Trading

[General Hawkwing]

Has anyone noticed that trying to trade with AI empires is near impossible in demo 0.56?
I have given them even trades (Gas Col. for Rock Col.) and sweet trades (Gas Col.& cargo2 & propul. for Rock Col.) to no avail. I had one empire I had a treaty with refuse to trade an attack ship for a good developed planet!
I know demo 0.51 was to willing to trade but now it seems to be just the opposite.
In my current game, I tried to GIVE propul. tech to a empire who had gone to war with another empire at my request as a token of thanks and it refused! I know my propul. level was at least 4 levels higher and would have been of value to the empire.
Is there a good trading AI out there? Anywhere?

[Noble713]

The only trades I've been successful with is resource trades, usually 1 or 1.5 organics and radioactives (each) for 1 mineral.

Colony tech trades haven't worked for me either.

[Cyrien]

I have had many successful trades with the comp... generally to get any usefull tech you need to bribe them so massively that it isn't worth it. For Resource trades I just give them about 5k or 10k more of resources overall then I am trading for. Important since I tend towards races with poor mining skills and farming skills but decent refining. Trade the extra refining amounts for all the minerals and organics I need.


Havn't tried gift giving.

[Mark Dey]

Actually, I've found that trading ships seems to work well in .56. For the longest time I tried to do an even exchange of colonization tech, and then I thought 'Well, if I can get his ship, I can reverse engineer it.' It depends on the relative strength of the empires, but I managed to trade 3 ES scouts for 1 Gas Colony ship in the beginning part of the game. Well worth it!

[General Hawkwing]

A question: was the colony ship filled with population? That would be a tremendous boost if they breathed a different atmosphere. Would need to transfer them to a planet or other ship before you demantled the ship http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon12.gif

One other quirk I noticed was during the middle game I had a partnership treaty with an empire who had been on the short end of a war with another AI empire. My score clearly indicated a superior advantage of my partner. I tried an even trade for colony tech and was rejected. The next turn I demanded the tech in tribute and received it?!

[Mark Dey]

Yes, there was population on it, but it was only 4M, and they breathed the same atmosphere as me. Oh well.

As for demanding tribute, I've found that AI empires will consistently give away tons of stuff if you are more powerful than them. There's been many times where the AI gave me everything that they had (planets, ships, etc.) but wouldn't surrender to me. In one game I just finished, near the end I met a race that had been hidden from me most of the game. Since I was in 2nd and had nothing to lose, I demanded 20 (any) planets and 60 (any) ships. They gave me all of what I asked for, putting me into first place!

[Taqwus]

20 planets and 60 ships ?! Oh my...

[0.56]

Heh. Aye. I've been able to bully the other races in my games, once they've seen what organic or crystalline ships do to 'em (but generally only after numerous fights in their space), to the point where they give planets or tech -- often with a comment like "Choke on it!".

My tech trades are usually refused, 'tho (even if I don't constrain what tech I want), and usually the counteroffers (if any) were patently ridiculous, like demanding colony tech and four others in exchange for a couple of minor tech levels. It's particularly grating when my warships are much more numerous, powerful and successful...

(Hmm. It's not possible to demand 'special' tech like Organic, is it? But ISTR that it's in the list of tech from which you choose your offerings, even to a non-Organic race. Hrm. *shudders at the possibility of multiplayer collusion*)

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Cyrien]

Me and a friend tried that in a game, didn't work.

He was organic and I was temporal and Crystaline, got some message when we tried to trade like - You recieve the Technology of Organic Weapons but your scientists are unable to understand it.

So nope... no players trading these techs to each other, and getting super strong over the computer. I for one am glad that this is the case... though I kinda wish that there was perhaps some way of getting that tech... *sigh*

[Psitticine]

I agree that it's good you can't use the special tech unless born to it, so to speak. It is often conceptualized as being a product of special inborn understanding or ability rather than just something that could be copied like blueprints so I think there's a lot of logic to it.

I also like keeping something unique in the various nations, be they computer- or human-controlled. It adds profoundly to the flavour of things if everybody really seems *different* and not just the same basic foe developed to different levels of sophistication along the same tech path.

That's one of the reasons (the other is I love "exploring" the tree) that I always play with low starting tech. It makes it all that much harder to get deep into a game before the 100 turn bell goes off but the fact the AI opponents have followed different research paths means you will face an array of different ships. That's just more *fun*, IMHO.


[This message has been edited by Psitticine (edited 06 October 2000).]

[Taqwus]

I, for one, would not want to fight an AI fleet of CAs with shard cannons, seeker parasites, and both crystalline and organic armor. Heh.

Tech preferences for AIs are noted in their text files, right? (implicitly -- as in the ship design templates). It'd be interesting if they could be randomized at startup, so one doesn't see the Jraenor Imperium and think "CSM ships", for instance. Racial traits like Crystalline aren't hidden (interestingly enough), but this would help keep some of the suspense.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[General Hawkwing]

In one game, I demanded a LC from the purple Psy race hoping it would be armed with a psy weapon (crew conVersion). Turned out the ship was armed with depl uran 1, shields 1 and engines ion 1. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif
Sent ship out to unknown parts until out of supplies and then gave it back. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Psitticine]

Oooo, mean trick!

I'll have to remember that one myself. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon12.gif