Diplomacy Advantage Question

Even with an "incredible" advantage, the AI does not accept an even trade.

"Even with an "incredible" advantage, the AI does not accept an even trade."

Why should it? Do you always accept an "even" trade? Or do you only accept trades that you feel are to your advantage in some way? If the AI offers you a 1 billion-pop world on your shared border for another 1 billion pop world on that border, are you necessarily going to take the trade? No, you aren't, because we don't assess trades based on whether they are "fair" or not, but on whether we benefit from them. We try to rip the AI off all the time... yet we're upset that GalCiv has an AI that tries to do the same to us?

- Ash

~SDC~

"We try to rip the AI off all the time... yet we're upset that GalCiv has an AI that tries to do the same to us?"

And so what is the point of having an "incredible" diplomatic advantage?

I'm fairly certain that the AIs are trading evenly with each other because they all seem to have the same techs. On a tiny map where you quickly get in contact with all 5 races, this is easy to see.

"And so what is the point of having an "incredible" diplomatic advantage?"

To improve your ability to rip off the AI. I usually get 5-15bc/turn more from the AI for a tech trade as a result of an incredible diplomatic advantage. But just because I'm more diplomatically fluent than the AI doesn't mean the AI suddenly becomes a braindead lackey for me.

"I'm fairly certain that the AIs are trading evenly with each other because they all seem to have the same techs. On a tiny map where you quickly get in contact with all 5 races, this is easy to see."

Have you checked their economies? Or their fleets? Presumably, if they are trading evenly, they should also all have the same amount of money left in their treasuries, and the same fleets (since those things could make a difference in uneven tech trades).

- Ash

~SDC~

thonqor-

you need to play when you *don't* have that advantage... -chuckle- see the difference?

And in my games, the AI's certainly do NOT have the same techs, by no means- even when they're roughly equivelently advanced.

~SDC~

dearmad-

you know, for someone with the 'diplomat' title on this forum, you are pretty damn patronizing. I have a feeling that maybe you are a little too full of yourself. -chuckle-

I play tiny maps specifically for short games, not to take advantage of the AI.

The problem I am seeing in GalCiv is the exact same problem I've seen in every 4X game I played since Civ1 that allowed you to trade techs.

The AI is essentially being given a trade advantage to compensate for the fact that the human player can spam his new techs simultaneously to all the AI players, thus reaping great dividends for his research while simultaneously preventing the AI from doing the same thing.

It's a tactic that some players think makes them strategy "experts" for figuring out, but in actuality it is just a cheesy exploit that I am surprised has not been fixed in the 10+ years since Civ1.

A simple fix would be to limit the number of diplomatic exchanges you can have each turn, ideally to 1. Then you would have to anguish over which AI you want to deal with. Of course, this limitation would apply to the AI as well. However, this cheesy is very tasty to a lot of players, so I'm guessing there would be too much resistance to it.

I'm not sure if I quite like that idea thongor. a few reasons - each game turn is a month. Also, your likely to have ambassadors to all civs, so realistically, your civ is constantly in touch with everyone.

How about this though - what if the AI agreed to the trade on the condition that you can't trade that same tech to someone they aren't friendly with for a period of time. That would allow the AI to achieve its goal of gaining an advantage over someone they don't like, while making a trade that is fair/advantageous to you.

Apologies Cpt Choas for being off topic - I don't know the answer to your question.

You get better deals every time your diplomacy goes up = if you are doing a lot of tech trading, diplomacy bonus works as a straight income bonus

~SDC~