Trading Maps with a purpose

[Samurai X]

although this might be pretty common knowledge, just thought i'd write it out anyway since i notice a lot of people mention'n giving other civs maps to make them happy.

first off, if you havent noticed, hope you notice soon; the AI knows everything about you and what you know including what your maps look like. trading the same territory map over and over again wont get you much if you havent expanded at all and world maps wont get you anything more then territory maps if you havent been exploring.

oki, from what i have written, you should be able to figure out the key to trading maps successfully, especially early on in the game. the more change there is to your world map, or the more expansion you have done to your territory, the more valuable it seems to the other civilizations. however that is only if they havent explored themselves. if you make first contact with a civiliation on another continent and manage to trade maps, quickly contact the civs on your continent.

what is important to check for is if they have made contact with any of the civs from across seas yet. if they havent, chances are, your map is worth a lot to them. well, when i say a lot, dont necessary mean its gonna get you 5 techs or anything, but they'll actually trade world maps and more for yours usually. having a world map actually more detailed then theirs matters, don't think a world map is just a world map. it's worth depends upon how much it actually reveals. so if you know your map is better, and you wanna use it in a trade or just make other civs happy, that is the best time to use it.

about trading contacts, many think its a bad idea to trade contacts because then civs trade each other and seem to zip past you in everything that way or make trading much harder on you, but in my experience, which isnt that extensive, anyway, if you made contact with another civ, chances are they will make contact with the civs you know within next few turns. contact seems to fetch nice trades, so i say use them, but that's just me.

apologize if the assumptions i made were wrong, but i have foudn this helped out my trading a lot and my civ relations as well. anyway, can always reply and tell me what a moron i am right? lol

 

[Bamspeedy]

You made some very good points, Samurai X.

Yes, maps are valued by how many tiles they reveal. If you've uncovered 10 tiles by exploring, it is worth more than a civ who's map hasn't revealed any tiles, or less than 10 tiles. And it's by who has revealed more 'different' tiles. It does not matter if you are uncovering sea tiles or land tiles, they are valued the same.

Even when every tile is uncovered, the map still will have some small value, because you get updates on improvements that workers have made to the terrain.

The reason people like trading maps every turn, is because many tiles (especially on a crowded pangea map) will be uncovered by some AI, then the maps will be traded amongst themselves anyways, every turn, or every other turn. Trading maps EVERY turn isn't necessary. But trading maps every once in awhile is helpful, it all depends on the situation. If there is a landmass, that you can explore all to yourself, then it may be better to keep this information until you have explored it all, so you can cash in your maps for one big lump sum instead of little pieces at a time.

If you can, it is better to hold off on SELLING contacts for as long as you can. Always BUY contacts, ASAP (I will always buy all contacts before buying any techs). If you are buying techs, you want to know as many civs as possible, so techs are cheaper to buy (if the other civs have that tech, which you wouldn't know until you've met them). If you are a tech leader and selling techs, you don't want the AI knowing each other, so you can charge the AI higher prices (because they don't know many or any civs that have that tech). Or you can buy tech 1 from Civ A to sell to Civ B for tech 2, then trade tech 2 back to Civ A - You're the middle man. But if it is obvious that they will make contact with each other in the next turn or two (or buy contact from another civ), then yes, go ahead and sell the contact.

The AI gives each other discounts when trading (AI to AI trade ratio in the editor), so that is why people are worried the AI will blaze ahead of you if you give away contacts. However, one benefit to this is if you do keep more AI up in tech pace, then more civs will know a tech, making it cheaper for you to buy the tech if you wait until most of the AI know the tech. Otherwise, there may be 1 or 2 AI that just blazes ahead in the tech tree and buying at 2nd or 3rd civ prices may be too expensive for some people.

The AI does know the map, but must still uncover the tiles to be able to use those tiles for trading purposes (among other things), and that is why the AI will send out explorers and value your maps. The AI exploring units bee-line straight for any tiles that are 'in the dark' (unexplored), just like your units do when you put them on 'auto-explore'. I have found, that if you give them a map of explored territory, their exploring units will avoid this area, because it is already explored and go straight for the unexplored land. By trading maps every turn, you also get info on what they had explored, so that will save your explorers some time not going through land already explore. This makes races for goody huts interesting. If your explorers outnumber theirs by a wide margin, you can beat them all to the goody huts, when you get frequently updated maps.
I have given 1 AI a map of another AI, and this actually slowed them down from getting contact with the other civ, because their units had no reason to go there. In my regent HoF game, 2 neighboring civs on a PANGEA map didn't meet each other for thousands of years, even though they had cities only 4-5 tiles apart, until finally they met each other by accident (1 civ attacked one of my units and ended up within sight of the other civ's unit). In another game, there was 2 continents, I was on the most crowded one and met the other continent. I bought their maps and explored all the surrounding water tiles, then sold the maps to every one else. Even though the second continent was about 10 tiles from mine, no one on my continent actually met the other continent until halfway through the industrial ages when a frigate stumbled across the continent by accident.

 

[Skullbones]

I actually try not to trade my maps. I've noticed (it could just be my imagination) that the AI is more likely to attack me after I have traded my map away. Whereas, if I don't trade and don't let other units wander around my territory, they don't attack me as much.

 

[Samurai X]

if u have a larger and more powerful military, they wont attack you... last game i played on regent sett'n, actually tried to have rome attack me. kept on bugg'n them for stuff and making them leave my territory to no avail.. they jus got furious, but wouldn't declare war... guess i'll just declare war first.