Diplomacy/ AIs valuations on trade goods.

from GalCiv2 Forums
I personally almost never tech trade, or piddle with the AIs for money or war.

This is mainly because I can never fathom how the AI is valuating a trade. I can understand wanting to have the better end of the deal, or not giving away valuable techs.

The strangest valuations to me are for trade goods. Say I have vr modules, or ultra spices, and I try to sell them to another civ. Often the AI won't offer any more than 200-300 bc for such a trade good.

If you think about it, a 10-20% morale bonus is worth a hell of lot more than 200-300 bc. That morale bonus should allow them to raise taxes, and make more money. Taken over hundreds of planets, over the rest of the game, that is a huge advantage. And yet the AI will only offer 200-300 for it? Why? He's not really losing anything. I would be happy with 1-2k, even though it's worth a lot more than that.

Is this because the AI was tuned to play a small galaxy, or am I missing something?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I try to sell them to another civ. Often the AI won't offer any more than 200-300 bc for such a trade good.
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IMO the "price" depends on the amount on money an AI has in its treasury. Since they rearely have more than 1000 BC, are prices usually quite the same. You can test that by checking the price, giving AI x0000 BC of (cheated) money, and re-checking the price.

BR, Iztok
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree part of it is that they don't have much money, but often they do have a lot more than 300bc.

The way I see it, a smart AI would proposition a trade a few turns after you get a trade good, looking to get it's bonus. As I've said even a few thousand bc would be well worth spending on the avg trade good on a gigantic map.

I still think the AI hasn't been tuned what so ever for larger galaxies. (they should at least hold back more money in reserve on a larger map, for example)
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I still think the AI hasn't been tuned what so ever for larger galaxies.
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I think (hope) that "what so ever" might be going too far, but both my play experience and my reading dev talk around here about the (relative lack of) play testing on the largest map make me mostly agree with gallagher118 here.

The thing that makes me think (hope) that we're wrong about this is the new Immense map setting in TA. It seems rather unlike Brad & crew to add something that substantial to the game without considering most of the ramifications, not least of which would be how should AI strategies change on this new, *really* big map.

I'd be a rather disappointed if it turned out to be little more than a land-grab option for the point farming crowd (no offense meant to the Vice Admiral)
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In that case, you should trade trade good for trade good.

I do think the AIs should build more trade goods, and trade them to close allies.