Training game emphasizing trading - Emperor

[dl123654]

If I understand your comment about contacts-alphabet-writing remember this is Conquests so contact trading doesn't happen until Navigation at the end of the MA tech tree.

Trading contacts occurs at printing press, trading maps comes at navigation.

 

[Jurimax]

May I continue tonight? And what about trading, do I have to follow the advice of the team? Or may I act as I see best?

I'm just a little in the dark here.

I had thought about getting Pottery only, but it would have been after a prebuild for the Granary was nearing completion. In the mean time we could get other contacts.

So it's your call team...

Greetz Jurimax

 

[Bede]

Nope, it's your call 'cause you got game. Your judgement is as sound as the advice you've received....besides I haven't had the chance to or yet.

 

[trikos]

@Juriman: Please go ahead. Worst case scenario is that you make a "mistake" and we learn something

 

[Rik Meleet]

Okay guys I have a trade possibility with Japan:

they have:
10 gold
Pottery
Bronze Working
Ceremonial Burial
The Wheel

we have:
Masonry
Alphabet
172 gold

They're willing to trade:
Pottery, Bronze Working and Ceremonial Burial
for
Alphabet, Masonry and 97 gold

I'd make this trade for:
Pottery: Settler pumps need this
Bronze Working: our UU needs this
Ceremonial Burial: some early culture

From this post we knew that Japan, Greece, Russia, Germany, Spain, Korea and the Netherlands were in the game. Japan is the only civ with The Wheel; a monopoly tech, so you'd always want to keep an eye on that tech trade. Also Pottery is indeed desirable.

In the trade to get Pottery + The Wheel, you cannot trade them 1 tech + all our gold. So it is 2 techs we have to offer. But then Japan gets too much. So we look how much gold they give (10). That is not enough.
So we try to obtain 1 more tech. Bronzeworking is more useful, but Japan wants more than both techs, all our gold; they even want at least 5gpt. I hate to pay gpt this early in the game.
So it's Pottery + The Wheel + Ceremonial burial for Masonry + Alphabet + 140 gold.

This is the best offer, but it is smart to do ?
For that we have to compare it to the starting techs the other civs have.

• Greece: Bronze and Alphabet -=> No trades spoilt; bronze is still unknown to us and we start with Alphabet.
• Russia: Bronze and Pottery -=> We loose the pottery trade, but have better trade for Bronze.
• Germany: Bronze and warrior code -=> We can still trade for both techs.
• Spain: Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial -=> We only loose Ceremonial burial as we start with Alphabet.
• Korea: Bronze and Alphabet -=> No trades spoilt; bronze is still unknown to us and we start with Alphabet.
• The Netherlands: Pottery and Alphabet -=> We loose only the pottery trade as we start with Alphabet.

We also need to think on how needed the techs are.

• The Wheel: useful for trading and city-placement as it reveals horses.
• Pottery: useful for growth.
• Ceremonial Burial: not very useful itself, but has some trade-value and without that included in the trade the trade would have been too expensive.

So, if we had done my deal, we'd have bought a full monopoly tech, The Wheel, a near monopoly tech Ceremonial Burial (reasonably tradable) and a partly tradable tech pottery.

In Jurimax's trade we have missed out on the monopoly tech (the wheel), bought a not so tradable bronze working at monopoly prizes and bought a near monopoly tech (Ceremonial Burial). In my Point of view bronze working doesn't do us any good - yet. We do not need protetction - yet; warriors are still fine against barbarians.

My conclusion:

• It was smart to buy 3 techs for the price of 2 + some loose gold.
• The moment of trade was ok, as there is limited chance we'd meet someone else soon who we can sell the techs to, but we "need" pottery
• The choice of techs to obtain was less than 67% ok. We needed the Wheel + Potterey, not Bronze. CB was just a bonus.

 

[Jurimax]

@Rik:
I haven't made any trade yet, as I was awaiting the comments of my teammembers, the trainers and our examinator.
So I can still make an OK deal. The named trade could be made, I just didn't make it, I saved before trading.

Greetz Jurimax

PS: will continue tonight

 

[Jurimax]

Okay, I finished my turns, but before posting log and save here are some screenies as appetisers:

 

[Jurimax]

And here are our friends:

 

[Jurimax]

And some new friends:

 

[Jurimax]

And finally here's the log with the save:
turn 0 - 3000 BC

set own prefs
<press enter>

turn 1 - 2950 BC

Carthage: changed to Settler
move Settler towards first city location
Warrior explores and finds another GH
Eastern Curragh explores
Western Curragh explores
lux tax to 10%

IBT:
Worker completes mine

turn 2 - 2900 BC

Warrior explores
Eastern Curragh explores
Western Curragh explores
Settler founds Utica (according to the dotmap)
Utica: Curragh in 8
Worker: road towards where 3rd city will be

turn 3 - 2850 BC

Worker: roads 3rd cow (trade connection for 3rd city)
Warrior explores
Eastern Curragh explores and sees some Incense
Western Curragh explores
MM Carthage to let the growth coincide with the completion of the Settler

turn 4 - 2800 BC

Warrior explores and sees barb
Western Curragh explores
Eastern Curragh explores and finds the Japs

Trade possibility:
as posted

I won't trade just yet, Carthage is about to build Settler (2t) and the Worker is already providing a link to the trade network, besides we might still meet another civ (wishfull thinking) so that could open up other trade opportunities.

turn 5 - 2750 BC

Warrior fortifies on hill as barb got closer
Worker moves to SG as it'll need to be mined for a Settler pump
Western Curragh explores
Eastern Curragh explores
MM Carthage and hire Taxman (nets us 2 extra gold (one by lowering lux tax to 0 and one by Carthage) and still gets us Settler in 1t)

IBT:
Carthage: Settler completed
--> Barracks as prebuild for Granary

turn 6 - 2710 BC

Worker: roads SG
Settler: moves to city location by the lake
Western Curragh explores
Eastern Curragh explores
Warrior continues exploring after barb fortifies

IBT:
barb is afraid and runs away

turn 7 - 2670 BC

Warrior explores and sees a barb camp on a mountain
Settler in position (sees barb camp 2 tiles away)
Eastern Curragh explores
Western Curragh explores

Japs must have gotten gold from GH they now have 35g (they are researching at full throttle but the deal for 140g still stands so they're not researching our techs)

turn 8 - 2630 BC

Leptis Magna founded
--> Warrior
Carthage switched to Warrior (no loss of shields) in case barb decides to sack LM the Warrior from Carthage will get there in time)
Worker mines SG
Warrior explores
Western Curragh explores and spots Incense not too far from our core
Eastern Curragh explores

IBT:
exploring Warrior survives barb attack flawlessly
barb moves out of camp near LM... in the other direction

Carthage completes Warrior
--> Barracks for prebuilding Granary

turn 9 - 2590 BC

Carthage Warrior -> LM
Warrior explores
Western Curragh explores
Eastern Curragh explores and sees Russian border!!!

IBT:
Utica complets Curragh
--> Worker

turn 10 - 2550 BC

lux tax to 10% for Carthage
Curragh (Utica) looks suicidal and will attempt to cross the great sea to the left at Cape Gold-Fish
Warrior -> LM and fortifies (don't like a barb camp this close)
Warrior explores
Western Curragh explores
Eastern Curragh contacts Russia

As you can see I haven't made any trades yet:
Why?
- our tech retained the same value with the Japanese every turn (so not researching one of our techs and no contacts)
- Carthage didn't need the Granary yet

Note to next player:
Carthage is building Barracks as prebuild for Granary (needs Pottery which got cheaper at my last turn with the contact with Russia).
We should consider sending escorts along with our Settlers as the area is crawling with barbs.
For an Arch map, we're on one huge island (maybe we share it with more than one civ)
The Eastern Curragh can explore the Russian lands while the Western Curragh can circumnavigate our island.
The 3rd Curragh could be sent on a suicide mission at Cape Gold-Fish.
My land exploration wasn't that great (I could have explored more to the east of Carthage) as I wanted to see more of the lands of the Japanese (and locate possible choke points)

 

[Jurimax]

As to trading, we can get Pottery, Bronze Working and Ceremonial Burial cheaper now, both Russia and Japan also know of a tech the other doesn't: Russia: Warrior Code, Japan: The Wheel.

Russia and Japan will let go off Pottery for 93g
The same for Ceremonial Burial
Bronze Working will cost 147g with both
Japan will let go of The Wheel for: 224g and 7gpt
Russia will let go of Warrior Code for: 231g and 2gpt

BTW Russia doesn't know Alphabet
and Japan doesn't know Alphabet and Masonry

Greetz Jurimax

 

[trikos]

@Jurimax: Looks good

I will look at the log and the game tomorrow.

 

[Rik Meleet]

tip: Warrior code and The Wheel are the only techs known to only 1 civ at the start; thus highly tradable.
Russia doesn't start with WC though; what does that mean ?

Paying gpt at this point in the game usually backfires. It is best to use our techs and our gold to trade.

 

[Jurimax]

@Rik:
I was just pointing out the possibilities and the relative value of the monopoly techs, I wasn't planning on trading for gpt.

Russia and Warrior Code:
They either popped it from a GH (they're expansionist)
They're close to Germany (who starts with WC) and managed a trade
They were able to research it themselves (Japan also gained two techs besides their starting techs and they're not expansionist, so the likelihood of them popping good huts is slim)

On a side-note:
Russia still has its 10 starting gold, Ceremonial Burial is worth less than Warrior Code, even for the AI, so this rules our the trade with Germany (right?)
Self research is possible, Warrior Code needs only 90 beakers (for a human player that is, the AI only needs 80% of that amount (72 beakers)) (they could even have researched Ceremonial Burial themselves (AI cost: 48 beakers))

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I'm up next right? so, got it.
I haven't looked at the save yet, so maybe I'll have a more concrete question once I do, but I'd like to hear what people are thinking trade-wise. We are in a position to trade with one, then trade that back to the other and trade that back to the first (this is trade brokering right?) at a profit.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

these are the trade possibilities that I'm looking at. I haven't played a turn yet, just what's available at the end of juri's turn:

trade possibilities:
japan: wheel
us: masonry + 67g

or
japan: pottery
us: 93g

or
japan:the wheel + pottery
us: masonry + 161g

or
japan: wheel + pottery + bw + 8g
us: masonry + alphabet

or
russia: wc + pottery
us: alphabet + 44g

I think we could trade masonry and gold for wheel. Then trade wheel for warrior code and pottery and maybe some gold one way or other. The trade wc back for bronze working or ceremonial burial or both maybe. We don't have to do all of this, but it would be nice to get pottery soon, the barracks that's a prebuild for granary will be finished in 6 turns right now.
@bede: thanks for the contacts info. I did know about that just forgot the version we were playing for a second.
@rik: i'm not going to email you the save for consideration since it's identical to the save jurimax has in his post.

 

[Bede]

My inclination would be to do the trades that net us the most gold and the most needed knowledge (pottery).

If you pull gold from the AI at this stage you limit their ability to purchase when they do make contact with each other.

What's the strategy here? Do we want a faster research pace or a slower one?

Housekeeping note: if you add your handle to your save it helps keep things straight at analysis time: e.g., trikos01_Bede_3000BC.sav

 

[peacemonger]

any way to anticipate how Russia is likely to value the wheel, or how japan is likely to value WC? I've been known to buy a tech anticipating a great brokering opportunity only to realize, well damn I guess the 3rd party didn't put the premium on the new tech I thought they would.

The other tricky part of early trades I've found is that since the AI is usually low on cash, that means "lumpy" trading. As purchasers, they have to be sort of all or nothing b/c techs is all they've got as currency. They can't top off a tech-tech purchase price with cash, so if they are buying a more valuable tech (but not quite valuable enough to be a 2-fer) they get off cheap.

Bede, Rik, thoughts?

p.s. @jurimax -- where do you find that info on beaker price of techs?

 

[Bede]

any way to anticipate how Russia is likely to value the wheel, or how japan is likely to value WC? I've been known to buy a tech anticipating a great brokering opportunity only to realize, well damn I guess the 3rd party didn't put the premium on the new tech I thought they would.

The other tricky part of early trades I've found is that since the AI is usually low on cash, that means "lumpy" trading. As purchasers, they have to be sort of all or nothing b/c techs is all they've got as currency. They can't top off a tech-tech purchase price with cash, so if they are buying a more valuable tech (but not quite valuable enough to be a 2-fer) they get off cheap.

Bede, Rik, thoughts?

p.s. @jurimax -- where do you find that info on beaker price of techs?

I use GreyFox's tech calculator to get a handle on beaker prices. The same basic info is avalable in CivAssist's Technology screen but GF's calculator lets you do "what-if's" by changing a field.

GreyFox TechCalculator

The risk you face in brokering is that your target party is already invested research into the tech you are buying. There is a spreadsheet that calculates research probabilities for the AI but I haven't played around with it enough to understand how it works or how well.

A rule of thumb I use is that if a tech is on the next tier you are most likely to get more value than if it is on the same tier; as someone else has pointed out, the AI tends to move across the tree tier by tier.

On the subject of discounts to the AI on researching:

I seem to remember that it applies in 1.29 and PTW but that the research discount no longer applies in C3C, though the production and Trade Rate factors do.

Then again I probably have a faulty memory...

 

[Jurimax]

@peacemonger:
the beaker cost can be easily seen via Civ Assist (you just have to incorporate the AI Emperor bonus)