Unfair Trading?

[Iver-P]

I'm curious if this is fair game in GOTM:

I'm way behind in tech.
I see that a nation is about to get eliminated from the game.
I buy all that nation's tech, owing them many gold per year.
They are defeated.
Debt is gone.
I do the dance of joy! [dance]

Is this considered an exploit?
Is this considered a cheat?

-or-

Is this just plain smart traiding?

 

[DaveMcW]

Yes, it's allowed. But your opponents will consider you a deal-breaker and won't let you pay per turn anymore.

 

[Baldrek]

Yes, it's allowed. But your opponents will consider you a deal-breaker and won't let you pay per turn anymore.

Is this true even though they get eliminated from the game altogether and EVEN though somebody else finishes them off??

 

[MadScot]

Yes, it's true AFAIK.

Same basis for the bizarre effect that if you have an alliance to defeat the X, and they die, you apparently are a deal breaker because the deal is cancelled. Even though the point of the deal was that they would, in fact, die.

No-one said it had to make sense.

 

[Iver-P]

Oops!

Appears I might as well toss in the towel on GOTM 16.

 

[VictorSim]

I am playing a game right now where I bought a lot of tech, including Democracy, on credit owing about 100 gpt. I then changed government types having only a few gold left. During the 8 rounds of anarchy I was unable to pay my creditors since I had no money. Nothing bad happened that I can tell.

I have since traded on credit several times with the same civs and they do not seem to have changed their opinion of me (a few gracious and polite types).

Seems like similar circumstances so I wouldn't toss in the towel yet!

 

[Aggie]

Originally posted by MadScot
Same basis for the bizarre effect that if you have an alliance to defeat the X, and they die, you apparently are a deal breaker because the deal is cancelled. Even though the point of the deal was that they would, in fact, die.

No-one said it had to make sense.

No, this is NOT true. I used to believe this theorie (MA vs a dying civ...). But some disagreed and then I tried to prove my point in a test. I was wrong: killing a civ with an MA does not give you a rep hit. Here you find my test. I don't know about the gpt deal with a dying civ though. I think I'm going to test this tonight. I give Spain 100 gpt for wolrd map and kill them in the same turn. Kinda like this idea

 

[Aggie]

Originally posted by VictorSim
During the 8 rounds of anarchy I was unable to pay my creditors since I had no money. Nothing bad happened that I can tell.

I think you kept on paying, I'm almost 100% sure about that....

 

[Yndy]

@victorsim
It happened to me also. But I think I got a rep hit for that (as in they would not trade for gpt from that time)

 

[flexo]

I guess it depends on the kind of deals you break. In the current GOTM I brutalised Japan badly. Taking deals, mobilizing, breaking it several times over until they where no more. This is something the other CIV remembered until the end of time. Nobody wanted ROP of MPP deals with me. Not that I wanted it with them either but I tried and tested to see if it would be possible

I did the same with america but only a few times (1 or 2 at most then Germany took care of them).

But this record isn't permanent. You can get out of the hole by being a nice guy. Not to mention that even thou everyone hated me I managed to win this GOTM by diplomacy. How? Welll ... that is for another thread I guess.

 

[RufRydyr]

Everyone is furious with me, but I've been doing techs for mega gold per turn and then declaring war. I thought that they would wise up, but they haven't. I've still been able to get ROPs with others. Don't want to go into any spoiler info, but this has been a really tough game for me and sometimes you have to be vicious.

 

[VictorSim]

Aggie, in Anarchy you earn no gold. My gold was at 0. I had a -84 income. How could I keep on paying? I was worried the game was going to disband units or sell improvements on me but nothing happened. The deals continued despite my inability to pay and no rep hit that I could discern. The game appears to have a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection clause!

 

[flexo]

The AI civs tend to be ticked off all the time. Either they don't like you got more tech, less tech, the same tech, more culture, less culture, more pop, less pop, more gold, no gold, happy people, resources ... whatever. There is always something to tick 'em off. The only happy time appears to be when you have a common goal to smash someone else. But that usually only lasts about 20t or so.

 

[Iver-P]

Originally posted by DaveMcW
Yes, it's allowed. But your opponents will consider you a deal-breaker and won't let you pay per turn anymore.

Dave -

I think you are correct, based on the rest of my game. But the poor "credit rating" didn't seem to kick in for a while. Early on some civs seemed willing to accept my credit. But by the late industrial age when I tried to buy techs it would have taken over 700g/year for ONE TECH! Being unwilling to do that, I shifted into cash accumulation mode and bought the same tech for under 3000 cash on the barrel. Me thinks <sic> they didn't trust me.

The final outcome was good despite my apparently foolish trade in 1100ad. Did those three "free" techs give me the boost I needed to win? Hmmm... I would have to play the game again from that point to find out.

Anyway:

This turned out to be my first win ever on Emperor!
And my best score in any game of Civ!!!

Now I think I SHALL do the dance of joy! [dance]

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Iver-P
I think you are correct, based on the rest of my game. But the poor "credit rating" didn't seem to kick in for a while. Early on some civs seemed willing to accept my credit. But by the late industrial age when I tried to buy techs it would have taken over 700g/year for ONE TECH! Being unwilling to do that, I shifted into cash accumulation mode and bought the same tech for under 3000 cash on the barrel. Me thinks <sic> they didn't trust me.

There is a logical explaination for that. At the early day, those civs haven't meet each other yet; therefore, one civ may not know what you did to another. For example, you may have a bad rep with CivA, and you just meet CivB. Just as long as CivA hasn't yet meet CivB, your rep is perfect with CivB.

 

[Phillip_martin]

Originally posted by flexo
The AI civs tend to be ticked off all the time. Either they don't like you got more tech, less tech, the same tech, more culture, less culture, more pop, less pop, more gold, no gold, happy people, resources ... whatever. There is always something to tick 'em off. The only happy time appears to be when you have a common goal to smash someone else. But that usually only lasts about 20t or so.

I would have to disagree. I tend to play honourably in most of my games (doesn’t get me the fastest result or highest score but hey) and have learnt the following to keep the AI happy:

• Don’t break treaties. Covered in previous posts.
• Don’t declare war while in the targets territory.
• Don’t raise or abandon a city with a majority of opponents citizens in it.
• Keep up regular trades with the other civs. Every 10 to 20 turns is enough to keep the AI on a friendly basis. The quicker you want the relationship to improve the more your offer and more often. The reverse is true of this - Ignoring another Civ means they drift down towards the furious end of the attitude.
• Make your deals more than fair. Don’t screw each deal down to the last gold piece. Throw in freebies, pay above market rate, give stuff away!!!! It all helps in the long run.
• As alluded to in a previous post declaring war on a common foe whether it be by a MPP or alliance lifts you reputation up several notches. I rarely achieve “gracious” without warefare.

Actually, after reading this list I should be playing a “Realms Beyond” game!

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Phillip_martin

• Don’t break treaties. Covered in previous posts.
• Don’t declare war while in the targets territory.

No problem there! I rarely do those things anyway.

• Don’t raise or abandon a city with a majority of opponents citizens in it.

That would be very tough for me. I usually raze most cities.

• Keep up regular trades with the other civs. Every 10 to 20 turns is enough to keep the AI on a friendly basis. The quicker you want the relationship to improve the more your offer and more often. The reverse is true of this - Ignoring another Civ means they drift down towards the furious end of the attitude.

No problem there! I often do that anyway.

• Make your deals more than fair. Don’t screw each deal down to the last gold piece. Throw in freebies, pay above market rate, give stuff away!!!! It all helps in the long run.

This could be hard for me to do, since I usually squeeze them out to the last gold piece.

• As alluded to in a previous post declaring war on a common foe whether it be by a MPP or alliance lifts you reputation up several notches. I rarely achieve “gracious” without warefare.

Not a problem there! Although, I usually don't really care what they think of me.

Actually, after reading this list I should be playing a “Realms Beyond” game!

Actually, after reading this list, I should be ready to play MOO3 game.

 

[Creepster]

Actually, after reading this list, I should be ready to play MOO3 game.

Your assuming it will actualy come out.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Phillip_martin

• Make your deals more than fair. Don’t screw each deal down to the last gold piece. Throw in freebies, pay above market rate, give stuff away!!!! It all helps in the long run.

AFAIK, giving stuff away can improve your attitude rating (but not your rep), although the impact seems to be minimal to me. I often give techs away to weak civs that are providing a buffer zone (or a million other reasons), and their attitude vary rarely changes from one state to another because of it.

Not screwing every last ounce of gold out of them is a common theory to keep the AI happy, but I have seen no evidence to support this hypothosis. I am happy to be proved wrong, can you provide evidence?

 

[Charis]

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Actually, after reading this list I should be playing a “Realms
> Beyond” game!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------



> Actually, after reading this list, I should be ready to play MOO3 game.

Do the CF folks (webmasters et al.) have any plans along the lines of MOO3? Succession games increased the fun (and learning rate) of Civ3 for me ten-fold.

Charis