Hu oh! AI weaknesses

I have never (usually play intelligent/bright AI) had the AI sell me ships or starbases for less than all my techs and 1000s of BCs...and that with me having great diplomacy compared to them, and usually warm or friendly attitude. What's your secret?

Edit: Double post...so guess I'll add that self-policing in avoiding exploits is the best we can expect for now.

have never (usually play intelligent/bright AI) had the AI sell me ships or starbases for less than all my techs and 1000s of BCs...and that with me having great diplomacy compared to them, and usually warm or friendly attitude. What's your secret?

I play on bright and the AI does it all the time. I bought a lucky ranger from a race and the next turn attacked him with it. Cost me about 2500 bcs. That's the only ship I've bought but I can often buy starbases as well.

The whole diplomacy system is pretty screwed up and easy to abuse. I personaly just avoid the whole thing expect to trade with any allies I have.

I am playing at normal level and I cannot use this strategy, only works couple of times and then the AI denies me the choice.

Greetings,

How I do it?

I always use the max setting for my race. I research up to total majesty as my first techs. I don't digress of the branch until I reach majesty, then I get soil and habitat, the first government that gives bonus (can't recall) then go back to get total majesty. (And I get the diplomatic trade good)

Also, by trading in trade, I try to max my routes as soon as possible. Trade gives you diplomatic points too.

I never trade in xeno communications or anything that gives +diplomatic points. Far in the game, if the AI still does not have xeno communications or even alliance, I am sure to get most of its ships for a few bucks... Even at the highest level AI intelligence. It is why I no longer use it, I consider it a flaw in the AI.

Thank you

I don't know how you guys do it, but for me, trading for the AI's ships and starbases is a super inneficient strategy. They place way too high a value on it, even when I have Jedi level diplomacy. But I'm not complaining, just curous exactly how you guys are getting these supposed 'deals' for their starbases.

I don't know how you guys do it, but for me, trading for the AI's ships and starbases is a super inneficient strategy. They place way too high a value on it, even when I have Jedi level diplomacy. But I'm not complaining, just curous exactly how you guys are getting these supposed 'deals' for their starbases.

That's what I'm saying too. Haasen said he bought a ship from someone for $2500, but I don't consider that to be a good deal. I never have enough money to shell that out...I would rather buy from my own planets and finance it into payments.

I seriously have like +50 diplomacy over every other race, and for one starbase or spaceship, I offered around 10 higher level techs, and it still showed red. This on Bright AI.

I find that in general the AI is pretty bad at noticing that you are setting up to take a bunch of his planets at once. In one game I set things up to take all but one of the Dregins planets in a single turn (it was about 8 or so planets). He should have declared war on me when he saw what was going on, but he just got annoyed (this was with the highest intelligence level).

That's what I'm saying too. Haasen said he bought a ship from someone for $2500, but I don't consider that to be a good deal.

Compare a Ranger to the other ships in play for most of the game. It's pure whoopass with an engine attached to it. Paying 2,500 BC for the most powerful ship in the galaxy is a great deal.

I don't know how you guys do it, but for me, trading for the AI's ships and starbases is a super inneficient strategy. They place way too high a value on it, even when I have Jedi level diplomacy. But I'm not complaining, just curous exactly how you guys are getting these supposed 'deals' for their starbases.

AI super values some techs, like Medium Scale Building or some of the later logistics techs. With a few techs, you can trade for starbases and you can trade the same techs to multiple races and get a whole bunch of starbases all in one turn.... Stuff like Medium Scale Building should be able to get you 5+ ships from each AI too. If you were just trading to one AI, it wouldnt be a big deal, but in a gigantic universe with all those trade partners..

So does anyone have a list of all these super valued techs? Would seem I should beeline for those and just take what I want from the AI.

The diplomacy portion of the AI is flawed, selling techs, buying ships, starbases, bribing it to declare war with someone on the otherside and then hitting it from the back, etc... there are simply waaaay too many things that you can do that he will never expect. Then there's the matter of how much the AI will value their possesions. Some people are saying 2500 BC is a lot, that's a joke. With 2500 BC and some diplomacy, you can buy a well defended and nearly max MINING starbase (for the current tech level) or any of the trade goods that they make. This isn't just a great deal, it's an absolutely sickeningly sweet deal. Is he too militarily powerful? buy that military miner, and suddenly he's weaker and you're stronger. Is his economy too strong? buy his morale and economic miner/trade goods and he suddenly finds himself in trouble while they will make you a ton of money more than what it costs you. Heck, if you really want to cheat, just start trading him money for money. If your diplomacy is higher, you can actually give him less money for more money in return and he'll happily accept. You can then use that money you gain and buy all of his stuff.

Suffice it to say, after discovering how easy it is to slaughter the AI with the diplomatic system, I too consider using diplomacy an exploit, and have made every effort to not use it. No tech trading, no buying, etc. It's more fun this way.

So does anyone have a list of all these super valued techs? Would seem I should beeline for those and just take what I want from the AI.

You can get a feel for it after playing with diplomacy a bit. Medium Scale Building is a big one that comes early, same with Enhanced (or is it Advanced?) Logistics. Large Scale Building, Habitat Improvement, Planetary Invasion are some other big ones. It's mostly the military techs, but the terraforming stuff is an exception.

Yeah, I don't use diplomacy either because it just makes the game trivial (give the AI +10000000% bonuses, it doesn't matter)

Reminds me of the CIv3 trading scheme, which was god-awful as well.

Although, the Civ4 trading is extremely well done, makers of GC2 should buy a copy of Civ4 and make notes and maybe beg the makers of Civ4 to give them tips on coding diplomacy and trading.

But for now, I consider diplomacy picks and any type of deals (except for straight up peace deals) to be cheating. I mean come on, the AI should almost never sell a ship, starbase or planet. Actually because of surrendering, the AI should NEVER sell a ship, starbase or planet, period.