actually, when u traded all civs would have it the SAME turn. If u gave a tech to one AI the instant u clicked on another to sell the same thing, he would already have it.

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes, in CivIII it was a big mistake to accept a trade in the AI's turn because he would sell it the same turn. If you traded in your own turn it went well, i still refuse trades in civIV routinely because of this.

 

[obsolete]

actually, in the later patching of CIV III, you also got burned trading on YOUR OWN TURN as well. There was no way around it except for not patching the game.

 

[KMadCandy]

also poor excuse but ...

oh please never feel like you have to make excuses to me! my #1 rule, it's your game, have fun, play how you want. i was just being nosy.

2) The rule isn't, "Don't trade Alphabet." It is, "Don't give up a monopoly on Alphabet." It is good to be the only civ that can trade techs for reasons which are, as you say, obvious. But as soon as one other civ has the tech, it becomes a classic prisoner's dilemma. Although it would be to both of your advantages to keep the other civs from getting it, the first one to defect reaps all the rewards and leaves the other guy holding the bag. Once you see that someone else has it (i.e. it no longer shows up on the Foreign Advisor screen as available to trade to that civ)
it is usually a good idea to trade it to everyone else you know as if your life depended on it. For one, if you wait, they will trade it to everyone they know. Even if they don't, though, it is not that expensive a tech and other civs will soon either research it on their own or will research other, more expensive things that they will not want to trade for Alphabet.

good point. i make certain exceptions to that for the very stingy traders, if the planets align so that enough other people know something that they're willing to trade it to me *giggle*. since the techs are going to be lowbie ones, that applies only in games where i know i won't have WFYABTA limits with too many folks (diplo/cultural where i'll have tons of friendlies, or OCC where i'll be bottom half of score). i never give alphabet to mansa until i'm ready for the whole world to have it. but toku, i know he's not going to be standing on the street corners giving lessons to everybody about it so i'm a bit less careful with him.

one thing i'll add here, even tho it's not directly related to tech trading. once you or somebody else knows currency, you can exchange gold. if a leader feels Pleased or Friendly towards you, you can ask them for gifts, and you get no diplomatic penalty for that. lots of people don't realize that, and/or forget to try it even if they do. if you ask for a tech, those do count for your WFYABTA limit, and they don't usually say yes anyway it seems to me. but quite often i find they say "Always happy to help" and hand over about half their cash just because i ask . i aim for a bit less than half, and i don't try more than every 15-20 turns or so, but you might be get/ask more often than that, i'm no expert.

you can only ask every so often (i'm not sure how often), so if you guess wrong and they say no, you won't get any freebies out of them until they forget that request. but because there's no diplomatic penalty even if they say no, there's no reason not to try it, other than maybe you'd rather wait since they might have more cash to ask for next turn. they come by asking us, don't they? it's worth a shot, because when it works it's definitely better than selling them a tech!

i always do this after a wonder is built, when the losers in the race get their gold refunds for the hammers spent. they tend to have very fat wallets then. exxxxxcellent!

requests like that if the leader is Cautious or Annoyed or Furious count as arrogant demands and those you do get negatives for. you have been warned, so don't ask those folks willy-nilly and then blame me. the screen has to say "can you spare this for a friend". if it says "we demand you give this in tribute" or something mean like that, you're pushing it and that's when you're in - modifier territory.