trading maps

[rainmaker]

How should requests for map trades be handled. While I want to trade and remain on reasonably good relations with AIs (until I go to war of course) can't refusing to trade effect relations and future trades?

I assume as soon as I give one AI my territory map, it won't be long before they will all have it. Also, I don't think it is a coinsidence that just before I get attacked that AI just got my map in a trade.

Currently, I am playing at warlord on huge map with max (random) AIs. I am near end of industrial age and have not traded any maps. Many are annoyed but none have attacked. If I give them some gold or a useless tech instead of a map trade they may become polite for a time. The only ones that are really PO'd are those I went to war with.

I used to trade freely and this is first time I have refused to trade maps. I am aztec and my jaguar UU let me get a great head start on mapping.

 

[KaDingir]

It may just be paranoia, but I never give up my map. When mao or Hammurabi suddenly pop up asking to trade maps (and, by the way, will I give them Literature as well?) I almost always counter with a gift of a few gold if there are no other trades available. My hope is that in this way nobody's nose is out of joint, until the happy day when I rain down thermonuclear hell on Hammurabi and all of his evil....but that's another matter.
I should add that I've never played higher than Regent, and perhaps other strategies apply at higher levels.

 

[davidcrazy]

Doesn't the AI know the position of ur cities and placement of your armies all the time? how does it matter whether they have ur map or not?

 

[dmanakho]

It does and it does not...
It does know all the locations I believe, but it is programmed in such a way that until it gets an official map from you it won't use it's knowledge...
I tested the following in my game...
My civ was in the middle of thin continent and was crossing it from one shore to another... on one side i had AI on another i had empty land yet to settle...
AI would never move it's settlers to empty land because he "had no knowledge about it". But once I give AI my world map I could see couple of settlers marching trough my territory in next few turns. So i think AI needs to trade maps to actually use it's already inherited knowledge and it is just programmed to do it that way.
(it was in vanilla, in C3C they moved map trading to MA when all the land is already settled)

 

[rainmaker]

In my current, no map trading game, I had numerous AI's moving settlers throughout my territory looking for a place to settle with no success. Some would move form one end to the other without finding a place to plant a city.

They definitly had no clue.

 

[smackster]

Also, if you give it to one civ, you might as well give it to them all as they will trade it about the next turn. It is a reasonable tactic to hold onto your map until they have something to trade for it. As soon as you do, then take it.

As you trade your map to each civ, you might find that the first one will only give you their territory map for your world map (depends on the level, size of the map etc), but go to the next and the next and as you get each territory map, before the end of that sequence you should have enough value in your world map to get a lot more.

Just to be clear, do it in one turn, it will have limited value next turn.

 

[alamo]

Not trading maps - an interesting tactic. I always assumed they just know, like they way they just know how strong your are militarily.

I'll try that next game.

 

[davidcrazy]

As you trade your map to each civ, you might find that the first one will only give you their territory map for your world map (depends on the level, size of the map etc), but go to the next and the next and as you get each territory map, before the end of that sequence you should have enough value in your world map to get a lot more.

this normally doesn't happen to me. i guess it's because i'm too lazy. i can be a good tech broker but very rarely a map broker. normally i end up the only one without the world map for a while because of the extensive map trading between AI's and my unwillingness to trade techs for AI's world map. this often ends at the end of a war when AI is willing to pay anything..

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Pre C3C, the AI wouldn't act on map knowledge it didn't officially know about. I think this changed in C3C because i have seen paths thru the fog over water headed straight to an island they shouldn't have known was there.

Generally, if the AI comes to me for a map trade, i won't do it because i want to get the benefit of selling my maps the way i best see fit. As soon as you trade it away, it gets spread around and the AI is making gold off your map.