Diplomacy and trade

You need to research the techs that give you diplomacy bonuses and build the "diplomatic translators" trade good. Don't trade these techs away. When you have a higher diplomacy rating than an AI, they will give you much better deals. For example I've had a race give me Laser V and several hundred BCs in exchange for Laser IV.

They changed it so that the AI would avoid trading as much, because people were complaining that the AI was trading too much, and that it was too easy to exploit this. They seem much easier to beat now that the trading has been toned down though, in my experience. I liked it the way it was, but oh well.

It is frustrating that I need to trade a single tech/ship at a time now though, because they will only pay for one at a time. If you add a second one, it usually won't increase the amount that they give you in return for some reason. You would need to just trade with them again to sell additional techs/ships with them.

Its been stated before the the AI cant tell the difference form the play and the other AIs. That means that your getting as good of a deal as an AI with and eqivelnt diplomacy rating.

Additionaly if your at war with an AI dont expect to get many good deals! I've found trading with the AIs to be very profitable and useful in staying ahead of everyone else technology wise. Ofcourse its takes a little while and can be a little tideous, but I like playing the trader/diplomatic role.

With tech trades occuring instantaneously, the mechanics of the diplomacy system give rise to a powerful dominant strategy; namely, when a tech is held by two or more players, either player has a strong incentive to be the one to sell the tech to the rest of the players. There are a few complications to this simple picture (like war), but for the most part techs "should" be traded aggressively by all players... The problem is the AI doesn't pick up on this.

The resulting weakness of the AI in this area has been a popular topic. Stardock has tried to "tighten up" up the trading, which may or may not have improved it, but hasn't fixed it. The problem is beyond something that can be fixed by multiplying the value the AI places on a tech by some constant; the problem is the AI doesn't understand the tech game.

Have you ever been prompted by an AI player looking to sell a tech for money? I haven't, although in my first few games an AI player would occaisionally offer a one-for-one tech trade. I recall Frogboy writing that the AI initiates tech trades in the same way for human and computer opponents, so this right here is one of the problems: the AI doesn't have the same options for selling techs available to it as are available to the player. No tinkering with multipliers can fix this; in fact, increasing the cost ABOVE the optimal value will result in loss for the AI just like undervaluing techs will, although the loss here is from lost opportunity to participate actively in the tech market (consider this: whenever two players trade, everyone else loses--with some minor exceptions for alliances, etc).

Tech trading off plays much better, in my humble opinion. I'm afraid that a true, solid fix of the problem will require signicant reworking of the tech trading mechanics (not just AI, because if the AI played this set of rules well it would require the player to intensively micromanage tech trades no matter what). I haven't seen any indication that a thorough rehauling of the mechanics is on Stardock's table (and well beyond what's moddable so far), so I dunno, I'm pretty pessimistic about it right now. But tech trading off is ok.

Very intelligent post, Veblen. You obviously understand the evident 'AI tech trading issue'. I hope Stardock reads your post and decides to take action.

With tech trades occuring instantaneously, the mechanics of the diplomacy system give rise to a powerful dominant strategy; namely, when a tech is held by two or more players, either player has a strong incentive to be the one to sell the tech to the rest of the players. There are a few complications to this simple picture (like war), but for the most part techs "should" be traded aggressively by all players... The problem is the AI doesn't pick up on this.

I agree. Even if you don't have many diplomacy bonuses it's still almost always in your interests to trade and sell every tech you've got and can get your hands on with the exceptions of techs that are key to your winning strategy or to better deals in your constant trading. I don't want to be bothered to check every turn if someone has finished a new tech just so that I can get and trade away to the rest of the galaxy first, so I leave tech trading off most of the time also.

Making the AI more reluctant to trade them doesn't solve the problem IMHO, but might make it worse since the player can still force lots of deals while the AI's tend to do so less with everyone in general. Perhaps they could put a limit on tech trades per month or per year? Maybe trading a tech could kill your current research for a week while they look it over, even if they move their research slider to 0% that week they will still incur an interruption. That way there would be more strategy in choosing which techs to trade for instead of just blindly gorging yourself like its an all you can eat buffet.

It is frustrating that I need to trade a single tech/ship at a time now though, because they will only pay for one at a time. If you add a second one, it usually won't increase the amount that they give you in return for some reason. You would need to just trade with them again to sell additional techs/ships with them.

Yes, what is up with that?

I just played a session where I took advantage of the AI not understanding 'the trade game'. By selling all my technologes (one at a time, duuh!! ) I was able to amass an outrageous amount of money. From this game it became evident that the only way to get a fair game is to toggle tech trading off.

Developers, here is what needs to be done:

-Create a new tab on the 'foreign relations' menu that details what trade items (listing the same items as shown on the diplomacy screen: BC's, technologies, planets, trade goods and so forth) the other civilizations have. It is really bothersome having to open up the diplomacy screen with each race to find out what trade items they're offering. I'm sure you're familiar with Civ 4's foreign relations menu - copy this! It is exactly what GalCiv2 needs (lacks!)

-Make the AI understand 'the tech game'. Read Veblen's and Metaphase's posts above - they contain a significant amount of insight and pretty much detail what needs to be done. Basically, in games with more than two players the AI's need to:

- Trade much more aggressively. If it is first to discover a tech it should immediately trade it to all other civilizations UNLESS there is a very good reason not to do so (such as maintaining a military lead)

- Go through with a trade if it is favourable even if the AI's superior diplomacy rating tells it not to

Of course, like Veblen said, you don't want to run into the tech trading micro-management hell that is the Civiliation games. You know, where you need to trade all your new techs with everyone immediately, because the instant you trade a tech to someone, they turn around and trade it to everyone else if they can. It makes sense, but it makes the game unreasonably tedious. One different angle solution is to make techs less rewarding to trade. Maybe "trading techs" doesn't immediately give that tech to the player, but instead cuts the cost in half when they choose to research it. Until they finish researching that tech, they cannot accept any more tech trades. A civ can only trade one tech to one other civ once per turn.

Veblen, what do you think? Would this kind of "tech trading system" work with the AI? Would it still be a tedious thing every 'player' must take advantage of to remain competitive?

=$= Big J Money =$=

I'll have to agree with what was said. I also want to point out what I see as one problem. This is more along the lines of AI not able to handle what to do with techs. Trade. The AI definitely values the tech, Trade too much. It's also in your best interest to make sure everyone has it. That way they get the hint and start sending freighters. Every player benefits. Both the trader and the tradee.

The trade imbalance caused by the "AI now values such and such techs more" makes me not trade. I was the galactic nice guy before, trading with all races and fairly. regularly tech for tech, each side got something that way. then i did sell some for cash to keep my treasury above 0. Now that I manage my economy better I don't have to sell techs at all. So I generally don't trade at all unless I get a decent deal. If an AI thinks I'm going to give him Plasma weapons for Titanium Armor, I send them packing and close the diplo. Oh Please I could probably research it in 1 turn if I chose to (and plasma is weapons tech thats after laser V, Titanium Armor is right after armor theory )

Of course, like Veblen said, you don't want to run into the tech trading micro-management hell that is the Civiliation games. You know, where you need to trade all your new techs with everyone immediately, because the instant you trade a tech to someone, they turn around and trade it to everyone else if they can.

But that is exactly how I want the AI to be. Are you seriously telling me you want the AI to stupidly omit trading techs? Don't you want the AI to be all it can be?

Also, how can you call the Civ trading a 'micro-management hell'? Compared to GalCiv it is very easy to manage. Isn't it GalCiv that requires you to open up diplomacy with every single race one by one to see if they have new trade items? In Civ you have all this information on all the factions assembled in a single screen.

Well, what I'm saying is that there is no reason there has to be a "tech trading race mini game" attached to TBS games. How a game manages to stay away from it, I don't really care. I'll admit, I haven't played Civ4 as much as I would like yet, so maybe it's not as bad as Civ3 in that regard. And don't get me wrong, because I LOVE the Civilization series. I don't like the fact, though, that you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't immediately trade every tech you have that others don't (except for the essentials) to make sure that the others don't get all the moolah. The Civ AI doesn't have as much personality as GalCiv, so they would trade techs indiscriminately for $$... even to people who they hate. Also, tech research happens a lot faster in GalCiv2, so it has the potential to become an even worse problem in this game, not even counting the fact that you can only effectively trade one tech at a time! Even the real world model doesn't really follow this. Nations don't go around giving away secrets of technology. It's nice when the guy on top has the advantage to possibly make some money from all his hard research, but when it turns into a game of "Wall Street Tech Frenzy", you can count me out. It's unrealistic and really, there isn't any strategy to it at all. It's as simple as selling them ASAP for as AMAP.

=$=

Agree with Big J Money. No nation in this world would give out tech as soon as they get in to maintain tech lead. Why would I want to sell Stock Market to someone for little cash and let their economy bloom even faster. In GalCil 2, I rarely trade because that would give a me a big lead compare with AI. I still play with trade on though. Sometime you really need some techs to fight but the only option to get them fast is to trade).

I think that the first step in tech trading would be only allow trading tech that you can research. This will disable the option of getting Plasma with only Beam Weapon Theory at hand. This should be easy to implement.