What is the "Value" of a resource?

[Virtual Alex]

Mid-late game I often find myself with like a dozen spare resources. Obviously they do me no good. so I do my best to trade them all away for money or other resources with the AI. But I am having a hard time understanding the value of one resource. The AI will ALWAYS give me all of the GPT they have. From 2-25 per turn. Very rarely do they offer less than everything they have. But that gets me to thinking, am I getting ripped off?

The most I have ever seen an AI +GPT is like 25. (I play on standard world, Prince/Monarch) and he will be happy to give me all of it for bananas, or crabs. Seems like a good deal, but even for 3 GPT it's better than having a spare crab doing nothing.

Of course I understand that they gain a bonus from me as well, they get happiness and health or whatever. But unlike in civ 3 (Where adding a 4th lux to a civ will raise thier happiness a great deal) the +1 effect is quite minor.

So what are your thoughts on trading lux?

 

[mystikmind2005]

(vanilla)
My thoughts are that i have better things to do than to go looking for ways to let the AI insult my intelligence with what it offers in trades.

When i was first learning to play civ4, it did not take me too long to realise how pointless opening the diplomacy screen is.

If the AI offers a streight trade of one recource for another, since the diplomacy screen is already open, i will usually take the offer, but i know the AI will be cancelling the deal soon enough - but like i said, since the trade is already open and in front of me, oh well, i may as well take the deal.

 

[Virtual Alex]

So... You just ignore this part of the game almost entirely?

This has not been my experience at all. Firstly, AI tend to not cancel deals for a very long time, unless you do something insulting to them, or they declare on you. It's common for me to have a item for item deal for well over 30 turns. And if they cancel it and you simply as for it again they will usually accept. Item for item deals are no-brainers. You trade an item that doesn't do anything for you, for one that does.

I am more talking about money. Because like I said, the AI is almost always will to give me ALL the GPT they have, no matter how much it is.

 

[Genv [FP]]

I have to agree with Virtual Alex.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Will there ever be a time when the AI wont offer all the GPT they have for any resource?

I guess I should start asking the AI what they want for a resource when I have a high income. Maybe that will tell me about what a resource is worth?

 

[King Flevance]

Actually I think anytime an AI is paying you anymore than 10 GPT for a happy/health resource you are ripping them off. This is a problem that has plagued 4 since the beginning. The AI has no idea how much a resource is worth and drastically overvalues them. Especially military resources.
IMO each happy/health resource should have a value of 10 max.

Except Gold. (S. Paya) Gold should be valued at 30 GPT unless the trade partner in question has Divine Right. Then it should drop to 10 GPT as every other happy resource.

Strategic resources are different and get complicated. But here is what I think they should be valued at:

- Horses 50 GPT (or 5 Non-Str resources) - 10 GPT if trade partner has Rocketry.
- Iron 50 GPT (or 5 Non-Str resources)
- Copper 40 GPT (Or 4 Non-Str resources) - 10 GPT if trade parner has Industrialism
- Ivory 40 GPT (Or 4 Non-Str resources) - 10 GPT if trade parner has Guilds
- Coal 50 GPT (Or 5 Non-Str resources)
- Aluminum 80 GPT (Or 8 Non-Str resources)
- Oil 80 GPT (Or 8 Non-Str resources)
- Uranium 100 GPT (Or 10 Non-Str resources)

- Stone 80 GPT (Or 8 Non-Str resources) - 10 GPT if trade parner has Composites.
- Marble 80 GPT (Or 8 Non-Str resources) - 10 GPT if trade parner has Assembly Line.

I think thats all of them. This system is sketchy and has only been thought out for about the past 15 minutes. But using this system you could trade say copper and Ivory for Stone or Marble early on and have a good shot at wonders. Or whatever. And its a pretty simple method to follow for both sides (Human and AI) You could also trade Copper and 2 health reosurces and 20 GPT for marble or stone early on.

...I wonder how easy this would be to mod in and give a test drive.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Wow I have never even seen an AI have +50 GPT.

 

[King Flevance]

Well, in the system every resource has a gold value to give the AI a number to assign to it. But this way it would start seeing corn for instance the same as it sees 10 GPT. Or it would see its iron resource as an additional 50 GPT and so forth in trade negotiations. So it may see it doesn't have the 50 GPT required to ask you for horses, but it would see it has iron that is equal to your horses and be willing to trade iron for horses.

The only problem I see with the AI fully being capable of understanding this system is it also needs to view resources like techs. (I.E. Sometimes you may see the AI has 2 red iron resources and mousing over would offer the explanation "We just don't like you enough")

 

[Clam Spammer]

I've never seen an AI with more than 7 gpt. Most of the time they have none at all, even when I'm not trading with them. Is this just because the Noble AI is really bad at making money, or am I doing something wrong? (playing Warlords btw)

 

[Virtual Alex]

Yeah I think higher difficulty makes the AI have more money. I have seen 26 on monarch.

Depends on world size too of course.

 

[Junuxx]

First of all, the amount of gold per turn you see in diplomacy is not what they are making per turn, but what they are willing to trade with and to part with, per turn. No matter if the trading screen tells you they have 0 or 10 gold per turn, they could be making 200 per turn.

Second, keep in mind that number of cities, inflation, game time and other factors influence the gold value of a resource. On a tiny map, where you have like 6 cities, a happiness resource has less benefit than on a huge map where it satisfies people in dozens of cities.

You should try to compare their gain (Are their cities maxed out in happiness terms already or do they have room for growth left? Spy!) with what they will pay.

Also, you can try selling them stuff they don't really need. Like selling them horses once you have infantry, or selling them health stuff if they are all healthy, etc. One could say this is unfair or unbalancing, but looking at history I think it makes sense

 

[MrCynical]

I've never seen an AI with more than 7 gpt. Most of the time they have none at all, even when I'm not trading with them. Is this just because the Noble AI is really bad at making money, or am I doing something wrong? (playing Warlords btw)

The diplomacy screen doesn't show how much gpt the AI is making, only the amount that it is willing to trade (which is often nothing). Bear in mind the AI seems to scale gold costs for resources with empire size - the big the empire the more they'll pay/charge for a resource. That's why some deals will seem to cancel so often - if you involve gold per turn then as your/their empire expands/declines the AI will regard this as a less and less favourable change, and you'll rapidly hit the point where they regard it as unfavourable. 1:1 resource trades don't usually suffer this, and I very rarely see those cancelled.

The most I've ever got from the AI for a resource was 112gpt for a strategic resource (oil in modern age). They'd pay a lot more if they ever had more gpt available. 30+ is not that unusual for a health/happiness resource (and is very reasonable if a significant number of their cities are at the cap. I've been known to pay 20+ gpt for corporation resources - these really aren't huge sums when you crunch the numbers.

 

[natxavier]

I always invest in my trades. Let's say Roosevelt has given me 7 GPT for crab earlier. Many turns later, he now has 5 available GPT. I gift him 2 GPT until the # stops going up [in this case, 11 GPT]. Now I take his 11 GPT for whatever excess resource I need to unload. 10 turns later, I can cancel my gifted GPT and voila, I've maximized my profit.

 

[TheDS]

MystikMind doesn't like diplomacy. At all. His loss.

The quickest answer to your question is to turn it around: Ask to buy a resource from the AI and see how much he wants for it. This seems to usually be in the 20-30 range.

Another answer - to turn a phrase - is that it's worth whatever the seller is willing to take for it.

The more complicated answer to your question depends on what you want to do and how patient you are. In my experience, you can accept a measly 1 gpt or you can ignore it. If you take it, eventually they'll make another 1 gpt available, then you cancel the deal you have and renegotiate for the new value of 2. Occasionally, they get pissy and refuse to offer any gpt for a few turns, and sometimes when they come back to the table they offer less than the original deal, so it's not risk-free to ask for more money. Considering they ask for more money all the time for Corp resources, you shouldn't feel guilty about demanding more. Also, it can take longer to get the diplo-bonus for trade doing this.

As you have noted, a spare resource does nothing for you, so you may as well get something for it. Sure, you're getting ripped off, because they would NEVER sell you something for less than its value, but that's just what you have to live with. Be consoled by knowing you can deal with multiple partners and gain considerable extra gpt, while they're unlikely to consider taking a loss.

Strategic resources are valued more while they're needed, seemingly 3-5 times as much as the others. I don't sell or give those out very often, and usually only when they're not that big a deal to me any more, but if I'm desperate enough for green, I've been known to even trade Uranium.

 

[Clam Spammer]

The diplomacy screen doesn't show how much gpt the AI is making, only the amount that it is willing to trade (which is often nothing).

I kinda figured this was the case. Surely it's tied to their actual GPT in some way though? If they're already struggling for cash, they're not going to trade you much, are they?

Bear in mind the AI seems to scale gold costs for resources with empire size - the big the empire the more they'll pay/charge for a resource.

That's the other thing - I've been playing on Standard size maps, so the AI empires don't grow very big. This probably has something to do with it too.

 

[kazapp]

Not trading away surplus resources to the highest bidder is essentially throwing away free money. You can quite easily get an income of 50 gpt when you have a nice big empire, which can be the difference between victory and defeat all by itself.

The real problem is that you need to renegotiate those deals every so often to ensure the very best deal: as you have already found out, the AI is often willing to trade away all its surplus gpt.

What is needed here is an interface change so the computer automatically renegotiates any active resource-for-gold as soon as the gpt for trade increases above zero. Having to do all this work by myself just makes me irritated.

 

[TheDS]

It "can't" be done because sometimes the jerks refuse to renegotiate - instead of having an extra 1 or 2 gpt available, when you cancel an existing deal, sometimes it goes to 0. I don't know the rhyme or reason, but the jerks don't have any problem at all asking for more money when it's YOU they're selling surplus resources to.

 

[Kevie]

Okay, so I have a question. Lets say you have 4 golds in resource. Does the 4 gold count as 4+ happiness in every city that has forge? (or whatever building that synerges with gold resource)
Same with deer camps, furs, etc.

What about the food part of resources? Assuming that you cant work the tile because its not in your FC, does that wheat for example, give one food to the cities?

And lastly, what about the resources in trades? Does the hammers count? Food? I know the happiness counts. What about health?

 

[MrCynical]

Okay, so I have a question. Lets say you have 4 golds in resource. Does the 4 gold count as 4+ happiness in every city that has forge? (or whatever building that synerges with gold resource)
Same with deer camps, furs, etc.

No. If you have 1 gold resource, it gives +1 happiness in every city connected to it. If you have 4 gold resources you still only get +1 happiness, so you may as well trade away the surplus ones for other happiness resources that you don't have (and so will benefit from). Incidentally, a forge gives an extra +1 happiness - it isn't required for the first one. With a forge, one gold resource would therefore give +2 happiness.

What about the food part of resources? Assuming that you cant work the tile because its not in your FC, does that wheat for example, give one food to the cities?

And lastly, what about the resources in trades? Does the hammers count? Food? I know the happiness counts. What about health?

No. No resource directly gives food/hammers/commerce to connected cities. I know there are labels that seem to imply this, but they are just misleading. You only get those benefits on the resource tile itself. Happiness, health, and ability to construct units are the effects that you get by connecting resources.

 

[Kevie]

Well, I somewhat knew that Extra resources not in the FC would be used as trade bait. Better to ask than to assume. =]