Trade Options

[DaveShack]

Since our Trade Minister seems to be temporarily unavailable, I'll try to drum up some discussion at least on trades so he'll have info to go on later.

Right now I don't have info on the options available to us. If you come across this thread, know about an available trade in the current save, and don't mind contributing, please put in the trade info. I should get an opportunity to load the game later today and put that in if nobody else has done it.

One obvious opportunity is Democracy, and I think we still have a monopoly on Banking as well. When I peeked at trade in turn 5 of the last play session, we could get gpt from Rome at a minimum.

 

[TimBentley]

Some of these trades are lousy, only included to show some relative costs

Rome:
banking for astronomy, chemistry, 5g, 29gpt (all they have)
288g for chemistry
1347g, 2gpt for astronomy

Persia:
banking for astronomy, chemistry, 132g
banking for astronomy, 201g, 10gpt
banking for chemistry, 191g, 63gpt
banking for 206g, 76gpt (note that they are currently researching banking)
288g for chemistry
1347g, 2gpt for astronomy

France: banking for astronomy, 1g (all they have)

Germany: currency or republic for worker, 56g (all they have)
currency is worth more to them than republic (tested in conjuction with MA against Japan)

Japan would be insulted by straight peace, and Babylon and England are broke.

 

[Furiey]

We get Chemistry in 1 turn so I don't think we should trade for that.

That leaves Banking for Astronomy in some shape or form.

I don't think we should give the Romans a large amount of gold at the present time as they'll just use it to upgrade more Pikes to Muskets, and that we do not want! Neither do we want to pay them in gpt as we may have to break it when we declare war.

If we sell Banking for Astronomy
We get the equivalent of 12gpt from Persia
or 29gpt from Rome (all they have), but we may not get this for the full 20 turns if we declare earlier.
With the potential Roman war it therefore seems better to get gpt from Persia rather than Rome.

To maximise our sale of Banking:

Step 1: Sell Banking to Persia for 206 gold and 76gpt
They are researching it we may as well have their gold. Banking will now be worth less than it was, but the difference between what Persia would pay us for it and what Rome will trade for Astromomy is 47gpt or 940 gold (more if we stop the deal early). The price is not going to drop that much.

Step 2: Trade Banking to France for Astronomy.
The French will probably want some gold as well for this but I would rather give it to them than to the Romans at the moment..

Step 3: See if the Romans will offer anything for Banking.
Having done the deal we need lets see what else we can get. If we don't sell Banking around now Persia will. Gold, gpt (although we may not get the full deal) possibly even Chemistry although it would only save one turn may be worth grabbing.

I tempted to go for the German deal as well, but selling them Republic now would weaken them if they switch during their war with Persia - the timing of this sale could be beneficial to us in the future. We could do the currency deal for their gold and Worker.

 

[ravensfire]

If we can get cash from the Romans, I would say go for the deal. If it's gpt, ignore it. Our reputation is important, we should not ruin it, nor allow a 20 turn delay in war with them.

-- Ravensfire

 

[TimBentley]

Getting gpt from Rome then declaring war won't hurt our rep. They don't mind if they have to stop paying us.

 

[Furiey]

Ooops - double post (database error )

 

[Furiey]

Agreed, it's only if we're paying gpt and break it that it hurts us. Hence the inclusion of gpt in step 3, but last so if we did break it we didn't lose the main part of the income from our Banking sale.