Who else is sick of AI's unreasonable trade requests?

[siredgar]

I get so tired of other civs hitting me up for outlandishly unreasonable trades:

"I'll give you my:
world map

for your:
world map, 780 gold, gunpowder."

Why would I want to do that?!! And it gets so annoying when three or four civs do this to me during every other turn!

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by siredgar
I get so tired of other civs hitting me up for outlandishly unreasonable trades:

I use trading as an essential strategy. You are either perceived as weak (a pushover) or unreliable as a trading partner. Try to cultivate a better relationship with your neighbors.

In any case, other civs are under no obligation to make your life easier.

 

[Mapache]

They obviously don't appreciate you. Teach them a lesson!

 

[eyrei]

Sometimes, you can remove some of the things they are asking for and they will still agree. The AI was actually programmed to try to trick you . Often, the AI will offer its world map for my world map and a tech. If I remove the tech, they are still willing to trade.

 

[Black Waltz]

Think of it this way: Do you offer the Rival Civs fair trades? Of course not. You know that if there is only 1 excess Horses and only you have them, and another Civ has none, they will be prepared to give a lot for it, and you will pump them for as much money and tech as you possibly could.

Thus why should the other Civ's not do the same things?

 

[hzm]

I am tired of these BS trade deals. This isn't the way international trade works, and how often today does a nation base its trade partnerships by if a nation is militarily weak?

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by hzm
I am tired of these BS trade deals. This isn't the way international trade works, and how often today does a nation base its trade partnerships by if a nation is militarily weak?

You are kidding, right?

 

[hzm]

Yes. I really should be a little less subtle. But the trades should be more equalized, and less set on what a human player might do.

 

[itsa95thing]

I never realy have the prob I just do what some of the others said and take away the crazy things then get a good deal. the only ones I have had prob's with every game except my last one is rome I dont like to totaly eliminate any civ unless im going for military vic, so one game I knocked rome down to one city and destroyed all of its improvement's after 10 turns roem still with one city demands tribute of 300 gold, and 2 techs I say no and they declaier war on me i go over with my caverly and kill there pikemen.

 

[acivguy]

I don't mind the AI trade requests. The thing that bothers me is that the AI treats the human player differently than other computer players. Early on, they sometimes will refuse 2 or 3 techs for 1, when your's are equal in research cost to their's.

I haven't played much since the new patch, but rarely do they come offering a fair deal...

hey, I'll give you some dyes for wines AND 47 gold/turn

 

[Supercilious]

Originally posted by Zachriel


I use trading as an essential strategy. You are either perceived as weak (a pushover) or unreliable as a trading partner. Try to cultivate a better relationship with your neighbors.

In any case, other civs are under no obligation to make your life easier.

You totally miss the point.

Other civs should make their OWN life easier. So, when I offer three techs (plus a World Map plus a luxury resource) to a Polite civ for a tech that is apporoximately equivalent in cost to the ones I offer AND I AM TURNED DOWN I can only assume the AI advisor, as usual, is crazy.

It happens regularly.

BTW, don't say the AI is so smart it wouldn't deal with me because it thought my deal too good; I had gradually increased it tech by tech.

 

[Allemand]

I get the impression that if I have a lot more trade resources than the AI, it thinks I should give more. Sort of like when I have 12 luxeries and the AI has 4, the ratio of giving is 3 of mine for 1 of his.

 

[Supercilious]

Originally posted by Allemand
I get the impression that if I have a lot more trade resources than the AI, it thinks I should give more. Sort of like when I have 12 luxeries and the AI has 4, the ratio of giving is 3 of mine for 1 of his.

Oh, really! That IS stupid of the AI. I am going to get ripped off just because I made the effort to earlier acquire more resources?? :crazyeyes I don't think so. No deal.

The only reason I offered such a deal was to improve relations.

BTW, there was no trade embargo extant in my above example.

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

i think the programmer guy said that the AI will not accept
trade deals unless it can get a 30% mark-up. all the civs
have priorities and it is for u to look for a civ that badly needs
something u have for a tech u don't.

 

[Beamup]

I think what creates most of the "unrealistic" trading results is that the AI does not use the same priorities real people do.

IRL, people are almost exclusively concerned with whether they personally benefit from a trade. So if a trade is offered with a value of $100 to one party and $130 to the other, the first party will generally accept this. They may try and hold out for $115 instead, but if $100 is the most they can get they'll generally take it - it being better to have $100 than to insist on $115 and get nothing.

In Civ 3, though, the AI's calculation seems to be not "will I benefit from this trade" but "will I benefit from this trade more than the player will." This is not totally unreasonable, it can be interpreted as simply playing to win, but it is not how things generally work IRL. It's also not how most human players seem to think - most of us seem a good deal more self-centered than that.

 

[Marzipan]

When I first saw this thread I was all set to chime in with a "right on brother". Now I think I generally agree that the AI asks for too much too often, but I'm not so sure.

In my current game, I asked Ghandi what he was asking for a tech he had (I think it was radio). He said one of my techs, world map, and 230 gold. I said to myself "tsk tsk, there they go again". To my surprise, however, Ghandi was willing to make the trade of the tech for tech, world map for world map, AND he GAVE ME 50 gold instead. So you definately have to try out different options on the bargaining table to see what the minimum they will settle for is.

In another example, same game, playing with the new patch, I had gotten a little ahead of all the other civs in tech. I was Rome on the northern end of the continent, Egypt was on the other end, and a powerful, although past its prime, Aztecistan was in the middle. Everyone else in the world except me and Montezuma were at war with Egypt, but I didn't want them to get wiped out so they could help keep Montezuma in check. A grateful Egypt eagerly purchased motorized transportation and flight from me for all the gold they had plus a luxury, and world map, I think it was like 1600 gold. It seems to me in the past, they would never have payed so much no matter what. Then when it was Montezuma's turn, he also offered to buy flight from me (I guess the Egyptians told him I had it) for all the gold he had which was like 2000, and I think he threw in a few other things too. Forgetting that it was his turn, I closed the bargaining table to look for a city that he might be willing to trade, then realized that I had passed up a good deal. When it was my turn again, I pulled up the bargaining table, and flight was no longer a tradeable tech, and he still had his 2000 or so gold. I can only assume that Egypt gave it to him for a substantially reduced price, but who knows maybe they got something else valuable instead of gold. I concluded from this second example that the AI leaders were willing to pay a hefty price for something valuable that they wouldn't have done before, and also that the AI tech trading process had perhaps been adjusted due to people's concerns about trading out of turn. It seems that I had right of first refusal in selling flight to Montezuma, but since I (inadvertently) refused, he still went ahead and got it from Egypt, whereas before the patch (?) he probably would have just gotten it from Egypt without even giving me a chance to sell it. The still not so good part of it is that he appeared to have gotten a much better deal from the AI leader than he would have from me though.

Personally I would like to see some changes in the bargaining table / trade advisor situation. The way it is now, it's not real bargaining, you just adjust things until you find the most they will give / minimum they will pay based on your trade advisor. I think the game would require more skill if the trade advisor wasn't quite so smart. You should have to actually make an offer to the other civ before you know for sure whether they will take it or not and vice versa.

 

[brody]

yeah, trade advisor is WAY too smart... I just keep changing things until I'm happy with the deal.

My current (and only, so far) game I was isolated on a smallish continent for a good part of the game - a minimum of 3 ocean squares in all directions... well, not exactly, there was a very roundabout sea route I hadn't been able to check, but still, for the most part I didn't do much exploring. Trading to get other people's world maps was a nightmare. They KNEW I was in the dark, and they KNEW I'd pay an arm and a leg. That may be the AI cheating (I'm just not sure), but it was very good in my opinion. Since I've been able to see the map, my world map has actually brought in money now and again to other civ's who apparently still can't see the whole world.

As for techs, I always try to stay ahead in the tech race, so I usually make a KILLING selling techs. Once I got to the industrial age, I sold magnetism and theory of gravity to 5 civilizations and got around 350 gold per turn plus around 500 gold (lump sum) altogether. I had nationalism already, so these techs only helped the AI get closer to me, not be equal yet.

In a third good trade example, I control all the ivory in the world (apparently there are no elephants on ANY other continents ), and I can get great deals to trade it. The Indians give me silk plus 20 gold per turn for my ivory. Some civs offer semi-old techs, but I can usually get a resouce + gold per turn.

All in all, I'd say trade is dependent on how powerful you are and what you control. If you are strong enough and have enough to offer somebody else, you can really do well. If you're small and weak, don't be surprised to get a "we don't see it happening" response when you ask what the AI would need to give you their maps. Trust me, I got that many times in Persia's early days.

 

[brody]

Originally posted by Beamup
I think what creates most of the "unrealistic" trading results is that the AI does not use the same priorities real people do.

IRL, people are almost exclusively concerned with whether they personally benefit from a trade. So if a trade is offered with a value of $100 to one party and $130 to the other, the first party will generally accept this. They may try and hold out for $115 instead, but if $100 is the most they can get they'll generally take it - it being better to have $100 than to insist on $115 and get nothing.

In Civ 3, though, the AI's calculation seems to be not "will I benefit from this trade" but "will I benefit from this trade more than the player will." This is not totally unreasonable, it can be interpreted as simply playing to win, but it is not how things generally work IRL. It's also not how most human players seem to think - most of us seem a good deal more self-centered than that.

From my own experience (limited though it is), it seems like yes, the AI wants a lot for their trades, but it seems like their markup is only based on the current situation. ie, if you're more cultural than them and they desperately need your ivory, their base requirement goes WAY down, making their 30% markup go way down.

So it seems that they do (at least in my 1.16f game) care about how much things will benefit them.

 

[Marzipan]

Here's an example of an AI leader being too unreasonable, I think. In this game I'm playing now, Bismark has FIVE extra wines. You would think with 5 extras that a luxury for luxury swap would be fine. You would think he would practically give at least one wine away, but no deal. I have good relations with Bismark too. humm.

 

[RX2000]

Has anyone ever demanded anything and gotten it? I think thats broke or something, I have NEVER had any civ give me anything I demand, even if I have them down to one city and they are surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered....... Maybe they are programmed to be too proud? I know they always jump at the chance to demand something from me, then declare war as soon as I refuse..... Hrrrrmph..... I know people can be irrational sometimes, but I feel the computer is TOO irrational most of the time.