Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't want you to waste time. And I do like overall how the changes have improved the AI. Sometimes I feel that the AI is not taking deals it should... but at the same time overall the new trading approach helps the AI - and depending on your approach to the game that is a very good thing.

Tech trading, when on, used to be a ridiculously easy exploit. Now, you need to be more creative to use it to your advantage. I understand how important time allocation must be for the development team.

Plus, when I WAS trying to trade Phasors V for Phasors II, I was just trying to exploit the situation, and kill two birds with one stone. In this case, the AI with Phasors II I wanted to have better guns, because they were fighting wars I wanted them to win. I had gained Phasors 3,4 and 5 from invasions (I was using missile tech on my ships). I was just hoping to increase the strength of one AI, and at the same time pick up a lower tech so that I wouldn't waste a tech steal on a low level tech I really didn't need. And not trading did kinda work for the AI, I just gave it Phasors V for Xeno Business in the end, because I did want it to have better weapons. Of course, the next turn I took four planets... and stole Phasors II

Playing without tech trading is a different game. I’ve found that the AI doesn’t advance nearly as fast technologically since it can’t engage in rampant AI tech trading (if you don’t believe me check your debug.err file – you’ll see). Granted, I haven’t observed much weapons tech being thrown around, but they’ll trade pretty much everything else. Even diplomatically challenged races (Drengin, for instance) can get some pretty sweet deals.

Without tech trading the AI’s seem to follow their own path. For instance, in my latest Painful game with 9 AIs it is 2232 and only the Terran has advanced down the diplomatic tech line to get as far as Alliance. Result? There are no alliances in the game except between me and the Terran, and as a result many fewer reflexive wars. This also means a Diplomatic victory will be extremely difficult since I can’t just gift Alliance to the AI and lock up the game (note - this cripples or at least makes Diplomatic victories much more difficult – it should, therefore, be worth more in the Metaverse with tech trading off). Tech advancement has slowed down. As a side benefit, since the AI wasn’t trading extreme colonization tech with each other (and excluding me – for any price) I had a shot at more extreme conditions planets.

Overall though I have to say that play balance is better. Previously a human player can walk away with the store if each trade is ‘fair’ since, with tech whoring, the human will then get a number of ‘fair’ trades based on the number of AIs – and make out like a bandit. In one pre-patch DA game on a small map as the Super Diplomat Terrans the Krynn gave me 5 planets (on a small map this is almost their whole empire!), all of their tech, and many of their scouts for an economic treaty and some of my tech (documented as an AAR, by the way). Now that, frankly, defies comprehension and screams for a fix. Post patch you can still tech whore to some degree, but your net proceeds will not be nearly as lucrative. The new tech trading is effectively, however, an AI cheat, which is why it seems so unfair.

What I object to is the fact that the AIs give each other such sweetheart deals, or trade techs that they wouldn’t trade to me if I offered them my entire empire. Therefore, I think the better solution is to turn tech trading off.

Hydro

now it seems better for players to sell techs for money instead of trading techs. Use Altarians mighty research skills and set tech rate to slowest to profit from this.

Yes, I managed to get the list from the Terrans last night. They don't seem to bother to much with espionage, especially counter-espionage. I had an agent on one of his planets for the longest time. Both he and the Krynn were very slow in responding to it.

As for the information , it seems to me that Stardock could do a better job of organizing that information. It's just one huge blurb of names, making it difficult to make any sense of it.

Oh and I take back what I said about getting used to the tech trading. Later in the game I can't get squat from the AI. I may as well have tech trading turned off at that point for all the good it does me. Yet they're merrily trading amongst each other! It puts the human player at huge disadvantage. I'll be playing with tech trading off from now on and hopefully they'll balance it a bit more in the next patch.

Actually the AI treats the player no different then any other player in the game. So they don't give each other better deals then they are willing to give to you. Also remember you can manipulate the tech trading to your favor by simply researching things that you *know* they won't trade to you and then ask for things they will. Instead of researching say Xeno Factory, research Harpoon II and then trade to get Xeno Factory. Sure you may have to do 2 for 1 or pay some BCs but you'll come out ahead in the long run.

I agree that *paragraph* of everything they've researched is a mess to try to read. Hopefully a future QoL update will make it into a simple list. Or even better a list with the techs under their major categories. Kinda like this:

Weapons
Laser I
Laser II
Laser III

Propulsion
Hyper Drive
Ion Drive

etc...

This is simply wrong. The AI regularly makes one for one trades. You can look in the debug.err file in the DA directory and see exactly what trades the AI makes. It ONLY makes one for one trades amongst itself. It even occasionally offers a one for one trade to the player (I have received one in two game years). Obviously some AIs are accepting these one to one offers. I know if I made any of these offers to any major AI they would not accept. I don't think any of the minors would either. These are trades the AI would never accept from a human player.



Livonya,

The trading gets even worse in year two...

I suppose in a sense, it's the ultimate challenge. On higher difficulties, it's definitely tech trading on for the AI and off for you, expect under extremely bad terms, but that isn't the choice you are supposed to be making when you turn tech trading on.

I think you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say that the AI gives special treatment in terms of trading to the other AIs that it won't give the player. All I meant was that the AI offers 1 - 1 trades to the other AIs and to the player using the same rules. Now if the AI won't accept that exact same trade if made by the player with the exact same bonuses to diplomacy and such then this is indeed a bug.

However before you start pounding the keyboard lets think for a second about how the AI determines trades and how difficulty effects this process. Now I cannot speak about anything beyond Tough since I do not like to give the AI extra bonuses. However I know for a fact that above Tough the AI gets all sorts of bonuses mostly to economics but I think also to diplomacy. Now we know that diplomacy plays a role in how the AI evaluates a trade on the board. So if say your diplomacy is 50% and the AI has a bonus of say 300% due to difficulty setting how often do you think it will trade fairly with you?

Now all AIs unless you set otherwise have the same difficulty setting. This means they've all got the same bonuses. Again following this along then in a diplomacy sense they are on equal footing.

I will agree that with the latest tweaks to how the AI handles trades there is the possibility that a bug has cropped in causing it to behave in a manner contrary to what is expected. But I have seen many posts from Frogboy talking about how the AI does not have one set of rules for itself and another set of rules for the player. I'm inclined to believe him.

It's true that the AI gets diplomacy bonuses on Suicidal...But this is also reflected by the statement about relative diplomatic ability when you go into the trade screen. When you first start the game and go into the trade screen the AI lets you know that you have the comparative diplomatic skills of an uneducated barbarian. And mine is better than most AIs at this point, in fact, I think it is superior to all AIs (not at the right computer)

What I think is really going on here is that the AI has never done it's internal trading the same way as the human (including in DL). Before it was to its disadvantage, now it's to its advantage. What I really want are the same rules.



I absolutely agree with this sentiment! (Although I think design flaw not bug)

I am saying that I am absolutely sure that this is not true right now.

the only race that can do a bit of tech trading right now is the Terrans with the tech rate at slowest and 5 points to diplomacy. In one of my current game on Small with 5 AIs and painful difficulty, I gotten all of their starting tech and more in about 6 months. If I were some other races, I would not have made any trades like that. So basically, tech trading is pretty much exclusive to the Terran now

tech trading with the Terrans is not the tech whoring like before and it seems much more balanced now. It still has limits though. Even playing Terrans, AIs won't trade colonization techs early. Xeno Biology & medicine also is a taboo, even basic Logistic require a very high cost. For other races, I'd have to trade quite a lot more just to get a lower tech (just like the first post on this topic). So it is really not worth it. In that case, might as well turn tech trading off.

The AIs won't give Economy Treaty early too but Research Treaty are much easier to get early using Terrans. I played with 9 AIs in one game using Terrans and I traded/bought Research Treaty with each AIs (including Korath and Drengin) in about 4-6 months from the game start date. This doesn't happen when I play any other races. So if you want diplomacy to work FOR you in the early and mid games, use Terrans.

It sounds to me like you haven't patched your game. In the patch, the AI won't even look at your Barren Worlds tech, trading it is just not an option. The patch for DA drastically changed the way the AI will deal with you. In many cases it's next to impossible to make any sort of trade and if you do make one, you usually have to give up alot in order to get it. Only rarely now will they make a deal that's balanced, the rest are heavily slanted in their favour. Just look at my original post for an example.

Also, Has anyone noticed how you can buy dip translators and aphrodisiac for a song (eg aphrodisiac for missile defence?)? Why waste so much resources building it if you can buy it so cheaply. I have raised this in another thread, but no one has responded to it. Thanks.