AI Balance> Unfair AI-to-AI Tech Trade

The AI does not always ask higher value techs when trading: it depends on your diplomatic skill and if you are coming to them with the trade offer. When they come to you, I've had very interesting offers from them. It is true though that at beggining the AI trade a lot amongst themselves, but usually you end up catching up nd eventually surpassing them. ry trading more, a few techs ata time, and don't forget minor civs!

Stromko, you must not have researched any of the diplomacy techs. In my current game, I have a high diplomacy and can really take advantage of the less technologically advanced AI civs. How the AI civ feels about you also has a direct effect trading. BTW, don't forget to add money to deals where you can afford it or they can afford it.

In the beginning of the games trade with the minor civs. Later on you'll be better able to trade with the major ones.

Trade with minor civs, they are much more willing to trade (but not military stuff), you can also kick some minor civ's ass, do not kill them, just ask alot of tech for peace treaty...and then whipe them out...

You must research most of the military stuff for yourself, computer is not willing to allow you to kick their arse with their own technology, is it? Some tech's are very hard to get, computer player almost never give you their best techs, espetialy military stuff...

The AIs are independent and have no way of telling if another player is Human or AI, so they can hardly be cutting them special deals just because they're AIs.

They do definitely trade though, and it's not something so difficulty to do. In my last game on Painful diffuculty, I fell behind because I used several manufacturing bonus tiles in the very beginning (causing the financial demand on my social spending to skyriocket). I had to slash spending and stop reasearch for a while, causing me to get behind the AIs.

However, Once I was ready to pick back up again, I still had a few techs that none of the AIs had researched (though they had many more better oens than I had not), and little bit of money. 10 minutes of round-robin trading later, I had milked every one of them of techs AND generated a very healthy cash reserve. IT's just a matter of finding which techs the AIs dont all have, and buying those techs as cheaply as possible. Then sell them to all the AIs that don't have them to recoup your investment or even make a profit. Keep doing so until you can afford to buy/barter the techs they all have (and thus you can't sell back), and eventually you'll find yourself even or ahead as I did, without really lifting a finger towards research of my own.

Nope, I give one race a few techs, and in less than a dozen turns ALL races have those techs. There's no reason, there's quite a bit of animosity and warfare going around and they're completely unwilling to trade many techs; even if my diplomacy is superior to theirs, I'm unable to get the same sorts of techs that I'm =giving= to various races, and yet, races that I'm diplomatically superior to are able to somehow get those things from others.

How, praytell, are they cutting these deals? My empire's about #4 or #5 in terms of power and has only ever been at war with the Korx and Yor, so it's not out of an alliance of necessity.. Even the minor AI empires, all three that are active, are gobbling up every tech that any other AI race has.

edit: I'm looking at the Dark Yor right now (minor race), and they've got the Stinger's and Sensor Mark II's and other things that only I had (until I gave them to a different minor race). The only thing I still have to offer is Advanced Deflectors. Okay now I'm going to the Snathi. Same thing. Hrm..... Okay, found out a couple things, the Iconians don't have Sensor's II, I have tons of techs to offer the Korx, and the Yor missed out on Sensors II and Stingers III but got everything else that's going around. The Altarians, like the Korx, are getting left out of most of the recent tech-trading; and it's odd how far behind they are given they are probably the third-most powerful civ.

Is there something where the weaker empires are more willing to share? The stronger empires aren't immediately getting the techs that I gave out, while the minor races, underdogs, and Yor (who're pretty tough) are doing great technologically. The Arceans have all the techs I gave out though I don't think I dealt with them directly, but this actually makes sense given their diplomacy.

It might be that it's mostly working how intended, but for normal difficulty it's a little goofy. It doesn't seem like most of the AI should have enough collateral to be trading for all the tech that's available, and yet, that AI that has the most collateral is actually missing the most of the tech that's getting traded...

How are your relations with them?
What are their relations with each other?

Nope, I give one race a few techs, and in less than a dozen turns ALL races have those techs. There's no reason, there's quite a bit of animosity and warfare going around and they're completely unwilling to trade many techs; even if my diplomacy is superior to theirs, I'm unable to get the same sorts of techs that I'm =giving= to various races, and yet, races that I'm diplomatically superior to are able to somehow get those things from others.

I play on Intelligent (Tough), and I have not noticed anything like what you're saying. The AI seems pretty canny in what they'll trade for what, and I've never felt it to be unfair.

Perhaps you're used to the trading AI being a total pushover in other games (especially MOO2)?

If an AI is at peace with at least one other AI, it's very likely it will trade the tech at some point if it can (unelss the other AI is stronger and it's a military tech, they generally won't do it). That's all it takes, so the techs will trickle down in short order even if you only sell it to one. Remember, the AIs are trying to make money and tech up as well, so they'll do whatever they think they need to do to get there.

The simple solution is to not sell them any techs you don't want them all to have (your best weapons for example, and the defense against them), and when you do sell one, sell it to everyone yourself on the same turn. This not only gives you control over who has what, but it gets you a lot more money--which in turn you can sue to buy techs you don't have, and sell those too for even more money, repeating over and over until you have all their techs.

It's too bad GAlCiv didn't follow the "blueprint" method of tech trading that Paradox implemented in Hearts Of Iron 2. You don't trade techs, but you can trade blueprints, which cuts research time in half.

Of all the systems I've seen to handle tech trading (including the Research Point system of Victoria) I think that this is the best. It takes time to play catch up, even if someone shows you how it's done.

I've noticed that before I go in for a round of ship upgrades I will talk to all the other civs to see if I can get anything else to add to my ships. But it just kinda seems wierd to be able to trade for Laser V and then build/upgrade a fleet of ships with it immediatly even though I've never researched any laser or beam techs before.

It's too bad GAlCiv didn't follow the "blueprint" method of tech trading that Paradox implemented in Hearts Of Iron 2. You don't trade techs, but you can trade blueprints, which cuts research time in half. Of all the systems I've seen to handle tech trading (including the Research Point system of Victoria) I think that this is the best. It takes time to play catch up, even if someone shows you how it's done.

I completely agree with you. I think that method of research was the best. The research in HOI2 is one of the best things done in the game. It makes a lot more sense since no country (or civilization in Galciv2) can immediately implement a tech once they get it by trading. Even if they don't implement blueprints, at least they can put a "lag" to traded techs say you can use them after 3-4 turns (until your civ gets to actually understand the tech). I think you should open a seperate topic on this, add it as a suggestion for future updates.

>> It's too bad GAlCiv didn't follow the "blueprint" method of tech trading that Paradox implemented in Hearts Of Iron 2. You don't trade techs, but you can trade blueprints, which cuts research time in half. <<

Not having ever tried this method, on the surface I like this idea a lot. However, given that we are talking about future civilzations which I would expect to have very advanced computers, perhaps the blueprints are pretty much all you need. I remember in one Star Trek episode that the Federation offered to fix a alien ship by simply replicating items. It didn't seem to matter that they may not have seen the object, they just put it in their machine and let the machine make an exact duplicate. JMO.

The A.I. is very reluctant to trade and military boosting techs, that includes Advanced Logistics. They also don't like trading manufacturing techs, at least to me anyway.

You are right though, the A.I. seems to share techs with eachother quite freely, which is why I don't trade out military techs.

In the current game I'm in, every single A.I. has missles and lasers, but I'm to only one who has researched Mass Driver tech. The A.I. keeps trying to get these techs, but I know that if I trade it to one, then all of them will have them, so no amount of money in the world will make me trade it.

Thaink about this way, if you are number 4 or 5 in terms of power, but then you get the ability to build large fleets. How do you think that will affect your power in terms of military? I'd say pretty heavily, so why would I (an A.I.) want to give you that capability.

I'm not sure about this. It's one of the few games where I trust the devs when they say AIs don't cheat (and this would be cheating), in fact I think I once heard a long time ago that the AI doesn't even know who is a human player and who is another AI player.
That said, they sure have a lot of techs a lot of the time, but I didn't find any indicator that they were trading them for a lesser price. It just "feels" ok to me. In short games it's hard to gauge anyway since some of the other races (provided you are playing terran) get a huge amount of starting techs.
I also suspect the minors play a major role in distributing the techs. They usually aren't as entangled in politics and don't seem to have problems giving away all their tech (for a price ), so if you sell them a tech, be prepared that most of the others get them as well.

Or... if you're gonna sell it to one, sell it to them all. Then no more issue with them trading amongst themselves!

Or... if you're gonna sell it to one, sell it to them all. Then no more issue with them trading amongst themselves!

Yes, this is what I do

Not just sell it to them all, if you have it and ANY AI has it, sell it to them all, even if it's for a pittance. Better you get a pittance than someone else get a pittance. The only times I don't sell something is to someone I'm at war with, or expect to be at war with soon. Oh, I know they'll get it, but they'll pay someone else more for it because they don't hate them, which is almost as good.

Yes, this is what I do

It's what the AI does too. Here's a clip from my debugg.err file:

Debug Message: Year: 2227. Drath Legion traded Laser V to the Scottlingas in exchange for Starbase Defenses
Debug Message: Year: 2227. Paulos traded Stinger II to the Yor Collective in exchange for Basic Miniaturization
Debug Message: Year: 2227. Paulos traded Stinger II to the Drath Legion in exchange for Xeno Factory Construction
Debug Message: Year: 2227. Paulos traded Stinger II to the Thalan Empire in exchange for Interstellar Governments
Debug Message: Year: 2227. Paulos traded Stinger II to the Scottlingas in exchange for Advanced Computing

In GalCiv I the AI did not use the same rules to trade with each other as they did when trading with the human player. Based on what I've seen in the debugg.err file I think the same is true in GalCiv 2. The AI will trade with anyone they are not currently at war with and they will trade anything they have. They hold nothing back from anyone. Their relative diplomatic ability does not seem to be factored, nor do they value different techs differently as they do with the human player. To AIs trading with each other any tech is worth the same as any other tech. That's why they always trade techs on a one-to-one basis regardless of relative value or diplomatic ability. The AIs will sometimes sell techs to each other for cash if one of them has no techs left to trade with and I don't know what may be factored into that since the amout paid isn't printed in the debug file.

Same thing happens with Civ IV and the AI. The AI shares techs so freely and easily that the CivIV devs put in a simple options toggle "no tech trading" .... GalCiv II needs the same thing badly.

By my defenition this is a "cheat" that the AI gets. Within a few turns any AI you meat will ALWAYS have 5 - 10 techs ahead of you. It would be impossible for any one race to get that far ahead so quickly, it is impossible for the human player to meet all the AIs let alone trade for all those techs so quickly. (talking huge and above galaxy size). Anyything that the AI can do that a human player cant is by defenition a 'cheat'

Cultures tend to guard their tech knowledge and potential edge with a paranoid fervour ... any AI that cant work within the basic principle that you should not give tech to a race that will likely use it to blow the hell outa you needs to be taught a little better

A couple things Id like to see that would improve this area IMO.

1. A 'no tech trading' toggle for those who want to play this way.
2. The AI will NEVER trade their top of line tech to anybody. Period. ie Will only trade away laser 2 after they have reserched laser 3, will not trade laser 3 away till after they reserach laser 4 etc
3. No 1 for 1 tech trades to anybody ... unless the the 'value' of the offered tech is quite a bit higher. ie laser 2 for missiles 4 is ok but laser 2 for missles 2 no way. Should be a minimum of 2 to 1 in value before the AI will give up its techs to humans or other AI.

Myros

Found this gem in the debug rile:

Debug Message: Year: 2228. Scottlingas traded Galactic Stock Exchanges to the Pirates! in exchange for Impulse Drive Mark III

Didn't think that was possible.

Wow, this sounds pretty major. Hmmmmmmmmm....

I certainly like the idea of trading "Blueprints" to cut down research... 50% might be too little, but somewhere between 50% and 75% of the total would be good. That way, at least, someone who trades for a new technology cannot spread it all over the universe instantly as in Civ III (in which it happened before you even ended your turn!). After all, nobody can spread a technology that they have never used, researched, thought about, or even read the abstract for.

And trading for techonlogies that break your research tree should certainly be banned. The concept of a race being able to build, use, and improve fusion-powered warp drives before inventing fire or the wheel is rather absurd...

I'm playing on "tough" now and it does seem like the AIs (majors and minors) trade tech to the point of it being sharing. I still manage to have some techs they don't have and I avoid trading them to prevent their widespread distribution.

I actually think tech trading in Civ IV is pretty good - way better than in Civ III. Blocks of allies often form and often won't trade outside the block at all, or at least not favorably. The Civ IV AIs also refuse to trade many techs initially til they get some use out of them (techs that allow a wonder or key military techs, for ex).

The thing with GalCiv tech trading is that you can pillage it big time as a player by being a tech broker. You can rack up lots of tech and make a profit once you get going. You can also often buy nice tech for very reasonable prices whether you intend to resell it or not. The AIs are most likely using similar techniques to spread around the techs they know so it seems like they're sharing - and in a way they are - but they're basically just manipulating the system.

I think the tech trading system in GalCiv needs some adjustments. :-/

[quote=Citizen Vogar]
The thing with GalCiv tech trading is that you can pillage it big time as a player by being a tech broker. You can rack up lots of tech and make a profit once you get going. You can also often buy nice tech for very reasonable prices whether you intend to resell it or not. The AIs are most likely using similar techniques to spread around the techs they know so it seems like they're sharing - and in a way they are - but they're basically just manipulating the system.

Tech sharing is almost a logical extension of the system. If you know someone's going to trade a technology you just gave them to a third player, the best strategy is to sell it to the third player yourself and you get the profit. If all the other players are thinking the same thing, the best strategy is to sell the technology as quickly as you can to everyone. Sure everyone gets a little more powerful, but you end up a lot more powerful still. It'd be hard to make it so that didn't happen.

The system may need tweaking, technologies to proliferate awful quickly. Even the minors get their hands on most techs. When I look around for a tech to sell, everyone has the same stuff.

Debug Message: Year: 2227. Torian Confederation traded Titanium Armor III to the Scottlingas in exchange for Beam Weapon Theory

Debug Message: Year: 2227. Torian Confederation traded Titanium Armor III to the Scottlingas in exchange for Beam Weapon Theory

I think a lot of the madness could be avoided if the AIs traded with each other using the same rules they use when trading with the player...