Trading resources: Values?

[Pinstar]

With the trading post nerf, selling spare resources to the AIs seems like the new strategy for the early/mid game economy.

However, I'm seeing some odd quirks to trying to sell my resources. In the early game, i can normally get about 10 gold per turn for a resource, or 300 gold flat (the same as 10 gpt, but up front) But as the game drags on, I'll get only 7 or 8... heck one only offered 4

Other times I'll get rejected for a gpt, but get accepted when I ask for the same amount in a flat sum. (So a 10 gpt deal would get rejected, but a 300 gold flat deal would be accepted).

Economics would state that giving you the money up front is more costly to the AI civ and would be less likely to be accepted than a GPT deal.

Can anyone shed some light into what is going on with the AI and these gold deals?

 

[lilnev]

What do you mean the "new" strategy? Selling resources has always been the best source of money....

It's true that AI's would rather give you more cash now, rather than less later. It makes no sense. Just work with it. Empirically, 300 gold is the most they'll pay for a luxury (45 for each strategic). Reduce that by ~31.5 for each 1 gpt. Thus 269 + 1 gpt, 237 + 2 gpt, etc. down to 17 gold + 9 gpt.

Leaders who aren't happy with you won't pay as much. It seems to fall at common break points -- 261 gold, for example. And I think it may simply depend on things they don't like, rather than some sort of net favorability; even leaders who stay Friendly tend to pay a bit less later in the game. If they're planning to attack you, they'll pay almost nothing.

 

[RedRover57]

Later in the game if you don't have open borders with that civ they often value that very high, i.e., higher than the usual 50 gold. So you may need to shave off more than 50 gold from the total if you take open borders off the table.

I think it also must depend on how much the civ needs your resource - you probably get more from them if they need the luxury for an "I love the King day" in one of their cities for example. It certainly works the other way. You can often trade luxuries 1:1 with friendly civs (if they have duplicates of the luxury), but if you need their luxury for an "I love the King" they will charge you an arm and leg for it (often asking for 2 or 3 of your luxuries for the one you need).

What cracks me up is when the civ is friendly and you know they will pay 300 but don't have quite enough. So you ask for 240 plus 2 gpt and they reject it and say they will pay 239 plus 2 gpt. I guess they really needed that 1 gold!

 

[wcbarney]

... What cracks me up is when the civ is friendly and you know they will pay 300 but don't have quite enough. So you ask for 240 plus 2 gpt and they reject it and say they will pay 239 plus 2 gpt. I guess they really needed that 1 gold!

I've always assumed that this was the civ leader's way of letting me know that he was beating me at diplomacy by "winning" the barganing session. Whenever a supposedly friendly civ, who used to willingly pay 300g for your luxury, now is willing to settle only if you sell it for 240g or so, then you know that he/she is being deceptive and is just waiting for the right opportunity to denounce you and then DW.

 

[biohazard72]

Open Borders: 50 friendly (not thinking of war), 43 is the price if they're friendly but still consider you an enemy. A larger value than 50 means they really want to see your territory to war you, which usually means they are uneasy about the war. Less (30 gold or less) means they don't care and will probably war you regardless of seeing your territory.

Luxuries: 300 is the friendly price, 261 is the equivalent of the 43 gold open borders. Anything less means hatred or impending war.

Resources: 45 is the friend price OR the "need it" price. 39 is the equivalent to 43 gold open borders. Anything less means hatred or impending war.

Learn to recognize these signals and combine them with your scouting and the AI really telegraphs its declarations of war.