Two on an Island

[Yakk]

So the AI refuses to trade away technologies that they don't know any other civilizations as having.

This makes a "2 on an island" situation ... crippling for the AI (and the player who shares an island with them), as nobody is willing to trade with nobody.

Now, in a real "1 on 1" game, this makes sense game-wise -- why help the other person up, when they might be trading better than you? But in a game of civ where you are but 1 continent in the world...

Players have access to how many civilizations they face -- and the AI does in code.

Possibly civilizations should be willing to trade with people they are 'pleased' with if they are the only other civilization they know of, and there is more than 1 other civilization in the world? That would make the "two on an island" situation ... less crippling.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Interesting. I agree, if the AI is on good terms with another civ, if they're stuck together and competing against as-of-yet unknown rivals, they should definitely trade techs, at least if it's getting another useful tech in return.

 

[Arlborn]

That really happens? Are you sure? I was pretty sure I traded techs with Cathy(alone in same continent) before we both met any other Civs in one of my recent games... Hum, gotta check.

 

[scu98rkr]

Again this is more of a "role playing AI" versus "play to win AI".

As far as the AI is aware you are the only 2 CIVs in the whole world therefore if they dont get on they might not trade.

Native americans CIVs didnt spend their whole state budgets on the remote possibility more advanced people would come from over the seas and they'd have to fight them.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I don't really think that the reason America was undeveloped is that the cultures did not trade their monopoly techs...

 

[Yakk]

Even with prolific trading, there is less GNP to trade among. So isolated communities will be backwards.

And yes, roleplaying wise, "two on an island" is similar to "two in a world". Two in a world is, however, the special case where the zero-sum nature of Civ as a game changes the rules, and trading with your opponent is never a good idea for both parties. You can hope for an information asymmetry in which you know that trading is a good idea, while your opponent thinks trading is a good idea, but that relies on both of you thinking the other is an idiot.

I'm saying that two societies that only know about each other, and aren't actively at war, should have tech swapping going on. And it should be greater than the existing (# of civ you know with tech)/(# of civilizations in the world)*30% bonus you get to research.

I do need to confirm that it is still there. However, I was playing a game recently, and suddenly my otherwise "I am not ready to trade this yet" opponent started trading technologies. Low and behold, he had managed contact with another civilisation.

 

[scu98rkr]

I don't really think that the reason America was undeveloped is that the cultures did not trade their monopoly techs...

Well obviously doh !, buts it just an example.

The point is that people are suggesting the AI trade tech because there are other CIV not on the island.

My point is the AI doesnt know this, just like the native americans didnt know there were other people and didnt plan for the eventuality. Therefore why should the CIV trade techs.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

My point is the AI doesnt know this, just like the native americans didnt know there were other people and didnt plan for the eventuality. Therefore why should the CIV trade techs.

Because it benefits both of them. As long as they don't hate each other/aren't planning a war against each other, then there's really no reason why they shouldn't trade techs.

 

[Yakk]

So, the case of "do not trade techs" is a special case of "you know you are engaged in a zero sum game" -- ie, you know that there is nothing out there, and hurting your opponent is the same as helping you (and vice versa).

In that case, inter-civilisation trade makes no sense.

However, if we are role playing, the civilisations in question don't exist in a zero-sum game. Trading iron working for metal casting would make both societies better off.

The AI currently has code that makes it refuse to trade (or extremely reluctant to trade, actually) technologies that one AI has a monopoly over, among all known other players.

This makes sense in the context of "we are engaged in a research race with a reasonably large number of other civilisations, and we want to keep our competitive advantage", with the extra gamey effect of slowing down inter-civilisation collaboration.

It also generates a "tech diffusion" effect -- where technologies are first a monopoly, then a duopoly, then spread over nearly every civilisation which isn't hopelessly backwards. This happens pretty naturally using the AI trading engine. Ie, the trades emulate a distinct effect.

However, this breaks down when you have two on an island (and to a lesser extent, 3). The extreme reluctance to trade when you have a monopoly means that there is less "diffusion" effects between the two civilisations than arises as a natural consequence when there are 3 or 4 civilisations.

Even the "you get a 30% bonus to research when the entire world knows a technology except for you" code ends up behaving differently (if there are 11 civs, and there is 2 on an island, then the bonus is 3% if the other side has the tech. If there are 2 civs, and the other side has the tech, the bonus is 30%), slowing diffusion even more.

All of this has the negative "game" effect that islands with 1 or 2 civilisations end up being significantly backwards. 3 is a large jump up, and as it reaches 4+ things level off at a significantly higher plateau (as things break down into tiers of "high tech" civs who trade among themselves -- becoming an effective island -- and "low tech" who contribute next to nothing).

I call this effect negative because it means that the difficulty of the game as a player changes randomly based off of if you are in a large or small continent, which makes it harder to set up a game that is at the right challenge level. Being on a small continent can easily be a 1 to 2 'notch' handicap (depending on how small), as your society has to work a lot harder to go from the alphabet to the optics level of development. (Post-optics, you can trade techs world wide)