Tech Trading

What's up with the AI being super stingy with their techs? In my current game Justinian I is at +14 (Friendly) with me and offered to trade me rifling for steel and I'd have to give him 1500 gold. For reference I'm playing marathon speed so steel costs some ~13500 beakers while rifling only costs ~11500 beakers, what gives why are the AI so stingy with industrial era + techs?

 

While I can't answer your question I have a few of my own about tech trading as well for those more experience than I. Are there certain techs that the AI tend to ignore that are good to trade them? If I am ahead in tech research (which I knew gets less and less as the difficulty goes up) is it worth it to trade a tech or two behind what I am to backfill other techs?

 

The AI seems stingy in all eras as it won't accept deals that don't give it a distinct advantage. However, you can trade around the same tech to all other civs for more techs, gold, war starting and other things like diplomacy, giving the opportunity for much bigger returns than simply from one AI. Trebling the value of the tech your trading is sometimes possible! I would certainly be wary of giving away steel mind you, I would prefer to abuse it by running over any pre rifling civs I can find

On Monarch and above backfilling techs while heading to Liberalism is one of the most used strategies.

"Tradebait" techs AIs don't go for is one of the main strengths of the Liberalism beeline!
Paper, Philosophy, Education, Liberalism itself and even the free tech all make great tradebait (I prefer Steel from Lib and I won't trade that however ).
Philosophy is very important in this line, as once Taoism has been founded, the AI almost completely ignore it! This and the fact you can bulb it with a G.Scientist leads to an easy run at Liberalism and guarantees people to trade to, G.Scientists can also bulb Paper, Education and Liberalism itself.

Aesthetics gains imporance on the higher difficulties to (starting at Immortal?), using it to part trade for alphabet is a great help.

Steel itself is something the AI will often leave a long time, which helps cement steel as *the* gamebreaker tech. I don't trade this I use it to steamroll, later I may trade it toward Physics or something, but not till its about to become an obsolete tech.

 

Two possibilities spring to mind:

First, he could have partially researched it himself. The more beakers and AI has put into a tech, the less it costs to finish it, and the less the AI is willing to pay in order to get it right away. (Which is pretty reasonable) Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, one or more other AI players may have Steel, which decreases it's value in the eyes of the AI. (This is related to the first idea, because when you research a tech, you get a discount if more players already have it) This is why you have to be careful when you're brokering a tech to multiple AI - shop around before you trade it away, because the value of the tech will decrease as you trade it, and a deal that the AI was willing to go for before may no longer be acceptable.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the individual trades but rather the grand sum that you can get from trading a particular tech. It's not a huge deal if you're taking the short end of the individual deals but wind up getting 4 or 5 techs in return. Obviously, some key techs like Steel are special cases as that's a good tech to go on an expansion spree. In your particular case, Justinian probably is close to researching Steel, which is why the price is that steep.

 

In this particular game I built the great wall so I've been ahead of everyone on espionage points the whole game and have been able to see what they've been researching and he hasn't put any points into it at all, I did however trade steel away to two other civs the turn before, so from what I'm being told I would expect that would be why he's being stingy. (The reason I did is because Caesar was only 8 turns away from researching it himself so I figured I better start getting what I could for it before he started trading it away).

 

Is Justy the only civ with Rifling? Much like the AI would value your Steel technology more if you were the only one who has it, it would also value Rifling more if it was the only one who has it.

Also, I couldn't agree more with Ghpstage on the value of Steel. If you can be the first one to it, you should NEVER miss the opportunity to go kill some pre-rifles AI civ with your cannons. They are the war elephants versus archers of the mid-game. Don't miss the opportunity if you get it.

 

Does each AI have a built in ass hole value in regard to tech trading? Like I had Roosevelt in a defensive pact and somewhere in the teens on relations, but he still always seemed tow ant at least 2000 more beakers per trade...

 

^ this

and

 

Getting over the "I want a fair trade" syndrome is one of the biggest keys to moving up to the higher difficulties. That, and as was said above, you have to remember that the AI may already have some beakers invested in what you are trying to trade them.

 

Also remember, an unfair trade often beats the hell out of having the tech demanded and either giving it away for free or taking a diplo hit.

 

Tech trades are calculated with the research bonus the AI gets. If Justinian gets a +30% bonus to tech steel, its only worth about 10000 for him, so he also wants some money.

You can see this if you trade a tech to many civs in a row. You will get less for your tech the more other civs know it. (Techs get cheaper to research the more civs have it.)

 

It is safe to assume that an AI will consider a deal fair if he asks for gold in addition to the techs on the table. If you have to add some gold in order to make a deal 'fair' for the AI then you know that is the absolute minimum he wants to trade for.

Trading like this may seem unfair but the AI may indeed get a bonus to research for a tech and he may have put beakers into it, he may have a monopoly and you trade a common tech, etc. All this can influence the way the AI evaluates a deal.

 

I don't think that they will ever trade monopoly techs unless you are about to kill them. Not sure, though.

 

Is it wise to use the "what is a fair deal button"? I check this most of the time and sometimes they AI asks for something ridiculous and other times it reasonable. Do most people use this? Is it the best way to get the most from the AI for tech trading?

 

"Fair deal" works best when the current offer favors the AI. They will add more to their side to make it fair.

If you start with an offer that favors you, they will demand a very expensive tech that you don't want to sell.

 

Here's a stumper.
Tech trading is ON, and looking at the foreign advisor, I can see the techs that my AI opponent can trade. However, in the diplomacy screen, under "technology" NOTHING is listed. I'm used to seeing the techs listed in red if the guy doesn't want to trade them, but this is something entirely different.

anyone else encountered this problem before?

 

Unless you have enough gold to cover the first tech you have on the board...but yes generally it's better to start with yours, add theirs, and finagle it a bit.

 

The discount (or penalty - lately played Chieftain for testing purposing the first time and they always added some gold on their side on an equal-beaker-trade) for the AI seems to scale a lot with difficulty. Can anyone tell me which XML modifier affects this? There is only one ("iResearchPercent>?</iResearchPercent") I could find in the handicap.XML file and the values (ranging from 40 on Settler to 87 on Deity) fit for the human player, but not for the AIs

Thanks in advance!

 

AI tech costs are the same at all levels. iResearchPercent is the beaker cost multiplier for the human player. AI get a discount/increase for building units and buildings on different levels, but not techs.