"You have traded with our worst enemy."

[dankok8]

I have some questions about this diplomatic penalty of trading with someone's worst enemy. I've noticed that it can range from -1 to as much as -4.

I have a few questions:

1) Do different leaders give a different amount of penalty?

2) Does doing more trades or trading resources/gpt for longer duration increase the penalty?

3) Do all types of trades cause this penalty or a specific type of trade like tech trade?

4) If their worst enemy changes, does the penalty decay or disappear over time?

 

[AcaMetis]

1. Not to my knowledge.
2. More trades, yes. Longer resources trades, not as far as I know.
3. IIRC peace deals don't count as trades for the purposes of trading with worst enemies (WFYABTA might still count?). But beyond that any real trade, whether for techs, war decs or whatever, does count.
4. It decays over time regardless, an AI having a worst enemy only matters insofar that you might offend someone by trading with their worst enemy (of the turn).

 

[Pangaea]

Aye, it decays over time, and it is also related to how long you've known an AI. You can meet somebody, say in an isolation map, and trade them Hunting or something. BAM! -4. Next turn it's down to -2. Stuff like that can happen. Naturally, the more you trade and the more expensive the techs are (pretty sure about the latter at least), the harder it will be to lose the penalty.

 

[lymond]

Parity of the tech trade matters too


(Resource trades have nothing to do with this malus)

 

[dankok8]

Parity of the tech trade matters too


(Resource trades have nothing to do with this malis)

What do you mean by parity? Like trading or trading for a monopoly tech?

 

[Fippy]

Very important point by Lymo,
if you trade similar values (i.e. Machinery for Feudalism) there will usually be no worst enemy trade hit.
Works best if gold (or small techs) are added to make those trades almost 100% even in value.

Those big hits come from unbalanced trades (or gifts), where their worst enemy gets much more than they give back.
Maybe another example for clarity: We get Monarchy and give them Paper = big hit.
We get Monarchy and give them Aest = prolly no hit.

 

[lymond]

What do you mean by parity?

^^^what she said

 

[dankok8]

Very important point by Lymo,
if you trade similar values (i.e. Machinery for Feudalism) there will usually be no worst enemy trade hit.
Works best if gold (or small techs) are added to make those trades almost 100% even in value.

Those big hits come from unbalanced trades (or gifts), where their worst enemy gets much more than they give back.
Maybe another example for clarity: We get Monarchy and give them Paper = big hit.
We get Monarchy and give them Aest = prolly no hit.

Oh I see. So if their worst enemy rips me off in terms of beaker value it pisses them off a lot more. This is great stuff! I didn't know about this.

Someone else said resource trades don't affect this so I can trade resources all I want with everyone's worst enemy and no maluses? How about trades involving gold on one side only?

 

[lymond]

Sure, but just note that WE may ask you to cancel trades with them at some point. Your willingness to do so or not likely depends on what you think of that guy. If I recall, Gandhi does not get diplo hits for rejecting those types of requests/demands...I think only him.

Well, "rips me off" may be a little strong. Keep in mind that experienced players often have no problem with inequitable trades or even gifting techs to the AI. But we'd certainly consider the ramifications of such actions if WE's are in play.

 

[dankok8]

^ Yea... requests to cancel trades are a different matter entirely. I'm well aware of those and it's pretty straight forward. Cancelling trades means closing borders so no more trade routes, all resource and gpt trades cancelled and AI won't even talk to you for a while. Although surprisingly AI's typically only give me -1 for cancelling trades with them. And I also get -1 for refusing to cancel trades with someone. Seems kind of weird...

Of course. I've learned to pay close attention to diplo. Honestly it's low key maybe the most important aspect of the game at higher levels. You can screw up build orders and win. You can screw up worker micro and leave a city working a forest or two and still win. But you let Monty slip down to Pleased because you have 8 tiles of culture overlap and you're dead!

Anyways so I only have one question left...

Trades for resources and gold (anything except techs) don't give the UHTWOWE malus?

 

[ArchGhost]

^ Yea... requests to cancel trades are a different matter entirely. I'm well aware of those and it's pretty straight forward. Cancelling trades means closing borders so no more trade routes, all resource and gpt trades cancelled and AI won't even talk to you for a while. Although surprisingly AI's typically only give me -1 for cancelling trades with them. And I also get -1 for refusing to cancel trades with someone. Seems kind of weird...

Of course. I've learned to pay close attention to diplo. Honestly it's low key maybe the most important aspect of the game at higher levels. You can screw up build orders and win. You can screw up worker micro and leave a city working a forest or two and still win. But you let Monty slip down to Pleased because you have 8 tiles of culture overlap and you're dead!

Anyways so I only have one question left...

Trades for resources and gold (anything except techs) don't give the UHTWOWE malus?

Any trade you make which could give you the "fair and forthright trade" bonus with an AI can trigger "traded with worst enemy." To clarify you don't have to actually make the worst enemy happy with a trade to do so (in fact, you often won't but still piss off the third party) so the valuation of the trades seems to be tracked by each party differently.

So that means trading
-gold
-maps
-techs
can definitely trigger worst enemy trade malus. It also gets conflated by the same process that makes trades more "valuable" to the AI if you have only known them for a very short amount of time (i.e. gift AI 20g on first turn you meet can grant +4 fair trade) so it's something you have to keep in mind. The relative value of the trade as seen by the third party will determine whether they don't like it and by how much.

Resources trades themselves won't trigger anything, but giving into a demand for one maybe? Need to test that. Also, you can generate "fair trade" bonus by gifting large amount of resources, so it might be possible to gain "worst enemy trade" malus that way too. Another thing to test!

I also swear I have earned "traded with our worst enemy" before by just opening borders for a turn on first contact, though I could be mistaken and it might have been from a 20g gift or something instead. Monty and Rosie on Earth18, for the scenario. They usually hate each other's guts and you have to be careful about which order you deal with them in specifically because one open borders at annoyed and the other doesn't.