Unfair trading: What is this madness?

[Trav'ling Canuck]

What about taking a "free city" and keeping it?

No impact on your relationship with anybody, as far as I can tell.

 

[Zaarin]

AI sometimes can be very picky and even not accept a free luxury as gift unless you add some gold on top.

If the AI is insisting on a luxury plus GPT while offering nothing in return, then they already have a copy of that luxury. They'll usually still accept it as a gift, but it won't benefit your relationship.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

If the AI is insisting on a luxury plus GPT while offering nothing in return, then they already have a copy of that luxury. They'll usually still accept it as a gift, but it won't benefit your relationship.

I'm pretty sure it will give you the relationship bonus associated with offering them a gift. Which stacks with the bonus associated with offering them a good trade.

Both of these degrade rapidly (10 turns?) but they can tide you over until warmongering penalties also degrade.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm pretty sure it will give you the relationship bonus associated with offering them a gift. Which stacks with the bonus associated with offering them a good trade.

Both of these degrade rapidly (10 turns?) but they can tide you over until warmongering penalties also degrade.

It doesn't, because I just tried it. I had good relations with my neighbor Japan, but not good enough to get him to declare friendship with me so we could form an Alliance. I had a monopoly on the world's Mercury, so I gifted him a copy (even though I had already traded him some). Checking the numbers before and after (including waiting the turn after), it had no affect on our relationship.

 

[RealHuhn]

This has to be a bug right? Look at this ridiculous trade xD
He's allied to me and that is all of his gold.

Spoiler :

 

[MaryKB]

The AI loses its mind over Great Works. It might be a programming glitch: people have been discovering them lately, and that looks especially absurd!

 

[Victoria]

This has to be a bug right?

have you read sense and sensibility? its a great read, I don't blame him

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

have you read sense and sensibility? its a great read, I don't blame him

First edition. Signed by the author. Almost mint condition (just a little foxing on the edges). Compulsive collector. It all makes sense.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I'm getting this so bad it is ruining my game. I can't even get open borders with any civ without a gpt payment (min 3 for unknown reason, but most are around 10). For a one on one luxury trade they add 30-40 gpt. It doesn't seem to matter what they think of me. Neutral or friendly is the same deal.

Because of this I can't develop any relationships thus making the problem worse. This is definitely not intended.

Add that to the joint war issue still happening (twice in my current game) and it's not fun. Both times I was absolutely unaware of any reason why joint war would have been declared. They were some of my most promising relationships.

Please fix this!

 

[Art Morte]

There's defo something weird going on with the AI's valuation of great works. Sometimes they won't give me 10 gold-per-turn for one, other times they are willing to give hundreds of gold-per-turn. This really needs fixing.

 

[Abaxial]

It would be nice if the whole trading system were overhauled in the next expansion. For instance, there could be a global market in resources, so that, for instance, the base price for luxuries is X, where X varies according to the scarcity of a given good. If you (or an AI) ask to buy a good, your offer must be at least X; but you can offer to SELL the good at less than X to a favoured trading partner. Cornering the market in, say, silk, would be a good move.

 

[Victoria]

I can't even get open borders with any civ without a gpt payment...Add that to the joint war issue still happening

May one suggest perhaps one is sitting on the fence and finally getting pushed off.
I just do not have your issue apart from the odd joint war which I either expect or understand when its happening.
If you want to fix this happening start by sending a delegation to everyone you meet on the turn you meet them apart from perhaps a neighbour you either know you will attack or you suspect will attack you regardless.
As soon as you get open borders ability throw it out there and offer it to everyone that in not right next door and aggressive. Just say here is open borders how much will you pay me. Do not ask for their open borders unless you need them. Their open borders means nothing, your open borders you sell them also provides +3.

So open borders + delegation is +6 and should be pushing some above 0 unless you really had bad luck with first impressions but these should have reduced a couple of points by the time you get open borders.

Either at this stage or earlier you should be thinking who do you want as friends and who as enemies, based on whose agendas do you have the best chance etc etc. Then YOU do a joint war with someone against someone else when it costs little to do so in warmongering points as you get a handsome +5 that degrades veeery slowly. This is why civs are joint warring you.
When you offer your luxes up, offer them to someone at war who will rip your hands off for them as the AI is rubbish at war... also look for civs with large cities, they pay more if they need the amenities.

When I do all of this I'm just fine with deals. If you do nothing it can be a struggle. You should be able to get good deals with any civ that has not denounced you and indications are thats whats happening with you, you are not getting those early plusses and manipulating events to get some friends... including joint wars. Joint wars could be a bit like marriages in the early days.

 

[WillowBrook]

I had an odd situation last evening. Tamar had denounced me, but she showed up with what looked like a nice trade offer: one of my extra furs for one of her olives and 6 gpt. But I was already importing olives from someone else, so I suggested dyes, which she had also two of, instead, but no dice. When I asked what would make it work, she wanted 36 gpt along with my furs for the dyes.

Any ideas what was going on? Why did she value her olives so much less than her dyes when she appeared to have an extra of each? Did she know I already had olives and that, by some unintended weird trick of AI logic, made it less valuable to her in the trade? Is it possible that no other civ was interested in the olives but that another one would have bought the dyes from her? I didn't count how many of each were on the map, but I know that at least two other civs had olives in their borders, not sure about dyes.

 

[MrRadar]

I'm getting this so bad it is ruining my game. I can't even get open borders with any civ without a gpt payment (min 3 for unknown reason, but most are around 10). For a one on one luxury trade they add 30-40 gpt. It doesn't seem to matter what they think of me. Neutral or friendly is the same deal.

Care to upload your save? It would be interesting to have a glance.

Their open borders means nothing, your open borders you sell them also provides +3.

I find getting their open borders useful, as then I can scout out their territory and uncover the whole map long before Earth satellite is launched, so I can find potential good trade route destinations. You can get routes to allied cities with Wisselbanken/Arsenal of Democracy cards plus Reform Coinage dedication bonuses that bring in indecent amounts of cash and production. Then you can give away your luxes to the AI as charity.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I had an odd situation last evening. Tamar had denounced me, but she showed up with what looked like a nice trade offer: one of my extra furs for one of her olives and 6 gpt. But I was already importing olives from someone else, so I suggested dyes, which she had also two of, instead, but no dice. When I asked what would make it work, she wanted 36 gpt along with my furs for the dyes.

Any ideas what was going on? Why did she value her olives so much less than her dyes when she appeared to have an extra of each? Did she know I already had olives and that, by some unintended weird trick of AI logic, made it less valuable to her in the trade? Is it possible that no other civ was interested in the olives but that another one would have bought the dyes from her? I didn't count how many of each were on the map, but I know that at least two other civs had olives in their borders, not sure about dyes.

What I'm most impressed about there is that you remembered that you were already importing olives . I miss the Civ 5 days when I could tell from the trade screen what I had and what I needed.

Specifically to your question, another alternative is that although the screen shows her as having two dyes, that may be what she is producing, not what she has to trade. She may already have traded one away, and therefore was pricing your offer as the equivalent of asking for her last copy of a luxury. But that's speculation on my part.

 

[Victoria]

Any ideas what was going on?

Only if you provided a zip of the log files which means you must have played the last 50 turns or so without closing and reopening the interface. Anything else would be along the speculative lines of @Trav'ling Canuck

I find getting their open borders useful

Yes agreed, I did say unless you needed to, I’ll only do so when I need to rather than blanket open. Gold is better than a void I cannot look in to.

 

[legalizefreedom]

May one suggest perhaps one is sitting on the fence and finally getting pushed off.
I just do not have your issue apart from the odd joint war which I either expect or understand when its happening.
If you want to fix this happening start by sending a delegation to everyone you meet on the turn you meet them apart from perhaps a neighbour you either know you will attack or you suspect will attack you regardless.
As soon as you get open borders ability throw it out there and offer it to everyone that in not right next door and aggressive. Just say here is open borders how much will you pay me. Do not ask for their open borders unless you need them. Their open borders means nothing, your open borders you sell them also provides +3.

So open borders + delegation is +6 and should be pushing some above 0 unless you really had bad luck with first impressions but these should have reduced a couple of points by the time you get open borders.

Either at this stage or earlier you should be thinking who do you want as friends and who as enemies, based on whose agendas do you have the best chance etc etc. Then YOU do a joint war with someone against someone else when it costs little to do so in warmongering points as you get a handsome +5 that degrades veeery slowly. This is why civs are joint warring you.
When you offer your luxes up, offer them to someone at war who will rip your hands off for them as the AI is rubbish at war... also look for civs with large cities, they pay more if they need the amenities.

When I do all of this I'm just fine with deals. If you do nothing it can be a struggle. You should be able to get good deals with any civ that has not denounced you and indications are thats whats happening with you, you are not getting those early plusses and manipulating events to get some friends... including joint wars. Joint wars could be a bit like marriages in the early days.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I'm usually in it for good relations. I always offer delegation, etc as soon as it is available, so I'm doing that. I've never needed to give anything away to have decent relationships before and I'm not willing to do that on principal. It has a value to me and I'm going to get something out of it. Besides, this has been happening since very early in the game. I don't believe this could be intended, or that my habits are the cause. I'm not new.

One thing that has hurt me in this particular game is I have extended wartime, so everyone has some modifier against me for that, but some are still friendly, if not friends. This is probably why open borders has been so hard to get, etc. The prime reason for this is I've used it to explore the loyalty mechanic when taking an enemy city overseas, which by the way is far too big of a hassle. This is a cold fish even for a peace monger.

I haven't been denounced but once by Shaka and even that was weird because I didn't get any notification. I just noticed the icon. Something's wrong.

I was wanting to explore the alliance system too, but not having much luck in this game. At one point I had a military alliance with someone, but I still couldn't get a decent trade.

I will upload a save when I get a chance. I'd love to hear some explanation. But to be honest, the only explanation that will be good enough is this needs to be fixed in the game, otherwise I will be spending a lot less time with it.

 

[Victoria]

Something's wrong.

It does sound like there is an unidentifiable bug out there

I will upload a save when I get a chance.

Only the logs will help

 

[WillowBrook]

Only if you provided a zip of the log files which means you must have played the last 50 turns or so without closing and reopening the interface.

Unfortunately, I closed the program after I was done playing last evening. I'll try to remember to do that next time something weird like that happens.

@Trav'ling Canuck - I only remembered because it was just a turn or two earlier that I'd traded for them. I agree it's annoying not to see what you're importing in the trade screen - I seem to recall there was a mod for it in vanilla, but I haven't tracked it down for R&F.

 

[legalizefreedom]

For those interested, try to trade lux or get open borders in this save at turn 181. Granted, I've had a long war going against the first joint dow on me, but I still have decent relations with a few people. That doesn't seem to help in the trade department.