Unrestricted Tech Trade Ruins 4xTBS Games

The latest patch (1.0X.1 makes the AI more weary on trade, so it might be worth checking to see if those changes have improved things a lot, or if you can still exploit this...

if you use this strategy, the game will become so easy that you will probably lose interest in it

Yes I fully agree with that. This has almost already killed the game for me.

Option to disable tech trading.

That's the option taken for Civilization IV.
Another option would be to give less value to techs already researched by other civs.
For example :
if researched by the player only, 100% value
if researched by 1 other civ, 90%
...
if researched by 8 other civs, 20%
I think this option was taken for Civ III (or was it for Civ II ?).

yes totally agreed.Probably there is another factor which enhance this problem and it is the fact that there are nearly 200 techs so it's very easy that all civs has different techs.I have yet to try the 1.0x.10 and hope that some things are changed.

"Unrestricted Tech Trade Ruins 4xTBS Games"

I agree. No-etchtrade option, please

I have to say I've been guilty of tech trading to get myself up and running...and is key early in the game. However, I think the key is not so much as to prevent or stop tech trading, but to program the AI to realize the value of their techs and to begin trading them with other AIs rather than just wait for the human player to exploit this. The exception would probably be higher end military techs (firepower and defense) but allow the AI to trade quickly any of their lower-end military techs. If the goal is to have the AI behave as a human player, then enable them to trade early and often before we beat them to the punch. I have not seen this even on the 'intelligent' level. I think this is an easier and more effective way of improving the gameplay. What do you other players/devs think?

tech treaty and perhaps have to send a freighter to the capitol planet of that race to aquire the trade of a single tech?

Also minor races that appear mid game fully teched out. I am assuming if they dont need any techs they have them all?

Theoratically Tech trading is not bad for all. in real world, tech trading is happens everywhere nowadays you can usually see M&A doings in newspapers. (this could be detemined as tech buying using money)

So tech trading strategy is basically not problem. Its problem, that in AI game. AI doesn't tech trade, especially a lots of tech trade, they never do. (If it was assigned to do for AI, it would detroy game playing although)

And also another problem is, that this strategy is hardly and almost impossibly detected. So in the multiplay you can't detect someone goes to this strategy unlike other strategy - Economy, Military, Influence based strat.

So cure for this is required. and I suggest that below options would be quite useful.

- Restrict Tech trade of military based tech. so that the player who uses this strat only gains non-military tech. this will make strat less powerful.

- Notify other players of recent tech trading in multiplay game. This will make strat quite less usable.

- Make AI have importantness points about most recnt techs they have. This means AI doesn't trade with their most evaluated techknolodge with other ppls. So that the player who uses this strat never have a best techs, only garbage tech or normal level tech. makes strat ultimately less usable.
(Actually this is best sollution I think, also best logical behaviour of AI doing. )

i would implement some restrictions with the trading technologies

1. like the tradegoods make the techs only tradeable for races which researched the tech (blueprint)

2. some restriction in trading tech itself. Only 1 Tech per Trade and only 1 Trade per Week

tech treaty and perhaps have to send a freighter to the capitol planet of that race to aquire the trade of a single tech? Also minor races that appear mid game fully teched out. I am assuming if they dont need any techs they have them all?

This is one of the best idea i have heard.If it could be implemented i would be very happy.

Jen Dragon why don't you make a thread or a poll where you ask people if they like your idea to make it at least more public, so developers too could watch for it? I'm sure your idea would enhance a lot gameplay and would be finally a solution to tech whoring.If you don't do it i will do it for you

It's not an AI problem, it's a game mechaincs problem. In the tech economy, supply and demand are messed up because when you "sell" at tech, you don't actually lose anything. After you take their money, you can still use the tech and sell it to other people. So, there's reasonable demand for techs, but infinite supply. In other words, techs are valuable to peple who don't have them, but worthless to people who do. Selling tech is basically free money, and you want to do it as quickly as possible to do it before your competitors.

Civ 4 kind of fixed this. It reduced the supply by giving the AI a variety of reasons to refuse to sell tech. And it implemented a cost of sorts for selling tech by making AIs get angry if you trade with their enemies. This brings the supply and demand more into balance. But it's somewhat fake, it only works because all the AIs do it. If one of the AIs got smart, it could make a lot of money at the expense of the other players by freely buying and selling.

I think the solution is to attach some kind of cost to selling a tech. Perhaps teaching someone your tech requires a certain amount of technology points from your labs. Or maybe you need some exclusive treaty, or it could be somehow connected to your trade routes.

Agree totaly, I suggest a blueprint system..

Instead of getting the tech you get a blueprint which makes the research faster. That would stop the trade around thats going on. (You get one tech from one AI and then trade it to another for money of another tech)..

* Diplomacy needs to be limited so can only happen every 4 weeks or something and there should be some kind of cost for the diplomacy, any action should cost a little bit of money for the person that initate the deal. Expenses for Diplomats and Lawyer to write up the deal.

* AI should be less inclined to trade new techs.
* Change to the above mentioned blueprint system
* Option to disable tech trading all togheter.
* Option to disable trading with techs you got the blueprint from somebody else, at least for a year or so.
* Option to only allow trade if you have a special tech trade pact.

I dont see why no 4x use the blueprint system instead. Makes so much more sense and would help the tech trade system a lot. As it is now its just makes tech trading way to powerful. BTW this is not a Gal Civ 2 issue same in CIV games. At least they have an option to disable the whole tech trading.

Wonder if this would be possible to implement with a mod?

How about not being able to trade a tech with another race until you or they have opened a trade route with them. So the tradeable item travels back to one of your worlds on a private freighter.

Also, if you are less than 'warm' with regards to relations then less can be traded, and/or only one trade per turn.

Tech trading possible only if you have trade routes is another good idea but in my opinion the problem is that there are so much techs that is nearly impossible that another race can't supply you with a new tech.In a normal game i research between 10 and 20% of my overall technology so i can say that diplomacy is better than research bonus if u want to be the most advanced race of the game.An implementation of the civ4 tech trading system is surely better but i'm also sure that it wouldn't be totally fit with this game because civ4 has nearly 70 techs this game has 200 techs.A tech trading which needs a freighter to be accomplished is anyway a lot better and realistic, but as you pointed out it will change some game mechanics.Anyway game mechanics can be improved

Limitations to tech trading for week in my opinion isn't the best option and i'm sure that it should be very hard to implement in the game.Blueprint instead of simply tech trading is surely better, linking tech or blueprint trading to trade routes would have also a great strategic impact because trade routes become a lot more important.Also tech trading should be allowed only if relations with other races are friendly so u must have trade routes but also good relations.Relations should be influenced by some factors like adding civ4 modifier "u have traded with my worst enemy" and probably the system will be more balanced and realistic.

I don't know about you guys, but the AI tech trades amongst itself all the time. Perhaps not every 1-3 turns but I've seen empires go from begging for Tech to having the same techs as another empire.. which they happen to be friendly with.. hey!

Jerks.. tech trading without me. I have gotten some techs that they won't trade for love nor money as well. So if you haven't raised the AI to Intelligent yet.. give it a try.

I have found the weakest part of the game is the Tech Trading with the minor races. They tend to have cash, but low production. Problem is those guys trade tech as much as a player does. Give them a weapon.. 3-4 turns later everyone else has that weapon too. However, the massive amount of money you can make on them, even with a minor diplomacy bonus, makes it worth trading with them.

Here's another idea I had that is simple and will solve everything.

Everyone may only trade technology they researched.

The Blueprint system works great for Hearts of Iron 2, I would vote for that system as it still makes you research the advance.

I would also vote for requiring a strong bond between the people who are tech trading/ I.e. Alliance or some kind of technical treaty a la MOO 2.

Here's another idea I had that is simple and will solve everything. Everyone may only trade technology they researched.

Nice idea. I like it.

So tech trading strategy is basically not problem. Its problem, that in AI game. AI doesn't tech trade, especially a lots of tech trade, they never do. (If it was assigned to do for AI, it would detroy game playing although)

The AI does tech trade. They tech trade a lot actually. If you just sit back and watch the tech lists of different empires, you'll see that one race will research something, and then around 1/2 the races will have it within a couple of months. A human player just trades tech faster. In fact, I wouldn't trade tech to anyone but allies if I could be more assured that the tech wouldn't trickle to everyone else in the galaxy. Right now I do tech brokering as self defence.

-Dewar

Agreed completely, the 3-5 turn AI tech trade round robin is one of the lamer 'strategies' that can be exploited, and a major reason I've disliked diplomacy in this style of game for some time. Some very good suggestions here, I hope Stardock looks some of them over for consideration. At a bare minimum, a no tech trades option would be a decent stopgap, but there are some good ideas here for integrating tech trading into the diplomacy process more fully, and making it a more thoughtful process (which it should be, rather than open each trade window, trade it off for other techs or money, repeat every few turns)

Well, surely you can only repeat it when you research a new tech...?

I've never played below Tough difficulty, and for me the AIs all trade between themselves. It's rare for me to pick up a tech through trade that the other AIs do not have already, and then it's only if I've kept good relations with both sides at war with each other, or if I've payed a huge price for a tech they considered valuable.

I would like to see an option to make tech trades more expensive, or (changing the game a great deal) to eliminate it altogether, but as it stands I think it's been done quite well.

Only allow tech trading if you have an embassy. (would have to add embassies)

There are embassies already.

Also minor races that appear mid game fully teched out. I am assuming if they dont need any techs they have them all?

If there is nothing available under there Tech in the diplomacy screen it means that they are Behind you in Tech.

Even with the latest 1.x.10 patch the same old problems continue. I tried offering 3 techs for one I wanted (plus some cash) to an AI. They wouldnt take it ... so that part seems tweeked. BUT 2 turns later the same AI offered the tech for ONE tech of mine, that lame random tech give away is still plaguing the game Whats the point of having the AI weigh tech trades and then ignore it and have them randomly share anything and everything?

And the minor AIs can still somehow have every tech in the galaxy (through the random giveaways or because they are so rich I guess).

And as has been mentioned above the player can exploit the system far to easily.

Some good ideas have been remarked on here I hope the devs are listening because IMO this is the single issue that makes Gal Civ II less fun to play. It makes things FAR to predictable, it leaves everybody with the the exact same techs and it just seems to short-circuit all the great ways you have tried to make the AI play well in legit ways.

M

Here is my suggestions:


1 - Weapon Tech is limited between allies.
2 - You can only trade the tech you research yourself. Sorta like a copy right issue, this guarantee that only the one who research the tech make sure who will get the tech, unless the other race decice to research itself. This also prevent buy and sale tech like hot cake.