Trading tech at higher difficulties is ridiculous

At that level I'd just turn it off since you know the AI are going to be trading tech at low low prices with each other.

But I think a lot of it depends on how powerful you are. They'll actually be nice to you when you're as strong or stronger than them. Otherwise they'll just bully you.

The colony rush is just about done and it's still very early in the game. I do have the weakest military, but only by a few rating points. I tried trading with all the AI, including the most powerful. I actually got the worst deals from the weakest AI who has a military similar to mine. Based on the message in the trading window, the weakest AI has the highest diplomatic skill, although it's still worse than mine.

So I'm not sure how much bullying is going on.

I'd really prefer not to turn off tech trading because I feel that it's an important part of these 4X games. I'm not sure how other people play games at this difficulty, unless they are playing using some vastly different strategy.

In my previous masochistic game, I used 'All Research' to go tech heavy, which earned me enough tech to trade away to convince several of the AI to go to war with each other. I still lost the game in the end, but without tech trading, I would have died really quickly.

If I'm just playing 'normally', with a standard colony rush and specialized planets (factories, research and economics), it's difficult to overcome the advantage given to the AI due to the higher difficulty. If tech trading wasn't so useless and lopsided, it would be so much better.

Oh well. I guess I'll dial down my difficulty level and try again. Maybe I'll go back to the Terran and their super diplomat skill.

Play using a vastly different strategy.

First, some techs the AI overvalues... like Xeno Biology. For all of these techs there is no point in trying to get them.


I find the game to be much easier on suicidal with tech trading on. However, I never, NEVER trade for tech. I sell my tech to the enemy, and I sell tech + money to buy planets, acquire research or trade treaties, bribe enemies to go to war, extort enemies for everything they have to sign a peace treaty with me, etc. etc.

There is a lot to do on the trade screen. But getting TECHS from the enemy is not what you should be using it for. All those enemies should have lots of cash lying around at the higher levels though...

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Wyndstar,

Thanks for your advice here and in other threads. I even spent a good amount of time reading through your past posts and there is too much great information for me to absorb.

As I mentioned, I did try a game using your 'all' and flip methods. I did everything you mentioned (i.e. sell tech for money/items, bribe enemies to go to war, extort, etc.) While I obviously need a lot more practice at it before I'm any good, honestly, it's not how I want to play a 4X game. It doesn't feel right to use factories to do research and labs to build ships. It feels like I'm taking advantage of the inner workings of the game engine. In addition, I constantly ran into the issue where deals don't make any sense. I basically end up experimenting with trying to trade tech, credits, treaties, etc. to see what works.

By no means am I trashing anyone's playstyle. I just want to play a 4X game the way I want to play it. That means a colony rush and building an infrastructure of factories/labs/economy to slowly develop my military and technology to eventually gain victory. That means tech trading. That means using diplomacy to create realistic deals to handle relations, build alliances and cause general mayhem.

At higher difficulties, the AI is given a lot of advantages, so it's up to the player to figure out how to overcome them. Unfortunately, if you play the game the 'normal' way, it's really difficult because the AI is doing the same thing as you. That's why 'out of the box' strategies become essential at high difficulties.

The 'all research' strategy works because it lets you overcome the AI advantage in research. This means you actually have techs that are valuable and you can trade for money/diplomacy/etc. Unfortunately, it's a gamble because you are sacrificing your military/social production in order to gain a significant research boost.

Similarly, 'all factory' works because you are focusing your efforts and sacrificing research in order to overcome the AI advantage.

In any case, for me, this just means I need to experiment with game settings until I find one where the AI is difficult, but the trade mechanic works as I expect it to work.

(Ignore my ranting, heh. I've been playing Civilization for the past year and only recently switched over to GC when I started to get bored with Civ. So I'm practically a newbie again, so I'm sure some of my ranting is off base and just means I have to adjust to playing a new game.)

CityMan, you're not the only one around here who finds the tech trade system frustrating (or who feels awkward trying the All-X thing; I bet you might not like putting spies on farms, either).

I don't know how much room for change the game will have left after TA, but Brad is on record saying that they intend to do another series of updates. If past patterns hold true, it isn't beyond hope that tech trading might get closer to "reasonable."

I play at masochistic currently and tech-trading is an integral part of my strategy. You simply have to trade wisely, it doesn't matter that you give 5 techs for that one tech, because when you get it, you sell it to everyone else, for money and techs.

In the early game the minors are actually a good source for technology. I focus on trading with the weaker races and it seems to equalize the galaxy nicely, keeping everyone up to date so no one takes too much territory before I'm ready.

This way I don't need to research much to keep up, most of the work is done by others, all I need to do is research the military techs myself because the AI often overvalues them to the point of being unwilling to trade them for planets. If anything I think it should be harder, as if you use the terrans and choose high diplomacy the game becomes a cake-walk.

Hmm...I suppose if I think about it that way, then the lopsided trades don't seem so bad. Of course, if I'm behind in tech as I usually would be at masochistic, most of the AI probably have the tech already.

I'm pretty sure I cover all the basics fairly well. I take advantage of minor and weaker races. I try all options in diplomacy to gain some advantage. etc, etc.

I'm also discovering the importance of starting location when it comes to higher difficulties. In 4X games, little advantages at the start of the game become bigger and bigger. That's why suicidal players seem to adopt strategies that can end the game quickly. In my very first masochistic game, I must have had a really good starting location because I was dominating the game by the end of the colony rush. In my last masochistic game, by the end of the rush, I was far behind and frustrated that trading wasn't giving me the options I needed to close the gap.

Just found out about the spies on farms a few days ago and yup, I don't consider it fair because the AI doesn't do the same to me. Players tend to have higher populations on their planets and since the AI often has a better economy, they can afford to devastate player economies if they learn this trick.

I tried the TA beta a couple times and looks like they are making a big change to the economy. Costs seem much higher, so it dramatically limits the colony rush. That probably means I'll have to play a lower difficulty, which seems to have a more reasonable trading mechanic.

Can someone confirm or correct my impression that the trading algorithms do not change with difficulty level, only the resources (BC) available to use in trades?

The AI grossly overvalues anything you try to get from it, and frequently undervalues anything you offer it. Only on rare occasions, will the AI actually be willing to sell you a technology at all. More frequently the AI will inexplicably declare his complete unwillingness to part with a completely worthless technology, and NOTHING you can offer him, not even your entire empire, will persuade him to agree. I have found that AIs frequently stonewall like this, to the point where they refuse to accept a trade no matter how ridiculously generous an offer you make. Even offers like 182K BC have often been unsuccessful in persuading the AI to part with a single intruding colony ship or worthless weapon technology that you already have a better version of higher up on the tree (and you just want to get rid of this hole technology to get it off the research menu). So I just vaporize it instead.

As far as I can tell, the usual terms for acquiring anything from the AI tends to be "pry it from his cold dead hands". I consider this proposal to be acceptable.

Why was the trading system made to be so useless at higher levels? There are times when you can manage to do something via diplomacy like starting and ending wars and occasionally trading for research treaties. But everything else is so obscenely overpriced/underpriced that it just feels like a horribly broken aspect of the game.

I just played a few Painful matches because I felt like finally posting something to the Metaverse. In Painful, the AI is already annoying in trade. It's easier just to completely ignore the Trade window completely and kill, kill, kill.

Was the trading system ever useful? A long time ago, I used to play mostly Tough matches as Terran. I remember doing a lot of tech trades. Did people get so good at beating the AI that the trading system was made to have a strong negative bias against players?

Well, it may be my fault partially. A loooong time ago me and several other players DID get so good at it that there was no point in ever building a research building. We got all of the techs through trade from the AI, and just concentrated on building ships and killing things.

Brad mentioned in a thread that he wanted to know just how the top players were beating suicidal. I wrote him a detailed response:
Conquering Suicidal

Along with several posts of more detailed examples. While I got the ball rolling, several other good players then also chimed in through a variety of threads that they were using a strategy similar to mine.

In the next update Brad made several changes that were aimed right at our strategies. Suddenly trading for tech became very difficult. Suddenly the Neutral Ground resolution became much more common as a UP vote. Etc.


Brad's changes to counter the strategies the top players (and myself) were using led to all of us having to adapt. When I stopped being able to trade for everything... and so actually had to research things myself... that is when I actually developed the all labs strategy: it was the only way to get tech as fast as I was used to. I also had to change the way I approached the trade screen, and use it for things OTHER than trading for tech.

In short, there was a time when even at suicidal, as long as you picked up a few diplo techs, you never had to research a tech yourself again if you were good at trading. That is no longer the case.

Hope that helps,
~ Wyndstar

Thanks for the history explanation. Makes sense now why the trade system is the way it is. Unfortunately, the developers went way too far and 'nerfed' the functionality to near uselessness.

I understand the need to challenge great experienced players, but that shouldn't mean the lesser skilled players should suffer.

Like I said, even at painful, the AI is annoying about trades. Painful is a difficulty level that is within reach of more casual players.

Oh well. Hopefully the developers have the time/money to undo the sledgehammer fix and properly integrate tech trading and diplomacy into the game. Without it, the game feels like it's lacking a big piece.

Tech trading is a very touchy subject for some people on these boards.

There are some very vocal players who believe that technology should never be allowed to be traded at all. These are usually you people who like military conquest only and seem to think any other victory type is at least semi-cheating.

There is another group who love building up big, well run empires and dislike wars as they tend to mess things up. (I am amoung this group.) We tend to try to create ways to dominate thew galaxy without having to waste all our rescources on expendable ships.

Besides the incident that Wyndstar mentioned, there was a big debate during the DA beta about how lopsided the trading had gotten. You were having to offer the AIs five techs for one of yours while the AI would trade one for one among themselves.

The end result was that the "disable tech trading" option was added to the game and you can still trade tech for tech, while the cash values are way off.

Scincerely,

Scintor@aol,com

PS You can actually use tech trading for a "buy the galaxy strategy" especially with the Humans and Korx, but there are other threads on that subject.

Ive played several masochistic and obscene games, and i find that utilizing diplomacy in the correct manner is a big deal in the equation. Many times during the game, certain techs offer races a militaristic advantage, and they do not wish to sell it. But the way i dominate the techonological side of the game is every few turns i talk to all the leaders. I will decide which tech i want to trade, and get as much for that tech or two from all the AI. After trading my same 2 techs to all, and aquiring 7 or 8, i rinse and repeat. Most of my games are 9 oppnets, huge map also, so alot of diplomacy going on. I use the tech tree to my advantage, and purposely trade specific weapon types to other civs, to increase likelyness of them using that specific weapon type. Also you need to develop trade routes fast in the game, it is crucial for relations. I also use super diplomat as my custom race super ability, which helps me control the wars going on, and decrease chance of invasion while im rather defenseless early game.

The best tech trading to utilize early game, is getting the different extreme colonization techniques, and using the large value of those to get lots of techs. I never make resesarch stations on my planets, unless they bonuses for them. My tech tree gets filled out by diplomacy only pretty much, and i concentrate my limited research on the ship scale tree.

Your relations with the race also determines their attitude in a trading aspect towards you. If you keep them at war, they usually dont dislike you as much : P.

Wyndstar:



Out of curiosity, had you heard of the strategy before? I first noticed it *way* back and posted about it (very obliquely!) here. The criticism I got about it is interesting considering how play has developed since!

I'm not trying to claim discovery or anything (I *did* come up with it independently, but I'm sure plenty of others did too) and I certainly never got close to perfecting it the way people now have. It was just a bit weird to come back to the boards after several months of not paying attention to suddenly find it had become one of the core advanced strategies! When did that happen?

I agree with Cityman's comments. The only time I've gotten any essential techs out of the AI is when I capture their planets. And, to me, playing at the highest levels is artificial because you really have to leverage the game mechanics. I play at painful, but with a twist. I posted what I do on the SUICIDAL=IMPOSSIBLE? thread (#22). I don't think many people play this game the way I do. I'm one of those people who loves hitting themselves in the head with a hammer because it feels so good when the pain stops. I just finished a game in which by the time I got 3 planets, my next door neighbors (the Thalans) already grabbed 12, had me hemmed in and were sending their colony ships out to get more.

Lord Metal, you are picking map settings that make the human advantage in 'creative trading' more useful. With 9 AI (and minor races), you can mass trade and eventually get a good deal for each tech you research. Now imagine a map with 3 AI and maybe 2 minors. Let's say 2 of the AI have a completely different alignment from you, so it's very hard to make friends out of them. Let's even say it's a small map, so the colony rush is over quickly and the aggressive AI starts extorting you for money. Suddenly your strategy which works so well on huge with 9 AI is not so effective.

I'm not saying that your strategies are bad...not by any means. They are what the good players do to get the edge at higher difficulties. As mentioned, these strategies were the reason why the developers had to tone down the trading and make the AI really stingy. People were able to research just a couple techs and buy/trade for everything else.

Also, several of the extreme colonization techs are strangely worth nothing now. I used to do a lot of extreme tech trading until I finally patched everything a few weeks ago. I forget which, but I think 3 of them are worthless, even when it would be useful to the AI.

Perhaps a solution would be to have a "willingness to trade with player" slider in the opponent race customisation screen so that people can choose to be challenged by unfair trading terms, put on an even footing with other ai players, or can make it to favour the player. I think that would make everyone happy, and you could set up some interesting situations with having some races willing to trade while others aren't. If this option were too unbalancing it could also be locked out of Metaverse games.

Let me emphasize what Wyndstar was saying earlier. The tech screen is still very useful (let me make that very, very, very useful!!). It's of only very limited value in getting tech from the AI via tech/cash for tech.

There are a lot of other things you can trade and a lot of combination situations. If you fiddle with them, there are still some nice big holes that you can drive an empire through in DA (I've only played a limited amount of TA).

The tech screen absolutely had to be changed though. Taking some things I learned in DA and going back to play a DL game, I can now conquer the entire galaxy on Suicidal, Gig, Abundant All without building a single colony ship or a troop transport every game....My last 487K DL game on the metaverse was done doing this.

Funny. I haven't played DL in a long, long, long time, but I'm actually curious to try this strategy.

But the nice big holes you talk about only reinforce my point. Even if it's not just about tech, there are parts of the trading system that just flat out seem weird or unreasonable.

For the suicidal games I play now, I primarily use trading for:

1) Selling tech to minors for a small cash flow when I need it.
2) Buying minor's research treaties (they are cheap). Every little bit helps in overcoming the huge AI advantage.
3) Trading my treaties with AI for research and diplomatic purposes.
4) Trying to get AI to war with each other. Sometimes possible. Sometimes impossible, depending on the circumstances, which are hard to figure out sometimes.
5) Using the trading window to gather information about the AI (their tech progress, number of ships/planets/etc.)
6) Bullying races when I'm about to kill them.

So there are definitely options. Oh well. It is a very complicated aspect of the game, so I'd imagine it's not an easy task to program it properly.

I've always thought the easiest way to fix some of the abuse is make techs less valuable the more races have it.

So if you have 8 races in the game (7 AI, 1 player)

So if 3 of the AI have plasma and 4 don't you'll have a harder time getting it than if 6 have it and only 1 doesn't. This would also stop some of the abuse. You would need to research something that no one has to get really good value, but after you make that first trade with it, you get less value from the 2nd trading partner, etc. And this makes sense too. If only 1 race in the galaxy has the knowledge of advance miniaturization that person can dictate terms. But as soon as they trade it to someone else (or someone else figures it out on their own) everyone else now has 2 people they can go to try and get it. If everyone has it then you value it less and just be happy that you are the one that is getting something in return for it.

The coding on this would still get tricky. You couldn't really flat value it, you'd have to factor in total races and of course this would probably make trading harder as the game goes on. All of it would have to be multiplied by other factors as well. AI is more likely to trade if you are a militarty threat to keep you happy. AI is more likely to trade if you are a friend. They are less likely to trade if you are a different alignment or if you are at war with others. Some of that is of course already there, but I would like to see some scaling value on techs.