Trading Mana with AIs?

[Wolfswift]

I played a game once where I traded mana with AIs to get a good range of spells with my casters, but it seems like a lot of times now no AIs have mana to offer when trading, and I can't figure out how to get it back. I want to demand all the weakest people's mana and become uber magic power. But mana never appears at all in trade with AIs anymore...

The game I played was prior to finding out there was an update patch to FfH2, did the update kill mana trading with AIs? Then again, when I got a second nature mana, many AIs tried to trade me fish and crap for it, so we can give them, they can never give us? Or what? Do they need a tech first or something?

 

[Luckmann]

If whatever civilization you are trading with doesn't show any mana at all in their window, odds are that they don't have any, for whatever reason.

As of the latest patch, trading mana with the AI works just fine. And by "fine" I mean completely broken, since you can stack up a mountain of it from allies and vassals. But no, as far as I know, trading is working. So either it's on your end (for some reason) or they have already traded it away.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Palaces provide Civs mana, so even without nodes, they have mana. I don't see 'em offering it though.

Vassals still can be forced to supply mana.

AI civs will still accept mana for resources. I trade mana to friendly civs early so as to get loads of resources - a deal cancelled when I finally get some magic users to use the mana.

I don't have the latest patch though...

 

[Luckmann]

Palaces provide Civs mana, so even without nodes, they have mana. [...]

They could have traded it already, though.

 

[Turinturambar]

They don't offer it if they have only one of the respective mana type. Same as with all the other resources, only those which the AI has 2+ of are shown in the trade screen.

The valuation of mana is completely broken though. You can offer an Ai civ some of your useless palace mana( e. g. shadow mana pre knowledge of the aether) and they will give you every spare resource they have + all their gold/turn. In addition you pretty much instantly gain a +4 our trade relations have been fair and forthright modifier, because the AI still considers it a great deal for them.

I usually gift my useless mana away at the start to civs I want to have good relations with. You can cancel the deal after 10 turns and get a +4 diplo modifier basically for free.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Exactly what I do: trade mana when neither of has the use for it (although I never trade my Life mana 'cause I can use it Day One). Most of the AI's that have resources for trade are crazy for mana; they'll give up outrageous bargains for it.

 

[Wolfswift]

No, I like mana, I would never trade it away. But maybe they already did trade it then... all of them? I know if you have an item you got in a trade from someone else, you can't trade it, so if they trade their mana for someone else's mana or something, then I wouldn't be able to see the somebody else's mana with them... but... why would all of them trade all mana away always? I can trade mana with human players, but AIs never seem to own any, it's weird. Do they trade it around, or what?

EDIT: Wait, so... I just made an advanced start game with like 20 AIs in a small map, so I could find many quick. None had any items to trade, not even the mana they start with, WTH? I made sure I was the first to reach them with like 30 workers building roads, is it true then? Any item the have only one of just does not show up for trade at all? I thought they'd just be against trading it or it might be red because they wouldn't like you enough to sacrifice a singular resource, but they really CAN NOT trade anything they have one of now?

 

[Luckmann]

Alright.. Just to cover all the bases, I do have to ask you.. are you sure you have trade routes? Because for obvious reasons, unless you have actual routes to your rival civilizations, absolutely nothing will show. Mana or otherwise. There won't even be a trade tab in the actual trade proposal window.

Everything they have 1 of should still show up as, for example, Banana (1). In red if they absolutely refuse to trade it under any and all circumstances. If you have a route, of course.

 

[JFSebastian]

...is it true then? Any item the have only one of just does not show up for trade at all? I thought they'd just be against trading it or it might be red because they wouldn't like you enough to sacrifice a singular resource, but they really CAN NOT trade anything they have one of now?

Correct.

 

[Luckmann]

Correct.

Not at all. Running the latest patch, everything the AI has shows up, even if they only have one of it. I regularly take all the palace mana from my teammates, of which they all have only one.

 

[Wolfswift]

Yeah, I only attempt it if I have a trade route. I'll see like fish and bananas and such for trade, but no AIs have ANY Mana for trade ever. It's so weird. My friends I play with are experiencing the same problem as well. We all updated to the most recent version recently. Previously we had an older version and mana would show up for trade. True they sometimes wouldn't want to trade it, but it was there none the less. I don't know what's wrong...

 

[Luckmann]

Yeah, I only attempt it if I have a trade route. I'll see like fish and bananas and such for trade, but no AIs have ANY Mana for trade ever. It's so weird. My friends I play with are experiencing the same problem as well. We all updated to the most recent version recently. Previously we had an older version and mana would show up for trade. True they sometimes wouldn't want to trade it, but it was there none the less. I don't know what's wrong...

Well, I'm stumped. First I was going to stock it up to something being wrong solely on your end and tell you to see if a complete reinstall of everything would help, but when your friends have the same issue...

 

[Wolfswift]

How could something wrong on my end affect only mana trading with AIs for me? I'll ask my friends again, maybe they weren't trying and just said yeah not caring, I am the only one who cares very much about stockpiling mana. But I'm fairly certain we're all having that problem, even if not, how could it affect only me and none of them when we all use the same mod with the same patches and everything?

Hmm... One of my friends modded the files to include Gigantic and Colossal big maps and a Brawl super small map. He found a fix that did it to regular Civ 4 and found out how to alter the scripts to add it to FfH2 as well, but for some reason the Colossal maps don't work, but we play Gigantic then. He gave us all the files to switch to allow this change, and it works for us all when we play. Hmm... I haven't seen it yet, but he says the Gigantic maps have "stretch marks"? I'm thinking, do you think that could possibly relate to somehow mana trading with AIs being glitched? The modded Gameinfo file?

Oh! And I just thought about it, but two of my friends seem to have somehow slightly different versions of the game than one of my other friends and I. We don't know how, but the game seems to play just fine. We just chalked it up to different install paths and played through it. Could THAT have anything to do with it? But no, it happened even in a game I played alone... hmm... back to wondering if it's the modded gameinfo file... Or what?

 

[Turinturambar]

Not at all. Running the latest patch, everything the AI has shows up, even if they only have one of it. I regularly take all the palace mana from my teammates, of which they all have only one.

I don't think the OP is talking about teammates or Vassals. Those will trade everything, normal AIs will only trade stuff they have 2+ of.

 

[Wolfswift]

Alright... I just tested the presented theory, It seems unallied/enemy AIs WILL NOT trade mana EVER... But yes, teammate and vassal AIs will trade it... And yet... as soon as I got two nature mana all the AIs in the world offered me fish and wine and crap for it... Why can they take our mana but we can't take theirs? Why can't we demand it of them or maybe trade them big loads of things for it? That is so broken... I understand they think of mana as the greatest thing and will only trade it for a crapload of stuff, but we could do mana for mana trades... Why can't they trade it? It's messed up.

 

[Luckmann]

I don't think the OP is talking about teammates or Vassals. Those will trade everything, normal AIs will only trade stuff they have 2+ of.

Double-checking, it turns out that you are in fact entirely correct.

Terribly sorry everyone, it was just a glaring oversight on my part. (). Turns out that AI that you are not allied with does not show all their resources in the trade window, if they only have 1 of it.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

 

[Wolfswift]

Balls! That sucks... Is that like that on purpose? It seems uncool, I know they want a lot of stuff for it, but mana for mana trades are fair, why?! Why can't we... it's uncool...

 

[solistus]

It's probably better like this, anyway. Mana trades massively benefit the player as the AI is too clueless to make them at all rationally, so making it slightly harder to abuse that probably is not a bad thing.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

So clueless that, whenever you have 2 from any mana source they come at once, ready to trade their "precious" 1 cow for that "extra" 1 Fire mana you have...
Only over my dead body, is what I say.
Seriously, though, the AI should be told that it has to do better when asking mana from a player!

 

[JonathanStrange]

Maybe the AI didn't want the mana too much that time. The idea that they are shrewd traders doesn't seem too valid: if I offer the mana and tell 'em what I want, frequently they'll give me every spare resource they have. And if they sometimes offer 1 cow for 1 Fire mana? That's another example of the AI's cluelessness: having no idea of mana's value one way or the other. Giving too much or offering too little.

The idea that because enemy Civs can't be offered mana trades even though the same enemy Civs can, if they want, ask for a mana trade is weird but not too big a deal, imo, simply because the AI's already making plenty of stupid mana trades that the limitation here changes little.

Actually this was a topic I had hoped didn't come to the attention of the FFH2 authorities because I was getting such good deals from the simpleon AIs, it had to be illegal. I'd think if "if the Overcouncil gets wind of this mana trade, it'll be patched away"...