Trade gankin'

[Simak]

So, still new to the game. One thing I've learned is how to extort the AI's money. If this is a bad strategy, I'd like to know why. Being that maps are only useful if they show you areas that you can get to in a relatively short time, that you don't want to have to explore yourself. Being as I know mostly what the area around me looks like, and I have no inclination to find out what is half way across the world, I've been offering my World Map to civs that will pay for it. I don't ask for World map from other civs nor do I worry about territory maps. Either they buy my world map for 15-25 gold, or I wait a few turns till the price goes up. This has ensured that I have more money than any other civ in the game, which has allowed me to keep my science research funding to 100%, even though I take a 13 gold piece hit to corruption and maintainence every turn.

Good strategy or not?

 

[vmxa]

I want to get their territory map, once they have uncovered it all. This lets me know what is there and eases my invasion planning.

I do not sell or give my map, until I have my borders across the landmass if on an island or a continent. Two reasons, one it smacks of an exploit to constantly sell my map. Second and most important, they will try to send in settlers if they know of any open spaces in my land.

Yes you may be able to deal with that, but it could cause problems, especially above emperor levels.

 

[Simak]

I'm a bit perplexed. So, if you are 40 squares away from the nearest opposition, they are sending settlers 40 squares away when they have plenty of land nearby to settle themselves? Why would the AI want land all the way across the map, simply because you left a hole, when there should be plenty of suitable land where they are at?

 

[eldar]

One of the best-known AI cheats in Civ3 is that the AI always knows the location of every resource in the game, centuries before the tech has been discovered to reveal that resource. So at 4000BC they already know where all the Uranium is, etc.!

The AI places a very high priority on settling cities next to or on resources, even ones that won't be revealed for ages. They will happily send a settler 40 tiles into the middle of a desert in your territory if there's space for them, because they know that there will be oil there eventually!

 

[PaperBeetle]

I'm a bit perplexed. So, if you are 40 squares away from the nearest opposition, they are sending settlers 40 squares away when they have plenty of land nearby to settle themselves? Why would the AI want land all the way across the map, simply because you left a hole, when there should be plenty of suitable land where they are at?

40 tiles from the nearest opposition sounds like you are playing a huge map with very few rivals. That skews the game quite a bit, but I still wouldn't consider it a good reason to bury your cartographers' heads in the sand. In a normal game of C3C, by the time map trading comes available (Navigation) the world should be very well settled. There will still be the odd empty spot in awkward places, and the AI will send its settlers to these spots no matter how far away, just because it has settlers to use up. Conversely, the AI doesn't always expand its borders well, and there should be opportunities for you to cram towns in close to AI settlements, stealing resources from them or occupying strategically useful locations (e.g. canals, beach-heads) . Finding those locations can surely be worth a map purchase. Of course, you should get a lot of your map knowledge from your own distant explorers anyway.

As for keeping that trickle of cash coming in from the AI, sure it is helpful to keep selling your map, but you can make more from the exercise if you buy their maps too; they don't trade maps between themselves very thoroughly, so in many cases you can get paid not just for your own latest maps, but those of the other AIs as well. I usually use the following system:
1. For each AI in turn, offer t map; usually they respond with t map or w map. 2. For each AI in turn, offer w map; usually they now respond with w map + cash. If they don't offer w map, they are still actively uncovering new tiles. Give them w map + enough cash to get their w map.
3. Once you have w maps from all AIs, offer w map to each one again; they will come up with more cash.

 

[Nergal]

I'm convinced that resource tiles have a high desirability factor, as the AI views the map. It doesnt matter what is there, they just see a big number and head for it. Its worth watching for as it gives you clues as to what is around.

 

[Simak]

Thank you paperbeetle, that is the gem I'm looking for.

 

[PaperBeetle]

If you have only a few other civs in the game, it can seem pretty pointless. If you have a large number of rivals (we recently played an SG with all 32 civs activated) it can rake in surprising amounts of cash, even though most of the AIs only contribute the odd penny every now and again - maybe 30-50gpt. That's the same order of magnitude of "free" cash that you get from Wall Street.