The AIs are hopeless traders

[Clownfish]

I'd like to see the AI trade a little smarter in the future. Now, they will:

• Always offer ALL the gold they have, for any stinking old tech
• Always offer ALL extra gold per turn they have, for a resource

(or am I wrong?)

It would be more fun if they tried to haggle, based on their personal trading capabilities. When the player tries to get a higher price, he might succeed, if the price is reasonable, or even earn a minus in the AIs regard of him - like "-1 : You tried to rip me off!". This will make trading a much harder game of balance, and will be different with different AI's! Same would go for when the AI tries to sell YOU something...

Another thing about trading and war : Tributes. What's the reason for the AI to pay you a tribute, when you can attack immediately after that anyway? With multiplayer - with real people - it would lower the players trust in you, but does it happen with the AI? Sometimes they are even more stupid - Russia attacked me right after paying me a rather hefty tribute! That gold made the war easier to win!

 

[Desert-Fox]

I've also thought about that... AI is so stick in their offers... trade is too easy... you only have to ask what you would give me for this or what you want for this ... and they never let you get cheaper prize.

 

[Ray Patterson]

Blake's newest AI improvements seem to make the AI more reluctant to do away with its gold. There seems to be a misunderstanding in your argument though: the gold you see in the diplomatic screen isn't actually all the gold the AI has/makes per turn, it's what it's willing to trade away.

What bugs me in AI trading is they never cancel a deal because they found the resource themselves. Sometimes I cancel a deal in order to renegotiate the amount of money, only to find out I can't trade that resource to that civ anymore, presumably because it actually has that resource in its own territory...

 

[Yaype]

I've also thought about that... AI is so stick in their offers... trade is too easy... you only have to ask what you would give me for this or what you want for this ... and they never let you get cheaper prize.

This was done intentionally in CIV to remedy a rather tedious portion of trading in Civ III. Rather than have to repeatedly make different offers until you found the exact trade the AI would find acceptable (down the to single gold piece), CIV makes it possible to know relatively easily what the AI finds acceptable. I for one find the change refreshing.

 

[Newbert]

I've also thought about that... AI is so stick in their offers... trade is too easy... you only have to ask what you would give me for this or what you want for this ... and they never let you get cheaper prize.

Actually, you're not entirely correct. I play vanilla Civ latest patch and when bribing civs to go to war I've noticed that they generally tend to ask for more at first than they're actually willing to settle for. For example, I was recently bribing Monty into a war with Isabella and he asked me for two techs. That seemed a little steep, so I took one off the table and asked again. Lo and behold, all he really wanted was a little extra gold on top of the tech I left on the table.
I don't know if this would work with other tech trades, but clearly haggling is possible in a limited sense.

 

[Quagga]

I too find the CivIV approach superior to the CivIII approach.

That said, it is true that they will often offer less than what they are willing to trade. Deals often can be improved with only a little extra effort.

The key is using "What will make this deal work?" That's when the AI will let you know what s/he is really willing to do. The only tricky thing about this is that this question isn't always one of the choices. You have to take something off the table (and maybe put it right back on) in order for the question to appear. That's when you may find out that the AI will give you gold and World Map in addition to whatever was originally offered.

 

[ShaLouZa]

Now, they will:

• Always offer ALL the gold they have, for any stinking old tech
• Always offer ALL extra gold per turn they have, for a resource

(or am I wrong?)

According to my experience you're wrong on both points.

An AI will offer you just a little more GP than the tech is worth in research points, excepted if it's a strategic tech they value more like military ones or those related to space race. If they have much more gold than the tech is worth, they will pay less than they could. If they have few currency, they will offer ridiculous prices ("Physics for 60 Gold, come on dude, you can't refuse that !" )

The same goes for the resource. According to their situation (unhappiness or unhealth problems), the price they offer for a resource will vary. It often seem to be the maximum they can pay, but in this case you can be sure it's not the "right" price, the one they would pay anyway if they had 10 times their GPT.

And yes, the AI will offer you cheap deals. I always renegociate when they come to trade, and I always have better deals. They're not that dumb.

What bugs me in AI trading is they never cancel a deal because they found the resource themselves. Sometimes I cancel a deal in order to renegotiate the amount of money, only to find out I can't trade that resource to that civ anymore, presumably because it actually has that resource in its own territory...

True, that's the only problem I see with trading right now. They're able to cancel deals to renegociate, they can make a temporary deal to get a strategic resource they need on the moment and cancel it after that, but they can't see that a deal is no longer needed when they find the resource.

 

[CivDude86]

Is just me or does Blakes improvements seem to make the AI horde all of its gold now. Just about everytime I open the diplomacy screen they aren't willing to trade any gold. And it seems cancel any GPT turn deal causes them to put the sliders at 90% until they run out of gold so if I want to renegotiate a deal for more GPT I have to wait a while (which would explain why they don't have any money cuz I always do that).

 

[Red Stranger]

The AI never have much money to trade.

 

[babypacman]

I have had AI cancel a deal once they obtained the resource on their own. Its usually me who forgets to cancel a deal when I obtain a resource i had been trading for (vanilla civ btw)

I have had AI refuse to pay all their gold available to trade for a tech. Alex wouldn't pay 120 gold for meditation once.

Keep in mind the AI has more gold than you see. Thats why you might see an AI with 60 gold to trade and longbows one turn, and the next turn they have 60 gold to trade and their entire empire magically upgraded to grenadiers.

The only area I find really weak is resource trading. The AI seems to always be willing to trade all their gpt available for one resource. The strategic resource trading is pretty poor on both ends as well. If I was an AI with 3 happiness resources to trade to someone and I needed iron, I'd refuse to trade them except a a package for iron, and not be satisfied with clams, cows and a banana.