What Happened to Trading Civ "Introductions"???

[agoodfella]

In Civ III, you could trade "introductions" to Civs that other Civs had not met yet.

This doesn't seem to be an option in Civ IV, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[agoodfella]

anyone??? ....

 

[SadBloke]

Yeah it's strange, I've not had the opportunity to do this either - despite it being evident the other guy doesn't know yet.

I imagine that in the case of where I was isolated that this would be a powerful thing for me to be able to ask for trade as well - I wonder why it's not available?

 

[Gogf]

As far as I know, you can't trade contacts in Civ4.

 

[Seanirl]

Hopefully they patch it in...

 

[Dragonlord]

Hopefully they patch it in...

I don't think they will - I remember reading about this as a design feature which makes exploring more important ... to contact someone, you either have to find them or they find you!

Build caravels...

 

[Seanirl]

I suppose... it'd still be nice to trade contact though... but maybe it's for the best.

 

[ytsejam02]

It kinda makes sense if you think about it. Early in the game, without much technology, how can someone introduce you to someone else? For example, if your on an island with no boats, and you met one other AI who knows other AI's, and you're in the stoneage, how can you possible contact them?

I imagine if you haven't met someone by the time you discovered some sort of advanced communications, you would automatically come in contact with them.

I haven't played long enough to know how the advanced tech's might come into play, but it would make sense.

 

[Magian]

Trading contacts in Civ3 was "borrowed" from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. There you could buy or sell the radio frequency of anoter civ, but this was a SciFi game.

I agree with Civ4 team about removing it from the game. It shouldn't be available until the modern times but usually you've already met everybody till that time.

For me is better like that.

 

[agoodfella]

Early in the game, without much technology, how can someone introduce you to someone else? For example, if your on an island with no boats, and you met one other AI who knows other AI's, and you're in the stoneage, how can you possible contact them?

I totally disagree.

Why would this be technology reliant?

If you have contact with Civ A, the next time you meet Civ A, why is it so difficult to say:

"hey, I've got another Civ, say, Civ B, that I'd like you to meet that you haven't met yet, but it will cost you XXX"

Do you need fission research for that?

You simply have Civ A's send contact through YOU to Civ B's contact that YOU speak with. Simple. Does that require rocket science? Frankly, I think that's the most least techno-intensive thing I can think of. Remember forget about boats, crossing oceans, etc - it doesn't matter if one of the parties is in the stone ages - as long as he has contact to YOU and the third party does as well - then YOU can act as a liaison. Period.

This rewards Civs that have expanded rapidly - or at least give you the option to trade this as an asset.

 

[Nightfang]

Well, since suicide galleys are no longer an option, and trading contacts has been taken away, it is now less important to be the first to locate the other civs and then extort everyone else for cash so they can talk to them. Used to make me very mad when the other civs would find the people on the other continent and then sell them to me for practically everything I owned. It was nice when you could get them and jealously guard them yourself, but I will not miss it.

 

[mrjepson]

It is almost better this way. Now you don't have someone you can't reach getting steadily more angry with you for a thousand years because you are a different religion

 

[Padmewan]

Truth is the idea of communicating with a civ forever just because your galley randomly entered their water space once isn't realistic either, but it's a fiction we've gotten used to. If you're halfway across the globe from another civ, in the iron age, and between the two of you are unfriendly civs and hostile barbarians, exactly how would you "trade technology" in real life? Now that I'm started, the idea of swapping the "knowledge" of monotheism just because you invented paper is pretty ludicrous too... let's just accept that it's a game and move on...

 

[Fieryphoenix]

I think the whole idea of "having contacts" is that you have enough traffic back and forth to have meaningful relations with the other civ. Just knowing that they exist and being told where won't do that... it takes dimplomatic exchanges, and those are expensive.

 

[DaveShack]

I was browsing through the tech tree and thought I saw a tech which enabled trading contacts. Can't remember what it was offhand...

 

[ytsejam02]

I totally disagree.

Why would this be technology reliant?

If you have contact with Civ A, the next time you meet Civ A, why is it so difficult to say:

"hey, I've got another Civ, say, Civ B, that I'd like you to meet that you haven't met yet, but it will cost you XXX"

Do you need fission research for that?

You simply have Civ A's send contact through YOU to Civ B's contact that YOU speak with. Simple. Does that require rocket science? Frankly, I think that's the most least techno-intensive thing I can think of. Remember forget about boats, crossing oceans, etc - it doesn't matter if one of the parties is in the stone ages - as long as he has contact to YOU and the third party does as well - then YOU can act as a liaison. Period.

This rewards Civs that have expanded rapidly - or at least give you the option to trade this as an asset.

Fair enough. I never claimed you needed advanced technology, but if you want to get that specific, there really should be some sort of linguistic tech for this to work, considering most civilizations don't speak the same language.

At any rate, if trading contact was available, I'd argue that it should only be used to offer to someone else. You should not be able to ask for it, cause if you could, you'd already be aware of the civ and should be able to access them anytime you want.

Either way, it's gone. And it doesn't reward expansive civs. You can explore without expanding.