Originally posted by Pembroke
If you bought something from a company and they shipped it on a truck that gots robbed on the way then it isn't the fault of the company, BUT they still are responsible for the shipment. They can't just say "tough luck and have a nice day" when you ask them what happened to your purchase.
But who's out for replacement costs on the stolen item? The shipping company is resposnible for items in their custody, so they call their insurance company and file a claim...
This would be kind of difficult to model in a computer game.
And that's what's missing in Civ3: Recompensation.
The reputation in Civ3 has the job to prevent the human from swindling the AI blind.
No, what's mising is a simple risk-analysis algoithm. For example:
Persia is not currently at war with anyone, and they have several seaports. Therefore the value of their tradeable goods is "normal". If they were at war, then the game should factor in their army strength vs. the army strength of their opponent(s), # of ports remanining, etc, and adjust their asking price accordingly, If they're in desperate straits, they need more compensation for their trade goods, so they would then ask a higher price for those goods UP FRONT. If I'm unwilling to pay that price I can simply do without the goods.
It wouldn't be all THAT difficult to do this.
As a side note: consider a situation where you first fought a war with Persia dragging the Iroquise to the war. At the time the alliance deal ends you have arranged the situation so that the only trade route between you and Persia goes through a single harbor city that is sure to fall to the Iroquise in the next 2-3 turns.
A prorate would solve this issue. Factors that the AI would take into consideration:
-Number of troops in their army
-Attack/Defense strength of their troops vs. their enemies
-number of seaports/airports.
This would work for the player too: if you were in a difficult situation fighting several opponents and one of the AIs needed a resource or tech that you had, they would offer you more for it.
BTW: there's also a related problem with the current reputation system: If I make an alliacne with one civ against another, and then we destroy our enemy before the alliance expires, I get a rep. hit. (For welshing on an alliance
) That one also needs to be fixed.