Ah, OK, thanks, sounds like I probably need to do this, then. I was expecting something a little more like an "automatic" update to occur.

BTW, does GC generally behave itself if you keep playing an older saved game after a new patch?

No, it doesn't work that way. After you've registered the product and updated the first time, a popup window will appear showing you wah't available for updates. But it still isn't an automatic process, you'll have to tell it to proceed. BTW, you need to register your game first. You'll find the link in the bottom right hand corner of the Stardock screen. I found the whole process a bit confusing myself, it's not at all intuitive.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Better to finish a game before updating.

First of all, clarify me if I'm wrong on this one - neither the multiverse fix nor the resulting fog of war fix affected tech trading? Because if they did, I don't know what I'm talking about as I didn't bother updating them until today (the original bug in 1.5X didn't affect me as I don't play multiverse games).

In my 5 AI games on Tough I usually get at least 4 Research Treaties regardless of my race (of course my experieces are limited to Krynn and Custom Race which neither have been Super Diplomats nor have I taken any Diplomatic bonuses to either). Economic Treaties are tougher but when they finally come available I aim for at least 3 (and I'm willing to pay a lot to strong civilizations that haven't shown any signs of aggression towards me).

Next game I play I'll write down all the trades I'll do (if I remember, that is). It may take some time though as I finally bought Civilization IV and in contrary to common opinion (based on reviews and forum messages) I find it very unintuitive and its learning curve seems much steeper than GC2 had. If I'll get frustrated I'll play DA and then get back to learning Civ

I love this issue. Lots of people seem to complain about the AI 'cheating' by doing sweetheart trades with other.

But lets say the AI didn't "cheat"...instead the AI tech traded like a skilled player - i.e. selling/trading every non-essential tech to every other AI as soon as they finished researching it. I wouldn't even have to login to hear the screaming from the forums.

AFAIK, what people seem to want is the AI not to 'cheat' but also not to use the feature effectively. Which, IMHO, just equates to the player being able to cheat.

Just throwing some fuel on the fire.

Cheers

h

p.s. In a perfect world I'd like to see some more restrictions on tech trading rather than the current heavy-handed 'just make it really lopsided in the AI's favour' approach.

I believe I only asked for the rules to be the same for the AI as for the human player. If they don't want to change the way the AI values trades, that is fine. If they want to make the AI a smarter trader, that is fine as well.

Just make it treat the human the same way as another AI on both the offer and accept side of the deal.

I was just trying to add another perspective to the issue. Basically that the sweetheart AI trades could be seen as compensation for the AI's inability to tech broker like the player.

As for my own opinion, I play on suicidal where the AIs are usually sooooo far ahead in tech for most of the game that these occasional 'unfair' trades are but a drop in the ocean.

Cheers

h

edit Purge, it seems you play suicidal as well. I mean really...do these trades really make much difference in the long run?

I agree with both Purge and Horatio. It would be nice if the AI used the same rules, but at the same time... the AI just isn't as good as the player at using tech trading, and really it doesn't seem to make a big difference overall.

For what its worth, I also play on suicidal. It seems to me tech trading is still very useful, just not for getting tech, especially weapons tech. You can still trade tech to get treaties, or start wars. You can still trade and/or give away weapons tech to try and "trick" all the AIs to using the same kind of weapon. You can still trade tech to get peace treaties. You can still trade tech to form alliancs. You can still trade for many kinds of tech - influence/engine/economic/farm/government etc. etc. et. You can still sell several techs to every civ on the same turn to make a nice cash boost in a pinch. You can still see every tech the AI has researched that you haven't without any espionage ability.

There is a lot to do on that diplomacy screen. With tech trading off, you are forced to trading away only money, planets or ships for everything that you want to manipulate the AI into doing. The AI usually has a lot more money than me. I don't like giving away planets or ships. In the end, I like tech trading on because it opens all sorts of other diplomacy doors. I have never done tech trading with the super diplomat ability since tech trading was updated by Stardock. IMO, you absolutely do NOT have to only play as Terrans to take advantage of tech trading. Just be more creative when thinking about what you are doing on that screen. The new system takes a bit to get used to, and you won't be getting those Anti-Matter Torpedoes no matter what you do. But it is not broken and it is not impossible. It is more subtle.

If I have let go of 4-5 techs in order to just get General Life Support or better, then yes it is broken. There are good deals to be made, but they're few and far between. Most of the time you have to sell your soul in order to get anything from the AI, especially later in the game. Have you tried to trade for Trade? It's absurd! That's a tech that can actually benefit the AI if you end up establishing a route with it, yet it won't part with it under almost any circumstances. It's almost as bad as trying to get a weapons tech from them. 5-6 techs later and a bunch of cash and maybe it will consider, maybe, but not before. If that's not broken I don't know what your definition is.

If tech trading ceased to be useful in any aspect of the game, it would be broken.

And many players are finding it so, especially later in the game. You reach a point where it's pretty much pointless to even make the attempt. If I have to let go of half-a-dozen techs just to get something basic, then I'm putting myself at a serious disadvantage in the game. On the other hand the AIs seem to be trading freely amongst themselves, which in essence gives them a bonus at the expense of the human player.

I really dislike the term "broken".

The problem seems to be that a significant change has been made to the gameplay - that you can no longer acquire new techs easily through diplomacy - and this has made some people upset. It's not broken. Just different. If my strategy revolved around brokering techs to the AIs I might be annoyed. For others, myself included, who were of the opinion that it was too easy to just milk the AIs for tech and cash in previous versions this change is an improvement to the gameplay.

Matter of perspective I suppose.

I think also there are players who enjoy having to change their strategy with each successive update and those who don't. Currently I rely on the AIs being really easy to bribe into declaring war. I wouldn't have a chance on suicidal without this tactic. If stardock sees fit to 'nerf' this tactic I guess I'd just find another one. In fact, figuring out the most effective strategy is 99% of my enjoyment of the game. Others like meticulously building sprawling empires or designing ships or playing on a low level and crushing the AI.

Anyway, food for thought.

Cheers

h

Those of you complaining about "different rules for humans vs AI" are misunderstanding the situation. It's not different rules for humans vs AI, it's different rules for proposing vs receiving. When the AI proposes a trade to another, it seems to value its techs completely differently from when it's on the other end. Almost every 1 for 1 deal I've ever received from the AI it would never accept if I was the one proposing it. Several times in Dark Avatar I've received trade offers from the AI to give me something military, like a logistics tech (that the AI would give the "I won't trade this away for any reasonable offer" message if I proposed it myself) for a facility, diplomacy, or other random tech that I'm not sure is fair to the AI even in research points, let alone the modifiers that are usually applied.

Well then they're freely "proposing" amongst each other and not with me. Which amounts to the same thing.

Well maybe not broken, but close to it. It's certainly not balanced. I'm having to offer the same types of deals that I used to recieve from the AI pre-patch. Stardock's just taken it to the opposite extreme, and not found a good middle ground. Hopefully that will be changed in the next patch.

I for one feel this patch has ruined my playstyle for me. Unfortunately It doesn't sound like the devs are going to do anything about it. Im kinda bummed out. It was a great game. It got me to quit World of Warcraft(the constant nerfs helped me quit too). Hopefully something will change or they will make a new game sometime in the future thats good for a while, until nerf time anyhow.

And how do you know that, they haven't said a word on how they feel about the new tech trading system. I think there's been enough people upset about it that they'll be willing to take a second look at it. Of course we'll have to wait until the next patch for that to happen. Sometimes it just requires a few tries in order to get things balanced out. It was definitely too easy in the default game. They tried to fix it and got a bit carried away, so next time they should get it right. Here's hoping anyway. I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet, wait until the next patch comes out and see what happens then.

Yea, I hope Im wrong, but an earlier dev post in this thread only said that military techs are hard to trade, (I can see that a little, but Ii should be possible for a superdiplomat with further advanced diplomacy techs to work over some of the other races for some military tech at a good price), It was never said in the post that the problem is being looked at at all.

I'm still hoping though. They have a great track record.

Hmm, people do make some good points.

To get techs it is much easier with Terrans. If the majority of times, you want to get techs from AIs, then Terran definitely the only one that really worth doing it with. The other usages though, including using techs to start wars, are still useful no matter what races you are playing. I guess this all depends on your style.

Sometimes, AIs do offer players 1 on 1 tech trades. But it seems they offer other AIs these trades more often than they do with the player (base on the debug file). So to those who still depend on tech whoring, use Terrans. Otherwise, change your strategies and adapt.

reading this thread let's me not look forward to first time playing GCII DA this evening instead of DL 1.4 so far...

but then, it was also almost impossible to get weapon techs from the AI in DL, so I guess I gotta see ...

Just for the record, this was indeed my situation, and after updating, the AI was behaving much as described by others in this thread. Only willing to trade me Harpoon for something like 20 other techs.

So far as I can tell, they're about the same as before wrt non-Military techs. I did notice they seemed much more generous if I was giving them military tech. Getting Research/Economic treaties from them seemed surprisingly easy, though it had been a long time since I tried to ask for those in any case.

It's not like I am going to lose because of the tech trading being on (the AI still doesn't have a strategic sense)...But I will not be playing another game of DA with 17 races (9 major, 8 minors) and very fast tech, with tech trading on.

It does make that much difference...I have picked up ~40 techs in my first war (running mid 2226 to early 2227) with the AI via invasions and a final peace treaty. It still has 4 planets and three techs that I don't hae. It was still advancing faster than me technologically when I had ~60 planets compared to it's 12 planets and that was solely based on it's trading...It makes the whole game feel just like Civ on higher difficulties where it's you against all the AIs combined, because they share every tech they get assuming they can find anything to one-on-one trade. It's not quite as bad as that, but it's not far off.

I will either turn off trading, or play with fewer AIs. This is unfortunate, because I feel tech trading should have some place in the game.

Tech whoring isn't the only way to use trading. Everyone seems so fixated on that aspect that they forget that trading can simply be used to try and gain tech superiority in the game, without necessarily trying to make a profit. That's my approach to it at any rate. In some games in fact, it's just a method to keep up with the AI, never mind trying to get ahead of it.

Personally, I think the current system is broken.

I say broken because I feel forced to limit my play options.

I would be satisfied if I could make the same sort of trades that the AI makes with each other.

If I could offer 1 for 1 trades then I would be satisfied.

But it makes no sense that when I have a massive diplomatic advantage I have to trade 4 or 5 techs for 1 of their techs.

If I could just trade 1 for 1 then I wouldn't be complaining so much.

My strategy for this new situation is colony rush followed by invasion.

My research plan goes like this

tech for better engines
tech for planitary improvements
tech for space militarization
tech for sensors (so I can build another explorer)
tech for the communications
tech for diplomacy
tech for 1st morale tech (I need people for my invasion and that 1st 15% boost is very much needed)
tech for planitary invasion and following invasion techs

Then I invade.

Previously to these changes I could choose a lot of different tech options. I didn't have to be so rigid.

I have played about 10 games to year 2 with the new trading rules, and all the other strategies that I would nomrally use failed.

I just feel that these changes make the game less interesting.

- Livonya